NCJ Number
169482
Date Published
1996
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This paper explores how women¦s safety is narrowly focused by security companies and other commercial enterprises as a saleable commodity.
Abstract
The paper treats security products as a recognition of male violence to women, a recognition within which women are treated as subordinate and vulnerable to the arbitrary whims of dangerous male strangers, while at the same time assumed to be capable of avoiding such dangerous men. Such developments coincide with police safety advice, which additionally serves as popular narrative about the dangers women face and about the skills women need to possess to challenge such dangers. The paper treats women's fear of crime as an indicator of gender and gendered structure, which privileges particular beliefs about women's risk to violence but ultimately denies women's anxiety about its potential. Within such discourse, women are treated as "cultural dopes," and in need of guidance about the "true" context and environment within which they live. The social context of women's fear of crime is such that, unless women's autonomy is promoted and freedom from sexual danger is addressed, it is unlikely that women's fear will be reduced. References