The present theory is incapable of accommodating women's experiences without judging women to be deviant from and inferior to the model human actor, and therefore should be revised to include characteristics traditionally associated with and internalized by women. Manson is in the Department of Geography at the University of. The author concludes that the practice of excusing women reveals the inadequacy of the theory of responsibility presently endorsed by the criminal law. Attempts to reconfigure the defense are likely to fail because the defense affirms the hierarchical understanding of gender that feminism has been determined to dismantle. The defense reaffirms that women lack the same capacity for rational self-control that is possessed by men and thereby exposes women to forms of interference against which men are secure. In this Article, the author agrees with the feminist critique of the battered woman syndrome defense, but argues that the critique is inadequate because the negative implications for women go beyond the reinforcement of gender roles. While many feminist scholars have concluded that courts should consider evidence of abuse the accused woman endured at the hands of her husband, others have argued that this defense institutionalizes negative stereotypes of women. Over the past two decades, women offenders have begun to offer the battered woman syndrome defense as an excuse to a variety of crimes, ranging from homicide to fraud. In rare instances, the criminal law allows defendants to offer claims of excuse in order to avoid criminal responsibility.