Lombroso's Delinquent Woman

Abstract

The Donna Delinquente, la Prostituta e la Donna Normale [Criminal woman, the prostitute, and the normal woman] by Cesare Lombroso, written with the young scholar Guglielmo Ferrero, is considered to be a milestone for studies on female criminality. It gained a lot of attention and interest as the first study on women and criminal behavior with a scientific basis. Lombroso's main tenets concerned women's intellectual inferiority when compared to men. The work was used and cited until the 1970s when the feminist movement was generally opposed to an approach that was based on masculine superiority.