ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two recent proposals to extend the current criminal law defences of the “householder defence”, which is situated within the law of self-defence, and the defence of “compulsion” that lies within the defence of duress to women who are abused by male partners. In providing some contextual background to these two reform endeavours I consider, first, the historical maltreatment of women by men and the contemporary evidence of violence against women and girls. Second, I examine some of the scholarly and feminist analyses of law and power that provide a theoretical framework for understanding the inherent masculinism of the law and the privileging of male excuses. Third, in turning to examine the specificity of the legal constructs imposing on the application of the two defences, I explore the meaning of the principles of “reasonableness” and “proportionality” that bear on and underpin the determination of legal defences, and specifically consider the anthropomorphic standard of the “reasonable man/person” in its exclusion of women’s experience. Fourth, I turn to examine the embodiment of these constructs in legal imagination and reasoning with regard to self-defence and, specifically, the “householder defence” and the campaign to extend the defence to women who in self-defence kill abusive men who have entered their home. Fifth, I consider the defence of duress and its exclusion of the coercion/compulsion women experience from abusive men and the campaign to extend the current defence of “compulsion” under section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to abused women. Finally, I conclude by setting out what further needs to be done.
