Scholars who write about early modern women and crime have focused primarily on prostitution and witchcraft which they deem “feminine” crimes. Removing this gender bias by employing a non-essentialist perspective, reveals a more nuanced picture of women’s participation in crime. Women who were unwilling—or perhaps not feminine enough—to use their sexual attributes to make money existed and are reported in crime statistics and literature. Using both hard evidence from crime studies and soft evidence from literary sources, and considering a wide historical range (from 1600–1800), reveals a steady stream of references to masculine-female criminals on the margins of early modern culture. I argue that future crime studies of early modern periods should allow for the consideration of women who did not conform to their culture’s gender ideals. Making a space for the “masculine-female criminal” contributes to a more nuanced view of gender and early modern culture.

关于早期现代女性和犯罪的学者主要集中在卖淫和巫术，他们认为这是“女性”犯罪。通过运用非本质主义的观点消除这种性别偏见，可以揭示出妇女参与犯罪的更为细微的画面。不愿（或可能不够女性化）利用其性属性赚钱的妇女存在，犯罪统计和文献中对此进行了报道。既使用犯罪研究的确凿证据，又使用文学方面的证据，并考虑广泛的历史范围（1600-1800年），便发现在现代现代文化的边缘，源源不断的对男性-女性犯罪分子的提及。我认为，现代早期的未来犯罪研究应考虑不符合其文化性别理想的女性。