There exists a robust body of scholarship addressing the common law doctrine of provocationudand its use in justifying and excusing murders predicated on female sexuality, but the field hasudlargely been abandoned during the past decade. This thesis proposes a return to the questionudand a reopening of the debate. It begins by reviewing and updating the literature on theudhistorical development of the doctrine and the philosophical assumptions about reason andudemotion that underlie it. It then moves into a comparative analysis of reform efforts in the UnitedudStates, England and Wales, and Australia and policymakers’ failure to effectively shift theuddoctrine’s gendered implications. It ends with a discussion of provocation’s potential to serve asudan entrance into a larger research agenda about gender and law and to inform the complicatedudtask of feminist law reform. The doctrine of provocation is not merely an extreme example of audlegal loophole but rather an indication of a deeper tendency in the common law, built as it is onudthe foundation of precedent and tradition, to represent the interests of (white) men at the expenseudof others. As such, provocation remains a fertile site for research on gender and law.
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