Battered Women and Mandatory Minimum Sentences

The author argues for the repeal of mandatory minimum sentences based upon their role in the distortion of defences available to battered women on trial for the homicide of their violent mates. After reviewing other legal strategies aimed at eliminating the discriminatory biases facing women who attempt to plead self-defence, and illustrating the ways in which defences to murder are distorted, she turns to the examination of the transcript of a recent murder trial for a woman who argued self-defence. The author uses the transcript to provide concrete illustrations of three ways in which self-defence is distorted by the mandatory life sentence for murder. She considers prosecutorial guidelines as another possible legal strategy, but concludes that nothing short of repeal of the mandatory life sentence can redress the power imbalance between prosecutor and accused and provide battered women with an opportunity to proceed to trial and have their actions recognized as justified by way of self-defenc

The Role of Pornography in the Rough Sex Defence in Canada

Drawing upon the authors’ earlier research studying the consent defence when it is used to suggest that the complainant agreed to “rough sex” involving violence, this paper develops an extended analysis of the complex role of pornography in these decisions. This paper focuses on a subset of “rough sex” cases, where pornography played a role in “scripting” the accused’s behaviour. Thematically, these cases included: those where the accused had a substantial history of consumption of violent pornography; cases in which the accused forced the complainant to view pornography as part of the assault; cases where the accused recorded the attack, engaging in the making of pornography themselves; and finally those cases where the airing of the “rough sex” defence in the courtroom, including cross-examination based on the re-playing of the recordings made by the accused, creates a “theatre of pornography.” The authors underline concerns about the growing role of pornography in sexual violence against women, and propose both legal and nonlegal strategies in response. S’appuyant sur les recherches antérieures des auteurs qui étudient la défense de consentement lorsqu’elle est utilisée pour suggérer que la plaignante a accepté des « rapports sexuels brutaux » impliquant de la violence, cet article développe une analyse approfondie du rôle complexe de la pornographie dans ces décisions. L’article se concentre sur un sous-ensemble d’affaires de « sexe brutal », où la pornographie a joué un rôle dans la « scénarisation » du comportement de l’accusé. Sur le plan thématique, ces affaires comprennent : les cas où l’accusé a un lourd passé de consommation de pornographie violente; les cas où l’accusé a forcé la plaignante à regarder de la pornographie dans le cadre de l’agression; les cas où l’accusé a enregistré l’agression, se livrant lui-même à la production de pornographie; et enfin les cas où la présentation de la défense de « sexe brutal » dans la salle d’audience, y compris le contre-interrogatoire basé sur la relecture des enregistrements effectués par l’accusé, crée un « théâtre de la pornographie ». Les auteurs soulignent les préoccupations concernant le rôle croissant de la pornographie dans la violence sexuelle à l’égard des femmes et proposent des stratégies juridiques et non juridiques pour y répondre

Canadian Feminist Perspectives on Law

This paper provides an overview of Canadian feminist literature on law, starting with a brief chronology of the development of the scholarship from the time of the Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (1970). The authors break the literature down into the five substantive areas most often written about: criminal law, family law, income redistribution, employment law, and legal education/legal profession. They also examine the major theoretical frameworks that feminists use: liberal (rule equality) feminism; result-equality/integrative feminism; radical feminism; and socialist feminism. In addition to providing an extensive bibliography of existing Canadian feminist legal scholarship, the authors identify significant themes and characteristics of the literature and illustrate how feminist scholarship can be differentiated from non-feminist scholarship. The authors conclude that Canadian feminist scholarship on law is gaining rapidly in abundance, depth, and diversity. They also conclude that it is innovative in developing feminist theoretical perspectives that recognize the significance of law and theories of equality that acknowledge women\u27s specificities. Feminists writing on law are urged to utilize theoretical perspectives to a greater degree in order to facilitate the development of short term and long term strategies, and to explain apparent contradictions in the ways in that the legal system affects women

The Role of Pornography in the “Rough Sex” Defence in Canada

Drawing upon the authors’ earlier research studying the consent defence when it is used to suggest that the complainant agreed to “rough sex” involving violence, this paper develops an extended analysis of the complex role of pornography in these decisions. This paper focuses on a subset of “rough sex” cases, where pornography played a role in “scripting” the accused’s behaviour. Thematically, these cases included: those where the accused had a substantial history of consumption of violent pornography; cases in which the accused forced the complainant to view pornography as part of the assault; cases where the accused recorded the attack, engaging in the making of pornography themselves; and finally those cases where the airing of the “rough sex” defence in the courtroom, including cross-examination based on the re-playing of the recordings made by the accused, creates a “theatre of pornography.” The authors underline concerns about the growing role of pornography in sexual violence against women, and propose both legal and non-legal strategies in response

Resurrecting “She Asked for It”: The Rough Sex Defence in Canadian Courts

According to rape crisis centres and women’s shelters in Canada, the US and the UK, women are reporting extreme levels of violence by men who rape them, including strangulation—a particularly dangerous form of violence that is highly predictive of femicide. At the same time, accused men are deploying the “rough sex” defence when the victim—nearly always a woman—has suffered bodily harm or even death as a result of the accused’s actions. This defence is used to suggest that the woman enjoyed strangulation, bondage or other violence as part of “sex play”, inviting judges and jurors to find that she either consented to the acts causing bodily harm or that the man honestly believed she consented

Social Comparisons, Social Support, and Self-Perceptions in Group Exercise for People With Parkinson's Disease

People with Parkinson's disease (PD) may experience declining function and limited interaction with others with PD. Group exercise provides opportunities for physical accomplishment and social support, as well as potential social challenges. We used interpretative phenomenological analysis to examine experiences of social comparison, social support, and self-perceptions of 20 people with PD in group exercise. Participants experienced (a) reticence evolving to inspiration, (b) anxiety relief through camaraderie and breaking taboos, and (c) maintaining athletic identity through participating and helping others. Practical implications include facilitating a safe space and support to alleviate anxiety and sustain participation

Tracking and Resisting Backlash Against Equality Gains in Sexual Offence Law

The authors document feminist efforts to expose, challenge, and eliminate direct, indirect, and systemic inequality in the substantive, evidentiary, and procedural laws proscribing sexual offences and in the enforcement and application of those laws have not only been consistently resisted by police, lawyers, judges, and juries, but have also consistently generated backlash against those responsible for and/or supportive of such egalitarian change. Actual and imagined social, economic, political and legal equality gains by women as a class-however unevenly distributed- have triggered a variety of types of backlash, including an escalation in actual or threatened violence against women accompanied by new equality-resistant strains of legal doctrine that effectively offset or bypass earlier reforms. The authors illustrate these forms of backlash by examining three decades of feminist reforms to sexual assault laws

A mixed-methods study exploring women’s perceptions of terminology surrounding fertility and menstrual regulation in Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria

Women use various terms when discussing the management of their fertility and menstrual irregularities and may interpret the experience of ending a possible pregnancy in nuanced ways, especially when their pregnancy status is ambiguous. Our study aims to understand the terminology used to refer to abortion-like experiences (specifcally menstrual regulation and pregnancy removal), and the specifc scenarios that these practices encompass among women who reported doing something to bring back a late period or ending a pregnancy in Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire.Our analysis draws upon surveys with women in Nigeria (n=1114) and Cote d’Ivoire (n=352). We also draw upon qualitative in-depth interviews with a subset of survey respondents in Anambra and Kaduna States in Nigeria, and Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire (n=30 in both countries). We examine survey and interview questions that explored women’s knowledge of terminology pertaining to ending a pregnancy or bringing back a late period. Survey data were analyzed descriptively and weighted, and interview data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis