I read Helena Kennedy QC’s new book, Eve Was Shamed: How British Justice Is Failing Women, while Dr Christine Blasey Ford was giving evidence before the US Senate judiciary committee. Whilst various texts have been written by onlookers, I have not previously come across a book written by a woman who has the experience of having been within the judicial structure itself, which is part of the reason it is so powerful in what it conveys. Viscount Bledisloe chose an unfortunate but telling example from which to draw the principle: 'If I am accused of stealing your property, it is a defence if I show an honest belief that I had a claim of right to that property.

Kennedy argues that expert testimony from psychiatrists is needed to prevent the fallback to stereotypes in cases of intimate partner abuse as many people on juries have little understanding of how women are affected by such violence, and cannot make sense of their behaviour.

More frustrating is the idea that a reasonable defence would be an honest belief of entitlement, and demonstrates how the law is still not fit for purpose when it comes to sexual violence.

Overall, a very interesting book and a much needed female perspective on how the justice system impacts women. This focus on “law in context” rather than “black-letter law” (what the law actually says) helps you approach law in a more rounded and considerate way. Majority of the text is devoted to the stereotyping imposed on women in courts, whether they appear as defendants (unnatural viragos), plaintiffs (probably asked for it), or witnesses (notoriously unreliable). At the start, Kennedy warns that this book is not to be treated as an academic account but as a polemic, her own take on how our law fails women.But the inequities she uncovers could apply equally to any disadvantaged group -to those whose cases are subtly affected by race, class poverty or politics, or who are burdened, even before they appear in court, by misleading stereotypes.

Kennedy shares her own experience of coming up as one of the few female barristers and the ways in which archaic traditions are limiting the pipeline of female lawyers who could become tomorrow's judges - and thus the system is perpetuated. This book is a relatively quick and easy read, so it makes a nice break from the normal hefty law textbooks that the degree entails.It is really not as simple as the fact that law is sexist -- the problem runs deeper and the solution is beyond complicated. See our Remarkables Archive list for what is no longer in print, but which we are happy to track down.

Sticking with prisons, the one oddly flabby note in the book comes in a few pages where Kennedy discusses trans prisoners. Baroness Kennedy in her introduction does not mix her words, her commitment to progressing the rights of women in the law and the standard that should be expected from the law coming out from the very start.Meanwhile, battered women who finally snap and kill their tormentors are being prosecuted for murder, and mothers who miss a probation appointment because it was scheduled during the school run are being imprisoned. Helena Kennedy is a barrister working in criminal law, and she sees in the current spate of miscarriages of justice coming to light an opportunity for radical reform in the courts… except it's 1992. However, I also recognise as a white middle-class woman myself, there may well have been gaps / problematic elements that I missed.