Book Review: Gender, Crime and Feminism
| DOI | 10.1177/135822919800300207 |
| Date | 01 September 1998 |
| Author | Susan Edwards |
| Published date | 01 September 1998 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
146
displayed by Hazel Houghton-Jones' book, but it is a pity that she
does not shy away in this sensitive area from replicating some of the
grossest examples of its muddled thinking or its starkest absurdities
.
For all this, Hazel Houghton-Jones's book is much to be wel-
comed
. The law must provide an adequate framework for dealing
with the problem of sexual harassment
. Her book will further stimu-
late thought and discussion in this area and, hopefully, progress
towards a realistic and non-sexist resolution of its more seemingly
intractable difficulties
.
Simon Honeyball
Senior Lecturer in Law
University of Exeter
UK
GENDER, CRIME AND FEMINISM, by Ngaire Naffine
(ed
.)
Dartmouth,
Aldershot, 1995, 469 pp
. Hb £85
.00
.
Gender, Crime and Feminism,
edited by Ngaire Naffine, provides a
useful collection of previously published articles from a wide range
of legal and sociological journals in the English speaking world
. Naf
fine brings together a rich wealth of contributors, reflecting a variety
of theoretical perspectives, empirical approaches and thematic con-
cerns, to further knowledge and understanding on the question of
gender and crime and the contribution made to this debate by femin-
ism
.
In her attempt to provide an edited volume with a unifying,
embracing and coherent theme Naffine imposes her own order by
identifying what she considers to be the four major strands or traject-
ories of thought and development which have informed and under-
pinned feminist approaches to criminology
.
Naffine prefaces the collection with her own introduction, `Fem-
inism and Modern Criminology', in which she identifies empiricism
as a key problem in criminology which has resulted in the presump-
tion of a universal subject (male subject)
. The concern with the dan-
gers of presuming that empiricism
ipso facto
is truth and speaks for
us all is a consideration which unites the collection and is a major
issue for the contributors in the book
. Naffine begins with a reference
to the inaugural lecture delivered by Professor Tony Bottoms as
Wolfson Professor of Criminology at Cambridge in 1986 where, in
his celebration of empiricism and scientific method as the key tool of
the holy grail pursuit of unlocking truth in criminology, he makes a
plea for a return to the scientific method as the most valuable tool
of the criminological enterprise
. Naffine asks us not to be deceived
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