Constructing Nicole : gender, discourse and victimization/criminalization in R v. Ryan

Abstract

This thesis investigates the case R v. Ryan at the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia level. It is a feminist, post-structural critical discourse analysis of the gender scripts in R v Ryan. In particular, it examines the ways in which Nicole Doucet is framed through discourses of emphasized femininity, “Battered Woman’s Syndrome” psychological discourse and legal credibility, and how these discourses construct her through a dichotomous Victim/Criminal binary. The thesis will argue that this analysis of gendered discourses, as well as Doucet’s resistance to these narratives, add to the research on the victimization and criminalization of women charged with self-defensive violence by providing an example of the way the victimization-criminalization continuum is a more accurate way of analyzing women’s self-defensive violence.