Law's (masculine) violence: Reshaping jurisprudence

Law and Critique

Volumn 17, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 27-46

  Hunter, Rosemary ^a  

^a GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

Feminist scholarships; Gender; Homophobic violence; Jurisprudence; Law's violence; Violence against women

Indexed keywords

EID: 33646717739     PISSN: 09578536     EISSN: 15728617     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1038/sj.bdj.4813120     Document Type: Review

References (173)

1. C.J. Greenhouse, 'Reading Violence', in A. Sarat and T.R. Kearns, eds, Law's Violence (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 105, 106.
2. The major contributors to this jurisprudence have been Robert Cover, (see M. Minow, M. Ryan and A. Sarat, eds, Narrative, Violence and the Law: The Essays of Robert Cover (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992));
3. Jacques Derrida (J. Derrida, 'Force of Law: The 'Mystical Foundation of Authority'", Cardozo Law Review 11 (1990), 920)
4. , Austin Sarat and Thomas Kearns (A. Sarat and T.R. Kearns, 'A Journey Through Forgetting: Toward a Jurisprudence of Violence', in A. Sarat and T.R. Kearns, eds. The Fate of Law (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 209;
5. A. Sarat and T.R. Kearns, eds, Law's Violence (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993);
6. A. Sarat, ed., Law, Violence and the Possibility of Justice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001)),
7. and Costas Douzinas (C. Douzinas and R. Warrington, 'A Well-Founded Fear of Justice: Law and Ethics in Postmo-dernity', in J. Leonard, ed., Legal Studies as Cultural Studies: A Reader in (Post) Modern Critical Theory (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995), 197).
8. Sarat and Kearns, 1991, ibid,;
9. A. Sarat and T.R. Kearns, 'Introduction', in Sarat and Kearns, 1993, ibid.
10. D. Hay, 'Time, Inequality, and Law's Violence', in Sarat and Kearns, 1993, supra n. 2, at 141, 167-69.
11. J. Pugliese, 'Cartographies of Violence: Heterotopias and the Barbarism of Western Law', Australian Feminist Law Journal 1 (1996), 24.
12. See also S. Pritchard, 'Between Justice and Law in Aotearoa New Zealand: Two Case Studies', Law and Critique 11 (2000), 267;
13. S. Cheng, 'Civilization and the Two Faces of Law: J.M. Coetzee's 'Waiting for the Barbarians', Cardozo Law Review 24 (2003), 2349.
14. I use this admittedly awkward compound term in recognition that the various writers upon whose work I draw do not subscribe to a single category, but rather identify their work variously under the rubric of 'gay', 'lesbian' or 'queer'.
15. My thanks to one of the anonymous referees for this point.
16. Sarat and Kearns, supra n. 3, at 4.
17. M. Drakopoulou, 'Of the Founding of Law's Jurisdiction and the Politics of Sexual Difference: The Case of Roman Law', in S. McVeigh, ed., Jurisprudence of Jurisdiction (London: University College Press, forthcoming 2006).
18. Derrida, supra n. 2, at 985-989.
19. See, for example. Green v R (1997) 191 C.L.R. 334;
20. E.K. Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), 19-20;
21. A. Howe, The Provocation Defence: Finally Provoking Its Own Demise', Melbourne University Law Review 22 (1998), 466;
22. B. Statham, The Homosexual Advance Defence: "Yeah, I killed him, but he did worse to me'", University oj'Queensland Law Journal 20 (1999), 301;
23. S.A. Tomsen, Hatred, Murder, Male Honour: Anti-Homosexual Homicides in New South Wales 1980-2000 (Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2002).
24. See also S. Rudland, 'Trauma and Mercy: Reading the Law Through the Narrative of Trauma', Australian Feminist Law Journal 15 (2001), 80, writing about a case in the Australian State of Victoria in which the killing of a gay man was excused on the basis that his two attackers mistakenly thought he was a rapist.
25. Sedgwick, ibid., at 5-6;
26. S. Estrich, Real Rape (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 24;
27. M. Minow, 'Words and the Door to the Land of Change: Law, Language, and Family Violence', Vanderhilt Law Review 43 (1990), 1665, 1671-1672;
28. P. Wald, 'Violence Under the Law: A Judge's Perspective', in Sarat and Kearns, 1993, supra n. 2 at 77, 92-96;
29. R. Langer, 'Male Domestic Abuse: The Continuing Contrast Between Women's Experiences and Juridical Responses', Canadian Journal of Law and Society 10 (1995), 65, 68;
30. S. Lees, Ruling Passions: Sexual Violence, Reputation and the Law (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997), 71-72, 142-143;
31. R. Robson, Sappho Goes to Law School: Fragments in Lesbian Legal Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 16.
32. Gail Mason notes that although 'typical' forms of violence against women, gay men, and lesbians differ, they are all most likely to be committed by men: G. Mason, The Spectacle of Violence: Homophobia, Gender and Knowledge (London: Routledge, 2002), 40.
33. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Homicide Trends in the U.S., accessed at hup://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/intimates.htm, on 20 February 2005.
34. J. Atkinson, 'Violence Against Aboriginal Women: Reconstitution of Community Law - the Way Forward", Aboriginal Law Bulletin 46 (1990), 6;
35. P. Greer, 'Aboriginal Women and Domestic Violence in New South Wales', in J. Stubbs, ed., Women, Male Violence and the Law (Sydney: Institute of Criminology, 1994), 64, 64-66.
36. A. Summers, The End of Equality: Work, Babies and Women's Choices in 21st Century Australia (Sydney: Random House Australia, 2003), 83-84.
37. Mason, supra n. 12, at 39.
38. M.J. Frug, Postmodern Legal Feminism (New York: Routledge, 1992), 129.
39. Mason, supra n. 12, at 122;
40. L. Moran and B. Skeggs, Sexuality and the Politics of Violence and Safety (London: Routledge, 2004), 159.
41. See, for example, Osland v R (1998) 197 C.L.R. 316;
42. T. Threadgold, Terformativity, Regulative Fictions, Huge Stabilities: Framing Battered Woman's Syndrome', Law Text Culture 3 (1997), 210;
43. R. Heberle, 'Law's Violence and the Challenge of the Feminine', in A. Sarat and P. Ewick, eds. Studies in Law, Politics and Society 22 (London: Elsevier, 2001), 49;
44. P. Cleary, 'The Inequality of Mercy', The Age (Melbourne), 29 June 2000, 19,
45. On law's authorization of extrajudicial violence against gay men and lesbians, see Sedgwick, supra n. 11, at 18;
46. W. Morgan, 'Identifying Evil for What It Is: Tasmania, Sexual Perversity and the United Nations', Melbourne University Law Review 19 (1994), 740, 746-756;
47. Moran and Skeggs, supra n. 18, at 26-27. On violence against women, Robert Weisberg suggests that the police attitude to domestic violence may be to permit 'self-help' [by men] so long as such actions are confined [within relationships], and do not have wider, disruptive effects on 'innocent' people:
48. R. Weisberg, 'Private Violence as Moral Action: The Law as Inspiration and Example', in Sarat and Kearns, 1993, supra n. 2, at 175, 203.
49. C. Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988).
50. M. Wittig, The Straight Mind and Other Essay s (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), 28.
51. Minow, Ryan and Sarat, eds, supra n. 2, at 203.
52. See also Douzinas and Warrington, supra n. 2, at 197-198.
53. Hay, supra n. 4, at 163-164. 5
54. Sarat and Kearns, supra n. 3, at 3.
55. Wald, supra n. 12, at 88.
56. Sarat and Kearns, supra n. 3, at 8-10;
57. also A. Sarat, 'Introduction', in Sarat, 2001, supra n. 2, at 3, 8-9.
58. Sarat, ibid., at 8.
59. P. Fitzpatrick, 'Why the Law is Also Nonviolent', in Sarat, 2001, supra n. 2, at 142, 166.
60. Ibid., at 167.
61. Ibid., at 144-145.
62. Sarat, supra n. 27, at 8.
63. The fact that Sarat cites the 'big three' U.S. feminist legal scholars - Catharine MacKinnon, Martha Minow and Robin West - suggests that this is not accidental.
64. Sarat, supra n. 27, at 8.
65. These are the components of the 'Power and Control Wheel': E. Pence and M. Paymar, Education Groups for Men Who Batter: The Duluth Model (New York: Springer Publishing, 1993), 185.
66. Minow, Ryan and Sarat, eds, supra n. 2, at 139, 149, 155.
67. N. Puren and A. Young, 'Signifying Justice: Law, Culture and the Questions of Feminism', Australian Feminist Law Journal 13 (1999), 3,
68. citing P. Cheah and E. Grosz, The Body of the Law: Notes Towards a Theory of Corporeal Justice', in P. Cheah, D. Frazer and J. Grbich, eds, Thinking Through the Body of the Law (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1996), 3, 8.
69. See also C. Smart, Feminism and the Power of Law (London: Routledge, 1989).
70. J. Butler, 'Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of "Postmodernism"', Praxis International 11/2 (1991), 150, 162.
71. See also R. Robson, Lesbian (Out) Law: Survival Under the Rule of Law (Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand Books, 1992), 147;
72. W. Morgan, 'Queer Law: Identity, Culture, Diversity, Law', Australasian Gay and Lesbian Law Journal, 5 (1995), 1, 9;
73. A. Chapman, 'The Messages of Subordination Contained in Australian Anti-Discrimination Statutes', in G. Mason and S. Tomsen, eds, Homophobic Violence (Sydney: Hawkins Press, 1997), 58;
74. Robson, supra n. 12, at 16, 22-25; R v Brown [1994] 1 A.C. 212.
75. K. Bumiller, 'Victims in the Shadow of the Law: A Critique of the Model of Legal Protection', Signs 12 (1987), 421, 433;
76. M. Minow, 'Surviving Victim Talk', UCLA Law Review 40 (1993), 1411, 1432;
77. W. Brown, Stales of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995), 21, 27;
78. K.J. Ferraro, 'The Dance of Dependency: A Genealogy of Domestic Violence Discourse', Hypatia 11/4 (1996), 77, 89;
79. S. Cobb, 'The Domestication of Violence in Mediation', Law & Society Review 31 (1997), 397, 406, n. 23.
80. For example, Moran and Skeggs, supra n. 18, at 23.
81. L.G. Mills, 'On the Other Side of Silence: Affective Lawyering for Intimate Abuse", Cornell Law Review 81 (1996), 1225, 1250.
82. See also L.G. Mills, 'Killing Her Softly: Intimate Abuse and the Violence of State Intervention', Harvard Law Review 113 (1999), 550, 553-555, 586-595.
83. In the latter article, Mills analogises mandatory arrest, mandatory reporting and mandatory prosecution policies with 'emotional abuse' by the state against the victim of violence.
84. Douzinas and Warrington, supra n. 2, at 198.
85. Lees, supra n. 12, at 88.
86. E.A. Stanko, Intimate Intrusions: Women's Experience of Male Violence (London: Unwin Hyman, 1985), 96;
87. Lees, supra n. 12, at 53, 78;
88. Puren and Young, supra n. 37, at 4. Puren and Young argue further that the law's response to rape provides a more general blueprint for dealing with unruly women: 'Its institutional practices of signification render "the rape trial" a mobile and powerful narrative that can be put to work in other venues...': at 6.
89. NSW Department for Women, Heroines of Fortitude: The Experience of Women in Court as Victims of Sexual Assault (Sydney: Department for Women, 1996), 127-128.
90. Robson also notes secondary victimization of lesbian victims of crime by the legal system: supra n. 38, at 151.
91. Douzinas and Warrington, supra n. 2, at 209.
92. Estrich, supra n. 12, at 21-22, 47.
93. Lees, supra n. 12, at 77.
94. Douzinas and Warrington, supra n. 2, at 208.
95. Ibid.
96. See, for example, Islam v Secretary of Stale for the Home Department; R v Immigration Appeal Tribunal (ex parte Shah) [1999] 2 A.C. 629; Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Khawar (2002) 210 CLR 1;
97. J. Millbank, 'Imagining Otherness: Refugee Claims on the Basis of Sexuality in Australia and Canada', Melbourne University Law Review 26 (2002), 144;
98. C. Dauvergne and J. Millbank, 'Cruisingforsex.com: An Empirical Critique of the Evidentiary Practices of the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal: A Six-Year Comparative Study of Refugee Cases Involving Lesbians and Gay Men in Australia and Canada", Alternative Law Journal 28 (2003), 176.
99. Another form of legal emotional abuse perpetrated specifically against gay men and lesbians is when legislation simultaneously confers rights (for example, decriminalizing sodomy, or classifying homophobic violence as a hate crime) and makes statements about the state's disapproval of homosexuality. See, for example, Robson, supra n. 38. at 146 and
100. supra n. 12. at 20-21;
101. Morgan. supra n. 38.
102. R. Graycar, 'Hoovering as a Hobby and Other Stories: Gendered Assessments of Personal Injury Damages', University of British Columbia Law Review 31 (1997), 17.
103. De Sales v Ingrilli (2002) 212 CLR 338.
104. [1994] Aust. Torts Rep. 81-304.
105. NSW Insurance Ministerial Corporation v Wynn [1994] Aust. Torts Rep. 81-304 per Hutley JA.
106. Wynn v New South Wales Insurance Ministerial Corporation (1995) 184 CLR 485.
107. For example, Robson, supra n. 38, at 148;
108. Morgan, supra n. 38, at 18.
109. For example, Sedgwick, supra n. 11, at 18;
110. Robson, supra n. 11, at 18; ibid.
111. K. Bumiller, The Civil Rights Society: The Social Construction of Victims (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 69.
112. K. Bumiller, The Civil Rights Society: The Social Construction of Victims, (1988), 69. Ibid.
113. M. Davies and N. Seuffert, 'Knowledge, Identity and the Politics of Law', Hastings Women's Law Journal 11 (2000), 259, 289.
114. Michigan Supreme Court Task Force on Gender Issues in the Courts, Final Report of the Michigan Supreme Court Task Force on Gender Issues in the Courts (1989), 24;
115. M.R. Mahoney, 'Victimization or Oppression? Women's Lives, Violence and Agency', in M.A. Fineman and R. Mykitiuk, eds, The Public Nature of Private Violence: The Discovery of Domestic Abuse (New York: Routledge, 1994), 78;
116. L.G. Espinoza, 'Legal Narratives, Therapeutic Narratives: The Invisibility and Omnipresence of Race and Gender', Michigan Law Review 95 (1997), 901, 915;
117. Lees, supra n. 12, at 137;
118. Threadgold, supra n. 19, at 217;
119. A.C. Westlund, 'Pre-Modern and Modern Power: Foucault and the Case of Domestic Violence', Signs 24 (1999), 1045;
120. E.M. Schneider, Battered Women and Feminist Lawmaking (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 104.
121. L.H. Schafran, 'There's No Accounting for Judges', Albany Law Review 58 (1995) 1063, 1065;
122. D.L. Rhode, Speaking of Sex: The Denial of Gender Inequality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), 110-111.
123. R. Hunter and K. Mack, 'Exclusion and Silence: Procedure and Evidence', in N. Naffine and R.J. Owens, eds, Sexing the Subject of Law (Sydney: LBC Information Services, 1997), 171, 178 .
124. For a particular example of this view, see H. Garner, The First Stone: Some Questions About Sex and Power (Sydney: Picador, 1995).
125. R. Graycar, 'Telling Tales: Legal Stories about Violence Against Women', Australian Feminist Law Journal 7 (1996), 79.
126. See also L. Sarmas, 'Storytelling and the Law: A Case Study of Louth v Diprose', Melbourne University Law Review 19 (1994), 701.
127. Minow, supra n. 12, at 1673 [1990];
128. R.Busch, '"Don't Throw Flowers at Me... (Judges) Will Say We're In Love": An Analysis of New Zealand Judges' Attitudes Towards Domestic Violence', in J. Stubbs, ed., Wamen, Male Violence and the Law-(Sydney: Institute of Criminology, 1994), 104, 107;
129. J. Stubbs and J. Tolmie, 'Battered Woman Syndrome in Australia: A Challenge to Gender Bias in the Law?', in ibid., 192, 193;
130. R. Graycar, 'Telling Tales: Legal Stories About Violence Against Women', Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 8 (1996), 297.
131. L. Beaman-Hall, 'Abused Women and Legal Discourse: The Exclusionary Power of Legal Method', Canadian Journal of Law and Society 11/1 (1996) 125, 132.
132. See also Langer, supra n. 12, at 66: 'women's perceptions of abuse differ deeply from official characterizations of them, and are largely absent from legal discourse on male domestic dominance and abuse'.
133. J.A. Scutt, 'Judicial Bias or Legal Bias? Battery, Women and the Law', in J. Bessant, K. Carrington and S. Cook, eds, Cultures of Crime and Violence: The Australian Experience (Bundoora: LaTrobe University Press, 1995), 130, 131-32, 137-41.
134. R v Stanbrook, Supreme Court of Victoria, 10 November 1992, unreported, per O'Bryan J at 27-28.
135. Osland v R (1998) 197 C.L.R. 316.
136. J.A. Scutt, 'Judicial Bias or Legal Bias? Battery, Women and the Law', Cultures of Crime and Violence: The Australian Experience (1995), Ibid., per Callinan J at 388-390.
137. J.A. Scutt, 'Judicial Bias or Legal Bias? Battery, Women and the Law', Cultures of Crime and Violence: The Australian Experience (1995), Ibid., per Kirby J at 379.
138. J.A. Scutt, 'Judicial Bias or Legal Bias? Battery, Women and the Law', Cultures of Crime and Violence: The Australian Experience (1995), Ibid., per McHugh J at 363.
139. J.A. Scutt, 'Judicial Bias or Legal Bias? Battery, Women and the Law', Cultures of Crime and Violence: The Australian Experience (1995), Ibid., per Gaudron and Gummow JJ at 321.
140. The primary issue in the appeal concerned the fact that at trial, the son (who actually struck the fatal blow) had been acquitted, while Mrs. Osland had been found guilty of murder. Two of the 'minimising' judges would have allowed the appeal on the basis that the verdicts were inconsistent; however the majority did not find any inconsistency, and allowed Mrs. Osland's conviction to stand.
141. United States v Morrison (2000) 529 U.S. 598.
142. J. Goldscheid, 'Gender-Motivated Violence: Developing a Meaningful Paradigm for Civil Rights Enforcement', Harvard Women's Law Journal 22 (1999), 143.
143. United States v Morrison (2000) 529 U.S. 598 at 602.
144. Busch, supra n. 67, at 106-107;
145. Langer, supra n. 12, at 82.
146. M.A. Fineman, 'Dominant Discourse, Professional Language and Legal Change in Child Custody Decisionmaking', Harvard Law Review 101 (1988), 727;
147. Beaman-Hall, supra n. 68, at 132.
148. Busch, supra n. 67, at 130;
149. Beaman-Hall, supra n. 68, at 129;
150. Rae Kaspiew, 'Violence in Contested Children's Cases: An Empirical Exploration', Australian Journal of Family Law 19 (2005), 112, 124-28.
151. Busch, 'Violence in Contested Children's Cases: An Empirical Exploration', Australian Journal of Family Law 19 (2005), Ibid., at 131-32.
152. Robson, supra n. 12, at 16.
153. Moran and Skeggs, supra n. 18, at 92.
154. Robson, supra n. 12, at 16, 27.
155. Robson identifies her sources for the distinction between good and bad violence as D. Cornell, 'Violence of the Masquerade', Cardozo Law Review 11 (1990), 1047, 1048,
156. and Derrida's reading in 'Force of Law", supra n. 2, of Walter Benjamin's 'Critique of Violence'.
157. Robson, supra n. 12, at 27.
158. Robson, supra n. 12, ibid.:
159. Moran and Skeggs, supra n. 18.
160. See also S. McVeigh, P. Rush and A. Young, 'A Judgement Dwelling in Law: Violence and the Relations of Legal Thought', in A. Sarat, ed., Law, Violence and the Possibility of Justice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 15-16, 36.
161. Bumiller, supra n. 39, at 433.
162. Minow, supra n. 39, at 1432.
163. D. Riley, The Words of Selves: Identification, Solidarity, Irony (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 125.
164. Brown, supra n. 39, at 27.
165. Brown, supra n. 39, Ibid, at 21, 27.
166. Brown, supra n. 39, Ibid, at 49-51.
167. For example, Butler, supra n. 38, at 157.
168. Butler, supra n. 38, Ibid., at 158,
169. Davies and Seuffert, supra n. 62, at 281.
170. For example, E.W. Gondolf and E.R. Fisher, Battered Women ax Survivors: An Alternative to Treating Learned Helplessness (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1988);
171. M. Mahoney, 'Legal Images of Battered Women: Redefining the Issue of Separation', Michigan Law Review 90 (1991), 1;
172. E.A. Sheehy, J. Stubbs and J. Tolmie, 'Defending Battered Women on Trial: The Battered Woman Syndrome and Its Limitations", Criminal Law Journal 16 (1992), 369.
173. See, in particular, Mahoney, 'Defending Battered Women on Trial: The Battered Woman Syndrome and Its Limitations", Criminal Law Journal 16 (1992), ibid., at 15-16.