Pink – collar crime: women and crime committed at work

The term ‘pink – collar’ was coined during the second wave of feminism (the 1960s – 1980s) by Knappe Howe (1977). She identified unique features of work experienced by women – segregation, underpayment and sexual harassment. During the same period, the feminists’ school of criminology began studying the treatment of women as offenders and victims and how they were punished as both. Women had not been studied by criminologists as a distinct ‘group’ and established criminological theory failed to explain why, women commit significantly less crime than men. The feminist theorists studied women’s offending, the victimisation of women, and women in criminal justice system. With reference to problems with definition of crime and white-collar crime, the origins of ‘pink-collar’ as a term associated with women and a discussion about women, colour and protest this paper will argue that feminst criminology theory in, including (Smart, 1979), Daly and Chesney-Lind (1988) could be fully employed in the study of contemprary ‘pink-collar crime’ comitted by women solcitors.