Recognition of Intersectionality Assisting in Understanding Women in Crime

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The essay discusses the victimization and criminalization of women in crime through the intersectionality of race, class, and gender. It analyzes the works of different female criminologists and their findings on the subject. The essay highlights the effects of colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy on the lives of Aboriginal women and the trauma they faced. It also sheds light on the 'incall sex industry' and the victimization and criminalization of women involved in sex work. The essay concludes that recognizing the intersectionality between race, class, and gender inequality in relation to victimization and criminalization helps in understanding the vulnerability of women to both.

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Running head: RECOGNITION OF INTERSECTIONALITY ASSISTING IN UNDERSTANDING WOMEN IN CRIME
RECOGNITION OF INTERSECTIONALITY ASSISTING IN UNDERSTANDING WOMEN
IN CRIME
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RECOGNITION OF INTERSECTIONALITY ASSISTING IN UNDERSTANDING WOMEN IN CRIME
Introduction
The essay aims to provide an understanding of women’s involvement in crime, both their
victimization and criminalization through the recognition of the intersectionality between class,
race, gender inequalities, and ethnicity. The paper will focus on the works of different female
criminologists who have explored the various issues that concern the women population. The
primary source for the discussion is Elizabeth Comack’s Criminalizing Women. The author
clearly states the need to appreciate the “nature and extent of women’s involvement in crime and
the ways in which class, race, gender intersect in the lives of criminalized women” (Comack &
Balfour, 2014, p. 196).
The essay will first provide a brief background of the topic including an explanation of
victimization and criminalization of women. Then, it will attempt to analyze the way recognition
of the interconnection between these and the class, gender and ethnicity of women helps in
understanding their vulnerability in crime.
Discussion
Elizabeth Comack draws attention to the release of Karla Homolka, infamous as
Canada’s “most notorious female offender” in July 2005 to understand the way women criminals
have been portrayed in the media, the law and the academic studies. The author argues that there
is hardly any background study conducted to understand the reasons for women committing
violent crimes. The text clearly identifies the so-called criminal women and their labeling as
dangerous offenders as being the construction of the powerful class against those women who
are marginalized in terms of class and race. Karla Homolka became the center of attraction
because she was an “exception” as most women who break the law are either charged with minor
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RECOGNITION OF INTERSECTIONALITY ASSISTING IN UNDERSTANDING WOMEN IN CRIME
offences or are from the poor class, or Aboriginal. As the author states, “Homolka’s whiteness
contrasts with the overrepresentation of Aboriginal women and women of color in Canada’s
prisons”, which shows that race is a big factor in criminalizing women (p. 48).
Comack also sheds light on the effects of colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy on the
lives of Aboriginal women and the trauma they faced. She argues that due to the colonization of
Canada, the Aboriginal people were cornered as marginalized community. The colonialism,
states the author, was introduced in the country with the intent of capitalism. This capitalism
intended colonialism created racial spaces and racialized classes that shaped the inner cities
where the Aboriginal people were made to live under harsh conditions (Comack & Balfour,
2014, p. 80). Within the confinements of these inner cities, violence and criminal offences were
not a new thing owing to the traumatic conditions of the people living there. The Indigenous
women in particular, had to resort sex trade and indulge in substance abuse forcibly as it was
“their only recourse for getting by” (p. 81). Comack refers to the accounts of a focus group study
involving former and active women in street sex trade within Winnipeg’s inner city. The focus
group study revealed that these women engaged in sex trade owing to their poor economic
conditions and numerous obstacles to employment opportunities. The study further found that
these women had desires to be educated and employed but discrimination, lack of opportunities
and job experience had forced them to resort to jobs they did not wish to do in the first place.
The discourse hence reveals that race place a significant role in the victimization and
criminalization of women.
She further states that the discourse designating women as criminals must change to
women as criminalized because only then could people be able to understand the position of
women in terms of crime and victims of crime (Comack & Balfour, 2014, p. 137). While
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RECOGNITION OF INTERSECTIONALITY ASSISTING IN UNDERSTANDING WOMEN IN CRIME
discussing the violation of law by women, Comack states that most women serving
imprisonment for various crimes had a difficult life and a dark past. According to Comack, “the
social contexts in which women’s law violations occur indicate that those violations are an
outgrowth of everyday problems” (Comack & Balfour, 2014, p. 138). She had interviewed
women at the WCC and found that trauma was one of the major causes of these women
committing crime. The trauma that Comack has mentioned has come from years of subjugation,
discrimination and abuse that the women have faced due to their gender, class and race.
The short account of Jackie Traverse titled Scars brings to light the gender inequality that
first victimizes women and then criminalizes her. Traverse gives an account of a girl who tries
hard to hide the scars she had accumulated while she was a young girl due to a sexual assault by
her own uncle. The society instead of punishing the uncle, who is a man, looks at her with
suspicious eyes and makes her feel that she is a criminal instead (Comack & Balfour, 2014, p.
158).
Maya Seshia further highlights the systemic violence within the Winnipeg’s street sex
trade and argues that little research has been done in finding the causes of the violence and
strategies that must be taken. The author the draws attention towards the alarming
overrepresentation of Indigenous and poor class women in street sex trade and the violence
involved in it. According to Seshia, there is little information about the ones who “buy sex and
who are the perpetrators of violence” but there is enough evidence that these are rooted deeply in
gender and race (Seshia, 2010). She presents the statistics that show most of those who buy sex
are men while about 75 to 80 percent of the sex workers are women in Canada. The victimization
and criminalization is racialized in the sense that more than 70 percent of street sex workers in
Winnipeg alone are Indigenous women (Seshia, M. 2010, p. 4). Seshia then argues that there is

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RECOGNITION OF INTERSECTIONALITY ASSISTING IN UNDERSTANDING WOMEN IN CRIME
increasing need to identify the areas that need attention in terms of providing safety and security.
These circumstances lead to the formation of street gangs that where women participate and
indulge in crimes. The study she conducted with participants belonging mostly to the inner city
of Winnipeg found that the most recommended strategy or step that has to be taken is to enhance
the immediate safety of the vulnerable population. Some participants also suggested, “Longer
outreach hours and a 24 hour safe house”. On the other hand, few participants expressed that
both the strategies are important but require government funding, which is hard to come by
because they are sex traders. This view brings forth the unfortunate situation where on one hand,
women are victimized and on the other, they are criminalized but never given their due rights to
safety and security.
Nahanni Fontaine in one of her most prominent works on colonization and the
Anishinaabe Street Gang Participation shed light on the criminalization of women and its dark
consequences. The criminologist points out the June 2003 incident in Canada’s Winnipeg when
the body parts of a girl were discovered in the Red River shoreline (Comack & Balfour, 2014, p.
113). The girl was identified as one Felicia Solomon Osborne. She was further identified as
hailing from the Norway House Cree Nation and was an Aboriginal girl with supposed ties to the
street gang. Hardly any media coverage was given to her story and those media that covered it,
labeled her as a perpetrator. What this incident brings to light is that the Aboriginal women –
Anishinaabe Ikwe – who are forced to join the street gangs are victims of racialization. This
racialization has resulted from years of colonization that persists even today.
Chris Bruckert and Colette Parent highlight the ‘incall sex industry’ and the victimization
and criminalization of women involved in sex work. They put forth the debate surrounding the
designation of the sex workers as victims or even criminals as opposed to the emerging
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RECOGNITION OF INTERSECTIONALITY ASSISTING IN UNDERSTANDING WOMEN IN CRIME
designation of these as regular workers similar to the usual workers working in other customer
services industries. The authors explain that the very definition of the ‘incall sex work’ is
problematic because it means a variety of things. The general definition of incall work involves
“women providing sexual services in establishment”. However, the problem arises because of the
classification of these establishment and the different types of services provided under it. The
authors argue that these workers are criminalized because of the intersection of race with class
and gender “to condition women’s choices and opportunities both in broader labor market and in
the sex industry” (Comack & Balfour, 2014, p. 97). The understanding one could have from this
is that victimizing and criminalizing women sex workers only happens when people view it from
the perspective of class and race. The Canadian society has been known for discriminating
against the immigrants, indulging in systemic racism, stereotyping the portrayal of marginalized
women and indulges in racist discourses. For these reasons, the racialized women have been put
in a disadvantaged position.
In a further discourse about criminalization and victimization of women, criminologists
Dorothy E Chun and Shelly A. M. Gavigan talk about the “welfare frauds”, which they state that
led to “welfare as frauds” (Comack & Balfour, 2014, p. 199). They provide several instances of
welfare frauds where women especially lone-mothers were charged with fraud during the 1990s,
as they were found lying about their financial condition to receive financial assistance. In one of
the cases involving Donna Bond, a single mother of two children in their teenage years, the court
found her guilty of fraud but later released her because of her vulnerable financial condition and
her true intentions to look after her children. In a similar case, Kimberly Rogers, a pregnant girl
pursuing her higher studies was found guilty of welfare fraud. She had no prior criminal record
and hence was sentenced to six months of house arrest, which led to her having no income
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RECOGNITION OF INTERSECTIONALITY ASSISTING IN UNDERSTANDING WOMEN IN CRIME
source. She sought reinstatement of her benefits that she did receive but were not enough to pay
for her rent and ultimately she committed suicide in her eighth month of pregnancy (p. 199).
These two cases led to significant changes in the government policies and regulations but still
were not enough to provide for a better solution to the poor especially women. From this reading,
it could be clearly established that women belonging to the poor class often commit crimes to
help alleviate theirs or their children’s condition.
Conclusion
After analyzing the different texts written by the numerous criminologists, it could be
stated that when seen from the perspective of race, class and gender, it is easier to understand the
involvement of women in crime. The women who violate the law, engage into conflict with the
system are in most cases, victims of the law and system itself that has been formed by the
colonial settlers. The analysis found that colonization and capitalism had contributed largely
towards the marginalization of women and forcing them to take the law into their hands.
Aboriginal women, ‘colored’ women, women coming from other nonwhite backgrounds and
those from the poor class have been found to be over representing the group of offenders. This
clearly shows why women violate laws and are labeled as criminals. Therefore, it could be
reiterated that recognizing the intersectionality between race, class and gender inequality in
relation to victimization and criminalization help in understanding the vulnerability of women to
both.

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References:
Comack, E., & Balfour, G. (2014). Criminalizing Women (3rd ed., pp. 48-199). Winnipeg:
Fernwood Publishing.
Seshia, M. (2010). Naming systemic violence in Winnipeg's street sex trade. Canadian journal of
urban research, 1-17.
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