Battered Women's Syndrome
by Charla Greene
June 1996
In my last column I talked about e misconceptions surrounding the Death Penalty; this time I want to talk about misconceptions around Battered Women's Syndrome (BWS), or what constitutes an abusive or battered situation. I want to do this to clarify a statement I made about Marcia, my friend in Chowchilla. In a previous edition of the Free Press I had described her as being a "battered woman - who killed the man she loved rather than continue living in an abusive situation." I was questioned about the description by someone familiar with the case, and although "battered" and "abusive situation" are actually accurate words to use, because of the common definition of these words, that statement would make it seem like she was in a scene of physical battering. This was not the case, but it is this narrow definition of "battering" that is being argued by many experts and has prompted a revision of the guideline for
BWS, recognized as a sub-type of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Last year, Sheila Kuel (D-Santa Monica) introduced Assembly Bill 231 to expand the definition to read "evidence of the effects of physical, emotional or mental state abuse upon the beliefs, perception or behavior of victims of domestic violence where it appears that the criminal behavior was a result of that victimization." Unfortunately the Bill intended as guidelines for the Board of Prison Terms is for the use in commuting only, not paroling, where it is really needed. A strange omission.
Lenore Walker writes in The Battered Woman: "(M)any people reserve the battering label only for those incidents resulting in serious bodily harm. For me, the process of abuse is important to analyze too. The slow emotional torture which produces invisible scars is as abusive as the quick, sharp physical blows." I can't see how it could be stated more clearly.
Marcia's case is not only one of a reaction to emotional and sexual abuse, it is also one of "cumulative abuse." She had already been in a couple relationships that were physically abusive and the scars of those experiences were active elements in her life. When any kind of abuse stops, the damage doesn't just disappear, it becomes part of the person's baggage, and unless it is addressed in a healing context it is still an active ingredient that will react to any additional abuse, combining and building up to the point of ''The Last Straw". This is not an uncommon phenomenon and we see this daily when someone overreacts to a comment (and you know there's some other problem that's not being addressed).
Perhaps because it is potentially so easy to understand, there's a backlash in using it in litigation, with the prosecution implying that mentioning abuse is merely a ploy by women who are coldly trying to get out of taking responsibility for their actions. But to say that a time bomb was finally triggered does not mean there is an absence of concern for the aftermath, or an avoidance of the responsibility for the pain of all those affected. I would like to quote Marcia: "I don't know of anyone who feels good about what she's done (more often) the woman would rather be dead herself." what happens is that the public feels the woman using BWS in a defense is trying to make an exuse and use it as a defense in itself. Instead, BWS is offered as a reason to clarify actions. It has become known as "the abuse exuse," but "exuse" and "reason" are very different and when a woman attempts to clarify her motivation it is done so she too can know and take responsibility with better understanding. I quote Marcia again: "People don't give women the credit of having a conscience. The are not allowed the legal or personal space to articulate their horror of their actions and their regret."
There are so many women, painfully in regret, sitting in prisons across the country who are there because the reacted to an abusive situation (of any kind), who are often cut off from family support because abuse is so private, and the survivors can't imagine the deceased as anything but "wonderful," and whose abuse continues at the hands of the patriarchal prison system. Does the word "compassion" seem to foreign? For our hate-infested society?