Gender and Crime - Sex Role Theory | A Level Sociology

welcome to this tutor to you sociology topic video on gender and crime looking at the impacts of sex role theory for those who study families and households the ideas of toll cut parsons and sex role theory will be quite familiar however while they are usually applied to family life they can also be

used to explain the differences in rates and criminality between males and females as parsons applied his idea of socialization into gender roles to the area of crime and deviance for those unfamiliar with parsons ideas he suggested that within the family males and females are best suited to different roles within the family partly based upon their biological

characteristics and partly due to how they're socialized males were socialized into the instrumental role providing financial support for the family and being responsible for discipline the expressive role was taken on by females and this involved looking after the emotional needs of the family caring for and nurturing children and providing emotional support for a

husband and dealing with the domestic labor in the household the social expectations to perform these roles according to parsons can help to explain the differences in rates of offending for males and females there was a further function of the instrumental and expressive roles that parsons examined and that was the socialization of children into their

future gender roles and according to parsons this had impacts on different rates of offending between males and females he argued that socialization had more of an impact on girls as they were socialized into the expressive role and that their mother was on hand to provide support for them as she was based in the