Summary
"This thesis explores the representation of criminalized women in public discourse. How we talk about gender and crime has important implications for how we interpret and respond to women that break the law. To uncover the social messages that underlie our discussions of criminalized women, I undertook a critical discourse analysis of thirty-seven years of government publications, parliamentary debates, and newspaper articles using grounded theory. While analyzing the data, I discovered persistent socially constructed discourses on appropriate gender norms and behaviour: criminalized women tended to be construed as either harmless or harmful depending on their perceived adherence to gender expectations. However, I argue that our understanding of gender, and gender appropriate behaviour, is complicated by the intersection of gender with race, class, and sexuality. As a result, I propose that certain women are more likely to be construed as harmless, while others are more likely to be deemed harmful."--Page ii.