Justifiable Homicide: Battered Women, Self-Defense, and the Law by Cynthia K Gillespie. Book review. You can order the book from this link too.
"Although self-defense has always been considered justifiable under American law, entitling the killer to a complete acquittal, Cynthia Gillespie's study of over 300 cases shows that our society is remarkably reluctant to apply this doctrine to women. the law has evolved over centuries into a complex code of manly behavior designed to keep fist fights and brawls from escalating into lethal combat while preserving the right to kill in response to a clearly lethal assault. However, a woman's situation is often entirely different."
Compelled to Crime: The Gender Entrapment of Battered, Black Women by Beth E. Richie
"Compelled to Crime" documents the lives of battered, African American women incarcerated in a New York City correctional facility. Chronicling the lives of women from low-income communities who have been physically battered, sexually assaulted, emotionally abused and involved in illegal activity, the book illustrates the degree to which these women's devastated and deteriorating circumstances represent a socially constructed position--and one from which there is little escape.
Remembering Women Murdered by Men - Women are murdered by men every day, yet these acts of femicide barely make the news. Across Canada, there are over fifty memorials to women who have been murdered. Each one tells at least two stories: the terrible one of unremitting violence against women and the triumphant one of women claiming public space, naming the violence and insisting that society remember. This book is the first to record thirty of these, and in so doing names the women remembered and the circumstances of their deaths. The authors document the feminist community's response and the initiative taken to build memorials along with the official attempts to keep them out of public view. The memorials documented include those in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, The Pas, Toronto, Montreal, London, Ottawa and Moncton.
Don McLean, Soldier of Fortune Magazine, January 2000, pp. 22-24.
Even with the well-trained, motivated and equipped police personnel we have in America, there are no guarantees they will not be overwhelmed, suffer technological breakdowns, be too remote to respond or otherwise be unable to come to the defense of an individual citizen's defense. ... After reading this volume -- and it is an easy read and very hard to put down -- one wonders what could possibly be the real agenda of politicians who would be so stupid as to disarm the honest, peaceable citizen. ... Those who think they are afforded blanket protection by 911 need to know it is at best a security blanket.
Former Sheriff Richard Mack, endorsement.
This book speaks to the irrefutable truth: police do very little to prevent violent crime. We investigate crime after the fact. I applaud Richard Stevens for his tremendous research and the his courage to tell this truth.
