Feminism and the Law

FEMINISM: THE LAST POST

2010-05-02T00:05:00.000-07:00

LIVING IN THE AGE OF 'POST-FEMINISM'

Radical, hairy-legged, anti-male stirrers of yester-year bleating about gender injustice are all so yesterday....We're all equal now....Aren't we?

Sandra Coney, The Last Post for Feminism has perhaps expressed the consternation of many un-post feminists who have surfaced from their most recent battle with sexism only to be advised that their services are no longer required:

I'm not clear who made the decision that the feminist task is completed and we can move on to the next stage. There were no resolutions that I know of passed through feminist conferences, no proclamations in women's bars. It comes as a bit of a shock to find that your redundant, that you've been beavering away on something when it wasn't really necessary...I read about it first in magazines, those oracles of our time. Some journalists obviously spotted for us what we could not see, that the beachhead had been reached while we thought we were still pinned down in the trenches...I'm glad we've arrived at post-feminism...Think of all the things feminists can stop doing...They'll be able to stop writing political tracts, submissions, pamphlets and magazines, and write post-feminist novels instead. For this they'll be able to get Literary Fund grants and university fellowships in letters. They can quit working for shit wages in refuges, rape crisis and women's health centres, and get well-paid jobs instead. They can also find themselves a nice post-feminist man. Heterosexuality is back again; in fact, its essential. Lesbianism is very un-post...It is clear that post-feminists (the female ones) enjoy being girls...The important thing about post-feminism is that women can do anything and some of them are choosing to be sex objects. Well that's fine. In the post-feminist era anything goes: face lifts, teeth capping, hormone replacement therapy, collagen implants, diathermy, liposuction. Get your spare tyres shifted to your tits. Women used to feel pressured to do such things to compete. Not any more. Why put up with the bad bits when you can have them cut out? It's all just good clean post-feminist fun...Post-feminists have good jobs and they earn lots of money so they can get cleaning ladies to clean the loo...Protofeminists tried to get their men to do it half the time. Griping at your man is very retro, very 70s, very pre-post. Post-feminists are more mature and go about it in a different way. Some of them are so perfect they've trained themselves not to go at all...Now I come to think about it, I'm not too sure I qualify as post. I'm too old, too flabby and I'm rude to men. What's worse, I'm not going to do anything about it.

In 1993, Catharine MacKinnon declared that '[f]eminists have this nasty habit of counting bodies and refusing not to notice their gender.' While a few, indefatigable, feminists, including MacKinnon, are still counting (see, eg, MacKinnon, 'Are Women Human and other International Dialogues, 2006), many others have turned away from the counting project. Use of international human rights instruments to challenge State responses to domestic violence has already begun. It is time for feminists to push forward and insist upon a radical restructuring of criminal law responses to male violence towards women. This project, accompanied by a re-invigorated grass roots and academic movement for equality is well overdue.

Media Representations of the Weatherston Trial

2009-07-20T22:17:00.000-07:00

On Jim Mora's Radio New Zealand programme, Chris Trotter expressed his distaste for media coverage of the Weatherston trial - which involved the killing and disfiguring of a woman who was stabbed in the genitals, breasts, and face by her former male partner. At the time of writing this post, the jury are considering Weatherston's guilt or innocence. Today, on the same programme, Linda Clark, ex-presenter of Radio New Zealand's 'Nine to Noon'programme called for media restraint in the reporting of such trials. Rather than challenge legal analyses of a major red flag for dangerousness/lethality, these media commentators advocate a return to the silence that formerly shrouded the determined pursuit of separating women by domestically violent men. The Weatherston trial exposes, in graphic detail, how the social reality of separation violence is subordinated to legal tales of romantic love and male passion. For that, all women should be grateful.

WESTERN MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE ISRAELI ASSAULT ON GAZA

2009-01-09T23:37:00.000-08:00

Capitalist power relations and ability of Western institutions to manipulate the media in order to affirm the status quo is compellingly illustrated by mainstream media coverage of the Israeli bombardment and invasion of Gaza. Israel claims it was forced to slaughter Palestinian men, women and children, because the militant group Hamas, which opposes Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, refused to stop firing rockets into Israeli territory. Accordingly, journalists constructed Israel as the 'true' victim of its latest assault on Palestinians. Israeli aggression was portrayed in the media as a response to provocation by Hamas, or the story of violence by parties who were equally to blame. Finally, today, the truth was revealed.

Responding to this biased media coverage, ex-US President Jimmy Carter publicly stated on CNN that his group approached the Israelis and informed them that Hamas had agreed to stop firing rockets into Israel, if Israel would stop blocking aid to the starving population of Gaza. Israel refused this offer. It was afraid that allowing United Nations aid to the people of Gaza might affirm the legitimacy of Hamas. President Carter notes that by simply allowing aid to Gaza, Israel could have avoided killing almost 800 Palestinians. This death toll continues to rise as Israel continues its assault on the people of Gaza.

These are not the actions of a rational state. Israel's attack on the citizens of Gaza would never be supported by the West were the culprit to be other than Israel. Remember the chorus of condemnation from the West when Russia invaded Georgia in response to Georgian aggression? Many Jews fled to the US after the Holocaust and the US was a major player in the forceful setting up of the state of Israel against the wishes of the indigenous population. (The US also has an appalling history of violence against its own indigenous people.) Ever since, Western imperial powers have felt unable to criticize Israel's human rights transgressions, thereby emboldening Israel to perpetrate more war crimes in the Middle East.

Many Christians believe the Book of Revelations in the Bible prophesizes that Israel will be the last stand of Christians. All people of the world, including non-Christians will know the Second Coming of Christ is nigh when loyal and faithful lovers of God gather in Israel to make a last stand against His enemies. This latest appalling attack by Israel on the people of Palestine should reinforce for all reasonable, peace-loving people that propaganda, from whatever source, and no matter how powerful its supporters, is no substitute for historical and social reality.

THE 'POLITICS OF FAMILY' DERAILED THE POLITICAL LEFT

2008-11-16T14:48:00.000-08:00

ALERT! (24/11/08)
The new National Minister for Social Development Paula Bennett has just called for a national debate over whether mothers are being pushed to go back to work too soon after having children and the implications for society of career-women having children later in time. Ms Bennett, who as a single mother relied for a time on a State benefit, says all parents should be free to choose whether to work or not.

As discussed below, the question remains: How will Ms Bennett and the National-led government define the issue of 'choice'? If in narrow, formalistic terms, we can expect to see more moralising about the demise of the 'traditional family'; attacks on 'fatherless families' (in other words, those that are headed by women); and tax policies which benefit middle and upper-income couples who can afford a 'stay-at-home' parent thereby encouraging these women to become economically dependent, while discriminating against working-class, poor and sole-parent families - the very groups who are most in need of a tax break.
..........................................

This month's election triumph of the Right over the Left which ousted Prime Minister Helen Clark and her Labour-led government prompted Chris Trotter, a leftist male political commentator, to indict the 'gutless, witless men of the barbecue-pit and sports bar' for whom the prospect of an intelligent, idealistic, free-spirited woman with nine years experience in government as their Leader was anathema. Although the 'feckless females' who colluded with these men were relegated to only a minor supporting role; women have always been at the forefront of resisting, as well as promoting women's political, social and economic emancipation.

Take for example, Alexis Stuart's article, which condemns Helen Clark and her Ministers for participating in a feminist conspiracy to coerce mothers into the paid workforce, rob men of their familial roles, while raking in the female tax dollar. This self-described 'stay-at-home mother of three pre-schoolers' blames feminist ideology and the Labour government for relentlessly pursuing gender equity at the expense of mothers' freedom of choice. A Ministry of Women's Affairs focus on achieving women's economic independence is denounced as 'feminist-speak for women in the workforce, children in state day care and men dismissed'.

Yet the State has always viewed women's traditional economic dependence on a male breadwinner largely as a matter of individual choice. As every single mother knows, it is only when mothers become dependent on the State that they are exhorted to enter the paid work force. So it is difficult to understand how the Prime Minister and her co-conspirators could set about prising Ms Stuart out of her marital nest and into the world of paid work. The jackbooted 'Feminazi' will not assist as she is a product of the antifeminist imagination.

The concepts of 'freedom' and 'choice' Ms Stuart endorses are not the substantive, humanistic ideals of the Left, but the formalistic, spiritually-barren lingua franca of the Right. Thus while Ms Stuart argues that it is bondage, not emancipation, when mothers of young children are forced to work outside the home, she is no advocate for her working class and poor sisters whose paid work takes on the greatest importance - which itself is a reflection of social inequality. Rather, her hostility toward 'taxpayer-funded equity' and a just redistribution of wealth (the strategy of President-Elect Obama which similarly enraged Republicans) indicates support for the 'bootstraps' philosophy: 'I pulled myself up by mine; so you should too' which conveniently ignores the obvious and less transparent privileges, advantages and opportunities that accrue to the wealthy.

Forget egalitarianism - the family Ms Stuart champions as the foundation of civilised society is 'grounded in marriage between a man and a woman' with fathers in the paid work force and mothers at home doing the unpaid housework and child caring. Lesbians and gays need not apply. This individualistic, monocultural notion of family has also been criticised by Maori women as eroding te mana me te tapu o te wahine.

Ms Stuart's treatise utilises the ideology and rhetoric of the 'New Right'. This loose coalition of political, religious and antifeminist groups, which arose in reaction to the Women's Movement, projects itself as 'pro-family'. The welfare state is blamed for destroying the fabric of the self-sufficient patriarchal family, undermining the authority of fathers and the moral order of society. Rather than promoting equality of opportunity, the welfare state attempts to create equality of conditions. State expenditure has raised taxes, added to inflation and forced married women into the labour force. George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty which President Ronald Reagan distributed to members of his Cabinet depicts the welfare state as perpetuating poverty. Since the path to upward mobility is the maintenance of marriage and the family, the 'first priority of any serious program against poverty is to strengthen the male role in poor families'.

Intrusion of the 'Nanny State' into the private world of the family sparked nation-wide protest against repeal of legislation permitting parents to use 'reasonable' force to discipline children: which courts interpreted as including use of weapons. (Recent research found New Zealand men are more likely to be supportive of physically disciplining children and opposed to legislation limiting their ability to do so. As Green Party MP Sue Bradford observes, such attitudes have their origins in legal and social constructions of women and children as the property of men.) Nor could one tell from perusing the propaganda of the Right that despite decades of public education and law reform, home is still the most dangerous of all places for women. Indeed, to draw attention to this social reality is interpreted by Ms Stuart as insulting to men.

It is certainly the case that many women gain a sense of self-worth and social esteem from their unpaid child care and housework. However, Ms Stuart's idealised portrait of domesticity from which safe haven the 'artful' Prime Minister and her accomplices seek to wrest recalcitrant mothers is not reflected in the darker mirror of isolation, suburban neurosis and depression associated with the cult of domesticity which helped trigger a wave of women's protest in the sixties and seventies.

The notion that women choose their own oppression is a hallmark of Right-Wing analyses. Accordingly, Ms Stuart has no sympathy with feminist demands for pay equity. The gendered income gap is said to arise largely as a result of women's choices to take part-time and casual work, and time out for children and family. This fails to acknowledge the social reality that assignation of primary responsibility for unpaid child-rearing and domestic work to women - whether or not they also participate in the paid work force - is a central cause of the 'feminisation of poverty'.

Non-market caring work has no monetary value. So women who labour 'for love' rely on an income-earner who is prepared to acknowledge the value of their non-financial contributions and fairly redistribute economic resources. This unequal relationship often breaks down. When it does, studies indicate that the economic costs fall disproportionately on women. A broken or no significant work record, lack of employment-related skills and devaluation of home and caring work reduces women's earnings potential. By contrast, research indicates that the financial position of most men improves significantly after divorce.

Attacks such as Ms Stuart's, on a government dedicated to improving women's economic, social and political situation, may distress, even anger feminists and those committed to a vision of gender equity and social justice. But women who agitate for their own subordination cannot simply be dismissed as 'feckless' or a bunch of loonies. As Andrea Dworkin points out, Right-Wing women are politically savvy and perfectly capable of identifying the buttered side of their bread. Unlike feminists who perceive the antifeminism of Leftist men as somehow more humane than that of the Right, and so ally with men who have no real interest in relinquishing their gender-status privileges; women on the Right refuse to practice selective blindness with regard to male power. Their antifeminism is based on the futility of a liberation movement by the powerless against the powerful. To the extent that feminism jeopardises the bargains they can make; it is a malicious movement.

Our 'post-feminist' society graphically illustrates Richard Delgado's insight that gains are ephemeral if they are won by allying with individuals who really do not have your interests at heart. There is stagnation, even erosion of many historical women's gains. In the Universities, the potentially transformative discipline of feminist studies was sabotaged by demands for the inclusion of men's concerns. The result was a less threatening 'gender studies' which ultimately rendered the project irrelevant. Men still refuse to do their fair share of unpaid work and resist demands for pay equity. Home is still the place where women are more likely to be beaten, raped and killed - as well as robbed of the value of their labour. In the four Nordic countries which the World Economic Forum found to have most reduced gender inequality in economics, education, politics and health, the gap remains at around 80 per cent.

Zillah Eisenstein is sceptical about the possibility of a feminist coalition with men on the Left. She notes that until left-liberals and leftists recognise that the New Right is not simply a purveyor of free market ethics, but is fundamentally concerned with the familial and sexual structuring of society, they will remain ineffective; and it will be feminists who will have to 'fight the Right'.

Therefore men on the left need to sharpen their political analyses and become more engaged in women's struggles. As a first step, rather than focusing on the boorish and sexist attitudes of blokes in sports bars and barbecue-pits (and the 'feckless females who put up with them'); left-wing male commentators could more profitably engage in a reflective analysis of the part they played in the overthrow of a woman Prime Minister and her left-leaning government.

MYTHS, MISCONCEPTIONS & MISOGYNY

2008-09-08T20:51:00.000-07:00

RADIO NZ PANEL DEBATE ON SEXUAL VIOLENCE LAW REFORM:

NEW ZEALAND WOMEN DESERVE BETTER

PART TWO

Jim Mora's Panel discussion of Ministry of Justice proposals for rape law reform with guests Richard Griffin and Garry Moore provides powerful evidence that decades of education and rape law reform aimed at challenging aggressive and proprietary images of masculinity and promoting new visions of equality in heterosexual relationships, have failed.

The Ministry's recommendations were summarily dismissed by Mora as nothing more than an inappropriate demand for written consent to sexual intercourse. Griffin agreed with Mora that the Ministry proposals were 'bad law' - the very idea of formal consent to sex 'beggared the imagination'. These men's criticisms of the Ministry's Discussion Paper were echoed by Moore, who described himself as unable 'to fathom where these people are coming from'!

Yet the Discussion Paper said nothing at all about written consent to sex. Instead, the Paper noted that victims of sexual assaults are the least likely to report violence; that there is good evidence rape survivors continue to be seriously harmed by their experiences in court; and that the conviction rate for sexual offences is lower than that for other crimes. Given that defence counsel in rape trials frequently claim the rape complainant consented to sexual intercourse - despite her denials - the Ministry recommended that New Zealand law follow overseas jurisdictions by providing positive guidance to juries about what constitutes consent. That is, consent is a voluntary choice made by a party who has the freedom and capacity to make that choice. When determining this issue, the jury should have regard to all the circumstances, including any steps the accused took to ascertain whether the complainant was consenting.

This proposal that law should require men to take steps to discover the actual wishes of their intended sex partners appears unobjectionable. However, following its unanimous rejection by the Panel, Mora sought and received confirmation from Warren Brookbanks, a legal scholar that the Ministry was trying to enact 'bad law'. Brookbanks contended that rape law reform in 1985 had already addressed the issue of consent. So 'throwing more law' at the issue was a mistake. Rather than law reform, the focus should be on young New Zealanders' 'boorish and insensitive' sexual behaviour. Although the word rape connotes violence, 'boorish' behaviour implies merely a lack of good manners. Griffin agreed that the issue was one of changing the cultural 'mindset'. Young women particularly should have 'a big, big emblazoned message to them every time they go out' to keep themselves safe. This construction of rape casts men as strong and natural sexual aggressors and women as obliged to guard against their behaviour. Focusing on the rape victim is also central to rape mythology: 'women precipitate rape by their appearance and behaviour [the 'she asked for it' myth]' (McDonald, Her Sexuality as Indicative of His Innocence: The Operation of New Zealand's 'Rape Shield' Provision, 323).

Since rape law views the crime from the perspective of the alleged rapist, the burden is on the prosecution to prove the accused had no reasonable belief that the complainant consented. If the jury cannot decide beyond reasonable doubt, the defendant walks from court a free man. The woman who did not consent is no less raped. However, since her autonomy and freedom is not placed at the centre of the inquiry, it is not her experience that counts. Prior to 1985, the male (for it is invariably a male who is charged with rape) was not even required to show his belief in the woman's consent was reasonable. So an unreasonable belief - one that no ordinary or reasonable person would have held - could secure the offender's acquittal! Supporters of this test of 'unreasonable belief in the woman's consent' such as Glanville Williams, a leading English legal academic, argued that it was unjust to convict the 'stupid man' of rape as except in cases of minor offences, people ought not to be punished for 'inadvertent negligence' (London Times, 8 May 1975).

Brookbanks and his co-author in Principles of Criminal Law appear to have some sympathy with Williams' argument. They suggest that the demand for a reasonable belief in consent should take into account special characteristics of offenders. For example, an offender whose 'youth and inexperience in sexual matters and in interpreting such subtle indicia as consent, might mean that he is more likely to make a mistake that would not be made by an adult' (pages 637-638). This proposition that women's consent to sexual intercourse is such a 'subtle' and ambiguous concept that young men cannot be expected to tell the difference between 'yes' and 'no' is dangerous and deeply offensive. Although it accords with a notion of date/acquaintance rape as 'boorish' or 'insensitive', the crime is no less violent and traumatising for the victim simply because the rapist was sexually inexperienced.

Male legal academics have long portrayed women's consent to sexual intercourse as a 'subtle' concept that is difficult for men to grasp - women often say 'no' when they really mean 'yes'! Moreover, while Griffin expressed his 'bemusement' at the statement by a victim's advocate that many in society believe vindictive women falsely accuse men of rape, and Brookbanks also claimed to be mystified by the comment, assumptions that women are prone to make false allegations of rape have long been enshrined in legal writings:

Glanville Williams tells us - in a manner reminiscent of Freud - that women do not really know what they want, which, by implication is why it is up to men to tell them. For Williams, a woman's consent to sex is 'a hazy concept' and the intentions of women are vacillating, ill-defined and unreliable. This is why women are likely to fabricate stories of rape when really they have only been getting what they desire. Women are odd, they have 'obscure psychological reasons' for behaving as they do. (Naffine, Possession: Erotic Love in the Law of Rape 28, citing Williams, Textbook of Criminal Law 2nd ed, 1983).

Up until 1985, assumptions that women lie about rape meant judges in sexual assault cases were required to warn juries of the danger of convicting the accused on the uncorroborated word of the complainant. The Australian High Court has confirmed the rationale for regarding sexual assault complainants as a suspect class of witnesses was 'that women are not to be trusted, that they make unreliable witnesses, and that the jury needs to receive a warning to that effect' (Naffine, above, 29) Although the requirement for corroboration was abolished in 1985, judges retain a discretion to warn the jury in appropriate cases. In Australia, there is evidence that judges continue to issue the warning despite similar legislation and contrary advice from the High Court (Heath and Naffine, Men's Needs and Women's Desires: Feminist Dilemmas about Rape Law Reform, 42).

The belief that women lie about rape also resulted in grilling the rape complainant about her past sexual history. The misogynist assumption was that the complainant was the type of woman who would consent to sex with another man; so she was likely to have also consented to sex with the defendant. Her sexual history was also used to cast doubt on her credibility: the unchaste woman is not a truthful person. As John Henry Wigmore explained, she makes up stories of sexual assaults in which she is the heroine, or victim:

On the surface, the narration is straightforward and convincing. The real victim, however, too often in such cases is the innocent man; for the respect and sympathy naturally felt by any tribunal for a wronged female helps to give easy credit to such a plausible tale.
(Kinports, Evidence Engendered, 437, citing Wignore, Evidence, 736, rev. ed. 1970)

Although the belief that women are prone to false accusations of rape has long underpinned criminal law and rules of evidence, in fact, statistics show just the opposite. Rape is one of the most under-reported crimes. Furthermore, there is no other category of crime which is subject to such intense scrutiny by police and prosecutors prior to taking the case to trial. Indeed, when considering the pressure involved and courage required to pursue a prosecution, the reasons for declining to contact the police far exceed those for false reporting.

Women's activism led to rape law reform in 1985 which rendered the complainant's sexual history with a person other than the accused inadmissible except by leave of the judge. However, almost a decade later, legal commentary indicated that courts were still allowing evidence of the woman's sexual history to be admitted in ways which reaffirmed rape myths (McDonald, above). In its Discussion Paper, the Ministry of Justice recommends extending the rule which prohibits routine questioning of rape complainants about their past sexual history to include the complainant's history with the defendant. On the Panel, Brookbanks expressed his opposition to this proposal, describing it as a denial of the defendant's fundamental right to confront his accuser - especially where the rape complaint arises from an existing intimate relationship.

However, as feminists point out, rape law could, without violating fundamental ideas of justice, require the reasonableness of the accused's belief to depend on the interaction between the two participants at the time of the act in question. Given that women's bodily integrity and sexual autonomy depend on a requirement of consent for every act of sexual intercourse, the assumption that the complainant's prior sexual activity with the accused is relevant to whether or not she consented on the occasion in question actually amounts to a denial of the complainant's fundamental human rights. Until quite recently, law and legal academics refused to accept that married women could be raped by their husbands. In the words of Lord Hale, a husband 'cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract'. Thus a married woman had no legal right to refuse. To suggest that past sexual history is relevant in cases involving an intimate relationship 'creates the same presumption of permanent consent that has been soundly criticized in marital rape cases' (Kinports, above p 439).

A disturbing feature of law's failure to provide a positive definition of consent is the degree of force that may be used by the male to gain the woman's consent. Although law presently states that a person who submits to sexual intercourse because of actual or threatened use of force or fear of force does not consent, judges have held that consent will not be negated by 'rougher than usual handling'. Although Brookbanks and his co-author in (Principles of Criminal Law, page 628) note this approach is only applicable in the context of a marriage or similar relationship, the view that it is acceptable to secure a wife's consent by subjecting her to 'rougher than usual handling' has been condemned in the Australian context. (Heath & Naffine, above p 37) In the US, judges have also differed over whether 'lightly' choking the complainant is an act of force, or merely a 'heavy caress'.
Thus the authors of Principles of Criminal Law, suggest that 'the parameters of (im)permissible force are not clear' (page 628).

The New Zealand case of R v W [1996] 1 NZLR 147 chillingly illustrates how the law of rape enshrines an aggressive, sexually predatory image of masculinity. In W, the offender served a term of imprisonment for an assault on a woman involving use of a firearm. Some time later the offender went to the same woman's home armed with a knife and insulating tape. He was let into her house by the woman's flatmate. After threatening the flatmate with a knife, the offender forced him to crawl to his bedroom, where he was bound, gagged and tied to the bed. When the woman arrived home, she was confronted by the knife-wielding offender. The head note to this case states that:

[the woman] screamed and suffered what a pathologist described as defensive knife wounds to her arms after which she was dragged or forced into her bedroom where [the offender] cut off her jeans and underclothing. There was a discussion about her relationship with another man, and consensual intercourse took place.

Later, the flatmate heard [the victim] scream loudly again…The flatmate eventually managed to free himself, escaped the house and rang the police who, on arrival, found [the victim] with her throat cut and dead.

Where is the woman who would concede the possibility of free and voluntary consent to sexual intercourse in the above terrifying circumstances? Furthermore, if after being stabbed by the offender, and having her jeans and underclothes cut from her body with the knife, the woman in this case had agreed to sell her car, or other property, no court in the land would uphold a contract negotiated under such conditions. So why is consent to sexual intercourse such an emaciated concept in criminal law?

A major aim of the 1985 reforms was to enhance women's control over their own bodies. However, as Naffine points out, rape law reform is always on the back foot as the sexual relation implicit in law - that of a man who sets the terms and proposes intercourse to a woman, who consents or not to his proposal - remains unchanged. Men are cast as the initiators, and never the negotiators of sexual acts. 'Never does he negotiate with a separate, different, distinctive being with her own set of desires.' By erasing women's subjectivity and sexual autonomy, modern rape law fails to ensure sexual equality for all (Possession: Erotic Love in the Law of Rape 33).

The Ministry's Discussion Paper is available on its website. The deadline for submissions is 30 September 2008 and the address is:

Sexual Violence Legislative Submission
Ministry of Justice
P O Box 180
Wellington

MYTHS, MISCONCEPTIONS & MISOGYNY

2008-09-02T16:28:00.000-07:00

RADIO NZ PANEL DEBATE ON SEXUAL VIOLENCE LAW REFORM:

NEW ZEALAND WOMEN DESERVE BETTER

The Ministry of Justice Discussion Paper on improving legal responses to sexual violence acknowledges that opinions on this matter will differ. When discussing the proposals on 20 August 2008, Jim Mora's choice to invite comments from a male legal academic who opposes the Ministry's suggestions, but not a representative from the Ministry, or a legal scholar who supports sexual violence law reform, ensured the debate was one-sided and biased.

Criminal laws and evidentiary rules originated at a time when women's lives were devalued and law reflected the typical male perspective that many women provoke or 'ask for' physical and sexual assaults. Professor of Law, Elizabeth Schneider notes the resistance of some US judges, lawyers and academics to attempts to reform the law to better reflect women's experiences is 'profound'. ('Resistance to Equality' (1996) U.Pitt.L.Rev 477). New Zealand legal academics also have an unfortunate history of resisting legal reform in relation to male violence toward women. Thus while the Police Commissioner announced in 1987 that police would now arrest domestic violence offenders, the leading family law text declared in 1992 that if 'tempers have already cooled, no matter how serious and recent the violence, an arrest may be inappropriate or indeed provocative' (Family Law in New Zealand, 7510)

Since as Schneider points out: 'in all legal cases, the critical struggle is who gets to define the facts', the other side of the reform debate will shortly be published on this website.

FATHERS' RIGHTS, MOTHERS' PROTECTION & GENDER BIAS

2008-08-21T21:18:00.000-07:00

RADIO NEW ZEALAND: 'AFTERNOONS WITH JIM MORA'
UNBIASED ANALYSES Or A PLATFORM FOR PROPAGANDA?

Mainstream media commentators are prone to smug comparisons between their own supposedly politically neutral and valueless news reporting; and that of 'activist' bloggers whose critical analyses are far less trustworthy due to some personal axe they are grinding. This notion that there is a state of 'point-of-viewlessness' from whence 'real' news comes has of course been thoroughly debunked by social scientists. Its mythical status is nowhere more evident than in Jim Mora's Radio NZ Panel discussions of so-called 'issues of the day' with recycled, politically conservative guests and the occasional progressive commentator - whose function appears the pre-emption of complaints that Mora is cynically utilising this forum to propound his own gendered perceptions of law and society.

Mora's discussion on 31 July 2008 with guests Gary McCormick and Bomber Bradbury of an Australian report indicating that over 20,000 Australian parents 'mainly Dads' have avoided liability for child support by fleeing overseas (around 7,600 New Zealand parents have apparently absconded to Australia to avoid financial responsibility for their kids), eschewed even a feigned objectivity. His choice of Sue Price from 'Australia's Men's Rights Agency' as 'expert' commentator, rather than say: a child poverty researcher; an authority on the growth of female poverty in New Zealand (Anglican Family Centre research found many single parent, mainly women-led families are living below the poverty line); or a representative of the beneficiaries' advisory service, secured dissemination of the usual myths, misconceptions and misogyny which obstruct efforts to hold fathers equally accountable for the well-being of children.

The discussion began with Bradbury noting a disjunction between the generally sympathetic tone of discourses regarding irresponsible fathers; and the constant identification in political and media discourses of solo mothers as responsible for much social malaise requiring deterrence against moral impropriety and financial irresponsibility. Predictably, Mora retorted that Bradbury needed to 'walk a mile in these men's shoes!' McCormick railed against an unjust bureaucratic and legal system which loaded desperate fathers with unreasonable debt, destroyed their prospects of future happiness and deprived them of hope. His anecdotal tales of gender bias against men in the courts and bureaucracy revealed, so he said, that New Zealand men felt 'under attack'. According to McCormick:

a lot of men in New Zealand feel the system is geared up against them. Until we change that, until men feel they can go into some bureaucratic forum or deal with people in some office where they feel they have a fighting chance to be heard and understood, then forget it, they will flee - and I understand why they do it!

Enter Sue Price from the Australian Men's Rights forum who drew the Panel's attention to a 'hidden agenda' (the proposed conspirators were not identified). The problem, as her organisation saw it, was an education and social system which sent the message to men that they were neither wanted nor needed. Mothers told fathers to go away, and they did so, without question. Mora queried of Price whether she was talking about 'the feminisation of child rearing'. 'Yes' said Price, this was exactly the problem. Hey Presto! The social phenomenon of the 'feminisation of poverty' was transformed into a problem of too many mothers!

What's more, said Price, warming to her theme, the 'gentlemen' on the Panel were probably unaware that more mothers kill and abuse children than fathers. "Well said, Sue. Come over to New Zealand!" gushed McCormick. Although the Panel discussion had originally focused on 'delinquent dads', this encouraged Price to follow her revelation about the violent propensities of mothers with the startling announcement that most liable parents who don't pay are not fathers, but mothers. 'Well done!' chortled McCormick. (The epicurean metaphor of 'having one's cake and eating it too' appeared lost on McCormick who simultaneously linked a study indicating women are generally happier than men with his assertion that men are rendered hopeless by their inability to pay child support.) The real problem as constructed by this Panel was not mother/child poverty or financially irresponsible fathers; but abusive, financially dead-beat mothers!

Almost two decades ago, Carol Smart, a leading feminist criminologist warned that the more feminist and minority groups resort to law, the more hostility is generated. 'A backlash is created that may take the form of violence, or a counter-use of law to re-establish traditional rights which will nullify minority rights.' (Feminism and the Power of Law, 138) Although the Domestic Violence Act 1995 was largely a response to Sir Ronald Davison's Report which found 'the laws relating to domestic protection and to protection of children in custody and access situations…are inadequate to deal with the types of domestic violence that we are currently faced with', domestic violence law reform has been denounced by the 'Social Equity Forum' which criticises society as 'increasingly unbalanced with many sexist/gendered laws and practices'. A spokesman for 'New Zealand Men for Equal Rights Association' is also reported as labelling New Zealand law 'a sexist bitch' and complaining that feminists are bullying the 'injustice system'.

A troubling aspect of such claims is their uncritical acceptance despite the absence of empirical support. Recent legal commentary indicates a decline in effective implementation of the Domestic Violence Act coinciding with a period of intense activity by, and publicity for, the Fathers' Rights movement (Davis, 'Gender Bias, Fathers' Rights, Domestic Violence and the Family Court' [2004] BFLJ 299). Alarmingly, claims of judicial bias against men have apparently resulted in courts lifting the bar for without-notice protection orders. Of particular concern is a report by the New Zealand Collective of Women's Refuges indicating that women are losing confidence in the legal and justice system.

It is therefore essential that the claims of Men's Rights groups are subjected to critical scrutiny:

Myth Number One: The Family Court is Biased Against Men
New Zealand Family Violence Prevention Strategy and Ministry of Health Intervention Guidelines acknowledge separation from an abusive male partner as posing an elevated risk of violence toward women and children. Stalking, harassment and violation of protection orders are also associated with an increased risk of dangerousness/lethality (See, eg, London Metropolitan Police, Domestic Violence Risk Assessment). However, research indicates that New Zealand women in red flag situations are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain temporary protection orders.

The following case study grimly reveals Father's Rights claims that women are using temporary orders as a weapon to cut fathers out of their children's lives are maintained even when the woman who obtained the temporary protection order is killed! The woman in this case was stalked and harassed by her jealous, possessive ex-partner, who repeatedly threatened to kill her and communicated those threats to members of his family and friends. The woman obtained a temporary protection order, but was killed by her ex-partner while picnicking with her family in a park. The deceased woman's brother told the media his sister 'had been begging authorities for help' to protect her from the offender before she was killed.

However, in court, the offender was portrayed as a loving family man, driven to kill his estranged partner by her actions in seeking a temporary protection order and restricting his access to his child. Following his conviction, the offender's defence counsel publicly complained about the provisions in the Domestic Violence Act that permit the granting of temporary protections orders:

Defence counsel, Dr Donald Stevens, doesn't practice family law so was shocked when he read the Domestic Violence Act that outlines protection orders. He said the balance has been lost. 'It infuriates fathers so much' he says 'to no longer have access or interim custody…and it was done behind their back'. It could, he adds, send people over the edge. He said it suits the applicant to get the order but also to allow some contact, but doesn't always work when dealing with those emotionally troubled or angry over the way they have been treated (Evening Post, 27/10/2001).

This assertion that interim protection orders erode the rights of fathers and provoke violence against women overlooks clear testimony in this case that the offender had originally been given liberal access to his child and had exercised access 'whenever he wanted'. It was only after an alleged act of violence by the offender toward the deceased woman's new partner that she stopped access in order to get 'things sorted out properly in court'. The offender's family were also well aware of the danger he posed to his ex-partner. Indeed, the offender's own father contacted the woman and warned her of his son's potential for violence. The chilling reality that this woman was killed in the presence of her child surely constitutes evidence that her concerns for her own and her child's safety were justified!

Nevertheless, following the trial another male publicly speculated that 'draconian non-custodial-parent-rules' meant the offender in this case would get better access to his son now his estranged partner was dead and he was in prison. In stark contrast, New Zealand research reveals that 'what motivates almost all women who apply for protection orders is fear and a desire to make themselves and their children safe.' Australian research also demonstrates that 'most women who had experienced violence in their relationships still wanted their children to have some contact with their other parent, but what they sought (and often did not get) was an arrangement that ensured the safety of the children and themselves' (Davis, above).

Myth Number Two: The Judiciary Deprive Men of their Rights
The object of the Domestic Violence Act as set out in s 5(1) is to reduce and prevent violence in domestic relationships by a) recognising that all forms of domestic violence are unacceptable and b) ensuring that, where domestic violence occurs, there is effective legal protection for victims. However, the leading New Zealand family law text notes these twin principles may conflict with the rights of offenders.

For example, the authors cite a case in which two daughters applied for a protection order against their father who was about to be released from prison following his conviction on charges of sexually abusing them. The judge refused to strike out the father's defence as an abuse of process ruling that the defence should stand even if it meant that the father in this case could cross-examine the daughters he abused. The case, said the judge, was a graphic illustration of the conflict between the stated objects of the Domestic Violence Act and the respondent's right to defend the making of a protection order and to be heard (Butterworths Family Law in New Zealand, 1433).

In a similar example, the offender who was serving a term of imprisonment for assaulting his estranged partner, telephoned her from prison in breach of her protection order. A Visiting Judge found him guilty of gross misconduct. The offender sought judicial review of this decision. The High Court held that a violent offender who breaches his victim's protection order by contacting her from prison is entitled to demand that she enter the prison to give evidence and be exposed to cross-examination by himself or his counsel.

The judge acknowledged that neither legislation nor any blanket common law rule excluded the admission of hearsay evidence in disciplinary proceedings; so the case could easily have been decided differently. The fact it was not, demonstrates a worrying lack of judicial awareness of estrangement as a red flag for dangerousness/lethality. Since this decision provides offenders with the opportunity to use the legal system to further control and intimidate their victims it should have been controversial.

Myth Number Three: Children are More Frequently Abused and Killed by their Mothers than their Fathers
It is truly astonishing that this particular myth can be maintained and perpetuated despite all the evidence to the contrary. The Ministry of Justice (2001) study of sentencing outcomes for offences against adult and child victims found 91 per cent of offenders were male. Men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of child sexual abuse. Ministry of Justice statistics also show that of a total of 3063 convictions for non-sexual child abuse over seven offence categories during the period 1990 to 1999, 2285 of the offences were committed by men and 778 by women.

Contrary to allegations that mothers are the principle perpetrators of lethal violence against children, a 1997 New Zealand study reveals that of children intentionally killed between 1988 and 1995, 38 per cent were killed by a father figure: 24 per cent were killed by their natural father; and 14 per cent by their step-father or de facto parent; mothers were killers in 12 per cent of cases (Dads Are Killing Kiwi Kids, Sunday News, 13/7/97).

As noted by the Victorian Law Reform Commission, mothers are often placed in a 'no win' situation. 'They are often judged bad mothers by the community if they stay in a violent relationship, but bad mothers if they leave and take the children with them.' Although women who remain in abusive relationships risk prosecution for failing to protect children, and may have their children removed; criticism by politicians and Fathers' Rights supporters of 'fatherless families' and the supposed deprivation of fathers' relationship with children under the Domestic Violence Act put pressure on women, especially women with young children to remain in abusive relationships. Although studies indicate that, if consulted, many children would tell their mothers not to stay in the relationship for their sake, cultural messages that the 'good' wife remains with her husband and the 'good' mother keeps the family together send the message that women ought to stay in unhappy or abusive relationships. New Zealand research found this social pressure clearly contributed to the deaths of some women and children in the study.

The Domestic Purposes Benefit (DPB) was an acknowledgement of the value of women's unpaid work. However, women's economic dependence is perpetuated by stigmatising sole parent (mainly women-headed) families. Increasingly punitive responses to sole parent mothers, including, but not limited to cutting benefit levels, not only devalues their unpaid child caring work but also detracts from the safety of New Zealand woman and children. It is therefore incumbent on the state to improve women and children's ability to safely exit intimate relationships and to enforce men's financial accountability for the well-being of their children.

GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER (I): THE VIOLENT PURSUIT OF THE SEPARATED WOMAN

2008-06-25T17:30:00.000-07:00

THE 'CRIME OF PASSION'

There is indisputable evidence that women and children are at increased danger of violence when they leave an intimate relationship. A wealth of social science research has identified separation as a major risk factor for lethal and sub-lethal violence against women (and sometimes other family members and children). National domestic violence policy and Ministry of Health guidelines also warn of the increased risk of violence around the period of separation. However, while the evidence that separation is a primary risk factor for dangerousness/lethality is undeniable, cultural and legal tales of romantic love and male passion have masked this social reality.

Acts of violence against separated and separating women are constructed in law as 'tragic' and 'sad' (as opposed to despicable) crimes of passion. Offenders are said to experience 'cascades of violent emotion', or 'disordered thought processes' which render them unable (as opposed to unwilling) to control themselves and deal non-violently with the end of the relationship. As noted by the Victorian Law Reform Commission, in books and movies we often see the man who is 'driven crazy by love' lashing out at the woman he believes has betrayed him. Judges also accept that jealous men who pursue and kill women who have left them 'really loved' their victims and could not bear losing them.

This 'crime of passion' image underpins the defence of provocation, which partially excuses intentional killings if something said or done by the deceased victim or in some cases a third party was sufficient to deprive the offender of the power of self-control, and thereby induce him to kill. The offender's behaviour is judged by an estimation of the type of conduct that would provoke an 'ordinary' person to lose his self-control and kill. So who is this ordinary person?

Joshua Dressler (a US legal academic) provides a clue by citing a case in which the defence was available to an offender who broke into a woman's home and killed her after she told him she was not 'falling in love' with him and refused to accept his gifts. Dressler makes it clear that the 'ordinary person' may also kill a woman who asserts her right to choose her sexual partners:

[A]ssume that M and W have regular sexual relations with each other. M deeply loves W and asks W to marry him. She refuses. He asks W to live with him, but again she refuses, stating that she is not yet prepared to commit herself to anyone. Nonetheless, they continue to see each other and have sexual relations. One day, M comes to W's apartment and finds W in bed with X. Perhaps M is not justified in becoming angry - W has not wronged M, since she never promised sexual fidelity to him - but few people would disagree that M may be excused for being disturbed by the sighting. His emotions are excusable because an ordinary person, with an ordinary temper and ordinary feelings, would likely become emotionally overwrought in such circumstances. Therefore, if M kills W while he is overwrought [assuming that M did not have time to cool off] the homicide may be partially excusable.
(Dressler, When 'Heterosexual' Men Kill 'Homosexual' Men: Reflections on Provocation Law, Sexual Advances, and the 'Reasonable' Man Standard, (1995) Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 726).

Given a wealth of research showing most homicides between intimate partners are perpetrated by men, and most of these killings stem from jealousy and sexual possessiveness; while in the relatively rare cases in which women kill, they are usually responding to violence and aggression by the male (see, for example: Kenneth Polk, When Men Kill: Scenarios of Masculine Violence, 1994) it is clear that the violent, sexually aggressive and possessive 'ordinary' person of the provocation defence is, in reality, a male!

Polk's study revealed the 'crime of passion' to be a fiction. Rather than spontaneous, unplanned violence, perpetrated by men who suddenly 'snap' or 'crack', a large percentage of homicides involving sexual intimacy where men killed women were clearly planned in advance. The killings of separated partners involved 'careful tracking' of the victim; 'scouting out of her movements to determine where and when she will be vulnerable to attack'; and repeated threats to kill, including the wife-killer's mantra: If I Can't Have Her, Nobody Can!

Despite this social reality, the provocation defence is available to men who harass and stalk their ex-partners, invade their homes, often under cover of night, and kill the terrified women often in breach of their protection orders, and often in the presence of their children. Although judges would be unlikely to accept that an offender who invaded a stranger's home could be provoked to kill by some irate words of the householder, the defence is available to men who kill their ex-partners in this situation. Furthermore, although protection orders were intended to enhance protection for victims of domestic violence, courts have accepted women's conduct in seeking a protection order and reporting the killer's prior violence to police as supporting a provocation defence for their killers.

Rebecca Bradfield, an Australian legal scholar notes the availability of the provocation defence to men who pursue and kill estranged partners 'suggests that…the legally endorsed position in respect of the status of a relationship is that "it ain't over, until HE says it is!"' Where the deceased woman was trying to safely exit a violent relationship and courts nevertheless allow a provocation defence for her killer, they are providing an opportunity for offenders with essentially 'unclean hands' to avoid a murder conviction. As Victoria Nourse points out, since civil law grants wives the right to leave unhappy/abusive relationships, these violent offenders are acting as legislators, as well as judges and executioners. (Nourse, Passion's Progress: Modern Law Reform and the Provocation Defense (1997) Yale Law Journal 1331)

In patriarchy…there is an illusory (private) metaphysics at work giving men the authority to deal with their women without regard to the relational question of whether they really are their women any longer. If a man loves a woman in his mind, that is, as it were, where the action is. So, in his mind she is still his woman no matter what is going on in the real world.
(Michael Detmold, Provocation to Murder: Sovereignty and Multiculture (1997) Sydney Law Review 5)

National domestic violence policy calls for healthy gender roles and non-violent models of masculinity. Although women's sexual autonomy is crucial to an egalitarian, non-violent model of heterosexual relationships, the myth of romantic love and male passion has masked a structural pattern of lethal and sub-lethal separation violence against women. Thus despite legislation acknowledging separation violence can extend to the woman's new partner; the defence appears especially likely to succeed if the deceased victim had chosen to begin her life anew with another, perhaps less abusive male. In the cruellest of ironies, Ministry of Health guidelines include a patient resource to assist women to prepare for separation and achieve long term safety after separation. Women are advised to start secret savings accounts, and make other secret arrangements, while trying to avoid arousing their partners' suspicions. Such conduct provides fertile grounds for a provocation claim based on female duplicity and deceit when the woman who follows this advice is killed.

In the absence of acknowledgement of separation violence, battered women charged with failing to protect children from hearing or witnessing domestic abuse are assumed to be free to pack their bags and walk out the door. While studies show women's inability to protect themselves from severe aggression, coupled with a lack of safe alternatives are common factors in incidents of lethal violence by women; when the battered woman who fears for her life, and cannot see a way to safely escape, kills her abuser while he is drunk or asleep, she is denied access to the defence of self-defence by a social and legal system which ignores the 'red flag' of separation violence and continues to demand:

WHY DIDN'T SHE LEAVE?

GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER (III): THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

2008-06-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

The furore and finger-pointing at the police by persons, including some who should know better, in the wake of acquittals following three recent high profile murder trials ignores the reality that the majority of these cases (two out of the three) involved allegations of domestic violence. In the Kahui case, the accused father was found not guilty of killing his twin baby sons. In the Gwaze case, the accused was acquitted of the sexual violation and murder of his 10 year-old niece.

Such crimes of physical and sexual domestic violence are notoriously difficult to prosecute. By its nature, domestic violence is a private crime. Thus in the majority of cases there are no independent witnesses. If the family of the accused are uncooperative, the chances of a succesful prosecution are further diminished. Furthermore, if the accused elects not to give evidence, the Crown cannot cross-examine him. Defence lawyers can therefore attack the credibility of prosecution witnesses; while the jury are deprived of the opportunity to observe the demeanour of the accused and have the reliability of his evidence tested under cross-examination.

The private character of domestic violence also lends itself to the defence strategy of 'blame someone else (usually the child's mother) for the offending'. This approach was successfully employed in the Kahui case. The same strategy was successful in at least one other New Zealand case in which the accused was acquitted of murdering his 10 month-old stepson. Police in this case also stated that they were not contemplating any further investigation.

In another New Zealand case, the accused, who was charged with the murder of his partner's 16 month-old son, maintained that someone else, probably the child's mother was responsible for the child's death. At trial, the Crown accepted that evidence the accused had previously assaulted the child's mother when she attempted to remonstrate with him about his violence toward the child was inadmissible. However, the conduct of defence counsel when cross-examining the mother led to a successful application by the Crown to adduce this evidence. Had the defence lawyer in this case elected not to cross-examine the mother in this way, evidence that the accused had perpetrated acts of violence against the child's mother in response to her attempts to protect the child would not have been heard by the jury.

The private nature of domestic violence and non-cooperation of the accused and family members may also result in the case coming down to a contest between prosecution and defence expert witnesses. James Q Wilson notes that: "There is no lawyer worth his hire who cannot find an expert to testify in a way that will help his client, even though the opposing lawyer has his own expert testifying with equal assurance on the other side." In one case in which the forensic evidence consisted of testimony from fire experts, the tests used by the defence in an effort to exonerate the accused were also used by the prosecution. Thus a case may turn on which interpretation of the evidence jurors believe.

If the evidence leaves the jury with any reasonable doubt as to the accused's guilt they must acquit even if they believe him or her to be guilty. Thus an acquittal does not certify that the defendant is innocent. (Nor does a plea of not-guilty imply a contention by the accused that he or she is not criminally liable.)

Media claims by some defence lawyers that the recent acquittals are reflections of the quality of police investigations operate as a smokescreen which obscures the domestic violence elephant in the room.

It is also disingenuous to point the finger at the Prime Minister for articulating the concern of many New Zealanders about these cases. The reported description by one defence lawyer of the PM's comments as: "politics stepping into the arena of the justice system, the legal system" implies that the legal system is itself, apolitical. However, from the creation of a special offence of petty treason for adulterous wives, and judicial depictions of the Treaty of Waitangi as a 'nullity'; through to modern notions that women say 'no' to sexual intercourse when they really mean 'yes'; that marriage is a state of bliss reserved for heterosexuals; and that 'ordinary' persons would understandably react with lethal violence to a non-violent sexual advance by a gay male, law has revealed itself to be a thoroughly political institution.

Furthermore, the perception of criminal law as an autonomous body of rules which is immune from prevailing cultural norms and values has been thoroughly debunked by legal academics and discerning judges. "Every decisionmaker who walks into a courtroom to hear a case is armed not only with the relevant legal texts, but with a set of values, experiences and assumptions that are thoroughly embedded." (Madame Justice Bertha Wilson, 'Will Women Judges Really Make a Difference?')

It is past time to re-examine the ways these values and norms are reflected in criminal law policy and practice in relation to domestic violence. However, although many overseas jurisdictions have undertaken reform of criminal laws and evidentiary rules in domestic violence cases, civil liberties and defence lawyers in New Zealand, as well as some left-wing male activists, may find it less personally challenging, and therefore much more palatable, to simply blame the police.

ABOUT ME: THE MEDEA SYNDROME

2008-05-09T22:12:00.000-07:00

MEDEA…enchantress, daughter of King Aeetes of Colchis, falls in love with Jason and conspires with him to steal the Golden Fleece from her father. The couple marry and have two children. In Euripides' play, Jason seeks to advance his political ambitions by forsaking Medea and marrying the daughter of King Creon. The evil Medea draws on her powers of sorcery in a blood-curdling plot to kill her rival. In a vain attempt to save his daughter, Creon is also killed. Medea, in an ultimate act of wickedness, butchers her two children and displays their bodies before their horrified father, Jason.

This story of betrayal, jealousy and revenge epitomises the wisdom of the ages, that:

'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!'

HANG ON!!.....Jealousy and heart break for women leads to binging and weight gain, not homicide.

Social scientists point out that the reality of the Medea Syndrome is something altogether different:

Men often kill wives after lengthy periods of prolonged physical violence accompanied by other forms of abuse and coercion; the roles in such cases are seldom reversed. Men perpetrate familial massacres, killing spouse and children together; women do not. Men commonly hunt down and kill wives who have left them; women hardly ever behave similarly. Men kill wives as part of planned murder-suicides; analogous acts by women are almost unheard of. Men kill in response to revelations of wifely infidelity; women almost never respond similarly, though their mates are more often adulterous. The evidence is overwhelming that a large proportion of the spouse-killings perpetrated by wives, but almost none of those perpetrated by husbands, are acts of self defence. (Dobash, Dobash, Wilson and Daly, 'The Myth of Sexual Symmetry in Marital Violence')

Graeme Coss, a (male) legal academic ('Provocation, Law Reform and the Medea Syndrome') notes that 'when Hollywood tackled a succession of films about homicidal stalkers, oversexed serial killers and crazed sexual harrassers, in all instances Michael Douglas was the victim of Medea-like women: Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction (1987), Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct (1991) and Demi Moore in Disclosure (1994)'....

Although law students and legal academics have also encountered Medea many times, as Coss observes: 'The reality I discovered is that Medea is almost always a man.
And whatever fury Hell unleashes, its gender is decidedly male.'