Chivalry in the Courtroom

The concept of chivalry encompasses a number of thoughts and social practices that regard women and girls as inherently in need of help and protection. As applied to the courts, chivalry is often used to explain disparities in processing decisions, where women and girls are treated with more lenience than men and boys. While unequal treatment by gender is expected under this concept, recent research suggests not all women receive chivalry equally, especially across other social statuses such as race and class. This entry defines chivalry, presents a chivalry hypothesis to explain court processing, reviews corollaries on the application of chivalry, considers an alternative conception of chivalry, and identifies prospects for future research.