Female Sex Offenders

There is much lacking in sex offender research, however female sex offenders have been overlooked and often research on female offenders is almost nonexistent. The biggest concerns of current research are why they offend and how can we treat them. There are many characteristics of female offenders that distinguish them from their male counterparts. For example female sex offenders are more likely to have previous sexual victimization, they are less likely to have drug or alcohol abuse, and are more likely to have both male and female victims (Johansson-Love & Fremouw, 2009). Due to the lack of research there are shortcomings between male and female typologies and a critical analysis of the gender differences of the typologies can give insight

In the male typologies there are separate categories for child molesters and rapists, which is largely due to fact that they offend in very different ways. However, for the female typologies there is no such distinction, because all except one of the typologies have victims who are on average less than 15 years old (Vandiver & Kercher, 2004).The Aggressive Homosexual Offender is the only typology with an adult offender, however the victims are female (Vandiver & Kercher, 2004).The lack of a typology for female offenders with male adult victims could be due to certain factors playing a part in society. In particular, in today’s rape culture there is the belief that women cannot physically rape men. One reason why this belief is held is because society views women as physically weaker than men and are unable to overpower men. The male sex drive discourse also adds to this belief if men can never refuse sex than they essentially can never be raped. This belief has various problems for both men and women. The lack of a typology that includes adult male victims minimizes and ignores real men that were victimized by women. Not including men in the victim analysis sends the message that they are not ‘real’ victims. In contrast to that, since these victims are not seen as ‘real’ victims, the female offenders are not seen as ‘real’ offenders. By

This typology involves either a passive woman who abuses due to an abusive male partner or a male-female couple who both equally abuse (Vandiver & Kercher). There are many issues involved with these typologies. The first issue is that the male becomes primarily responsible for the abuse instead of the female. In the situation of a passive woman whose abusive partner forces her to abuse, the victims of the abuse are most often their own children. In situations of domestic abuse, most women worry about the safety of their children or others before their personal safety. This makes it difficult to believe that a woman, even under severe abuse, would harm her children. In the case of a team who takes part in the abuse equally, when coupled with the idea that women are not physically capable of violence, the male gets burdened with the responsibility for the crime. The titles of the typologies themselves place the largest emphasis on the male and hence unconsciously place the responsibility of the crime on the male partner. Comparatively the male typologies use a more gender neutral term, “gang rape,” which makes all participating offenders responsible for the crime regardless of their level of participation. The criminal justice system overlooks these female offenders because of the idea that they