Feminists have long argued that structural inequality between men and women influences the prevalence of female homicide victimization. In the present study, a cross-sectional analysis was performed using data on 3,083 U.S. counties in 2000 to assess the impact of women’s absolute status and gender inequality along educational, employment, income, and occupational dimensions and patriarchal culture on their risk of homicide victimization. The findings indicate that only women’s absolute status contributes to our understanding of cross-sectional variation in female homicide rates across U.S. counties and lends support to Marxist feminist theory.

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Theoretically, the media influences public perceptions of crime and criminality and helps shape perceptions of how the crime problem should be managed. Using a 2010 survey in Washington state, this article tests the theoretical connection between watching television (news, crime dramas, and police-reality programs), reading the newspaper, listening to the radio, interacting with the Internet, and support for capital punishment. Research in the area of perceptions of capital punishment shows that support for capital punishment varies depending on its operationalization; therefore, this study includes both a general measure of support for capital punishment and a measure that provides for the availability of life without parole as an alternative option. Variables including race, sex, age, attitudes toward the police, and perceptual variables such as collective efficacy, economic insecurity, and justice concerns are included as controls in the models. Findings indicate that the relationship between media consumption and capital punishment is dependent on both the media form/channel and the operationalization of capital punishment.

Numerous studies have tested the feminist hypothesis that gender inequality affects homicide rates by analyzing Census and Uniform Crime Report data for a single time period. Although these "snapshot" tests are important, they do not capture the "change" element that is implied by these hypotheses. According to feminist perspectives, gender inequality and gender equality could increase homicide rates, the former increasing the structural disadvantage of women relative to men and the latter representing a "backlash" effect. Women's absolute status may also be an important predictor of homicide victimization. Furthermore, it is quite possible that this process is dynamic and therefore the change in equality over time may be more important than the actual level of equality at any given time. The present study measures the impact of gender equality and women's absolute status on female homicide victimization using city-level data from 1980 to 2000. In general, the results suggest that changes in gender equality and women's absolute status have Article at UNIV OF NEW ORLEANS on June 15, 2015 cad.sagepub.com Downloaded from

Feminist theory predicts both a positive and negative relationship between gender equality and rape rates. Although liberal and radical feminist theory predicts that gender equality should ameliorate rape victimization, radical feminist theorists have argued that gender equality may increase rape in the form of male backlash. Alternatively, Marxist criminologists focus on women's absolute socioeconomic status rather than gender equality as a predictor of rape rates, whereas socialist feminists combine both radical and Marxist perspectives. This study uses factor analysis to overcome multicollinearity limitations of past studies while exploring the relationship between women's absolute and relative socioeconomic status on rape rates in major U.S. cities using 2000 census data. The findings indicate support for both the Marxist and radical feminist explanations of rape but no support for the ameliorative hypothesis. These findings support a more inclusive socialist feminist theory that takes both Marxist and radical feminist hypotheses into account.