 Benson suggests that mitigating women’s responsibility for immoral action runs the risk of undermining women’s moral agency. This might be another reason for the scarcity of feminist discussion about the role of socialization in women’s responsibility for immoral action. The worry is that if an agent is under the sway of her socialization or circumstances, she seems to be a mere pawn who does not or cannot take control over her actions. Absolving women from responsibility for their behavior not only risks denying their agency, but risks perpetuating sexist stereotypes. This is what worries Wanda Teays about using the excusing model of self-defense for abused women who kill their abusers (1998, 61–64). Under this model, an abused woman is excused from killing her abuser either because she did not realize that she was violating the law, or because she could not prevent herself from breaking it presumably because she was under the sway of her emotions. In either case, the focus is on her, the actor, excusing her because of some characteristic she possesses or her state of mind, implying that she is mentally impaired or not reasonable. Teays favors the justifying model, which acknowledges that the woman is reasonable in the sense that there is nothing wrong with her or her reasoning skills, and that she responds appropriately, given her circumstances. This model neither compromises the woman’s agency nor perpetuates sexist stereotypes about women’s mental states. It describes these women not as being under the sway of their emotions, but as being able to determine in a rational way when self-defense is warranted. Feminists might apply this model more generally to explain the relevance of women’s circumstances to their responsibility or blameworthiness for acting immorally.