A Study Of Women In Criminal Law

Women belong to a social group. Their particularity mainly shows in their own physical and psychological structures. So they have a different social status in the developing society. In the modern society where people call for gender equality, women's social status has changed from the "weak groups" to today's "special groups". Now they even have begun to be specially protected by the system and law. All the laws in our country have established women's fundamental rights. As the most severe law, Criminal law has made a large number of the provisions to protect women's legitimate rights from the perspective of the criminal protection. It has strengthened the protection of women's personal freedom, human dignity, and sexual rights. Criminals who violate women's rights will face severe penalties.Women are defined both in broad sense and narrow sense in the criminal law. In the broad sense, women refer to female beings, the human individuals, who are responsible for reproduction and thus present specific internal and external physiological characteristics. The victim of rape in Chinese Criminal Law refer to women in the broad sense. In the narrow sense, women refer to females who have a specific physical structure and physiological characteristics due to reaching a certain age or for other reasons. In the narrow sense, women only refer to females who are adolescents usually after puberty, not including female babies and female children. Crimes against women mainly include those violation of women's sexual and human rights and public prejudice. The reason why the criminal law provides a special protection for women's rights has natural factors and social factors. The natural factors include physiological factors, while the social factors include women's family status and the fact that they are prejudiced easily.On the other hand, Women offenders in the criminal trial process often display certain features. This phenomenon can be explained mainly by Chivalry Theory and Evil Women Theory. The core view of the Chivalry Theory is that, as a gender corresponding to male, female belongs to the weak and passive group and has the characteristics of obedience and depending on male. In the criminal procedures, the image of women has the effects of causing the judges to form a basic attitude to protect them, not wanting them to be imprisoned, and thinking that they are easily changed and easily return to the society. Evil Women Theory thinks that if women's gender role is contrary to what people expect, they are more likely to be severely punished. Although the provisions of the Chinese Criminal Law has special view/consideration for women, they still need to be revised due to some defects.