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''We Don't have Time for Social Change'' : Cultural Compromise and the Battered Woman Syndrome
Bess Rothenberg Gender & Society 2003 17: 771 DOI: 10.1177/0891243203255633 The online version of this article can be found at: http://gas.sagepub.com/content/17/5/771

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10.1177/0891243203255633 GENDER Rothenberg &/ SOCIETY BATTERED / October WOMAN 2003 SYNDROME

ARTICLE

Perspective

WE DONT HAVE TIME FOR SOCIAL CHANGE Cultural Compromise and the Battered Woman Syndrome
BESS ROTHENBERG Clemson University

This article explores how the acceptance of the battered woman syndrome as the explanation for why abusive relationships continue can be understood as a cultural compromise. The syndromes portrayal of battered women as passive victims resulted in an exclusive definition of who counts as a victim. It further emphasized many abused womens weaknesses rather than their resourcefulness and overlooked the plights of a great variety of women in need of help. More important, it placed emphasis on individualized solutions for domestic violence rather than addressing structural inequalities in American society. These issues ultimately led to a critique by other advocates of the battered woman syndrome as an inadequate and flawed explanation for domestic violence. Yet despite its weaknesses, the syndrome allowed advocates the chance to appeal to the larger public and, ultimately, begin the process of alleviating structural inequalities.

Keywords:

domestic violence; battered womens movement; battered woman syndrome; Lenore Walker; cultural compromise

In 1977, psychologist Lenore Walker, an emerging advocate for battered women,

was asked by a newspaper reporter about the problems of abused women, particularly those who kill their batterers. Walkers elaborate response about the fundamental and inherent gender inequality found in American society fell on impatient ears. The journalist reportedly dismissed Walkers depiction of systemic gendered power differentials by retorting, We dont have time for social change. Walker was then further pushed to find a solution to the problems of battered women who kill. Feeling pressured to give an instant response, the psychologist replied, If
AUTHORS NOTE: The author would like to acknowledge Christine E. Bose, Erin Calhoun Davis, Karin Peterson, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier drafts. The author is particularly appreciative of the suggestions Sharon Hays and John Steadman Rice provided in the early stages of this work. The National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women was very helpful in providing direction to relevant sources.
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battered women kill their abusers, Ill provide a defense for them. The next day, Walker found herself staring at the headline in the local newspaper: Noted Psychologist Will Defend Women Who Kill (Walker 1999). She also found herself on the path to becoming one of the preeminent experts on the subject of domestic violence. Walkers impromptu answer symbolized the beginnings of a cultural compromise for the battered womens movement as advocates found themselves caught between the desire to find immediate solutions to the problems of battered women and the goal of fundamentally altering gendered power relationships. Cultural compromise, as the term is employed here, occurs as parties with conflicting interests attempt to gain cultural authority over a social issue. To gain this authority, overarching interpretations of a cultural issue must often accommodate competing understandings and address the concerns or interests of larger audiences. The result is often a partial gain for interested parties as portions of their goals are incorporated into the public understanding of the issue and accepted by the larger society. Yet at the same time, this compromise leads to dissatisfaction, as goals are not sufficiently met and no one party sees its understanding of the social problem fully realized. I argue here that the introduction of certain interpretations of the domestic violence issue, multiple victimization arguments, was an attempt by many advocates to gain much needed support for battered women as both individuals and a collective. But it was the success of one argument in particular in the 1980s and early 1990sLenore Walkers (1979, 1984) battered woman syndromethat best embodied a cultural compromise. Walkers representation of the battered woman syndrome had many positive effects on the emerging movement as it enabled advocates to achieve their goals of public sympathy for individual victims. Yet her argument also relied on a relatively exclusive definition of the domestic violence victim. More important, her explanation and proposed solutions took attention away from the collective plight of battered women and the larger issue of structural inequality.

THE EMERGENCE OF THE BATTERED WOMENS MOVEMENT In the early 1970s, the issue of domestic violence in the United States first came to the forefront as feminists began to organize what has since been called the battered womens movement. Advocatesamong them feminists, social workers, social scientists, and shelter workersdevoted their energies to empowering women to leave abusive relationships. The first widely published book on domestic violence, Scream Quietly or the Neighbors Will Hear, written by British advocate Erin Pizzey ([1974] 1977), was well received by feminists in the United States and helped to mobilize a movement to make the plight of battered women public. Feminists relied on local grassroots efforts to establish battered womens shelters across the country and make hotlines and counseling available to abused women. They

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formed coalitions at the local, state, and national levels to educate the public about domestic violence and push for reforms in public policy. Advocates, such as Del Martin ([1976] 1981), Lenore Walker (1979), and Mildred Daley Pagelow (1981), argued that it was time to end the silence, stop domestic violence, and empower its victims by recognizing that violence against women was the result of unequal power relationships between men and women. This grassroots work succeeded in making the plight of battered women, once socially invisible, a subject of public discussion and policy change (Tierney 1982, 215). However, as advocates continued to discuss the collective social status of battered women, the publics eye began to fixate on individual women. Over time, the publics interest in seeing battered women as weak individuals came to rival advocates desires for alleviating the structural inequality behind domestic violence. In this context, disagreements began to arise among advocates as to how to politically situate the movements discourse. Much in the way that the antirape movement had relied on feminism to formulate the ideology of their movement, battered womens advocates also turned to feminist discourse to champion their cause (McNickle Rose 1977; Schechter 1982). From the outset, the movement had made clear that the problems of domestic violence were grounded in a patriarchal society and that any solutions would require greater equality for women on the societal level. Walker (1979, xi), for example, began her first book by noting, My feminist analysis of all violence is that sexism is the real underbelly of human suffering. Emphasis on the problems of patriarchy, however, led to a difficult position for the battered womens movement. They soon discovered that the public was relatively uninterested in finding solutions to a social problem that required a full overhaul of societys gendered power relationships. This issue was further complicated by the fact that as the movement expanded, the base of its appeal broadened to incorporate advocates who did not necessarily identify themselves as feminists. As Schechter (1982, 312) noted, this shift simultaneously expanded feminisms base and eroded it. . . . A broad based appeal to help battered women . . . brought into organizations people who either wittingly or unwittingly undermined the radical insights about violence against women. Despite the initial support that feminists provided to the battered womens movementsupport that was requisite for the movements emergencemany advocates ultimately came to distance themselves from blatantly feminist rhetoric. Instead, to convince policy makers that intervention was necessary, many chose to focus more on concrete, individualized solutions that could alleviate battered womens situations (Tierney 1982). The abandonment of explicitly feminist discourse did not, however, lead to automatic public support for battered women and their problems. In fact, gaining public sympathy for abused women had never been a straightforward task. Early proponents had to work through numerous obstacles in their efforts to make battered women appear to be deserving of public help. Most important, advocates were confronted with the problem of explaining why battered women remained with their abusers. Gelles (1987, 108) acknowledged that the question itself derives from the elementary assumption that any reasonable individual, having been beaten and

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battered by another person, would avoid being victimized again (or at least avoid the attacker). Loseke (1992, 21) echoed this problem in sociological terms:
It is not surprising that claims-makers have devoted considerable attention to answering the question, why does she stay? If wife abuse is to be publicly accepted as a social problem then the behavior of staying in a relationship containing wife abuse must be constructed in a way not challenging claims about the content of this social problem. In other words, if a woman stays because violence is not that bad, if she stays because she does not mind the abuse, indeed, if she stays because she chooses to stay for any reason, then claims about the content of this public problem are challenged.

Ultimately, the entire battered womens movement and its appeals to the public centered on effectively arguing that abused women do not stay with their partners by choice. Only by convincing the public of this claim were advocates able to justify the need for public intervention into the private lives of citizens. The initial success of the movement came to depend greatly on a discourse that emphasized the ways in which battered women were trapped in abusive relationships.

MULTIPLE VICTIMIZATION ARGUMENTS By the late 1970s, a large number of books and articles had been published that focused on how abused women remained in abusive relationships not of their own volition but instead were coerced into staying in battering relationships (e.g., Dobash and Dobash 1979; Langley and Levy 1977; Martin [1976] 1981; Moore 1979; Roy 1977; Walker 1979, 1984). The marked similarity in these explanations represents what I term multiple victimization arguments. These arguments focused on the ways in which battered women were victimized and trapped into remaining in violent relationships as the primary reason for the continuation of abuse. Such interpretations claimed that battered women were trapped by abusers who caused harm to them, a society that ignored the suffering of battered women, a system of failed institutional responses, and a patriarchy that disadvantaged women in general. By framing the issue in this manner, advocates were able to address the larger societal issues associated with domestic violence while drawing attention to the plights of individual women. According to this line of argument, battered women were victims first and foremost of brutal abusers who were capable of inflicting extreme and cruel forms of violence on their victims (Browne 1987; Daley Pagelow 1981; Dobash and Dobash 1979; Martin [1976] 1981; Okun 1986; Walker 1979, 1984). Loseke (1992, 17) explained that while claims-makers often give a nod toward condemning all forms of violence, their claims construct the core of wife abuse to contain extreme physical violence. Such descriptions opened the eyes of the larger public to the degree of severity of the social problem by focusing on extreme violence inflicted by men on women.

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In recognizing that domestic violence was not just an issue of battered women choosing to stay in individual abusive relationships, multiple victimization advocates also emphasized how society both explicitly and tacitly condoned the use of violence and the right of men to hit women. They argued that women were socialized into traditional gender roles that pressured women to stay with abusive partners (Daley Pagelow 1981; Dobash and Dobash 1979; Gondolf 1988; NiCarthy 1982; Walker 1979, 1984). Society left battered women to explain what in their behaviors led their partners to beat them and why they stayed for further beatings. These societal expectations, advocates maintained, victimized battered women by providing them with little or no social support, trapping them more completely into abusive relationships. Multiple victimization advocates further argued that the system of institutions that could potentially help abused women traditionally ignored the plight of battered women (Daley Pagelow 1981; Gondolf 1988; Walker 1979, 1984). Included in this list of institutions that failed women were law enforcement, government agencies, the criminal justice system, the medical profession, and the helping professions, including mental health workers, shelter workers, and the clergy. This lack of necessary support and assistance from professionals, advocates suggested, forced battered women to remain in violent relationships that they otherwise would have left. The everyday realities that put women at a disadvantage in a patriarchal society composed the fourth aspect of multiple victimization arguments. Advocates argued that gender gaps in pay, responsibility for the care of children, and the lack of education and/or job skills were not the problems of battered women only. So long as women in general had a lower socioeconomic status than men, were financially dependent on their partners, and were expected to raise children, advocates contended, they would always be disadvantaged (Daley Pagelow 1981; Martin [1976] 1981; Walker 1979). But multiple victimization advocates realized that they could not establish a monopoly on these everyday realities so long as they were the problems of the majority of women. They therefore went beyond general feminist critiques, arguing that battered womens problems were worse than those of women in general (Daley Pagelow 1981; Martin [1976] 1981; Okun 1986; Walker 1979, 1984). Advocates stressed the extreme isolation of battered women, focusing on how little contact with others they had in their day-to-day lives and how they lacked emotional and material support from friends and family. Advocates contended that this isolation only exacerbated the disadvantages of abused women in comparison to other women. They also argued that the beatings battered women received made the everyday problems of being a woman in a patriarchal society all the more difficult to handle. Due to the violence to which they were routinely subjected, staying in a bad relationship was far worse for abused women than for other women. These explanations appealed to feminists and those sympathetic to the ways in which women were socially disadvantaged. Yet they also found an audience with the larger public. For those who were otherwise skeptical of feminist claims, the

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suffering battered women experienced could still evoke sympathy. In multiple victimization arguments, there was a place for feminist discourse that suggested the need for greater change on the community and societal levels while simultaneously recognizing the implications for individual women.

THE BATTERED WOMAN SYNDROME Some, although not all, multiple victimization advocates suggested that these experiences of victimization led battered women to internalize these negative external factors and consequently develop psychological problems (Browne 1987; Graham, Rawlings, and Rimini 1988; NiCarthy 1982; Walker 1979, 1984). According to these arguments, battered women were not innately inclined to be abused and remain in violent relationships; rather, their psychological problems developed primarily through social experiences.1 With this approach, advocates were able to refute the notion that there was something inherently deviant in abused women and instead fault external factors for the womens circumstances. But by psychologizing the issue, some advocates suggested that the most urgent help for abused women should come in the form of therapy and assertiveness training to raise womens self-esteem and enable them to leave their violent relationships. This emphasis on psychological problems opened the doors for a cultural compromise by acknowledging larger structural problems but offering individualized solutions through the form of consciousness raising. Lenore Walkers battered women syndrome arguably best embodied this compromise. More than any other multiple victimization argument, the battered woman syndrome enjoyed success in the 1980s and early part of the 1990s (Rothenberg 2002b). Clinical and forensic psychologist Lenore E. A. Walker published The Battered Woman in 1979 in which she first posited that battered women suffer from a syndrome that prevents them from leaving abusive relationships. Her next two books, The Battered Woman Syndrome (1984) and Terrifying Love: Why Battered Women Kill and How Society Responds (1989), established Walker as one of the most prominent advocates for battered women to emerge out of the first two decades of the movement. In these books, Walker argued that battered women were trapped in abusive relationships due to learned helplessness and a cycle of violence that made it virtually impossible for them to escape their abusers. She claimed that once battered women discovered that all attempts to escape were futile, they became passive and submissive and developed other psychological problems such as depression, overwhelming fear, low self-esteem, and psychological paralysis (Walker 1979, 47). Walker maintained that a cycle of violence further ensured that victimized women remained in abusive relationships. The first stage of this cycle involved tension building in which the batterer expresses hostility without violence and the woman tries to placate him and divert his anger. In the second stage of acute battering, the batterers aggression is unleashed and an assault on the woman occurs. In

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the final stage, loving contrition, the batterer tries to make up for what he has done by convincing his partner of his love for her. Walker reported that although women were most likely to want to leave the relationships in this stage, their partners appeals and professions of love often led them to remain with or return to their partners. She further argued that women remained in abusive relationships in part because they found themselves unable to sever ties to their partners and in part because they had developed psychological problems that rendered them passive victims. Like other multiple victimization proponents, Walker recognized that battered women were victims not only of their abusers but also of an indifferent society, a failing system, and a patriarchal society. She wrote, I label [a battered woman] a victim because I believe that society, through its definition of the womans role, has socialized her into believing she had no choice but to be such a victim (Walker 1979, 15). She too constructed a larger argument about the structural constraints that give battered women few options for leaving. And yet by focusing on this concept of learned helplessness, Walker also put an unparalleled emphasis on womens passivity and psychological problems and defined the battered woman as a victim paralyzed by fear. She argued that assertiveness training and psychological therapy were crucial for raising self-esteem and alleviating the problems of domestic violence. Through the mid-1990s, the cultural success of Lenore Walkers syndrome was evident in a variety of ways. Her first book, The Battered Woman (1979), was once considered probably the most often quoted work in the domestic violence literature (Loseke 1992, 175). According to the Social Science Citation Index, through 1996, this book was cited 530 times and, in the domestic violence literature, was second only to the first nationwide survey of domestic violence by Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz (1980). Considering that The Battered Woman was not an official study with statistics and was instead heavily devoted to anecdotal evidence, this was a notable accomplishment. Furthermore, a survey of New York Times, Time, and Newsweek articles published between 1964 and 1995 found the battered woman syndrome to be the only packaged and cited-by-name explanation for domestic violence mentioned in the media articles (Rothenberg 2002b). A review of court decisions and state statutes through 1997 on the admissibility of expert testimony in cases in which battered women were on trial for harming their abusers found that states routinely accepted testimony on the battered woman syndrome in conjunction with self-defense arguments (Rothenberg 2002b).2 Although the battered woman syndrome was never in and of itself an official legal defense, most states through 1997and many beyondadmitted expert testimony on the subject when deemed relevant. According to the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women (1997), 7 of the 13 states that had passed legislation by 1997 allowing expert testimony on battering and its effects explicitly permitted testimony on the battered woman/spouse syndrome. An additional 18 states plus the District of Columbia had proposed legislation on the admissibility of testimony by 1997; 16 of those states explicitly referred to the battered woman/spouse

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syndrome. In those states that did not have specific legislation formally recognizing the syndrome, expert testimony was normally permitted on the subject. As one legal scholar in the 1980s concluded, Lenore Walker was the most active [domestic violence expert] in relating battered woman research to the legal context, and it [was] her work that courts most often rel[ied] on in their decisions (Faigman 1986, 622, n. 10). Walkers acceptance in courtrooms, in addition to the recognition given to her by the media and other social scientists, arguably made the battered woman syndrome the most recognized explanation for domestic violence through the mid1990s.

UNDERSTANDING THE SUCCESS OF THE BATTERED WOMAN SYNDROME Several key factors help to shed light on how the battered woman syndrome achieved this unrivaled level of recognition and societal acceptance. More so than anyone else in those early years, Lenore Walker was the advocate most willing to recognize the battered woman as a passive victim. She began her books by stating clearly that battered women had to be understood as helpless. In studying the psychology of battered women as victims, Walker (1979, ix) maintained that society had traditionally ignored the battered womans inability to help herself. With statements such as these, Walker made a strong case for the plight of psychologically troubled victims. Although Walker recognized the larger societal issues that enabled violent relationships to continue, her conclusions allowed the reader to return to the individual woman as the problem most in need of immediate fixing. She advocated the use of assertiveness training and individual therapy as a partial but immediate solution to the domestic violence problem. And, in doing so, she provided concrete solutions to the complex social problem in a way few others were able to do. The syndrome also had other characteristics that made it particularly amenable to public acceptancemost notably, its name. By terming her argument a syndrome, Walker packaged her claims more effectively than many other advocates of multiple victimization arguments. The syndrome was also composed of two other well-packaged terms: learned helplessness and the (Walker) cycle theory of violence. These terms helped to create symbolic markers (Wuthnow 1987) that distinguished the battered woman syndromes platform from its competitors. The term syndrome also medicalized, or sounds as though it medicalized, the issue of domestic violence, thus providing a legitimacy that other multiple victimization arguments did not have. As Conrad and Schneider (1985, 29) observed, many forms of what were once deviant behaviors increasingly have been defined and labeled as medical problems, usually an illness, [that] mandates the medical profession to provide some type of treatment for it. In the case of domestic violence, the otherwise deviant behavior of remaining in an abusive relationship had the aura of a medicalized problem once it was termed a syndrome. It gave legitimacy

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to the problems of battered women that could not be offered as easily by other advocates of multiple victimization arguments. Walker also directed her claims to diverse audiences, thereby making her name prominent in a wide variety of fields. In her first book, The Battered Woman (1979), she initially put forth her hypothesis about the battered woman syndrome. Throughout the book, she relied primarily on anecdotal evidence of battered womens experiences, making it not only her most cited book but also the most readable for laypeople and advocates alike. Her next two books had significantly different approaches. The Battered Woman Syndrome (1984) was based on a research study that used relatively technical language and was primarily directed toward psychologists and those who would appreciate the scientific validity of her work. Walkers (1989) book Terrifying Love discussed her experiences as a legal expert witness for battered women on trial and lent advice to those aiding in the defense of abused women. It was this book that firmly established Walkers expertise as a defender of battered women who had harmed or killed their abusers. Taking these radically different approaches allowed Walker the opportunity to reach a wide variety of audiences in a way that no other advocate had done. There is a final aspect of the battered woman syndrome that made it more useful and functional than many of the other multiple victimization arguments: its compatibility with defense arguments in criminal trials in which battered women had harmed their abusers. In general, psychological arguments individualize deviancy and provide an explanation for why a specific individual cannot be blamed for a deviant act. In courts of law, individualized explanations are required to explain why a particular defendant committed a particular crime. Other explanations, such as sociological ones that speak to generalized trends, are not specific or applicable to a particular individual and are thus rendered virtually useless. In the case of domestic violence, the battered woman syndrome allowed Walker to demonstrate how external factors internalized by battered women led to psychological problems that were beyond their control. Abused women, according to Walker, internalized their experiences as learned helplessness at the same time as the cycle of violence further trapped them into remaining in abusive relationships. The syndrome thus served an important practical function in criminal cases by individualizing the problem and, through its terminology, medicalizing and pathologizing the deviance of remaining with an abuser. No other explanation published in the 1970s or 1980s was able to individualize, psychologize, and medicalize the issue of why battered women stay in the way that Walker had done. These factors ultimately led to the more frequent media attention, high levels of academic citation, and incorporation into the legal system.

ADVOCATES CRITIQUES OF WALKER Despite its utility and widespread acceptance, beginning in the 1980s a number of battered womens advocates openly began to protest the use of the battered woman

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syndrome as a means of understanding domestic violence.3 Many considered Walkers primary focus on why women remained with batterers to be misinformed and misdirected (Ferraro 1998, 243). These critics argued that women would be better served if advocates and the public focused more on the question of why batterers beat than why women stay. Gelles (1987) addressed what was probably the most frequently cited criticism of Walkers work by taking issue with the psychologists assumption that battered women were passive by nature. He pointed to evidence that battered women do not just simply stay with their abusers but often stay, leave and return (p. 123). The fact that domestic violence victims attempt to leave, on average, between five and seven times before doing so permanently seemed to debunk the image of a passive victim who was afflicted with learned helplessness (Ferraro 1998). In Battered Women as Survivors: An Alternative to Treating Learned Helplessness, psychiatrist Edward Gondolf (1988) explicitly critiqued Walkers battered woman syndrome and proposed his own survivor theory. He wrote that according to the argument behind learned helplessness,
battered women tend to give up in the course of being abused; they suffer psychological paralysis and an underlying masochism that needs to be treated by specialized therapy. Our survivor hypothesis, on the other hand, suggests that women respond to abuse with helpseeking efforts that are largely unmet. What the women most need are the resources and social support that would enable them to become more independent and leave the batterer. (p. 10)

Gondolf argued that severe abuse did not produce a sense of helplessness in a battered woman but instead made a wide array of coping strategies available to her, ultimately making her into a survivor. Instead of experiencing low self-esteem, self-blame, guilt, and depression, as Walker (1979, 1984) had suggested, women instead were faced with a lack of available alternatives that resulted in many attempting to reform their batterers rather than futilely trying to leave. Gondolf rejected Walkers claim that battered women were psychologically paralyzed or in need of counseling for their own problems and instead advocated for greater intervention by community services. This move away from seeing the battered woman as passive and psychologically troubled to a model of an active survivor was embraced by others as well because it emphasize[d] the competent decisionmaking women perform to end intimate violence (Ferraro 1998, 243; see also Baker 1996, 1997; Bowker 1983). Other advocates took issue with Walkers restrictive definition of a battered woman. Dutton (1996) noted the dangers of using a uniform model like Walkers to apply to the diverse situations of battered women. She argued that no single construct or diagnosis could adequately represent the body of knowledge now available on domestic violence (p. 3). She noted that syndrome language emphasized a pathology and did not address the whole picture that includes the battered womans strengths and efforts, as well as others [sic] responses to the situation

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(p. 4). Douglas (1987, 45) also argued that the battered woman syndrome clinicalizes battered women, designating them as pathological. Brush (2003, 221) noted that one of the primary problems with relying on such medicalized terminology is that a medical model empowers psychiatric experts rather than battered women. Diagnosing battered women with a psychological illness, such advocates maintained, was the equivalent of blaming the victim rather than focusing on the abusers psychological problems or addressing the larger, and more pressing, issues of structural inequality. On the judicial front, legal scholar Faigman (1986) provided one of the earliest, and most critical, dissents from Walkers battered woman syndrome. He claimed that the battered woman syndrome had little evidentiary value in self-defense cases for battered women on trial for harming their abusers and therefore should not be admitted into such cases in the form of expert testimony (p. 647). Faigman criticized the psychologists 1984 study on methodological grounds, arguing that her conclusions were not substantiated by her own data, particularly for battered women who kill. He argued that only nine of the several hundred battered women interviewed for Walkers (1984) study had killed their abusers and that no comparisons were provided between those who had harmed their abusers and those who had not, thus making it virtually impossible for her to come to any conclusive finding about battered women who kill. Faigman further took issue with Walkers claims by arguing that for an abused woman to realize that she alone has to protect herself is antithetical to the notion that she is unable to assert control over her environment (Faigman 1986, 641). Schuller and Vidmar (1992, 287) concurred, noting that the battered woman syndromes focus on incapacity and learned helplessness is inconsistent with the womans final action in cases in which women harmed or killed their abusers (see also Downs 1996). Ultimately, the critique with the greatest implications did not come from academia but from the federal government. As part of the Violence against Women Act of 1994, Congress mandated a report on the battered woman syndromes role in the courts. Specifically, the report was to contain medical and psychological testimony on the validity of battered womens syndrome as a psychological condition (Violence against Women Act). It was further intended to compile evidence on the syndromes acceptance in and effects on criminal trials against battered women who had harmed or killed their abusers across the United States. The subsequent report, titled The Validity and Use of Evidence Concerning Battering and Its Effects in Criminal Trials, distanced itself significantly from the battered woman syndrome, intentionally not using the term in the title or text. Bonnie Campbell (1996, ii), the director of the Violence against Women Office and author of the introduction to the federal report, explained,
Among the most notable findings was the strong consensus among the researchers, and also among the judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys interviewed for the assessment, that the term battered woman syndrome does not adequately reflect the breadth or nature of the scientific knowledge now available concerning battering and

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its effects. There were also concerns that the word syndrome carried implications of a malady or psychological impairment and, moreover, suggested that there was a single pattern of response to battering.

The federal report ultimately rejected all terminology related to the battered woman syndrome (e.g., learned helplessness, cycle theory of violence), noting that these terms were no longer useful or appropriate (p. vii). In her concerns and criticisms of the syndrome, Campbell (1996) echoed many who took issue with Walkers argument. She explained that the phrase battered woman syndrome implies that a single effect or set of effects characterizes the responses of all battered women, a position unsupported by the research findings or clinical experience (p. vii). The report also criticized Walkers argument for portraying a stereotypic image of battered women as helpless, passive, or psychologically impaired (p. viii). Rather than using syndrome terminology, the report referred solely to decisions concerning the admissibility of expert testimony on battering and its effects (p. iii).4 The report served as one of the most important blows to the success of the battered woman syndrome.

THE EXCLUSIONARY DEFINITION How had the battered woman syndromea multiple victimization argument that had successfully brought attention to the plight of battered womenalso brought about such a wealth of criticisms? In large part, this shift reflected the fact that the needs of the battered womens movement had changed, and Walkers framework for explaining the syndrome no longer represented the issues later advocates wanted addressed. To begin with, the definition of the battered woman had been conceptualized in rather restrictive terms, not only by Walker but by most early multiple victimization advocates (Loseke 1992; Rothenberg 2002a). There were large numbers of people who could not be admitted into the collective category of the battered woman but who were nonetheless in need of help (Loseke 1992). Many victims of domestic violenceespecially women of color, immigrants, poor women, lesbians, gays, heterosexual men, and the disabledhad largely been overlooked at the time of the movements emergence. In their efforts to portray battered women in the most sympathetic light, advocates had selected stories that highlighted the victimization of primarily middle-class, white, heterosexual women (Rothenberg 2002a). Since the mid-1990s, however, there has been a concerted effort by advocates to address the diverse stories of such previously overlooked groups of domestic violence victims (Dasgupta 1998; Hill Collins 1998; West 1998). In both academic studies and onthe-ground training, attention is now specifically given to the intersections of gender inequality with race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and disability. Through these processes, advocates have come to critique many of these older and more exclusive definitions of who counts as a victim of domestic violence. The

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battered woman syndrome, as the most successful explanation, has thus been held up as a particularly flawed example of this narrow definition. This original exclusivity also meant that the battered woman category applied only to those women who could be considered an ideal victim (Christie 1986). In particular, women who had ever provoked a fight, responded physically to aggression, or themselves been violent without provocation were automatically in danger of having their sympathy revoked (Rothenberg 2002a). This factor alone is particularly troublesome, as a shelter worker once explained to me, because battered women, like everyone else, can at times be difficult or provoke fights, yet that does not mean that anyone has a right to beat them up. The original emphasis on womens passivity meant that many who were nonetheless victims of domestic violence lost access to vital resources and sympathy because they were not innocent enough. In recognizing such issues, many advocates today note that the original definition of a battered woman may have gained public sympathy at the outset of the movement, but it was not as helpful in representing the complexities of domestic violence. Indeed, such restrictions in the definition of the domestic violence victim have had implications far beyond the academic or political realms. Shelter workers and others rely on these homogeneous characterizations to make day-to-day decisions as to who does or does not qualify as a battered woman. Loseke (1992) discussed the ways in which the workers at battered womens shelters decide which women to admit into temporary homes based on collective representations of the battered woman. Depending on both space availability and their evaluations of the womens claims, shelter workers decide which women are battered and therefore worthy of admitting into the home. Decisions about who counts as a battered woman are not just made by shelter workers but also by friends, families, the state, the media, and the women themselves. Being allowed, or not being allowed, into this category therefore can have very serious implications for many victims of domestic violence, particularly as they consider leaving their abusers. The greatest consequences of this earlier oversimplified and exclusive definition are for domestic violence victims on trial for harming their abusers. In order for relevant expert testimony to be admitted into a criminal case, defendants must be able to demonstrate that they suffer from the battered woman syndrome. As Loseke (1992, 189) noted, If a woman seemingly fits this profile of a battered womanand if her relationship seemingly fits the profile of an abusive relationship, then she can be found not guilty of murder. If a battered woman is unable to demonstrate that she fits this profile, expert testimony on the battered woman syndrome is inadmissible, and this can have detrimental implications for her defense. Crocker noted that this situation is especially problematic because the courts have often treated the battered woman syndrome as a standard to which all battered women must conform rather than as evidence that illuminates the defendants behavior and perceptions (Schuller and Vidmar 1992, 287). If, as Walkers critics argue, the empirical problems with the battered woman syndrome are significant enough that the syndrome does not adequately represent the diverse experiences of domestic violence,

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many victims are likely left out of this equation. And if a woman cannot demonstrate that she suffers from the battered woman syndrome, her defense may very well be weakened, leading to potentially devastating results. Recognition of how the battered woman syndrome excluded many groups of deserving victims undoubtedly heightened many advocatesinterests in replacing the battered woman syndrome with a more nuanced analysis that better addressed the complexities of domestic violence.

CONCLUSION: THE EFFECTS OF A CULTURAL COMPROMISE Over the years, the battered woman syndrome has helped many battered women gain public sympathy and resources in addition to making possible a defense for battered women who kill. Yet many advocates contend that the acceptance of the battered woman syndrome has compromised the interests of domestic violence victims by portraying them as overly passive and by providing a model of the battered woman that many could not fit. Perhaps most crucially, this earlier depiction of battered women did not emphasize the need for great changes at the societal level. Although Walkers argument recognized gender inequality, the individualizing and psychologizing of the problem made help through therapy and outreach the top priority. As Brush (2003, 221) observed, psychiatric diagnoses like the battered woman syndrome reframed battered womens suffering and potential political analysis of social injustice into a pathology requiring expert therapy. Yet no matter how flawed the syndrome itself may have been, those aspects of Walkers thesis that recognized larger social issues and aligned with other multiple victimization arguments did not fall completely on deaf ears. In returning to the original claims of multiple victimization approaches that recognized how society, the system, and the everyday realities of being a woman exacerbated the experience of victimization, it appears some progress has been made on the societal level. Societal expectations, for example, no longer lead to an automatic assumption that women should stay in abusive relationships. In fact, the dominant cultural norm today is arguably one in which staying is seen as a greater problem than leaving. Furthermore, the system has also experienced change because helping institutionsmost notably police who follow mandatory arrest laws when responding to domestic violence callshave instituted formal policies for providing help to victims. And even the everyday realities of being a woman in a patriarchal society are, slowly but surely, being alleviated as women gain education, close the income gap, and move into greater positions of power. In these ways and many more, American society is more accommodating to domestic violence victims than it had ever been before, and there is reason to believe that such positive structural shifts will continue.

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Of course, the problem of domestic violence is still a very real and troublesome one. It is still felt most harshly by those with the least resources and those who are seen as less sympathetic to the public (i.e., non-middle-class, nonwhite, nonheterosexual women). Yet some of the most important changes that have been made, such as the increase in shelters and the acceptance of domestic violence as a legitimate issue for public policy development, have not only helped individuals they have helped women in general. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, feminists and battered womens advocates found ways to make large-scale improvements despite the fact that the most prominent explanation for domestic violence focused on the psychological problems of battered women. In other words, there may not have been time for social change in 1977 when Lenore Walker was first asked to help provide a defense for battered women who kill, but since then, there has been social change. The battered woman syndrome may not have been a perfect, or even satisfying, answer to the problem of domestic violence victims, but it did open the door for societal transformations to occur. This in itself suggests that compromise should not be equated solely with sacrificing goalsas it also allows us to gain new ground. Cultural compromise may not satisfy the interests of those who feel most strongly about a social problem, but it does provide them with an avenue for making their issue available to the public in a sympathetic manner. As the public comes to accept the issue as worthy of their support, advocates, over time, are then able to make bolder and stronger claims. And this, of course, applies not only to the domestic violence movement but to all social movement advocates seeking changes to structural inequality one step at a time.

NOTES
1. There are some advocates, Walker (1999) among them, who now lean more toward biological or physiological explanations for why battered women stay and/or kill their abusers. 2. When new scientific evidence arises that could potentially contribute to either the defense or the state, the evidence must be admitted through either a general acceptance or relevancy test. The general acceptance test allows that new evidence can be admitted as valid if it has become generally accepted by scientists in the particular field of study (Faigman 1986, 634). Here, two notions of validity are crucial: The study must have internal validity, in that the conclusions within the study are judged to be accurate, and external validity, in that the findings can be generalized to other situations (Faigman 1986, 634, n. 79). The relevancy test, in contrast, addresses scientific evidence like any other kind of evidence, treating it as admissible so long as the issue is relevant to the case and an expert will testify to its validity. Faigman noted that although these two tests differ at the theoretical level, with the requirements for the former being more stringent, in practice both tests end up being used in similar ways. There also appears to be some disagreement as to what is required for evidence to pass the general acceptance test. Faigman (1986, 634) concluded that in the case of the battered woman syndrome, courts must, at a minimum, ensure that the evidence is genuinely relevant to a material aspect of the self-defense claim and that the researcher offering to testify has correctly applied the methodology of the general field of clinical psychology if they accept expert testimony as admissible. 3. Battered womens advocates have been especially critical of Walker since she collaborated with the defense team in the murder trial of O. J. Simpson. Many battered womens advocates were surprised

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and disappointed with Walker for her support of Simpson in this high-profile case, and this has led, in all probability, to a greater willingness by advocates to distance themselves from Walkers argument. 4. Important to note, however, is that although the report questions the utility of the battered woman syndrome, it does not affect the already existing statutes and court decisions that allow for the admissibility of expert testimony on the syndrome. Instead, the report makes suggestions for the future handling of such decisions by advocating the inclusion of testimony on battering and its effects rather than the battered woman syndrome.

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Bess Rothenberg is an assistant professor of sociology at Clemson University. Her research interests include cultural understandings of domestic violence and, more recently, American and German perspectives on national pride. She is currently working on a book manuscript titled Patriot Schism: Nationhood in the Minds of Americans and Germans.

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