Sociologie et criminologie-Open Access
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Jodi Arias from a Sociological Perspective

Kristyan M Kouri

What fascinates me most about crime patterns is how closely they this scenario is consistent with what my colleague, sociologist correlate with contemporary gender rules and roles. So in reading about the sensational Jodi Arias trial for the murder of her one-time boyfriend, Travis Alexander these past few months, I couldn’t help but look at it through a sociological lens. As a read about the case, I kept thinking about the gendered cultural rules that modern-day women are expected to follow. Before the 1960’s, most young women believed that finding a husband was their primary goal. But by the late 1960s these cultural rules had become more complicated and building a career also became an objective–a shift that was largely the result of the Women’s Liberation movement. But despite this change, a large strand of cultural thought still urges contemporary American women to seek emotional and economic dependence through their husbands and boyfriends. In other words, although modern-day women are encouraged to be somewhat more assertive then they were in the past and to build careers, the cultural rules for females continue to place a high premium on finding a male partner.