"This is a study to set women's blood boiling. Seattle attorney Gillespie details how unjust the judiciary is to battered women who kill their tormentors. She shows that the law of self-defense is adjudged by many courts not to apply to battered women. . . . Gillespie presents recommendations that should be read by all lawyers and judges." -
Publishers Weekly
"Gillespie offers a compelling view about women who respond violently to abuse and about the criminal justice system, which follows such acts with its own form of abuse. . . . Her thesis, that the law of self-defense is a law for men and therefore constitutes sex discrimination, is clearly, coherently, and substantively articulated. . . . This is an important, intelligent, and challenging contribution in the area of women's studies, women's rights, and the criminal justice system with respect to the law of self-defense." -
Choice
"Valuable to the non-lawyer. . . . A cogent, readable argument with shocking examples suggesting that women's lives are threatened not oly sometimes by their men but by the courts as well." -
Kirkus Reviews
"Gillespie's goal, it appears, was to produce an easily-read, non-technical and persuasive overview of the legal problems facing women who fight back, and she has certainly accomplished it. Everything one needs for an introduction to issues of domestic violence is there: the shocking case studies, the history of self-defense law, the socialization of women into victims, the particular dynamics of battering." -
The Women's Review of Books
Cynthia K. Gillespie
is a Seattle attorney and founder of the Northwest Women's Law Center.