Customer Reviews

JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE: BATTERED WOMEN, SELF-DEFENSE AND THE LAW

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This book is a treatment of how common law's concept of self-defense does not traditionally describe the method in which battered women who kill their abusers finally do the deed. Hence, it has been difficult for battered women to win cases with the defense of "justifiable homicide."

The author, founder of the Northwest Women's Law Center, puts forth her argument logically and forcefully, with extensive references. A must read for those interested in the legal defense of battered women who kill their abusers.

I used to teach a gender equality class for Stanford students in Washington and they read this book with amazement at how it revealed the law's stark burdens. Now I'm doing research on a different project and still find this book to be thorough and persuasive. Sometimes claims of structural sexism are unpersuasive, but this book proves up structural sexism in the law unequivocally. It documents how the law of self-defense arose among combatants of presumed equal strength. Facially neutral rules like "no escalating the form of violence" can leave battered women with the choice of waiting to be killed or using non-protected deadly force herself. A grim and stunning conclusion. -- Betsy Cavendish