Women judges who judge women offenders: a Chinese case study on gender and judging

ABSTRACT

Based on an empirical study, this article examines Chinese female judges’ life experiences and worldviews by asking: are women judges feminist or pro-feminism? Given the very nature of feminism, if a large number of women judges are feminist or pro-feminism, they are likely to bring attention to women’s issues in the judiciary and the judicial process. If so, women’s equal participation in courts would make a vital difference in law and judicial production. The article first provides the context of the research on which this article is based. Next, it briefly outlines several key methodological issues. Then, it presents findings on female judges’ perceptions of women’s gender roles, their views about female offending and their awareness of feminism. Finally, it highlights the evidence presented and offers implications of the research.

Acknowledgements

An early version of this article was presented at the American Society of Criminology annual conference on 18 November 2017 in Philadelphia, USA. I would like to thank the audience for their useful feedback. I am grateful to Peter Grabosky and Børge Bakken for their helpful comments on a later version. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for remarks and hope they recognise their influence. I finalised the article during my visit to RegNet in the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID

Anqi Shen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3665-5450