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Stereotypes for women offenders
Female stereotypes in the criminal justice system
Stereotypes for women offenders
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Who Really Cared About a Bad Reputation? Joan Jett’s song Bad Reputation started controversy relating to the behavior of women, an issue that has been around long before the twentieth century. During the Medieval Ages, a person’s reputation, gender, and social status all determined their place in society. One’s position then determined their possibility of acquittal by jury. The question is, why? Why was the value of one’s reputation placed so high by society and what were the effects it had on different types of people? In most instances, reputation only became an issue when it came to conviction. Verdicts of jury trials didn’t necessarily represent guilt or innocence of the accused, but rather the degree to which the community felt threatened by the accused (Hanawalt (4)). A person accused of a crime was more likely to be exonerated if he or she was of noble reputation. This being said, anyone of ill reputation, or anyone who has committed a previous crime, has a higher possibility of being convicted or punished. To put into simpler terms, the bad guy goes to jail if he had a previous offense on record. If someone was accused of a crime but had no other proven offenses, then they would be acquitted …show more content…
However, in medieval times it was an essential part of everyday life. Social class and gender satisfy the question of why reputation was so important. In order for a man to progress through society and maintain social status, a good reputation was imperative. For a woman, a good reputation was only necessary to uphold the man’s reputation. If a woman were given a label of ill reputation then the reputation of the man would lower considerably. Reputation was significant in society as to ensure a greater chance of acquittal in a trial by jury. Men with a higher social standing and a good reputation were more likely absolve any accusations than men of low class or a
Honour went hand in hand with how reputable a family was considered to be within the community. There were two types of honour; “honor” which symbolized the honour brought to an individual by their family or their birth right, and “honra” which represented ones virtue in the sense of morality and piety or their saintliness. Honour killings would occasionally be performed (most often by men) on women who took lovers behind their husband’s backs. To restore his honour, the husband would be legally allowed to kill both his wife and her lover. Women would also resort to violent tendencies if anyone threatened their families’ honour and reputation. High class woman were known to protect both their own honour and the households by filing lawsuits and beating other women they saw as treats, making women more likely than men to act out in defence. In the “Scandal at the Church” case, Mr. de Alfaro indirectly refers to his wife’s and his family’s honour multiple times as his wife was attacked in the daylight crowds after mass. With so many people present to witness his wife’s beating and Mrs. Bravo’s insulting words, Mr. de Alfaro’s family honour was tarnished as a direct result from the scandal. Even as a man of a lower class, honour is still incredibly important as other families within the community base their perceptions on how honourable and thus reputable a family is. Mrs.
In the crucible, I believe reputation and respect was interwoven in the term of the play the ‘‘crucible’’. Reputation and Respect can also be a theme or a thematic idea in the play, reputation is very essential in a town where social status is synonymously to ones competence to follow religious rules. Your standing is what enables you to live as one in a community where everyone is bound to rules and inevitable sequential instructions. Many characters for example, john proctor and reverend parris, base their action on the motive to protect their reputation which is only exclusive to them. People like reverend parris saw respect as what made them important or valuable in a town like Salem, this additionally imprinting to his character as a very conventional man.
A reputation can be so well established that if one person in power does a wrongdoing people will not believe it. For example when Mrs. Muller says, “Let me ask you something. You honestly think that priest gave Donald that wine to drink?” (47). Donald’s mother is questioning sister Aloysius because she does not believe Father Flynn would do something like that. He has a reputation of being a great priest and his reputation is better than Sister Aloysius’. Mrs. Muller states, “You’re not going against no man in a robe and win, Sister. He’s got the position.” (47). Just by Father Flynn being a male he has a higher reputation than a nun, which he knows and can accumulate for his actions. In the hierarchy of the Church, the head male priest is the most dominant. Therefore, nobody questions what he is doing; he has a reputation of being this influential priest who gives great sermons. He knows that he has the power to do what he wants and has his fellow Monsignor and other men in the ...
Caroline Walker Bynum raised several thought-provoking claims in her book Holy Feast and Holy Fast, but her main argument of the mindset of medieval women with regards to their status in society was the most intriguing. Rather than simply agreeing with most traditional medievalists, she analyzes the male/female difference in terms of which symbols each gender used, and how these symbols tied in to their distinct religious concerns. She maintains that women accepted their place in society and religion, and instead of succumbing to the misogyny, they used their association with the flesh and humanness to connect themselves to the humanity of God. Her arguments regarding medieval women and their practices also implies that she is accepting of the idea of gender as a valuable category of historical analysis.
Looking back through many historical time periods, people are able to observe the fact that women were generally discriminated against and oppressed in almost any society. However, these periods also came with women that defied the stereotype of their sex. They spoke out against this discrimination with a great amount of intelligence and strength with almost no fear of the harsh consequences that could be laid out by the men of their time. During the Medieval era, religion played a major role in the shaping of this pessimistic viewpoint about women. The common belief of the patriarchal-based society was that women were direct descendants of Eve from The Bible; therefore, they were responsible for the fall of mankind. All of Eve’s characteristics from the biblical story were believed to be the same traits of medieval women. Of course, this did not come without argument. Two medieval women worked to defy the female stereotype, the first being the fictional character called The Wife of Bath from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The second woman, named Margery Kempe, was a real human being with the first English autobiography written about her called The Book of Margery Kempe. In these two texts, The Wife of Bath and Margery Kempe choose to act uniquely compared to other Christians in the medieval time period because of the way religion is interpreted by them. As a result, the women view themselves as having power and qualities that normal women of their society did not.
believed to be less of a person during the Middle Ages. If you were to loose your honor,
What are individuals willing to really do to maintain their reputation? Maurice Friedman ponders this question. In Problematic Rebel, Friedman states, “The hopeful element in the Greek view is that [,] to remain in harmony with this order [,] he must pay the price of the loss of something of his humanity, something of his full possibility of personal existence” (23). It is believed that in order to have an elevated position, something of importance must be sacrificed. Beowulf, Gawain, and Arthur share similar characteristics by being noble and heroic warriors. However, as all noblemen, they are still concerned with their social standings. Each of these characters are readily willing to give up something in order to either keep their lives,
The witch hunts in early modern Europe were extensive and far reaching. Christina Larner, a sociology professor at the University of Glasgow and an influential witchcraft historian provides valuable insight into the witch trials in early modern Europe in her article 'Was Witch-Hunting Woman-Hunting?'. Larner writes that witchcraft was not sex-specific, although it was sex-related (Larner, 2002). It cannot be denied that gender plays a tremendous role in the witch hunts in early modern Europe, with females accounting for an estimated 80 percent of those accused (Larner, 2002). However, it would be negligent to pay no heed to the remaining 20 percent, representing alleged male witches (Larner, 2002). The legal definition of a witch in this time, encompassed both females and males (Levack, 1987). This essay will explore the various fundamental reasons for this gender discrepancy and highlight particular cases of witchcraft allegations against both women and men. These reasons arise from several fundamental pieces of literature that depict the stereotypical witch as female. These works are misogynistic and display women as morally inferior to men and highly vulnerable to temptations from demons (Levack, 1987). This idea is blatantly outlined in the text of the 'Malleus Maleficarum' written by James Sprenger and Henry Kramer in the late fifteenth century. This book is used as the basis for many of the witch trials in early modern Europe (Levack, 1987). The text describes women as sexually submissive creatures and while remarking that all witchcraft is derived from intense sexual lust, a women is thus a prime candidate for witchcraft (Sprenger & Kramer, 1487). In this time period, men are seen as powerful and in control and thus rarely...
Reputation is the beliefs or opinions that are generally held about someone or something. A famous American poet once said: “Oh reputation dearer far than life”. James Russell Lowell highlights the importance of reputation by declaring it more important than even human life itself. This idea is also found in ‘The Crucible’ as many characters will be challenged between telling the truth and dying, or saving their reputation. In ‘The Crucible’, this theme beholds a key position in the unrolling of the story as an impression of control over the outcome of people’s lives is created by its importance.
eastwood, kay. women and girls in the middle ages. 305.4. manhattan: crabtree publishing company, 2004. Print.
Women’s myths were thought to be irrelevant and not socially dominant which as an effect overlook them. Generally, these myths made assumptions to sex differences almost resembling those that give credit to male dominance, while transforming these characterizations and reversing the moral interpretations. For example, men are childish and women are mature, men are morally weak but women are virtuous, men are brutish and women are gentle, and men are hardheaded and power-hungry while women are cooperative. Women’s specific beliefs could vary by period, region and social
There is a verbal confrontation in the semantic field that talked associations amongst men and ladies are described by miscommunication. There are etymologists, for example, Lakoff and Tannen who assert that there is distinction in how men and ladies utilize dialect. This prompts the contention that maybe it is miscommunication that structures a noteworthy trademark amongst men and ladies' talked collaborations. There are others in any case, for example, Cameron, who differ and guarantee that distinctions are misrepresented and centered around excessively, for reasons other than dialect.
Over the centuries, women’s duties or roles in the home and in the work force have arguably changed for the better. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen teaches the reader about reputation and loves in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries by showing how Elizabeth shows up in a muddy dress, declines a marriage proposal and how women have changed over time. Anything a woman does is reflected on her future and how other people look at her. When Elizabeth shows up to the Bingley’s in a muddy dress they categorize her as being low class and unfashionable. Charles Bingley, a rich attractive man, and his sister had a reputation to protect by not letting their brother marry a ‘low class girl’. Reputation even today and back in the nineteenth century is still very important aspect in culture. In the twenty-first century, women have attempted to make their lives easier by wanting to be more equal with the men in their society. Women are wanting to be the apart of the ‘bread winnings’ efforts within a family. Since evolving from the culture of the nineteenth century, women have lost a lot of family and home making traditions but women have gained equality with more rights such as voting, working, and overall equal rights. In the twenty-first century world, most women are seen for losing their morals for and manners for others. As for example in the novel when Mr. Darcy is talking badly about Elizabeth she over hears what he and his friend, Mr. Bingley, are saying about her but she does not stand up for herself.
There is a wrong and right way to handle a bad report card. Almost everyone has had a bad grade on their report card. When someone sees that grade, usually they began to stress out. One of the countless thoughts going through their head is "how am I going to show this to mom or dad?" When they were finally do, they can either overreact or be understanding, encouraging the child could help them excel. Children should never have to fear the wrath of either parent, due to bad grades, with that said if parents knew how to react to bad or even satisfactory grades, the child could continue to strive.
At times, women can take action to either preserve the reputation or emphasize the importance of some well-regarded man. In other situations, it is the actions of a man towards a woman that helps preserve or increase the influence that he has. Even symbolically, women have importance in defining the standing of man, as they highlight what made a man of value to the community. Neither the Greek nor Anglo-Saxon depictions of women are too positive; nevertheless, they are accurate depictions of the times these societies lived in and of a time when women were considered to be inferior to