Gender Entrapment Theory

Development of Gender Entrapment Theory

Early attempts at studying domestic violence among African Americans focused on certain factors that contributed to domestic violence, primarily high rates of poverty, financial instability, and high levels of unemployment. Studies showed that African Americans were 400% more violent in the home when compared to White Americans and twice as likely to engage in intimate partner abuse. As studies progressed, more focus was placed on the consequences of domestic violence, including why so many battered African American women were committing crime. Studies indicated that African American women were engaging in crime because of several factors, including racism, sexism, classism, and identity development.

Beth E. Richie first introduced the concept of gender entrapment when researching the effects of domestic violence among incarcerated African American women. Richie observed a process [Page 315]where African American women are vulnerable to male violence in their intimate relationships. From the perspective of gender entrapment theory, this vulnerability underlies the women's experience of violence, which in turn leads the women to take part in illegal activities.

Development of Gender Identity

Prior research that has examined gender entrapment places great emphasis on African American women's gender identity in relation to their household of origin. Most women exposed to gender entrapment had a privileged status within their families as adolescents. Having a privileged status meant that as children these women were praised and given special privileges (e.g., extra spending money for leisure activities, clothing, and other possessions) for certain qualities (including being competent and resourceful, taking care of the household chores, and helping take care of younger siblings) and were used as positive role models for the other children in the household. This privileged status becomes an important contributing element to gender entrapment, as these African American women feel a particular burden and pressure to maintain their privileged status within the family. Furthermore, the gender entrapment process begins when the African American woman's household of origin identity is contradicted by the identity that is created with her intimate partner.

When attempting to explain the link between gender entrapment and gender-identity development, many criminologists suggest that African American women at a young age learn to believe that they are in a better position than African American men. Consequently, African American women learn to feel sorry for their intimate male partner and to always maintain great loyalty to their partner. These feelings leave African American women vulnerable to gender entrapment as they feel pressured and needed to maintain the privileged status that they once had in their childhood.

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