Battered Woman's Syndrome

Characteristics of BWS

Walker specifies that a woman who has experienced two complete battering cycles can be classified as a battered woman. Battering cycles are characterized by a period of tension building, followed by an acute battering episode, and ending with a reconciliation or loving period. BWS has been described as a subgroup of what the American Psychological Association (APA) defines as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although there is not one definitive profile of a sufferer of BWS, generally there are four main characteristics:

• 1.
  The woman accepts responsibility for her batterer's actions.
• 2.
  The woman is unable to place the responsibility for the violence elsewhere.
• 3.
  The woman fears for her life and/or the lives of her children.
• 4.
  The woman believes her abuser is omnipresent and omniscient.

Battered women also frequently suffer from low self-esteem and severe stress reactions. In addition, some argue that battered women may not be able to accurately discern the level of dangerousness in a given incident. They contend that BWS/PTSD can explain how, because of flashbacks or other experiences associated with past victimization, a victim of prior abuse can regard a current situation as dangerous when objectively it is not.

Applications

The emergence of BWS in domestic violence research has brought wide public attention to the conditions of battered women and, combined with feminist advocacy, has prompted changes in the trials of battered women charged with killing their abusers.

BWS has been used in criminal cases since the late 1970s. Contrary to popular belief, it has not been used as a discrete defense to criminal charges. Rather, it is typically used, along with other relevant information, to support claims of self-defense. The term generally relates to expert testimony that describes the social and psychological effects of continued battering, and characterizes the history of the relationship between the defendant and the decedent.

Criticisms

Early criticism of BWS centered on the use of learned helplessness theory to explain why battered women remain in violent relationships. Specifically, women's advocates believed that because of the word helplessness, the theory could be easily misinterpreted to perpetuate the image of women as mentally weak, powerless, or incompetent. Such criticism has led researchers to distinguish learned helplessness from being helpless. The theory suggests that continual [Page 48]battering, with unsuccessful attempts to escape, diminishes a woman's motivation to respond. What results is a state of “learned” helplessness in which the battered woman loses the ability to foresee what she will do to produce a particular outcome (end the abuse, escape the relationship, etc.).

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