Intersecting Inequality: The Impact of Race, Gender, Age, and Class on Violence

• In Event: Feminist Criminologists of Color on the Impact of Perceptions, Media, Crime, and Justice on Women and Girls of Color

Abstract

Recent scholarship on the intersections of race, ethnicity, class, and gender has pointed to its influence on criminological outcomes. Importantly, these works have allowed for an in-depth examination of the influence of interlocking inequalities on individuals’ experiences with crime, victimization, and the justice system. The symbolic interactionist perspective offered by De Coster and Heimer (2006) posits that intersecting inequalities affect the situations that individuals find themselves in and consequently how they negotiate their meanings of themselves and their social worlds. Consequently in recent studies I, along with colleagues, draw upon the symbolic interactionist perspective to highlight the ways in which intersections influence individuals’ perceptions of others as threatening or dangerous as well as their assessments of their own vulnerabilities to these perceived threats/dangers. A compilation of the results from these studies will be presented.

Author

• Toya Like-Haislip, University of Missouri - Kansas City