Eve Was Framed: Women and British Justice

Product Information

And while there has been some change – much of it initiated by Kennedy herself – progress has been halting and deep-seated reform is still urgently needed. In this book, Kennedy illustrates the difficulty women encounter when trying to navigate the British antiquated court systems. Helena Kennedy’s 1993 book Eve was Framed is to my knowledge not in print anymore, but it’s worth getting a copy second hand if you can.

Precisely these arguments about 'irreparable damage to the family' have been used to counter the introduction of every piece of reforming legislation for the benefit of women in the last hundred years. But when it comes to the nuances and complexities of housing trans women in female prisons, her usually fiercely critical eye is strangely absent. Twenty-five years have passed since Kennedy published Eve Was Framed, the groundbreaking precursor to her latest work. Helena Kennedy highlights the ways in which bias plays a role in courts through her own experiences as a barrister, as well as drawing upon case law.This was designed to help people who are victims of domestic violence and go on to kill their abusive partner. The way she handles sensitive topics such as rape, domestic violence, infanticide, prostitution, etc. The further you are from being white, male, middle class, highly educated and professional, the more terrifying this environment is going to be.

Maybe the better points in the book were lost slightly by overwhelming amounts of unnecessary and often identical case studies, and I would have preferred a more direct and in-depth analysis of the law at practice itself. Helena Kennedy argues that women should be present in evert level of law -- this is because jurists are human beings, and, as such, are informed and influenced by their backgrounds, community and experiences. Kennedy doesn’t get into academic feminism but this a good grounder for anyone looking to read more. More troubling is the impact this lack of representation has on the women who are either victims of crimes (particularly disproportionately gendered ones such as domestic or sexual violence) or charged with crimes, and their ability to access fair treatment.

And women who fail to comply often end up in prison – “even where the original offence would never have merited a custodial sentence”. It comprehensively covers the 20th-century history of women in the criminal justice system in a variety of roles - lawyer, judge, victim and defendant - and illustrates the impact of misogyny throughout without being preachy. A fascinating look at the way in which the legal system is institutionally sexist and the impact that has on the women who pass through it.

Police, lawyers and judges still have difficulties in abandoning their stereotype of the abused woman as someone who is submissive and cowed.This is a cogently argued examination of how the British legal system ignores, downgrades, underrates and discriminates against women-Kennedy has properly argued that a profession that practises law and pursues justice must be seen to be just, reasonable, unprejudiced, and open to public scrutiny. Woman also participate in less interstices of the law -- the circuit dinners, and cricket matches, the gold, the wine committees, due to their commitment to children. In the midst of this, the court does not take into account other aspects such as depriving children of a mother and the condition of the woman in jail. I found her analysis of the perception of black women in court particularly interesting, and this was again contextualised in the total lack of racial diversity in the legal systems. This book is a polemic and therefore asserts Kennedy’s opinion on the injustice of the criminal law by critiquing the intimidating nature of court with the paraphernalia of wigs and gowns, assessing the impact of this mystical element of the law, and talking about her experiences as a very successful female barrister.

Far fewer women actually get prosecuted, but those that do, suffer harsher sentences than their male counterparts for equivalent crimes. Her attack on double standards is witty and intelligent, and only made me fall further in love with her and her writing.

Helena Kennedy focuses on the treatment of women in our courts - at the prejudices of judges, the misconceptions of jurors, the labyrinths of court procedures and the influence of the media. While it doesn't take into account recent improvements in legal training and police handling of many legal cases, it pretty much sums up the poor treatment women experience in the British Justice system in a succinct and entertaining way.