Law and Gender Commons^™

The Reverse Onus At Bail For Intimate Partner Violence: An Unconstitutional And Ineffective Measure, Ella Peterson

Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies

The recently adopted reverse onus at bail for repeat intimate partner violence is a piece of performative legislation that is ineffectual and may harm those it seeks to protect. Part I of this paper provides an overview of intimate partner violence in Canada in order to contextualize s. 515(6)(b.1) of the Criminal Code. Part II is a Charter assessment of the reverse onus provision at issue, focusing on sections 7 and 11(e). Part III concludes with a critique of the effectiveness of the reverse onus, which fails to address the root causes of intimate partner violence.

Triggering Change In Child Protection Law: A Case Study Of Firearms And Domestic Violence In Nova Scotia, Manitoba, And Ontario, Ashley Thornton

Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies

The intertwining complexities of child protection, domestic violence, and firearms pose profound challenges for families and the legal system. This paper examines their interplay, focusing on how these issues can subject children to harm, with a specific focus on case law and relevant legislation from Nova Scotia, Manitoba, and Ontario. These three provinces have been selected due to: i) the locality and inherent relevance of Nova Scotia’s jurisdiction given the location of the Schulich School of Law, ii) the high number of reported court decisions in Ontario, and the unique protections created through amending the Child, Youth, and Family Services …

Making The Margins Visible: Dignity At Work And The Promise Of Puttaswamy—Review Of Gendered Bodies And Worlds Of Labour: Reconceptualizing Dignity After Puttaswamy Vs Union Of India, Shreya Shree

National Law School Journal

This review examines Kalpana Kannabiran and Devi Jagani’s reimagination of dignity as a framework for securing justice in gendered labourscapes. By centering a broad and dynamic understanding of dignity as a right, an inherent characteristic, and an enabling condition for rights-talk, the book advances new ways of articulating rights-claims through an intersectional and interdisciplinary reading of the Indian Constitution. The review highlights the significance of this approach in renewing understandings of the worker, labour, discrimination, and rights, while exploring its possibilities and limits in confronting violence and injustices embedded in gendered labour relations within the domestic sphere and beyond.

Why Domestic Violence Offenders Don't Give Up Their Guns, Natalie Nanasi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Perpetrators of intimate partner violence are barred by federal law and many states' laws from possessing firearms. While such prohibitions enjoy popular support, they are sporadically and inconsistently enforced, placing the lives of survivors at risk when offenders do not voluntarily comply. Many experts, including this author, have offered legal and policy solutions to increase the likelihood that perpetrators of domestic violence will either willingly relinquish their guns or otherwise be dispossessed of them. But these proposals may have been premature.

This Article is the first to take a step back and inquire why offenders do not surrender their firearms …

Survival Of The Social Interest: Redefining The Bruen Standard To Protect Women From Violence Through United States V. Rahimi, Katelyn M. Sundstrom

Lewis & Clark Law Review

This Note explores the intersection of gun rights and gender-based violence within the U.S. legal system. It delves into the pervasive issue of domestic violence and explores the 2022 Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which rejected the use of “interest balancing” in evaluating gun regulations in favor of a purely historical and traditional approach. This shift placed significant legal scrutiny on existing firearm restrictions, including 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which prohibits individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms.

The analysis centers on the 2023 case United States v. Rahimi, …

Rethinking Crime And Punishment: Women Who Kill Their Abusers In South Africa, Rebecca Gore

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The battered women’s movement in the United States was galvanized in the 1970s and ushered in a paradigm shift in how we understand domestic violence. For women who kill their abusers, the movement attempted to incorporate their lived experiences of domestic violence into legal doctrine. Decades later, the battered women’s movement has generated criticisms such as stereotyping women, failing to take an intersectional lens, and over-reliance on the carceral system. These lessons from feminists in the United States present cautionary tales for other contexts, especially for unequal societies impacted by domestic violence, crime, and mass incarceration. Prompted by personal experiences …

Willard Mwiinga V The People Appeal No/167/2022 (24 August, 2023), Mwami Kabwabwa

SAIPAR Case Review

This case calls upon judges to move beyond a rigid application and recognition of gender based violence (GBV) laws thoughtfully to cases involving domestic violence, to protect women and girls. In this pivotal Judgement, the Court of Appeal missed a crucial chance to fulfill its duty to construe the law with an acute awareness of gender issues and the prevalent problem of Gender-Based Violence (GBV). Acknowledging such issues in legal decisions is vital as it embeds gender sensitivity into the consciousness of both the legal framework and society at large, as seen through the judiciary’s lens. This acknowledgment is instrumental …

Meet Our New Faculty: Valena Beety, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

You’ve read about some of the amazing students we have starting with us next week. Now we’ll introduce you to some of the new faculty who have joined us over the summer. First up is Valena Beety, the Robert H. McKinney Professor of Law. Prof. Beety was most recently Professor of Law and Deputy Director of the Academy for Justice at theArizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.

When The Victim Is Male: An Organizational Approach To Combat Gender Bias Within The Criminal Justice System, Shelby Hobbs

Senior Capstone Papers

The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey estimates that over 226.1 million people have been victims of domestic violence (DV) throughout their lifetimes. This violence can present itself in physical abuse or emotional turmoil, all with the ultimate goal of a perpetrator maintaining power over their victim(s). Rates of victimization across men and women are similar—44.2% and 47.3% respectively; however, this is not reflected in the current research and service provisions for victims. For example, male-identifying victims within the criminal justice system have reported their innocence must be proved before their claims of abuse are taken seriously, and that …

Remarks On Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights, Amber Baylor, Valena Beety, Susan P. Sturm

Faculty Scholarship

The following are remarks from a panel discussion co-hosted by the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law and the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law on the book Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights.

‘They Did Not Have To Burn My Sister Alive’: Causes And Distribution By State Of Dowry Murder In India, Peter Mayer

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Dowry, the money, goods, property, or gifts given by the bride’s family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage, is a common custom in South Asia. Although it is illegal to demand—or offer—a dowry in India, it is a nearly universal custom in many parts of the country. If, after marriage, a husband’s family feels that the wife’s dowry was insufficient, they may harass or inflict other forms of domestic violence on her to put pressure on her family to provide an additional dowry. At its most extreme, this violence may lead to the murder of …

Lessons From A Pandemic: Recommendations From The Georgia Tpo Forum For Strengthening Protections Against Domestic Violence, Christine M. Scartz, Sarah White, Jaime Boorman

Scholarly Works

A civil protective order in Georgia is commonly called a temporary protective order, or TPO. The Georgia TPO Forum (the Forum) is a collaborative effort among practitioners who are deeply passionate about ending domestic violence and minimizing its effects on victims.1 The Forum is made up of advocates and attorneys who work every day with people who need protection from violence. Members provide each other not only with suggestions and solutions to problems, but also a listening ear in a profession where another tragic case is always on its way. The Forum is also uniquely positioned to offer recommendations about …

Failed Interventions: Domestic Violence, Human Trafficking, And The Criminalization Of Survival, Alaina Richert

Michigan Law Review

Over the last decade, state legislators have enacted statutes acknowledging the link between criminal behavior and trauma resulting from domestic violence and human trafficking. While these interventions take a step in the right direction, they still have major shortcomings that prevent meaningful relief for survivor-defendants. Until now, there has been no systematic overview of the statutes that require courts to consider a defendant’s history of trauma in the contexts of domestic violence and human trafficking. There has also been no attempt to explore how these statutes relate to each other. This Note fills those gaps. It also identifies essential elements …

Police Response To Women Of Color And Domestic Violence, Liz Shimoni

Criminology Student Work

No abstract provided.

Promoting Gender Equity And Foreign Policy Goals Through Ratifying The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, Raj Telwala

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

When We Breathe: Re-Envisioning Safety And Justice In A Post-Floyd Era, Aya Gruber

Publications

10th Annual David H. Bodiker Lecture on Criminal Justice delivered on Wed., Oct. 21, 2020 at Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.

The Female Face Of Misogyny: A Review Of Decriminalizing Domestic Violence: A Balanced Policy Approach To Intimate Partner Violence By Leigh Goodmark And The Feminist War On Crime: The Unexpected Role Of Women's Liberation In Mass Incarceration By Aya Gruber, Dianne L. Post

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Lessons Learned, Lessons Offered: Creating A Domestic Violence Drug Court, Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez, Dr. Stacy Speedlin Gonzalez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Straight Outta Scotus: Domestic Violence, True Threats, And Free Speech, Jessica Miles

University of Miami Law Review

Domestic violence intersects with constitutional, criminal, and civil law in ways that often present challenges for jurists seeking to reconcile conflicting interests in promoting victim safety and protecting the legal rights of those accused of abuse. One current issue presenting such tensions relates to “true threats” of violence which the U.S. Supreme Court considers to be among the categories of speech receiving only limited First Amendment protection. The Supreme Court has yet to indicate what level of intent would be constitutionally sufficient for conviction of a speaker of a true threat and the circuit courts have split on this issue. …

Not All Violence In Relationships Is “Domestic Violence", Tamara L. Kuennen

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The article proceeds in four parts. Part I describes in more detail the work of Donileen Loseke, and Part II applies her methodology by taking stock of the constructs as they currently exist. Part III examines social science data available since Loseke published her study, demonstrating that the current construct reflects, in reality, only a subset of relationship violence and a subset of the people who experience it. Part IV examines whether the main service designed to help people experiencing relationship violence today—law—perpetuates, rather than challenges norms. I argue that it does the former, because legal decision makers, like the …

Criminalizing Coercive Control Within The Limits Of Due Process, Erin L. Sheley

Faculty Scholarship

The sociological literature on domestic abuse shows that it is more complex than a series of physical assaults. Abusers use “coercive control” to subjugate their partners through a web of threats, humiliation, isolation, and demands. The presence of coercive control is highly predictive of future physical violence and is, in and of itself, also a violation of the victim’s liberty and dignity. In response to these new understandings the United Kingdom has recently criminalized nonviolent coercive control, making it illegal to, on two or more occasions, cause “serious alarm or distress” to an intimate partner that has a “substantial effect” …

The Troubling Alliance Between Feminism And Policing, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.

#Metoo And Mass Incarceration, Aya Gruber

Publications

This Symposium Guest Editor’s Note is an adapted version of the Introduction to The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women’s Liberation in Mass Incarceration (UC Press 2020). The book examines how American feminists, in the quest to secure women’s protection from domestic violence and rape, often acted as soldiers in the war on crime by emphasizing white female victimhood, expanding the power of police and prosecutors, touting incarceration, and diverting resources toward law enforcement and away from marginalized communities Today, despite deep concerns over racist policing and mass incarceration, many feminists continue to assert that gender crime …

Domestic Violence Convictions And Firearms Possession: The Law As It Stands And As It Moves, Kate E. Britt

Law Librarian Scholarship

Legislatures have attempted to curb instances of gun use in fatal and nonfatal domestic violence by passing statutes restricting possession of firearms for perpetrators of domestic violence. This article explains federal and Michigan law as it stands and discusses current efforts to further limit perpetrators’ access to firearms.

Properly Accounting For Domestic Violence In Child Custody Cases: An Evidence-Based Analysis And Reform Proposal, Debra Pogrund Stark, Jessica M. Choplin, Sarah Elizabeth Wellard

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Promoting the best interests of children and protecting their safety and well-being in the context of a divorce or parentage case where domestic violence has been alleged has become highly politicized and highly gendered. There are claims by fathers’ rights groups that mothers often falsely accuse fathers of domestic violence to alienate the fathers from their children and to improve their financial position. They also claim that children do better when fathers are equally involved in their children’s lives, but that judges favor mothers over fathers in custody cases. As a consequence, fathers’ rights groups have engaged in a nationwide …

Critiquing Matter Of A-B-: An Uncertain Future In Asylum Proceedings For Women Fleeing Intimate Partner Violence, Theresa A. Vogel

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The #MeToo movement has brought renewed attention to the impact of gender inequality on our society’s ability to provide protection to women from physical and sexual violence, including intimate partner violence. Despite advances in legal protections and increased resources to prevent, prosecute, and bring an end to intimate partner violence, in the absence of true efforts to combat gender inequality as a whole, intimate partner violence will continue to pervade our society. The discussion of gender inequality’s impact on the treatment of intimate partner violence must expand beyond the violence that occurs in the United States to gender inequality’s impact …

Protecting Women's Rights? Prospects Under The Un Human Rights Treaty System: A Case Study On India 2005-2017, Deepali

LLM Theses

The establishment of the United Nations Treaty System was the fundamental step for the protection and enforcement of women’s rights. The system is designed to monitor the human rights standards in countries that have ratified the treaties, called state parties. However, the system is facing several challenges that have compromised its effective working for the protection and enforcement of women’s rights. The thesis seeks to explain the challenges to the effective working of the system, that is, why the system does not work as designed in protecting women’s rights against three specific issues: domestic violence, sexual trafficking, and reproductive rights. …

The Impact Of Domestic Violence On Immigrant Women, Shawna C. Quast

DePaul Journal of Women, Gender and the Law

No abstract provided.

Intimate Partner Violence & Men’S Professional Sports: Advancing The Ball, Chelsea Augelli, Tamara L. Kuennen

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This article examines how men'sprofessional sports leagues treat domestic violence committed by players. Over the past twenty years, but particularly over the last five, the public has criticized, and the media has shone a spotlight on, the big leagues' ignoring of the issue. Many call for parity between how the criminal justice system treats the issue of domestic violence and how the leagues should treat it, arguing for a zero-tolerance approach. This article applies lessons learned by feminist law and policy makers and legal scholars in the development of the larger justice system response to domestic violence to the nascent …

Our National Psychosis: Guns, Terror, And Hegemonic Masculinity, Stewart Chang

Scholarly Works

In this Article, Professor Stewart Chang, through the examination of three recent mass shooting, proposes that mass shootings driven by hegemonic masculinity should be classified and addressed as acts of terrorism. Professor Chang defines hegemonic masculinity as patterns or practices that promote the dominant social position of men and the subordinate social position of women and other gender identities. In this Article, he examines how hegemonic masculinity is allowed to become mainstream and flourish unchecked based on our characterization, classification and reaction to mass shootings and their perpetrators.