Mismatched Liberation Theory: A Comparative Method to Explain Increasing Female Crime Share in the United States

• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Author: Ting Wang
• DOI: 10.1177/1557085121993210
• Date: 01 December 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

2021, Vol. 16(5) 547 –582

https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085121993210

Feminist Criminology

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DOI: 10.1177/1557085121993210

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Article

Mismatched Liberation

Theory: A Comparative

Method to Explain Increasing

Female Crime Share in the

United States

Ting Wang1

Abstract

In this paper, I propose a new theory that ascribes the increasing female crime share

to unequal emancipatory advancement between women’s ideological aspirations

and institutional means in modern times. Accordingly, it is proposed that an

incommensurate pace in progression inflicts gender-specific deprivation on women,

which increases their share of crime. The theory is tested with Uniform Crime

Reporting data from 1980 to 2017 across offense types. The findings indicate that

mismatched liberation increases the female share of violent and property crimes,

especially for adult cohorts and among samples after 1988 when women’s ends-

means gap was found to be enlarged.

Keywords

the gender gap in crime, feminism, relative deprivation, strain, mismatched liberation

The United States has experienced an overall reduction in crime since the early 1990s.

Within these figures, the crime gap according to gender continues to narrow (see

Figure 1), with differing patterns being evident between the two time periods of the

1960s/1970s and the 1990s/2000s (Schwartz & Steffensmeier, 2015). For example,

the female offending rate grew faster in the former period and reduced at a slower rate

in the latter when compared to male offenders. Despite these changes in general

1University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ting Wang, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 320 Graham Building, Greensboro,

NC 27402-6170, USA.

Email: t_wang5@uncg.edu

993210FCXXXX10.1177/1557085121993210Feminist CriminologyWang

research-article2021

548 Feminist Criminology 16(5)

2 Feminist Criminology 00(0)

crime trends, it appears that women are increasingly featured among what is consid-

ered a male-dominated environment with an increasing share in the crime statistics

(Heimer et al., 2012).

The phenomenon of increasing female crime has garnered media attention and

scholarly efforts to identify causation; however, most theories fail to consider the com-

plexities associated with gender in relation to this issue. This is because gender has

been presented as a variable rather than a social construction that involves multiple

dimensions. Corresponding to a simplified notion of gender, causations argued by

previous theories have consequently been unidimensional. For this reason, earlier

theories (especially those developed before the 1990s) have been unable to explain the

new phenomenon of a relative (but not absolute) increase in female crime.

In this paper, I propose a new theory building on a multi-layered construction of

gender. This ascribes the increasing female share of offending to the unequal emanci-

patory advancement between women’s ideological aspirations and institutional means

compared to those of men. Here, the conflict lies in a mismatch between equal empha-

sis on personal achievement in modern times and a structure that lags in providing

both sexes with equal means of fulfilment. This disparity generates gender-specific

deprivation that adversely affects women who have been assumed to be sheltered by

their traditional gender roles from the ends–means disconnect.

The theory presented here is written at the macro level: it divides gender into two

general binary groups, with the acknowledgment that race, class, sexuality, and other

factors interact in the mechanism because both aspirations and access to instrumental

Figure 1. Gendered rates of offending and female percentage of offending (1980–2017).

Source. UCR arrest data from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Rate data were

original. The author calculated the percentage.

Wang 549

Wang 3

means vary according to such demographics. To simplify the framework so that it cor-

responds to gendered crime shares, this paper will elaborate on a comparison between

genders as binary points of focus to illustrate the relative deprivation faced by modern

women vis-à-vis men in general. Accordingly, a comparative perspective will shape

the discussion in which the criminogenic causes of crime by women relative to men

will be presented.

I begin with a brief review of theoretical disputes concerning the cause of the con-

verging gender gap in offending figures. This is followed by an in-depth description of

the mismatched liberation theory (MLT). This theory elucidates the mismatched pace

of liberation between different domains, and thereupon conceptualizes the theory by

connecting this disjuncture to the increasing female offending share. The theory is

tested with the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) data from 1980 to 2017 across

offense types, and a discussion is presented regarding possible adaptations to the the-

ory, including intersectionality with race and other liberation indexes.

Disputes over the Converging Gender Crime Rates

The converging gender gap in crime has been captured using different data sources

and methods and has drawn various scholarly contentions over the form this conver-

gence takes and what are its causes.

The debates began with a concern about rising rates of female crime that have been

observed since the 1970s. The first was between Adler (1975) and Simon (1975),

focusing on the liberating effect of second-wave feminism on women’s engagement in

deviance and crime, unified as emancipation theory. However, their perspectives

diverged in trying to locate the specific reason for the change. On the one hand, Adler

emphasized women’s masculinized ambition regarding social roles outside the home

(including the criminal sphere) as the latent drive for all types of offense. On the other

hand, Simon elaborated on the new opportunities for certain property and white-collar

crimes that had opened up to women alongside their expanding participation in busi-

ness and economic affairs. While this epochal theory brought increasing female crime

under the spotlight for the first time within criminology, it also provoked debates

around female crime and the gender gap in offending that lasted for decades (e.g.,

Engelhardt et al., 2008; Ruppanner, 2010).

One criticism emerged concerning the mismatch between the explained subjects:

those women who have been liberated are not the women who appear in the justice

system (Renzetti, 2013; see also Heimer, 2000). Women caught in the justice system

are disproportionally from the “underclass,” and far from being liberated, they are

trapped deeper by financial burdens as a result of the “feminization of poverty” than

ever before (Reckdenwald & Parker, 2008). Consequently, economic marginalization

theorists emphasize the increased financial hardship of women relative to men in

recent decades as the root of the narrowing gap in gendered crime (see also Heimer,

2000). Gains in gender equality do not necessarily translate into women’s financial

independence or parity (Hunnicutt & Broidy, 2004). While the feminist movement

may have allowed some upper- and middle-class women to make inroads into what