Men are more likely to commit violent crimes

Running head: GENDER, CRIME AND VIOLENCE
GENDER, CRIME AND VIOLENCE
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Author Note

GENDER, CRIME AND VIOLENCE1
Sexual assault or sexual abuse is often referred as molestation which is an abusive
sexual conduct or behavior by one person on another person and is mostly perpetrated using
power or force or sometimes taking advantage of another person. The force when of short
duration, immediate and sometimes frequent is often termed sexual assault (Hagan & Reidy,
2015). This paper will view sexual assault from two different theoretical perspectives, one is
from the eyes of social feminism and the other is radical feminism. The different perspective
of the theories will provide a different viewpoint on sexual assault and its occurrence. This
paper will focus on providing different perspectives on sexual assault and will help in
understanding the gendered dimensions of few issues and understand the complexity of the
feminist approaches of these issues.
Socialist feminism had rose in 1960s and the 1970s as a feminist movement which
mainly focused on the interconnectivity of capitalism and patriarchy. According to scholars,
socialist feminists argue the fact that the only way of achieving liberation is by working in
order to end the cultural and the economic sources of the women’s oppression (West, 2019).
People who fight for liberation for women are very well aware of the fact that domestic
violence and sexual assault are among one of the most damaging and destructive
manifestations of oppression on women. Socialist feminism has two major objectives, one is
to refer to the limited roles of women in the society which is considered to be huge aspect in
their oppression and the second is to show that women experience oppression in other was as
well which include education, race, sexual orientation, class and many more.
Radical feminism is considered to be a perspective which states that there is a need
for a radical reordering in the society where male supremacy needs to end in economic as
well as social contexts. Radical feminists generally view society as a patriarchy where men
are seen to dominate the society and usually oppress women. According to scholars, radical
feminist approaches to sexual assault often share three features which is that males often

GENDER, CRIME AND VIOLENCE2
control the reproductive and sexual uses of the bodies of woman as an element or aspect of
patriarchy, they have expanded the meaning of rape in order to encompass the fact that it
more than just physical violence and force and have recognized it as patterns of dominance
and power of males compromising the sexual and the bodily freedom of woman and the third
feature focuses on the oppression which is group based and has led to many thinkers to
monitor and examine the role of sexual assault which is produced not only by patriarchy but
other systems of domination as well which include colonialism and racism (Caswell & Cifor,
2016).
From the perspective of both socialist feminism and radical feminism on sexual
assault it has been seen that both the theories talk about patriarchy being one of the major
reasons for the rise in sexual assault. Patriarchy is considered to be a social system where
men are considered to hold the primary power and are seen to predominate in the role of
moral authority, political leadership and social privilege (Zhao & Wry, 2016). According to
scholars, the patriarchal society has a huge role to play in contributing to the rise in sexual
assaults and sexual violence pandemic which can be seen in a research where adolescent sex
offenders are seen to use sexual violence and assault as a source to overcome the challenges
in terms of their masculinity (Messerschmidt, 2000). Moreover, scholars have suggested that
sexual violence and assault reproduces gender inequalities in the society which has become
more effective as people are often silent about it mostly because of the negative reactions
from the society (Armstrong, Gleckman-Krut & Johnson, 2018). Gavey, (2013) states culture
has a huge role to play in fostering sexual assault and high rate of sexual assault are mostly
expected to be prevalent in the cultures of the society that encourage women to be seen as an
object which instantly makes them inferior to men. Socialist feminism wants to eradicate this
discrimination in the society and strives for equal power on the other hand radical feminists’
focus on transforming the structure of the society by eliminating patriarchy.