ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the literature used in Finnish law faculties' mandatory criminal law courses, analysing it as a site of legal knowledge production. Feminist and gender studies in law have developed in Finland largely since the 1990s, establishing a presence at Finnish law faculties, even though this presence is far from taken for granted. Generally speaking, Finnish feminist research in law has been theoretically and critically oriented, analysing the legally 'taken for granted' such as the legal subject or the paradigm of rights. Deploying gender-neutral discourse, Finnish criminal law texts construct different types of intentional manslaughter – sometimes imaginary, sometimes based on the case law of the Finnish Supreme Court – to exemplify the elements of the crimes. The pivotal importance of taking a contextual approach to intimate partner femicide cases, an approach notable for its absence from Finnish criminal law texts, is underscored by Finland's 2015 ratification of the Istanbul Convention.
