ABSTRACT
The proposition is that feminism is concerned with a process of exclusion as well as the practical manifestation of discrimination against women. This chapter seeks to show power relations between men and women are both reflected and maintained within claims to objectivity and neutrality of the law. It aims to address both theoretical and practical issues and this endeavour proceeds from the assumption that the levels are in fact inseparable. The chapter also seeks to show that the primary structural requirements of these defences work to reproduce the silencing of women in domestic violence because the defences fail to contemplate the power dynamics involved in that violence. The exclusion of women from interpreting and naming social experience is, however, also evidenced in women's attempted expression through history - for example in their attempted political, literary, or sexual expression of self.
