The constructions of women as they have been developed in feminist criminology have often structured the ways that punishment is placed upon them. This article presents a history of the female offender, contending that traditional criminologies, state authorities, prison governors, and religious elites originally considered female prisoners harder to manage than male offenders. This is followed by a discussion of the lack of cohesive discourse concerning modern-day incarcerated females. Feminist criminology offers several distinct types of female offenders while questioning whether mainstream theories of crime can adequately discuss the female criminal. The article categorizes female inmates as either women in trouble, caregivers, impoverished, aboriginal, or victimized women, and contends that understanding the culture of female punishment is a difficult task. In order to understand the punishable woman discourse one must understand how the idea of woman is constructed and recognize who is in charge of constructing this image. Criminologists and feminists should question the way that politicians, the public, and criminal justice professionals define and categorize what constitutes the punishable woman. References