Battered Women's Syndrome Analysis

Battered women’s syndrome is psychological disorder like PTSD that is caused by men who continually beat their domestic partner(women). BWS has become an active self-defense strategy for females trying to defend their actions against the people who cause their trauma. This self-defense strategy explains the effects of constant physical and psychological abuse and supports their reasoning for killing their aggressor and why it is difficult for women to leave their abusive relationship. BWS must meet three standards/phases to use it: Tension building, severe battering incident, and extreme repentance and loving behavior (Honeymoon stage) and if this is a constant cycle in the relationship, it meets the symptoms of BWS. This defense strategy has saved many women …show more content…
The article first looked at the real-life examples of inequality of Hedda Nussbaum a white women and Geraldine Mitchell, an African American woman. Both had almost identical circumstances, but Hedda Nussbaum had all her charges dropped well Geraldine Mitchell was found guilty of Manslaughter. To convince the judge you have BWS, you must be able to show the BWS emotional characteristics of being a “normal women, passive and fearful” (Allard 194 1991). Race plays a significant role in cultural expectations for women, and often white women are stereotyped as passive and gentle while black women inherit the negative stereotypes of being evil, angry and crazy. This automatically places black women at a disadvantage in the courtroom when trying to defend their actions. To some extent, BWS was based on the stereotypes given to white women from early social norms during slavery in the US and that makes our legal system inapplicable to women of color because our systems root creates the perception that black women are angry. Throughout our history, black women's