Sex and Theories of Deviance: Toward a Functional Theory of Deviant Type-Scripts

Given available evidence on official and hidden criminality, conceptual neglect of sex variable, not simply of women, is seen as having dire consequences for most contemporary criminal deviance paradigms and, consequently, as providing major failure of deviance theorizing in this century. The outlines of a new paradigm are introduced, the functional theory of deviant type-scripts, which suggest that everyday expectancies for deviance--which link types of actors to types of roles and which serve dominant social interests--at once account for our professional failure to include sex variable in theories of criminal deviance and, more importantly, provide single strongest theoretical account of very striking cross-cultural difference in male and female criminality. (Abstract Adapted from Source: American Sociological Review, 1977.