CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand - Gay Oakes, who was sentenced to life imprisonment last September for murdering her husband, Doug Gardner, lost her appeal against the conviction in April.

The Gay Oakes case attracted national media attention as "the body in the garden case" - so-called because Oakes, with the help of several staff members at a local shelter for battered women, buried Gardner's body in her back garden. It was discovered more than a year after his death. Oakes admitted lacing Gardner's coffee with sleeping pills. There has been considerable controversy about the case.

Oakes's lawyers argued that the trial judge had understated the defense case as it related to battered women's syndrome and the history of violence in the relationship. This had led the jury to reject a finding of self-defense in favor of murder.

Announcing the Court of Appeal's decision April 12, the judge declared, "It hardly needs to be said that a battered woman has no more right to kill or injure than any other person, man or woman, and so the fact that a woman suffers from the syndrome is not in itself a defense; the syndrome in itself is not a justification for the commission of a crime."

About a dozen women picketed the Christchurch High Court April 13 to protest the ruling. A spokesperson described it as a blow against all battered women. "It's saying the law is not prepared to consider or accommodate a battered woman's reality," she said.

During her trial, Oakes described a horrific catalogue of physical abuse by Gardner, spanning the majority of their 11- year relationship. The court also heard that Gardner had sexually assaulted his stepdaughter, the oldest of Oakes's six children.

Defense lawyers argued that Oakes was a victim of "battered women's syndrome" and had therefore acted with diminished responsibility. They also said that she acted in self-defense, fearing for her life.

The prosecution contended that Gardner's death was premeditated murder, pointing to forensic evidence that Gardner had 45-70 sleeping pills in his system-more than could have been slipped into one cup of coffee.

During the trial, Oakes's eldest daughter and the family doctor testified that Oakes was frequently beaten. A police witness said the police had records of this.

The publicity surrounding this case has put a spotlight on the fact that brutality toward women remains an all-too- common occurrence. For the year ended June 1993, the police responded to 19,080 domestic disputes. In 1992, women's refuges around New Zealand provided help to 7,221 women and 8,963 children. New Zealand's population is approximately 3.4 million.

But fewer women are willing to accept this violence today. And growing numbers of working people - both male and female - reject any notion that a man has a "right" to beat his wife or any other woman.

Violence against women is a product of the workings of capitalism. The oppression of women is one of the main tools the employing class uses to keep working people divided and push down wages and working conditions for all. Wife-beating is just one manifestation of women's second-class status under capitalism. The fight for women's equality is intertwined with, and an essential component of, the struggle of the working class internationally to get rid of the capitalist system.

This changed consciousness is a product of the fight for women's equality that has been waged in the last few decades. Most of all, it reflects the growing incorporation of women into the workforce. This gives women new confidence and, most importantly, economic independence to leave men who abuse them.

Supporters of Gay Oakes have rightly pointed to the double standard that still persists in the application of the law in cases where one person kills their spouse. There have been a number of cases in New Zealand in recent years where a man has killed his wife or girlfriend - often with extreme violence - and been convicted only of manslaughter on the grounds that he had been "provoked" by his partner leaving him or becoming involved with another man.

They also point to the way the police and legal system failed to protect Oakes and her children from Gardner's violence.

During a television interview last year following her trial, Oakes said that she had taken out several non- molestation orders against Gardner through the family court. But a protection order isn't much good if the police don't respond, she noted.

"I believe I wouldn't be in the situation I am today if I'd received help when I asked for it," she told the television reporter.

However, some arguments used to defend Oakes are reactionary and do damage to the fight against women's oppression.

Some backers of Oakes imply that her actions should be supported because they sent a warning to men who abuse women. One of the placards at the April 13 picket declared, "I support Lorena Bobbitt." In June 1993, in the United States, Bobbitt severed her husband's penis with a kitchen knife while he was sleeping. She alleged he had repeatedly raped and beat her. Women for Justice for Women, a group set up in the wake of the Oakes trial, is calling for changes in the law to allow a "self-preservation" defense on murder charges.

Doris Church, described in the April 7 Christchurch Press as a spokeswoman for victims and a battered women's advocate, has called for widening the definition of "self-defense." Women are physically weaker than men, she says. If the law took that into account, "self-defense" wouldn't just cover actions taken to protect yourself while actually under attack. A "preemptive strike" is a legitimate self-defense for women held in life-threatening situations, she argues. Oakes's lawyers expressed a similar view.

The working class cannot consider killing or mutilating someone as retribution for abuse to be acceptable or sending a positive message. To do so would drag us down to the moral level the bosses try to impose on us every day.

As capitalist society decays, the big-business media, politicians, and other ruling-class spokespeople constantly push toward the coarsening of human relations. They don't want working people to think we can stand on the moral high ground, and fight for solidarity. But it is only through working-class unity and common struggle that we can combat women's oppression and the other horrors that capitalism imposes on us.

It is true that many women remain in violent relationships for long periods, as Oakes did for years, and sometimes women blame themselves for the violence. But it is also true that many women do leave, and demand that their legal rights be upheld. The very real gains that women have made in the fight for equality have come about because women stood up, not as victims, but as fighters.

The entire working class and labor movement have a huge stake in campaigning against every manifestation of women's oppression and the economic and social conditions that give rise to it. We need to insist that the government end its double standard toward men who commit acts of violence against women. And we should insist that the police uphold the legal right of women to claim full protection from violence by their partners at any time.

Joan Shields is a member of the Meat Workers Union in Christchurch.