The Law Is Written By Men And For Men
Woman can’t rely on the law to protect themselves, so they have to take it into their own hands to find solutions to protect themselves
In the movie “Enough” a working class waitress named Slim finds her life transformed when she marries wealthy contractor Mitch. She settles into a suburban life and seems to have everything she wants: loving husband, beautiful home, and Gracie, an adorable 5-year-old daughter. Her dream is shattered when she discovers her husband is anything but perfect. His abusive behavior forces her to go on the run, eluding an increasingly obsessive Mitch. In the movie slim goes to the police for help and all they tell her is that they can’t do anything because it’s too late, and then the lawyer tells her that there is nothing he can do (legally). This movie is an example of how the law is violent because the police/law failed to protect this woman from being physically abused. Instead of listening to the cries for help from this battered woman, the police and lawyer turned a blind eye to help her flee her abusive husband. When the law wouldn’t do anything for her it forces her to have only one option to protect herself through self-defense. This shows that the law itself is not only promoting violence, but also encouraging it by not punishing the men who did this and continue to do it.
The law is gendered male because most people in higher authority are men and the law is violent because the law unfairly sides with patriarchy, patriarchy is characterized by certain negative traits that value strength and power, where most women are at the bottom because they are thought to be soft, weak, and too feminine. In the article “ Is Violence Male? The Law, Gender, and Violence” Joy Peach states,
“… the law has never been able to address battering effectively because of its own peculiar structure. Written by men for men, the law is designed to protect men from the power of the state and to adjudicate conflicts between men, to preserve order in a society of men”.
What this quote shows is that the law itself isn’t only violent, but the gender-biases in the law’s response to violence are due to the “maleness” of the law. Men have the power to write the law with the intentions to protect men only.
An example of how domestic violence is one way the law is male is through the domestic violence of Colbie Holderness. Rob Porter’s first wife, Colbie Holderness, told the Intercept in an interview,
“He graduated to choking me, not ever hard enough to make me pass out, or frankly to leave marks, but it was frightening and dehumanizing.”
Officially, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly damned domestic violence as “abhorrent,” and said it has “no place in our society.” But the inclusion of men with histories of abuse in powerful positions speaks otherwise. Both of Porter’s ex-wives said they revealed his abuse when interviewed by the FBI about his security clearance last year. And President Donald Trump has come out in support of Porter, encouraging reporters to remember that he denies the allegations. What continues is a unilateral blaming of women whether they stay or go. We need to be more understanding of the power dynamics within abusive relationships and not leave the onus on women to silently navigate their exodus. Beginning early, we need to teach boys and girls how to communicate non-violently through conflict in a way that allows both to be equal partners. The way in which this can get done is through educating by having mandatory classes about domestic violence for teens. We need to shine a light on violence and place the responsibility on abusers to conduct themselves without hurting others. If we fail at this, we end up where we are today with abusers in positions of power, or worse women beaten, raped, and killed.
Domestic violence is one example of how the law is male because legislatures have outlawed domestic violence and most of the people that have that power are men in higher authority. Mostly male police and prosecutors and judges have continued to engage in gender bias by failing to arrest and/or prosecute and/or to convict male perpetrators of domestic violence. Women need to be acknowledged as human beings who have rights to be protected from male violence.
Joy Peach states, “American Law is premised on liberal assumptions about citizens as autonomous, individual male agents, not as interdependent, relational female subjects. This bias is evident in domestic violence cases. Feminists have recognized for almost two decades that the law of self-defense is not gender-neutral, but is premised on male experiences of violence”.
Peach is stating that the law doesn’t have room for female subjects who are built on connection, where they are dependent on someone else, but instead accomplishing one’s goals by being in higher authority like men are. The law only takes into account the men’s experience of violence and not the women’s. California self-defense laws provide that you can’t be found guilty of a violent crime that you committed in order to protect yourself, as long as your conduct was reasonable under the circumstances. Self-defense legal defense, “reasonable under the circumstances” means that you need to have: 1. Reasonably believed that you were in imminent danger of being killed, injured, or touched unlawfully, 2. Reasonably believed that you needed to use force to prevent that from happening, and 3. Used no more force than was necessary to prevent that from happening. The movie Enough shows how the law cannot protect women from being beaten up, and that the law condones domestic violence against women by not locking up the perpetrators because it favors the male gender. Males have the power of the law and authority to abuse it by not protecting women from violence and by not giving the justice that they deserve. What this movie proves is that woman can’t rely on the law so they have to take into their own hands to help prevent violence from happening through promoting educational programs.
