Exploring the value of feminist theory in understanding digital crimes: Gender and cybercrime types
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Author | Suleman Lazarus,Mark Button,Richard Kapend |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12485 |
Received: 25 June 2 021 Accepted: 5 January 2022
DOI: 10.1111/ho jo.12485
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Exploring the value of feminist theory
in understanding digital crimes: Gender and
cybercrime types
Suleman Lazarus1Mark Button2Richard Kapend3
1Suleman Lazarus is a Visiting Fellow,the
Mannheim Centre for Criminology,
London School of Economics and Political
Science (LSE)
2Mark Button is the Founder and
Director, Centrefor Counter Fraud
Studies, Institute of Criminal Justice
Studies, University of Portsmouth
3Richard Kapend is a Senior Lecturer in
Criminology and Quantitative Research
Methods, University of Portsmouth
Correspondence
Suleman Lazarus, Visiting Fellow,the
Mannheim Centre for Criminology,
London School of Economics and Political
Science (LSE).
Email: suleman.lazarus@gmail.com
Abstract
Do men and women perceive cybercrime types differ-
ently? This article draws on the distinction between
socio-economic and psychosocial cybercrime proposed
by Lazarus (2019) to investigate whether men and
women hold different perceptions of digital crimes
across these two dimensions. Informed by the synergy
between feminist theory and the Tripartite Cybercrime
Framework (TCF), our survey examined respondents’
differential perceptions of socio-economic cybercrime
(online fraud) and psychosocial cybercrime (cyberbul-
lying, revenge porn, cyberstalking, online harassment)
among men and women in the United Kingdom. The
results revealed that women considered psychosocial
cybercrime worse than men. Conversely, we found
no differences between men and women with regard
to socio-economic cybercrime. The article concludes
that psychosocial cybercrimes are more gendered than
socio-economic cybercrime, suggesting problems with
the meaning of ‘cyber-enabled crimes’, and substan-
tiating the synergy between the TCF and feminist
perspectives.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use,
distribution and reproduction in any medium, providedthe original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
© 2022 The Authors. The HowardJournal of Crime and Justice published by Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Howard J. Crim. Justice. 2022;61:381–398. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hojo 381
382 THE HOWARDJOURNAL OF CRIME AND JUSTICE
KEYWORDS
cybercrime classifications, cybercrime taxonomy, digital divide,
feminist criminology,gender differences, misogyny online, online
fraud, perceptions of cybercrime, romance scams, Tripartite
Cybercrime Framework (TCF)
1 INTRODUCTION
This article explores the value of feminist theory in understanding digital crimes. Social and sit-
uational constructions of gender offline are concurrently impactful in cyberspace (Jane, 2016,
2018; Mumporeze & Prieler,2017). Indeed, online attitudes, behaviours and perceptions are exten-
sions of offline social processes and relationships in society (Citron, 2014; De Kimpe et al., 2018;
Jane, 2016; Li, Coduto & Morr, 2019; Mumporeze & Prieler,2017). Empirical evidence from many
nations such as Russia (Khlomov, Davydov & Bochaver, 2019), Rwanda (Mumporeze & Prieler,
2017), China (Liong & Cheng, 2017; Min & Shen, 2020), Finland (Koiranen et al., 2019), India
(Ahmed, Cho & Jaidka, 2017), Taiwan (Lai, Hsieh & Zhang, 2019), Syria (Öztürk & Ayvaz, 2018),
Nigeria (Lazarus & Button, in press; Lazarus & Okolorie, 2019), Australia (Hutchings & Chua,
2017), Malaysia (Shaari et al., 2019), Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United
States (Eckert, 2018) demonstrate the direct connection between online and offline behaviours
and relationships. Before the digitalisation of crimes, women (and girls) were shown to be more
fearful of traditional crimes than men (and boys) (Box, Hale & Andrews, 1988). Likewise,in recent
years, studies have shown that women are more fearful than men that abuse on the Internet will
result in physical harm (Office for National Statistics, 2017a, 2017b).Differences between men and
women in the virtual world are connected to long-standing gender issues in society,and therefore
gender issues in cyberspace are likely to persist as long as they exist offline (Eckert, 2018;Jane,
2016; Mumporeze & Prieler, 2017).
Consequently,we argue that who is victimised, why, and to what effect applies differently to dig-
ital crimes that are more psychologically motivated (e.g., online revenge porn) than those that are
more financially motivated (e.g., online fraud) (based on the distinction between socio-economic
and psychosocial cybercrime (Lazarus, 2019)). This warrants the examination of the connections
between gender and cybercrime types, as a critical starting point. In other words, it is vital to
disaggregate cybercrime types to demonstrate their differential, gendered impacts. Accordingly,
this study asks: Do men and women perceive cybercrime types differently? This article aims to:
(i) investigate perceptions of the different forms of digital crimes across gender; and (ii) advocate
for the centrality of gender as a theoretical starting point for the investigating of various types
of digital crimes. We present the rest of the study as follows: theoretical background (section 2),
methods (section 3), findings (section 4), discussion (section 5) and conclusion (section 6).
2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1 Feminist criminology perspectives
Feminist criminology advocates a more critical examination of gender issues in society to
understand crime (Burgess-Proctor, 2006; Carrington, 2014, 2017; Chesney-Lind, 2020; Sabon,
2018). Feminist criminology perspectives are not simply the study of crimes committed by
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