Applying a Gender Perspective to Defenses of Women Survivors of Battering in Intimate Partner Homicides: Special Focus on Chile, Argentina, and Mexico

This dissertation examines the legal defenses available to women who kill their intimate partners in the context of domestic violence in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. The study identifies three central problems. First, courts interpret key legal elements of the defenses through a male-centric lens that disregards the realities of prolonged abuse. In particular, this perspective influences the concept of imminence, the interpretation of reciprocal violence, the identification and weighing of the interests and harms at stake, and the evaluation of whether the woman had alternative courses of action. Second, the reliance on Battered Woman Syndrome, the theory that portrays women as mentally impaired and reinforces stereotypes that diminish their agency. Third, courts inconsistently grant justification and excuse defenses, relying on stereotypes that ultimately cast doubt on the woman’s rationality and agency. A useful tool to address these issues is the gender perspective, defined as an analytical method aimed at identifying and correcting structural gender inequality. This dissertation proposes the incorporation of U.S. legal standards that align with this perspective. Specifically, it advocates: (i) integrating the history of domestic abuse into the assessment of affirmative defenses—which would expand the concept of imminence, eliminate assumptions of symmetry in reciprocal violence, offer a more accurate framework for identifying and weighing harms and interests in self-defense and exculpatory state of necessity, and enable a more realistic evaluation of the alternatives available to these women; (ii) adopting Survivor Theory to support legal defenses without pathologizing the defendant; and (iii) eliminating stereotypes commonly associated with women who kill their intimate partners in the assessment of these women’s defenses.