Article

Gendering the Death Penalty: Countering Sex Bias in a Masculine Sanctuary

By Victor L. Streib / Ohio State Law Journal, on 1 January 2002



American death penalty laws and procedures persistently minimize cases involving female capital offenders. Recognizing some benign explanations for this disparate impact, Professor Streib nonetheless sees the dearth of female death penalty trials, death sentences, and actual executions as signaling sex bias throughout the death penalty system. In this article, he provides data concerning death sentencing and execution patterns and then suggests both substantive and procedural means to address the apparent sex bias. Much more significant, however, is the unique lens for examining the death penalty that is provided by a sex bias analysis. Professor Streib concludes that this perspective unmasks the system’s crime-fighting rhetoric to reveal a macho refuge that masculinizes all who enter therein.

  • Document type Article
  • Countries list United States
  • Themes list Women,



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