![handle is hein.journals/respub2 and id is 1 raw text is: Res Publica Vol.II no.1 [1996]
A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON CHILDREN WHO KILL
by
CLAIRE McDIARMID*
Introduction
The traditional image of justice, blind and bearing scales in which to
weigh up opposing arguments, implies complete impartiality and
conveys the comforting notion that everyone is treated alike by neutral
laws. In certain areas, however, this perception has been challenged by
feminism's identification of the operation of a male standard.1 Under
this feminist spotlight, some laws, which appear to embody universal-
isms, are revealed as being predicated on assumptions, values and/or
attributes which are uniquely those of men.2 Feminism is obviously -
and rightly - concerned with the discriminatory implications of this
invisible norm for women who are judged in accordance with such
laws. There is, however, a further unwritten assumption, more obvious
* School of Law, University of Glasgow. The author would like to thank
Elspeth Attwooll, Sheila McLean and Fraser Davidson of the University of
Glasgow and Res Publica's anonymous readers for reading and commenting
on earlier drafts of this paper.
1 See, for example, M. Minow, Making All the Difference: Inclusion, Exclusion
and American Law (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 50-53, quoted
in T.B. Dawson, ed., Women, Law and Social Change: Core Readings and
Current Issues, Second Edition, (North York, Ont.: Captus Press, 1993),
39-40. One specific example would be the use of masculine forms of
language to convey gender-neutral ideas, on which point, see K. Busby,
The Maleness of Legal Language, Manitoba Law Journal 18/1 (1989),
191-212; K. de Jong, On Equality and Language, Canadian Journal of
Women and the Law 1 (1985), 119, quoted in Dawson, supra, at 74-75 and
L. Finley, Laying Down the Master's Tools: A Feminist Revision of
Torts, in Dawson, supra, at 89-90.
2 See, for example, C. Boyle, The Battered Wife Syndrome and Self-
Defence: Lavallee v. R, Canadian Journal of Family Law 9 (1990), 171-79;
and H. Kennedy, Eve was Framed: Women and British Justice (London:
Chatto & Windus, 1992), 200-201, on the male-orientated presumptions
incorporated into the law of self-defence in some jurisdictions.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/respub2&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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