This work explores the construction of gender norms and examines how they were reflected and reinforced by legal institutional practices in Europe in this period. taking a gendered approach, criminal prosecution and punishment are discussed in relation to the victims and perpretrators. This volume investigates various representations of femininity by assessing female experiences including wife-beating, divorce, abortion, prostitution, property crime and embezzlement at the work place. In addition, issues such as neglect, sexual abuse and the "invention" of the juvenile offender are analyzed.

This work explores the construction of gender norms and examines how they were reflected and reinforced by legal institutional practices in Europe in this period. taking a gendered approach, criminal prosecution and punishment are discussed in relation to the victims and perpretrators. This volume investigates various representations of femininity by assessing female experiences including wife-beating, divorce, abortion, prostitution, property crime and embezzlement at the work place. In addition, issues such as neglect, sexual abuse and the "invention" of the juvenile offender are analyzed.

Places female criminality within its everyday context, bringing together the most current research on crime and gender.

Crime is men’s business, isn’t it? Women are responsible for 10 percent of crime in Europe. Yet, if we look at the Dutch Republic in the early modern period, we find that in the towns of Holland women played a much larger role in crime. In a number of early modern towns about half of the criminals convicted in court were women. These women were in vulnerable positions and thus more likely to become involved in crime. They also had a relatively independent status and led remarkably public lives. Manon van der Heijden convincingly shows that it is the very combination of women’s vulnerability and independence that accounts for the high female crime rates in Holland between 1600 and 1800.

This book charts the lives of (suspected) thieves, illegitimate mothers and vagrants in early modern Frankfurt. The book highlights the gender differences in recorded criminality and the way that they were shaped by the local context. Women played a prominent role in recorded crime in this period, and could even make up half of all defendants in specific European cities. At the same time, there were also large regional differences. Women’s crime patterns in Frankfurt were both similar and different to those of other cities. Informal control within the household played a significant role and influenced the prosecution patterns of authorities. This impacted men and women differently, and created clear distinctions within the system between settled locals and unsettled migrants.

This book attempts to challenge the canonical gender concept while trying to specify what gender was in the medieval and early modern world. It tests, verifies, and challenges the methodology and use the concept(s) of gender specifically applicable to the period of great change and transition. The volume contains theoretical discussion supplemented by case studies of specific practices such as mysticism, witchcraft, crime, and sexual behavior.

The editors, Rosemary Gartner and Bill McCarthy, have assembled a diverse cast of criminologists, historians, legal scholars, psychologists, and sociologists from a number of countries to discuss key concepts and debates central to the field. The Handbook includes examinations of the historical and contemporary patterns of women's and men's involvement in crime; as well as biological, psychological, and social science perspectives on gender, sex, and criminal activity. Several essays discuss the ways in which sex and gender influence legal and popular reactions to crime. An important theme throughout The Handbook is the intersection of sex and gender with ethnicity, class, age, peer groups, and community as influences on crime and justice. Individual chapters investigate both conventional topics - such as domestic abuse and sexual violence - and topics that have only recently drawn the attention of scholars - such as human trafficking, honor killing, gender violence during war, state rape, and genocide.