Battered Woman Syndrome
Battered Woman Syndrome
Zoe Craven,
Clearinghouse Research Assistant
Introduction
Over the last two decades, community awareness of domestic and family
violence has increased significantly and in line with this shift, substantial legal
reforms directed at assisting victims of domestic violence and sexual assault
have taken place. Whilst many of these changes have been welcomed by those
working in the field of violence against women, since its inception, a great deal of
controversy and confusion have surrounded the term ‘battered woman
syndrome’, how it is used and on what basis it can claim to explain the
experiences of victims of intimate abuse. Essentially a construct for explaining
the behavioural and cognitive patterns of battered women, the battered woman
syndrome has achieved a legitimacy in psychological and legal circles
unprecedented for theories of its kind (McMahon 1999). Whilst there is much
debate as to whether or not such status is warranted, in light of recent studies
revealing more than a fifth of all homicides occur between intimate spouses, and
that the majority of women imprisoned for murder have, at some stage, been
victims of domestic violence, its importance for professionals working in the field
of domestic violence should not be understated (Carcach 1998; Mouzos 2001).
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Copyright © Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse 2003.
The term ‘battered woman syndrome’ was coined by psychologist and prominent
feminist academic, Lenore Walker, to denote a set of distinct psychological and
behavioural symptoms that result from prolonged exposure to situations of
intimate partner violence. From July 1978 to June 1981 Walker conducted
interviews with 435 women in the Rocky Mountain Region of Colorado, USA,
each of whom had been, or were at the time, victims of domestic violence.
These interviews were conducted with a view to identifying key sociological and
psychological factors that made up the proposed battered woman syndrome but
were also aimed at testing two specific theories about battered women – the
cycle theory of battering and an adaptation of Martin Seligman’s learned
helplessness theory (Walker 1984).
Unlike previous research in the field, Walker’s study did not presuppose a
relationship between mental illness and subsequent susceptibility to intimate
violence, rather, it attempted to demonstrate the frequency with which symptoms
commonly associated with mental illness, such as depression, low self esteem
and helplessness, appeared in women who had suffered long term domestic
abuse (Walker 1984; Walker 1995). In the course of developing her synopsis,
she utilised social learning theories to explore ways in which environmental
factors could interact with individual personality traits to create particular
behavioural, cognitive and emotional responses. Specifically, she adapted
Seligman’s theory of “learned helplessness” to explain why so many battered
women fail to leave their abusers (Walker 1984).
A Definition of BWS?
What perhaps distinguished Walker’s study from others in her field, and enabled
her synopsis to achieve the legal and social-psychological status it has achieved,
was that it combined the results of an extensive field study with these two
theoretical models to produce a clear description of the patterns of violence in
intimate relationships and their psychological/behavioural sequelae for female
victims (Stubbs 1991). Whilst BWS has not yet been specifically listed in the
DSM-IV1, it is generally recognised as an implied sub-category of the medically
certified post-traumatic stress disorder. Such an association between BWS and
PTSD is commonly justified on the basis that many victims of domestic violence
1
Commonly referred to as the DSM-IV, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association is the primary diagnostic
reference for mental health professionals in the United States and in Australia. It provides a
comprehensive listing and diagnostic criteria for the most commonly recognised mental
disorders, ranging from eating and sleep disorders to schizophrenia and depression. The
DSM-IV was recently revised to include new research information developed since 1994 and
is now referred to as the DSM-IV (TR).
Since its inception, Walker’s battered woman syndrome has been utilised in a
range of professional and institutional contexts, including clinical intervention
programs, family law and custody disputes and as a basis for policy/legal reform.
Its most debated and widespread usage however, has arguably been in the
context of criminal defences (Tolmie 1994). Prior to the decision in Runjanjic &
Kontinnen (1991), when the South Australian Court of Criminal Appeal first
recognised battered woman syndrome as an appropriate matter for expert
evidence, women who committed offences in the context of a violent relationship
were limited in what kinds of evidence they could adduce at trial because the
traditional rules of evidence require only facts of relevance, not contextual
factors, be raised. It was thus extremely difficult for women attempting to build a
defence like self-defence, which requires a defendant show their actions were
both necessary and reasonable in the circumstances, to bring evidence that
might challenge traditional stereotypes of battered women who kill or explain why
simply leaving her abuser was not a viable option (Easteal 1991). The
requirement, both in self-defence and partial defences like provocation or duress
that the threat/attack be imminent was equally problematic. It was therefore not
surprising that many feminists involved in the movement for legal reforms hailed
the decision of the Canadian Supreme Court in Lavalee (1990), and its
As the preceding discussion indicates, there are a number of criticisms that may
be directed at the use of battered woman syndrome, both in a legal context and
in clinical environments. Such criticisms have tended to fall into one of two areas
– those directed at the methodological and conceptual flaws in Walker’s research
and consequently, the construct of BWS itself and those stemming primarily from
feminist legal academics whose focus has been on the failure of BWS to present
any significant challenge to gender bias in western legal systems. More recently,
as the use of BWS has extended to cases involving Indigenous, homosexual and
Pacific-Asian Immigrant defendant/victims, the applicability of a theory based on
research conducted with primarily middle class Caucasian women, to the
situations of men and women from a diversity of cultural and socio-economic
backgrounds has been called into question.
Although Walker’s battered woman syndrome has been widely accepted both in
the courts and in the medical/psychiatric community, a range of criticisms
directed at the conceptual viability of her theory remain unaddressed (McMahon
1999). Firstly, BWS as defined by Walker may be set apart from the majority of
recognised disorders in that it describes the behavioural and psychological
characteristics of not only the victim, but also the perpetrator. By working her
analysis of the psychology of the perpetrator into her cycle of violence, it is
arguable Walker purports to draw both victim and perpetrator into her ‘diagnosis’
(McMahon 1999). Secondly, it has been suggested that one must treat with
caution any theory which derives solely from a study of a select group of women,
most of whom were no longer living with their abusive partners at the time of
participation and were from limited socio-economic and cultural backgrounds
(Gray 1998; Orloff 2002; Warren 2002). Thirdly, the notion of staying with, rather
than leaving an abusive partner as a coping strategy is not really explored in
Walker’s earlier work. Although she has since addressed the issue to some
extent, the basic construct of learned helplessness that Walker utilised to
develop the theory of BWS does not contemplate the choice to stay as anything
other than a passive and submissive response (Griffith 1995; Dutton 1996;
Seuffert 1999). Alternative theories such as those posed by Gondolf and Fisher
perhaps provide a more realistic portrayal of battered women as ‘survivors’ rather
than ‘victims’ (Gondolf 1988).
A further criticism that might be directed at the conceptual basis for Walker’s
theory is that while it may explain why some women stay, the actions of women
who tend to rely on her theory, that is, women who kill, tend to contradict rather
than confirm her synopsis. Research has shown that in situations where a victim
ultimately kills her partner, one or more factors have differentiated that particular
incident from countless others (Easteal 1991). Blackman and Browne have
referred to this as a ‘turning point’ often involving more serious threats or
battering, or a threat to others in the family. The advent of such a ‘turning point’
Whilst many feminist legal academics hailed the acceptance of battered woman
syndrome by Australian courts as a milestone for women’s legal rights,
anticipating it would pave the way towards substantive challenges to prevailing
masculine legal structures, (Easteal 1991) it has become apparent since the
decision in Runjanjic, particularly to those who have studied the use of expert
evidence of BWS in specific cases, that the ‘syndromisation’ of women’s
experiences, and the classification of women and men from a diversity of social
and cultural backgrounds within a single theoretical construct, should not
necessarily be greeted with unqualified support (Easteal 1991; Schaffer, 1997).
Throughout the 1980s, much of the commentary on BWS by feminist academics
was uncritical, tending to view a small victory as preferable to no victory at all
(Easteal 1991). The introduction of BWS was essentially advocated as a way of
helping to establish new standards against which a defendant/victims’ behaviour
might be measured. What earlier advocates seemed to overlook however, was
that rather than impugning the predominantly male discourses that have
constituted and defined legal rules and standards, use of the BWS to explain a
battered woman’s actions only redefines her experiences to fit within the
prevailing structures (Stubbs 1991). As Stubbs argues, while the intention may
have been to show the court that a woman who resorts to self help in a situation
of domestic violence behaved reasonably given her status as a victim and the
history of abuse, because BWS defines what is reasonable through explication of
a syndrome, the woman’s actions are still represented as irrational (Stubbs
1991). In other words, instead of being used to explain the gendered nature of
the legal standards of reasonableness inherent in most criminal defences, BWS
has been used to explain women’s failure to meet these standards.
The use of evidence of BWS as a legal defence strategy was also thought by
many to be a way of breaking down some of the myths that often damaged
female defendant/victims in court. It was thought that by introducing evidence of
the cyclical nature of violence and providing a psychological explanation for a
It would seem that proponents and critics alike are left in a state of uncertainty as
to what, if any, role Walker’s theory of battered woman syndrome should
continue to play within legal and social-psychological professional contexts.
Whilst it is true that prior to the introduction of expert evidence of BWS in
Australian courts there were no reported cases of battered women charged with
murdering their spouses receiving a full acquittal and very few cases in which
reduced, non-custodial or suspended sentences were handed down on the basis
of the history of abuse in the relationship, it is not clear how much of what has
been achieved may be attributed directly to Walker’s thesis (Stubbs 1999). Nor
should the instances in which use of the construct has benefited women be
permitted to detract attention away from the myriad of criticisms that have been
directed at both the methodological and conceptual basis for the theory and its
failure to present any substantive challenge to conventional legal reasoning
Although the use of ‘social framework evidence’ per se has thus far been
confined to the US and Canada, recent Australian cases have demonstrated a
much more sophisticated understanding of the nature of abusive relationships
and phenomena such as separation assault. The case of Gilbert (2001), in which
an Aboriginal elder and an Aboriginal Police Liaison Officer from a remote
Indigenous community were called to testify on behalf of a woman accused of
murdering her spouse, is illustrative of these developments (Stubbs 1999;
Bradfield 2002). As community and judicial awareness of domestic violence and
other forms of gendered violence improves, it is possible that knowledge of what
is ‘reasonable’ for a battered woman will not be so far beyond the understanding
of the ‘ordinary person’ that categorising women’s experiences and drawing
connections to existing bodies of medical and psychological literature will be
necessary. While BWS remains the predominant psychological construct
recognised by Australian courts in cases involving battered women however, an
understanding of what it is, how it can be used and how its use can be both
inappropriate and counterproductive is critical for professionals working in the
field of domestic and family violence.
Table of Cases
References
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