Representing Battered Women Who Kill

Presents cases where women have killed men in self-defense and analyzes society's reluctance to accept their actions as justifiable

This study argues that the battering relationship is properly understood as a long-term homicidal process. The authors posit a social interaction perspective for understanding the forces that work toward maintaining the battering relationship and escalating it to a homicidal end.

Walker's chilling follow-up to her now-classic groundbreaker, The BAttered Woman, is a dramatic study of women who murder their abusive partners in self-defense--and what happens to them afterward. "Provocative . . . the book makes its point".--New York Times Book Review.

A study of women murderers in America from precolonial times to the present reveals a social history of the United States in terms of the women who murdered and their crimes.

The few studies that exist on battered women who have killed focus on what psychologists, attorneys, and academics have to say about their conduct. To date, there has been no study of how the women perceive themselves and their actions, and how they feel about the labels that have been applied to them. The voices of women who have killed their abusers must be brought into this debate. The life stories of these women can inform the theory used to describe them, illuminating disjunctions between the battered woman syndrome and their own explanations for their actions.

A compassionate look at 42 battered women who felt "locked in with danger and so desperate that they killed a man they loved"; scholarly and compelling.

Based on case studies from the US, UK and Australia, this book looks at the ways in which female killers are constructed in the media, in law and in feminist discourse almost invariably as victims rather than actors in the crimes they commit.

Extrait de la couverture : "Debunking the myths about domestic violence - in defence of battered women who kill : *why do men abuse?, *why don't abused women leave them?, *why do some women kill?, *and why they qualify for legal defence? The Justice for Women Campaign was initiated in 1998 by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. As its name suggests, the campaign seeks to promote the just and equitable treatments of battered women who have killed their abusive partners. The Campaign has three main goals : reforming legal defences to murder and sentencing guidelines ; establishing a review mechanism to allow for the early release of women who have killed abusive partners ; and providing legal and support services to women assisted by the Campaign."