When Heather Osland was sentenced to a minimum prison term of nine and a half years for killing her husband, I wasn't particularly surprised. Not surprised but saddened. I've been looking at cases like this for over five years now and one thing that I've observed is the unpredictability, the range of sentences, and of course what I would describe as a singular lack of justice. The wife who takes the life of her violent partner in Australia is usually defined by our judges, lawyers, and juries as having committed an act of murder or, at the least, manslaughter. So, I wasn't surprised for quite a few reasons which I will now share with you. The sadness I will talk about at the end.

There are seven main reasons for my lack of surprise.

1. Violence is not Feminine

First, the woman who kills her partner is perceived as having perpetrated a violent act which is diametrically in opposition to the traditional characterisation of females as the gentle, nurturing and angelical sex. A violent woman is constructed as an unnatural woman since her action violates some basic values about male and female gender roles. Consequently I am never surprised at the sentences which these women are given since they have not been 'good girls'.

2. Diversity in Sentencing

Second, looking at cases around Australia, I have found a disparity in sentencing with no real pattern of rhyme or reason. Heather's sentence fits within that mosaic of seemingly random sentences. The more common outcome for women who kill violent partners is either plead guilty or to be found guilty of manslaughter.

3. The Types of Sentences Men Get

Third, when you look at (and I have) the reasons provided by judges for giving men who kill a partner a lesser verdict of manslaughter or a reduced sentence, then, if you didn't know it already, you are overwhelmed by the masculine landscape of our culture and the masculocentric values that dominate in it.

4. Attitudes that Condone or Trivialise Violence Against Women

Fourth, she has reacted against violence inflicted by her husband while there are still those who would not label his actions as violence in the belief that a husband has the right to punish his wife. Of those who don't believe domestic violence is acceptable, many (judges, lawyers, potential jury members) do continue to see violence in the home as something less than real assault. The word 'domestic' in our society means relatively unimportant in contrast to the world outside of the home. This belief extends beyond Australia and other industrial societies. Thus, although the word 'violence' is used in the term 'domestic violence', it is coupled with the private sphere and therefore, I contend that it connotes a different sort of image than the word 'violence' without the domestic prefix. 'Just another domestic', police officers have been heard to mutter when they're summoned to someone's house. 'Just another domestic'…says it all. It says what the word 'domestic' means and it says that, in our culture, the police (and others) may not relish involvement in what has been constructed as the less than criminal private domain. You see domestic means something very different from public. 'Domestic', means private. 'Domestic' means relatively unimportant in contrast to the real world outside of the home.

5. The Persistence of an Immediacy Requirement

The fifth reason is that although changes in legal interpretation have done away with ideas that the retaliation must be immediate and proportional to the attack in the bar room brawl sense, in fact these concepts continue to be used by judges and juries in their deliberations and by lawyers in their advice to clients in pleading. Self-defence is still defined in male terms of being and behaving in the world.

6. Persistence of 'Why Didn't She Leave?'

The sixth reason is a continuation of the last point. There is another by-product of the failure to look at and understand the battered woman's experience. The question constantly arises, 'Why didn't she leave?' Even the phasing of the question reflects the masculine nature of our society by foisting the responsibility upon her instead of asking, 'Why couldn't she leave?' The idea of 'no other recourse' or, why didn't she just leave instead of killing, persists in mitigating against the construction of the battered woman's action of self-defence.

Most judges and members of juries presumably are unable to understand why she cannot leave, why she had no other recourse but to kill. They can only see the evidence of their own eyes based upon their knowledge of family life and reasonable behaviour. Without some type of education, jurors, like most in the community, may not conceive how emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically, a woman has been beaten down to such a point that she is a captive, with no other option but to kill to defend her life.

7. Premeditation and Remorse

Which brings me to the last reason, which is really more about the last two. The failure to understand Heather's experience is a reflection of the court's rewarding of spontaneity and remorse. The 'good' woman who kills would do it without thinking about it and then immediately contact the law enforcement agency confessing to her crime just as the 'good' man who kills his wife cries, shows deep regret and shame, and of course kills her during one of his ordinary bashings; only this time she's dead instead of just injured.

The Sadness

OK that's about the lack of surprise. Now I'd like to close by sharing about the sadness.

The sadness is about the tragic element. The inevitability. The cycle repeats over and over again at three different levels. First, there is the cycle or pattern of violence within the home. Second, there is the cycle of generation to generation with the many children who grow up either directly or indirectly affected. And, there is the cycle, the repetition of male interpretation and male dominance within our culture and our courts that shuts out the woman's voice.

Where is the change? Perhaps, it is there in findings of manslaughter instead of murder. But in my opinion, that's just not good enough. Not good enough and way too slow for the women living either within the prison of violence or within the institutional prison for doing the only thing that they could to survive.