Gender and Judging in the Context of China: An Empirical Study on Women Judges Who Judge Women Offenders

• In Event: ACCCJ Empirical Criminological Research on China

Abstract

Personal values serve as a tacit influence on decision-making. Personal values are formed by individuals’ life experiences, including the gendered experience. Based on a recent empirical study, this paper examines how women judges deal with women offenders in the context of China. Specifically, it investigates women judges’ attitudes towards female criminality, and their views on sentencing women offenders. Through presenting the female judges’ own narratives and biographies, it aims to gain insights into women’s behaviour in sentencing decision-making, and explore how gender plays a role in the judicial process, so as to make a case for women’s contributions to law and judicial production. To a lesser extent, it discusses the gender norm that is expected of women in the mainstream Chinese society. Scholarly research on Chinese women judges is sparse. This paper, as part of a larger project, also aims to fill in some of the gaps in the existing literature on women in the judiciary, gender and judging, and women’s social position in the post-reform era in China.

Author

• Anqi Shen, Teesside University, United Kingdom