The Invisible Woman
Fifth Edition
This book is a dedicated to the Missing, Murdered, and surviving Indigenous Women and Girls (#MMIWG) and Helen M. Eigenberg (1958–2019)
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The Invisible Woman
Gender, Crime, and Justice
Fifth Edition
Joanne Belknap
The University of Colorado Boulder
Copyright © 2021 by SAGE Publications, Inc.
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ISBN 978-1-5443-4827-8
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• Preface and Acknowledgments •
This is the fifth edition of The Invisible Woman. It is remarkable and inspiring how much feminist, intersectional, and critical criminologies have changed since the first edition, and especially in the time since I submitted the fourth edition in 2014. So many more scholars whose representation has been missing from criminology scholarship have made incredible contributions, truly shifting the lens of this field. In fact, it was impossible to read, much less incorporate, all the research since 2014 on gender and offending, victimization, and criminal legal system (CLS) workers. For this, I apologize because I likely missed some publications I should have included. One of the other differences in the past six years is far more scholarship on LGBTQI+ criminology. I have always attempted to include what we now call queer criminology and count myself among those who have contributed to it. With this edition there was so much more queer, feminist, intersectional, and even environmental criminology to add. Although it is so encouraging that the lens of criminology has significantly expanded from the almost all cisgender white men who published in criminology journals and attended the criminology conferences when I started as a graduate student in 1981, this expansion has a long way to go in representing disparate people as researchers and study participants. Given the significance of positionality and othering by researchers, it is vital to expand the inclusion of scholars based on the intersections of gender, race, class, sexuality, and so on.
Turning to my more personal acknowledgments, I always say I have the best partner, child, sister, friends, and current and former students of anyone I’ve known. Scott Summers, we are coming up on 30 years of nonmarital bliss and you have encouraged me to finish every edition, including the first edition that arrived in the mail the same month our amazing Casey Belknap-Summers was born. Casey, I have truly loved every age and you made parenting easy. Madelyn Strahan, you’ve been a great addition to our family of three, and I’m so appreciative of all the time you and Casey spend with us. We sure do know how to vacation!
I dedicated the last edition of this book to my sister, Sandra Dangler, and to one of the survivors of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, Sarah Collins Rudolph, and in memory of her sister Addie Mae Collins. The Ku Klux Klan not only murdered Addie May Collins but blinded Sarah Collins Rudolph in one eye in the bombing. Sandy, you’re the best mita ever, and Sarah, it is such an honor to have become friends of you and your wonderful husband, George Rudolph, since I sent you the fourth edition of this book. I am humbled and grateful.
This edition is dedicated to the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG), a group which includes Indigenous people who are nonbinary/trans and have been victims of misogynistic, racist, nationalistic, and homophobic murders. This dedication also expresses support for those Indigenous women, girls, and queer folks who have survived these hateful acts. Although the movement started in Canada, the phenomenon of these horrific crimes is also prevalent in the United States.
This edition is also dedicated to my dear friend, Helen Eigenberg, who died of cancer in 2019. Helen, Nancy Wonders, Mona Danner, and I met at the “crim” conferences through the American Society of Criminology’s (ASC’s) Division on Women and Crime (DWC) decades ago and realized we were all born in 1958. We’ve been through a lot together in both our work and personal lives (including three of us diagnosed with breast cancer since we first met). We became such solid friends and we were fortunate to have many long weekend vacations that had nothing to do with a crim conference. Helen was an amazing feminist scholar, teacher, and friend and could truly have been a stand-up comic had she wished. To learn more about Helen, go to https://ascdwc.com/2019/01/mourning-the-loss-of-dr-helen-eigenberg/. I chose Helen to interview me for the ASC Oral History project, which she did about six weeks before she died (https://www.asc41.com/videos/Oral_History/Joanne_Belknap.html). I miss her immensely. Helen, Mona, Nancy, and the sisterhood of the DWC have been a mainstay of my career and personal life.
I’m incredibly grateful to my colleagues in the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) Department of Ethnic Studies (DES), who allowed me to change my tenure line to this great department! I’ve