Home is Where the Heart is

by Katelynn Bourke

English 10, Hour 2 Mrs. Brewer March 30, 2012

Home is where the heart is. This is a commonly known and well thought of metaphor, but not many people know just how far it is from the truth. 1,200 American women are killed by their intimate partner each year (Gonnerman). For battered women home is a place of greater danger than public places, more dangerous than the highway, more dangerous than city streets. People would like to view intimate relationships as a safe haven, a refuge from the violence that wreaks havoc outside the walls of home, but all too often the couple relationship itself is the largest source of danger and threat to women. In the United State, women are most likely to be injured, raped, or even killed by a current or former male partner than by all other types of assailants combined. Over one half of women homicide victims are killed by a current or former male intimate Many of these women being injured, raped, and even murdered, are known as battered women. So what is a battered woman? A bettered woman is a woman who is repeatedly subjected to any forceful, physical, or physiological behavior by a man that she is involved with. To be classified as a battered woman the couple must go through the battering cycle at least twice. Any woman may find herself in an abusive relationship once, if it happens a second time, and she remains in the relationship, she is then defined as a battered women. But what happens to these women after being abused for years with seemingly no way out? Well, in many cases women have no choice but to end the life or their batterer, in exchange for their own. Battered women who kill their abuser should not be imprisoned for it is an act of self defense. Throughout history wife beating has been sanctioned legally and socially. For a very long period of time wife beating beating was a normal thing, accepted, and practiced by many. Women were thought

of as possessions belonging to an individual, much like a pet, and when a pet misbehaves it get's punished by its owner. The husbands right to hit his wife was legalized in 1824, the only restriction being that he Use a switch no bigger than his thumb (Swanson). Battered women, as well as women in general, fought a tough battle in order to be accepted by the U.S legal system. For a long time they were not allowed to testify or even show evidence on battered women syndrome, but overtime and with much effort several states began to change, an example of this would be the Framingham Eight case that took place in the Massachusetts courts during the early 1990s. Eight imprisoned women challenged their convictions, saying that they should have been allowed to show evidence of battered women syndrome during their trials. Seven of the eight were freed when their sentences were commuted by former governor William Weld, resulting a large change in the Massachusetts court system, then, finally In 1993, the state legislature passed a law that allows evidence of battered women syndrome during their trials (Charleston). This was the spark that fueled the many campaigns on battered women syndrome throughout the 1990s, clemency was being granted to imprisoned women left and right, and several large steps in the fight for battered women court acceptance were taken. Now, when a women is charged with killing her husband, the defense attorney includes an expert on domestic violence. Though the amount of campaigns for battered women has been scarce of late, resulting in less clemencies, and overall less progress towards battered women in court. Yes, women are now allowed to testify and show evidence of their battery, but there is no guarantee that the battered women will escape prison time. Experts and advocates say that evoking battered women syndrome rarely gets women off completely (Gonnerman). Using battered women syndrome as self defense works best when the defendant is a white, middle class woman, who has done what people have asked her to do, from trying to get into a shelter, to getting a restraining order. It doesn't work in almost any other case (Jennings). Battered women syndrome is something that many people are not aware of, which is surprising because so many are affected by it. Every year 5,000,000 American women are abused or stalked by their intimate partner, and 555,000 serious injuries are caused by domestic abuse (Gonnerman). There

are so many battered women that domestic violence shelters are overflowing. In 2004 4,237 women and children were turned from domestic violence shelters in Missouri because there was not enough room (Gonnerman) If a child is playing baseball and breaks a window he is punished for his actions, he has to face the consequences. Battering women is a wrong doing, but husbands aren't enduring the consequences, the people of the U.S are. When people are badly injured, they go to the hospital, and believe it or not, it costs money to heal wounds. Battered women are getting frequent beatings, therefore they have frequent trips to the hospital. The estimates for injuries from family violence are a medical cost of $44,393,700. 21,000 hospitalizations, 99,800 days of hospitalizations, 28,700 emergency room visits, and 39,000 physician visits. There are many things we can do in order to greatly reduce and possibly eliminate women getting battered, and the biggest thing we can do would be to simply inform people on battered women so they know what to do if they find one, one of the many examples of this would be with health care and medical staff. Many battered women are in need of medical care and community support. Health care providers, however, lack the protocols and training needed to interfere with this kind of violence. When battered women come to hospitals they are simply patched up and sent on their way, nobody questions or points out that they are abused. In one case when a battered women came to the hospital to be treated the nurses note just said hit on upper lip, loose tooth, happened last night. Diagnosis: blunt face trauma (Loring). What the nurses note does not say is who hit her, what her relationship with that person was, or what the circumstances of the attack were. Nurses see these battered women and just give up hope, in many cases they know the women will be back again, but they feel as if there is nothing they can do that will really help, so the medical staff simply used denial to distance themselves from their problems and blame the battered women in order to clear their conscience. But what they do not understand is that they can help, with proper training a medical staff would be able to separate battered women from normal patients, after this they could interview the woman to prove their suspicions. From the moment a woman

discloses that she is battered she would be placed with a social worker, who would then provide her with information on her options. Another thing that would help battered women would be to help them in a way that doesn't show victim involvement, an example of this would be if a victim reports to a probation officer that her abuser has been drinking in violation of his supervision requirements, officers could be trained to confirm the violation in ways that would not show that the victim tipped him off, like visiting a local bar that the drinking often vacates, or a urinalysis test. There are many other little things that could be done to help battered women some of these things would be. Giving women legal help and protection after leaving a battered women shelter so she is not tracked down by her batterer. Supervising men with prior domestic violence history. Providing information on battering relationships and shelters to women who request restraining orders, and possibly using a GPS tracking device that could tell police when an offender is violating a restraining order. The use of battered women syndrome in court has had its fair share of critics for many different reasons, the most common questions they ask are, why didn't she leave, or why did she kill him when her life wasn't in imminent danger? These questions can be easily explained. Numerous factors influence a woman's decision to stay with her batterer, despite the fact that the violence will only increase. In the relationship between a woman and her batterer there seems to be three phases of violence, these phases repeat themselves, becoming a cycle. Culturally, women invest themselves in their relationships, derive meaning from them, and they hope that if they can cook a better meal, or keep the children quieter, that the beatings will stop. Batterers isolate women from the outside world, they control funds, and have extreme jealousy problems, resulting in them usually working in the same jobs with their wives. If women try to leave their husbands they are usually tracked down, and sometimes killed. Another thing that people question is why she killed him when her life wasn't in imminent danger. Well, for every woman it is different, but in most cases it's because after being beaten for several years, the woman knows that she could not attack him and win head on, so she does it in other ways, during times he would not suspect. Women are always being turned away when they call for help, so they feel that only they can

solve their problem. Many believe that battered women should go to jail because they are 'cold blooded murderers' but if that is the case than why are women homicide inmates typically known as 'model prisoners,' listening to institution rules and parole board mandates. These women are clearly not a threat to the community, and have the potential to become helpful members of society. People say that battered women are not innocent, but their actions seem to say otherwise. In a vast majority of cases, police officers arriving on the scene of a homicide committed by a battered women find a traumatized and terrified woman who willingly cooperates with their investigation. 'Interviewees state repeatedly that they were confident that, by telling the authorities what happened, everything would be fine' (Charleston). People that do not agree with battered women syndrome do not seem to understand that if these women did not act out as they did they would be dead, and in many cases they did call for help. If all these people had done their part, none of us would be here now (Jennings) battered women are constantly sent away, shelters are full, nurses pretend that everything is okay, and even family fail to help in many cases. When extensive abuse triggers lethal self defense, women should not be imprisoned. They should not be imprisoned because society has repeatedly ignored their cries for help, and if they did not act out, sooner or later their own life would be taken. In order to stop battered women from being imprisoned, we need to go to the root of the problem, and stop the battering in the first place. People should be informed on the signs of battered women, and know where to send these women once they are found. Battered women live through years of abuse, and when the beatings finally end, they are thrown in jail. These women need to be helped, because without help, before it is too late.