Chivalry Hypothesis Research Articles

Bad parents? evaluating judgements of infant homicides

While the killing of one’s own infant is an undoubtedly harrowing crime, there exists little research exploring attitudes toward these individuals. Such work has focused primarily on depictions of mothers, yet U.K. government data indicate that the majority of infant homicide cases involve paternal suspects. A sample of U.K. residents (n = 245) participated in a mixed-methods design to explore attitudes toward mothers and fathers who have been accused of murdering their infant child and whether parental mental health issues impacted these judgements. Results aligned with the chivalry hypothesis wherein maternal suspects were evaluated more leniently. Qualitative analyses uncovered hidden gender expectations: mothers were ascribed blame when the father was accused of infant homicide, a finding that was not present in the reverse scenario. This suggests that traditional views of motherhood conflict with a shifting social landscape that is seeing an increase in stay-at-home fathers and working mothers.

Internalizing Disabilities Among Incarcerated Girls From Mexico and the United States

This article examines the relationship between internalizing dimensions of emotional and behavioral disorders such as depression and anxiety with unresolved trauma and abuse among incarcerated girls in Mexico and the United States. The goal is to arrive at a better understanding of (a) how mental health conditions may contribute to deviant behavior, (b) how girls with disabilities may be disproportionately punished because of their gender and disability status, and (c) the limited capabilities of personnel in correctional facilities to diagnose disabilities in incarcerated girls or identify girls who have not been diagnosed. The results, supported by the chivalry hypothesis, demonstrate the need for a gender-informed response to dealing with girls’ deviant behaviors, as well as trauma-informed practices to address mental health disabilities and victimization among delinquent girls in both the United States and Mexico.

Gender bias and the impact on managerial evaluation of insider security threats

With regard to computer abuse, the term "malicious insider" tends to be associated with male employees, likely because men commit more crimes relative to women. We draw on the chivalry hypothesis to inform our study and explore whether managers demonstrate gender bias in decision-making regarding insider threats posed by subordinate employees. We recruited managers as participants in our study and randomly assigned them to an "employee gender" condition, wherein half the participants read a scenario with a female offender and half the participants read a scenario with a male offender. The scenarios were identical with the exception of the gender pronouns, and participants were asked to evaluate the intent and harm posed by the employee. Our results suggest that managers’ perceptions of malicious intent are systematically different according to the gender of the subordinate employee; specifically, managers characterize security misbehavior by males as significantly more malicious relative to that by females. These findings suggest that gender biases play a role in how managers perceive employee security behavior. This study extends current research on the chivalry hypothesis by linking gendered criminal and computer stereotypes to bias in evaluating information systems security threats.

Reported Sexual-offense Incidents in the United States: Arrest Disparities between Women and Men.

This study examined the effect of an offender's sex (male/female) on whether sexual-offense incidents reported to law enforcement culminated in an arrest. Two hypotheses, chivalry and evil woman, are relied upon and suggest that the probability of arrest differs for women and men, yet in differing directions. The chivalry hypothesis suggests women are treated more leniently than men and, therefore, less likely to be arrested. The evil woman hypothesis, however, suggests the opposite: Women are treated more harshly than men and, therefore, more likely to be arrested. Seven years of National Incident-based Reporting System [NIBRS] data were relied upon (National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, 2010-2016, National Incident-based Reporting System: Extract Files); all of the reported sexual-offense incidents committed by women were included, along with a matched sample of reported sexual-offense incidents committed by men, culminating in a sample of 22,744. Overall, women were 42% significantly less likely than men to be arrested when controlling for other known offense, offender, and victim characteristics. The odds for women to be arrested increased, however, when specific offender demographics, offense characteristics, and victim characteristics were taken into account. The implications of these findings are discussed in regard to their application of the chivalry and evil woman hypotheses.

Chivalry and attractiveness bias in police officer forensic judgments in Israel

ABSTRACTThe chivalry hypothesis and attractiveness bias were evaluated among 323 police officers and 364 students, serving as a control group. The participants were asked to read a description of a swindle, where the offender was either physically attractive or unattractive. They then had to assign a punishment to the offender and judge the blame ascribed to both offender and victim. The findings showed that the offender’s sex, more than his or her external appearance, affects differences in punishment severity. Female offenders were treated more forgivingly than male offenders. Nonetheless, analysis of blame attributions shows that attractive offenders are blamed more than unattractive offenders. Women were also found to dispense severe punishments more than men.

Comparing gendered and generic representations of mental illness in Canadian newspapers: an exploration of the chivalry hypothesis

The 'chivalry hypothesis' posits that woman are treated more compassionately by the media when compared with men. To our knowledge, no research study has explored the chivalry hypothesis as applied to people with mental illness. As such, we set out to compare three types of newspaper articles, those that focus on (1) mental illness generically; (2) a woman with mental illness; and (3) a man with mental illness. We conducted a content analysis of 1,168 newspaper articles relating to mental health over 6months. We obtained articles through media retrieval software using various search terms. We read and coded articles for the presence or absence of themes and content. Frequency counts and proportions were generated for each theme, which were compared across the three types of articles using Chi-square tests. Generic articles were more positive than articles about individuals. They were significantly more likely to quote mental health experts, and have recovery, inadequate resources, and etiology as themes. Articles that depicted men were significantly more likely to have stigmatizing content and violence as themes. Articles depicting women were significantly more likely to quote mental health experts, discuss mental health interventions, and have recovery and inadequate resources as themes. The findings lend some support to the chivalry hypothesis, in as much as articles about women were significantly more positive. Articles about men were significantly more negative, though this may be partially accounted for by elevated rates of violent crime in men. Generic articles were the most extensively well informed.

La influencia del género en las decisiones de los tribunales: del paternalismo judicial a los papeles familiares

Recurriendo al concepto de género como objeto de análisis, este artículo realiza una retrospectiva sobre la evolución de la investigación sobre la influencia de factores extralegales en las decisiones judiciales, a través de la lectura de sus referencias bibliográficas más destacadas. En el caso concreto del género, esta evolución se caracteriza por una sofisticación crítica que provocó un cambio en las explicaciones asociadas a las diferencias encontradas en las sentencias atribuidas a hombres y mujeres. Esta transición parte de perspectivas simplistas relacionadas con una actitud paternalista por parte del sistema de justicia criminal, y evoluciona hasta perspectivas complejas y multifacéticas relacionadas con los diferentes papeles familiares ejercidos por hombres y mujeres.

Sex-Based Sentencing

The current research examines the utility of the evil woman hypothesis by examining sentencing discrepancies between male and female sex offenders. National Corrections Reporting Program data are used to identify sex offenders for the years 1994 to 2004 and the sentences they received for specific sex offenses. Statistical analyses reveal a significant difference in sentence length between men and women, but not in the expected direction. The evil woman hypothesis would assume women are sentenced more harshly, but data show men receive longer sentences for sex offenses than women. Support is provided for the chivalry hypothesis to explain immediate sentencing disparity.

Sentencing of Male and Female Child Sex Offenders: Australian Study

Research suggests that, in line with the chivalry hypothesis of female offending, a range of mitigatory factors such as mental health problems, substance abuse, and personal experiences of abuse are brought into play when women who offend against children are brought to trial. This is reflected in sentencing comments made by judges and in the sanctions imposed on the offenders, and as a result female offenders are treated differently to male offenders. The current study investigated this in an Australian context. Seven cases of female-perpetrated child sexual abuse were identified over a 6-year period through the Austlii database. Seven cases of male-perpetrated child sex abuse matched as far as possible to these were identified. Court transcripts were then located, and sentencing comments and sanctions imposed were analysed. All offenders were sentenced to imprisonment, but in general the women were more likely than the men to receive less jail time and lower non-parole periods because their personal backgrounds or situation at the time of the offending (i.e., difficulties with intimate relationship, male dependence issues, depression, loneliness and anger) were perceived as worthy of sympathy, and they were considered as likely to be rehabilitated. Further investigations are needed to support these findings.

Gender in Crime News: A Case Study Test of the Chivalry Hypothesis

This content analysis tested the chivalry hypothesis in 6 months of crime reporting in a local U.S. newspaper. The chivalry hypothesis posits that female criminals receive more lenient treatment in the criminal justice system and in news coverage of their crimes than their male counterparts. The study found partial support for the chivalry hypothesis and prompts a more nuanced formulation of the hypothesis-here termed patriarchal chivalry. This study also produced evidence that news coverage is harsher when men and women collaborate in crime than when men and women act independently of each other in criminal pursuit. The authors called it the Bonnie-and-Clyde effect.

Lawyers, gender and grievance arbitration outcomes

Why should the grievant’s gender or the presence of legal representation affect arbitration outcomes? The “chivalry hypothesis” holds that male arbitrators will tend to favor female grievants; its theoretical mirror image, the “evil woman” hypothesis, suggests that female grievants suffer a comparative disadvantage vis-a-vis similarly situated males. However, neither hypothesis (both drawn from criminologists’ studies of judicial sentencing patterns) applies all that well to the grievance arbitration process where, unlike in the court system, the parties themselves select their decision-maker. This is not to say that the grievance arbitration process is free of gender discrimination, only that arbitrators are probably not the source of any pro- or anti-female bias which may be uncovered.

Gender bias and pretrial release: More pieces of the puzzle

Pretrial release has been cited as a decision point in the criminal justice system at which gender bias may result in different outcomes for female defendants compared to males. This study analyzed data from a weighted sample of nearly 2000 felony cases from Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. Bivariate analysis indicated that females were more likely than males to be granted lenient pretrial release terms, to receive lower bail amounts when cash bail was set, to spend shorter periods of time in jail before trial, and to gain release pending trial. If released, women were more likely to appear in court as scheduled. Multivariate logit analysis, however, showed that gender was a significant factor for the court only in choosing between noncash and cash terms of release. Finally, crime-type-specific logit analysis suggested that neither the simple chivalry hypothesis nor the sex-role stereotype hypothesis were supported by these data.

Attribution of Responsibility: Sex-Based Bias in Press Reports on Crime

The growing body of research on the subject of women and the media has only recently begun to consider the treatment of female criminality. The present study examines the `chivalry hypothesis' as related to media portrayals of female criminality. The data were obtained from a systematic content analysis of 724 press reports of crimes which appeared in Israel's leading dailies. The attribution-of-responsibility statements in these reports were classified by type of offence, offender's sex and other variables. A multivariate analysis, applying the log-linear procedure, reveals the effect of the interaction between the offender's sex and the type of crime on the tendency of the press to present the offender as a `pawn' or as an `origin' type criminal. In spite of the overall tendency to treat female criminality as a consequence of social or psychological factors (i.e. a `pawn'), the attribution of responsibility varies significantly across categories of crime, suggesting that sex-based bias in press reports of crime is highly dependent in the offence involved.

CHANGING FEMALE DELINQUENCY IN THREE BIRTH COHORTS

Abstract The present study utilizes three cohorts over a span of twenty years to examine changes in female relative to male delinquency. The results show substantial increases in the percent female contribution to five categories of delinquency. The absolute differences between male and female behavior present different results for the offense categories. The changes in female behavior are discussed in light of the chivalry hypothesis and the women's liberation movement.

Judicial Discretion and Defendant's Sex

ABSTRACT* * *The judicial treatment of adult female relative to male criminal offenders is theoretically and empirically examined in this paper. After discussing various problems with the chivalry hypothesis and labeling theory–the two major explanations of gender disparities‐an empirical test is made to determine the accuracy of both perspectives. An analysis of 543 adult felony cases in Dade County, Florida, using multiple regression to control for the effects of relevant legal and nonlegal variables, indicated inconsistent differences in treatment by sex at the h e k of negotiations, prosecution, conviction, and sentence. These differences also vary over the three time periods examined: 1965–1966, 1971, and 1975–1976. The findings do not support any existing theory of the differential legal handling of male and female offenders, clearly indicating a need for the development of theory that takes into account the growing body of empirical work in this area.

Sex Differences in Criminal Activity

National victimization survey data for the years 1972 to 1976 are examined in order to investigate the extent to which they are in accord with Uniform Crime Report arrest data regarding the offender's sex. The results for common-law crimes–both the personal crimes of rape, robbery, assault, and personal larceny, as well as the household crimes of burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft–parallel arrest data in showing that male involvement in these crimes is proportionately much greater than is the involvement of females. Except for a slight recent increase in female involvement for larceny, there did not appear to be systematic changes in the proportionate involvement of females across the few years of victimization data now available. Victims of female-offender crimes reported them less often to the police than was true for victims of male-offender crimes. But the latter crimes are usually more serious and male-offenders dominate commercial robbery, almost always reported to the police. The chivalry hypothesis–that male victims of female offenders are reluctant to report female-offender crimes to the police–was not supported. Even with seriousness of victimizations controlled, males tended to report their victimizations to the police more when they were victimized by females; the opposite was true for female victims. Overall, the results are consistent with the argument that sex is an important nonartifactual correlate of involvement in criminal behavior. Theories that fail to recognize and accommodate the importance of sex–and other traditional demographic correlates (e.g., race) of involvement in common-law crimes–are ignoring important factors accounting for criminal activity.