She Shot Him. France Asks: Is It Self Defense?

Since the day my best friend’s mom murdered her daughter’s father, the question has been on my mind. The question is: what happens to the women who kill their abusive husbands? Are they sentenced to life in prison for protecting themselves or their children? How is their punishment decided? After asking the Internet, I have found that I am not alone in my curiosity. Authors such as Lorana Bartels, Starre Vartan, and Lilia Blaise from The Conversation, Pacific Standard, and The New York Times all have one common goal while discussing this topic: to inform, educate, and persuade their audiences that “since a battered woman’s experiences are generally outside the common understanding of the average judge and juror, it is only with an appreciation
She Shot Him. France Asks: Is It Self Defense?” use real life situations as examples to back up her argument, but she uses expert opinion as well. To support her claims, Blaise quotes from experts such as Muriel Salmona, a psychiatrist who specializes in trauma, Valerie Boyer, a member of Parliament, and Catherine Le Magueresse, a researcher who specializes in violence against women. Le Magueresse states in the article, “The justice system is not trained for such cases and the phenomenon of physical and psychological hold is not well known” (Blaise). The quotes the author uses throughout the article are used to give a sense of credibility to what the author is discussing. Contrary to the other articles I will be discussing, this article from The New York Times brings about a point that the others do not. The author includes a statement from Le Magueresse, the specialist in violence against women, that gives readers the sense that maybe the article is suggesting that France believes that women killing their husbands is not self-defense. Le Magueresse says, “Everyone in feminist circles and in the justice system were not at ease with this case, because when you are a victim of physical abuse and you kill your abuser, you become like him in a way -- you choose violence” (Blaise). This particular quote gives readers a contrast between views, unlike the other two articles that I have
Throughout her article, Bartels discusses an analysis done by University of Tasmania’s Rebecca Bradfield. She uses this analysis to drive her article and is able to do this by using a credible source. Because credible sources are so important on a subject like this, Starre Vartan from Pacific Standard does not fail to mention many either. Vartan uses quotes from Chitra Raghavan, a professor of psychology at John Jay College for Criminal Justice and a practicing clinician who works primarily with victims of violence (Vartan). These three authors don’t just use these credible sources for fun, but to appeal to ethics and use these expert opinions as a way to convince their readers that what they, the authors, are writing about is