Essay Example on Gender Violence: Legal Solutions and Psychological Effects

Introduction

Gender violence is a problem of great concern in society and the fight for its eradication is one of its main priorities. As legal operators, a multitude of courses, conferences, and seminars that are dedicated to gender violence are observed; effects of the protection order, territorial jurisdiction, compliance with penalties among others. However, the psychological effects that abuse has on the women are quite unknown in the legal scope since the profession focuses on legal and procedural issues. In the United States, the battered wife syndrome is a common line of defense for spouses (mostly women) who kill or seriously injure their partners after being victims of domestic violence for a long time (Van Brown, 2019). However, in most cases, the judge requires the defense to hire a specialized witness to demonstrate that the battered woman syndrome makes the woman “believe, in good faith, that she was in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury and that the only way to escape it would be the use of force”. Knowledge, even shallow, of this syndrome, can help to understand the behavior of the complainant, which sometimes, like Judges, Prosecutors, and Lawyers, can seem shocking and even absurd or contradictory. This paper explores the validity of Battered Wife Syndrome as a real defense. To solve this problem presented, it is necessary, first of all, to keep in mind the oppressive scenario of gender inequality and violence against women in which society is inserted. Violence against women is an explicit consequence of the demarcation of roles in society, which transversally fosters the hierarchy of power and the subordination of women to men.

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The Consideration of Battered Wife Syndrome

The so-called “battered woman syndrome” consists of a series of traits common to women who are victims of continued marital aggression and are unable to abandon this violent relationship, due to financial difficulties, fear, or/and internalization of psycho-social blocks (Mossière et al., 2018). On the other hand, this situation is often accompanied by the notion that there are no alternatives or external assistance, whether formal or not, given the limited availability of police forces or social assistance structures to resolve the issue (Redd, 2019).

It is noted that the situation of an abused woman is something very specific and peculiar; not to be confused, therefore, with the other homicides perpetrated by women. Women victims of successive mistreatment end up killing their husbands, due to the great physical and/or psychological shock they suffer daily. The exclusion of criminal responsibility from abused women is due to the context in which the relationship develops. Different, therefore, is the situation in which women use disproportionate means to repel unjust aggression with the sole argument of an alleged natural fragility due to gender.

Uma (2020) when dealing with the theme says that it is a paradox; it is a contradiction to advocate the removal of criminal liability from women - in cases of homicides practiced in self-defense -, solely and exclusively, since women are supposedly more fragile in relation to men, and are therefore unable to offer a proportionate defense to the attacks suffered. It is a contradiction, therefore, to plead for the demystification of gender stereotypes and, at the same time, to require that the fragility of women be considered as a valid element so that justification, for example, of legitimate defense, will be characterized in the specific case. Therefore, one cannot want to exclude a woman's criminal liability, solely and exclusively, because she is a woman. In other words, one must observe the context in which the event occurred, so that one can speak of exclusion from criminal liability, either as a justification or an excuse. With this, it does not mean trying to disregard a woman's natural fragility, but only making it evident in the specific case, so that it can be taken into consideration.

Admitting consideration of the autonomous relevance of the genre for defense or other purposes is, of course, a way of accepting the division of people into two categories, based on this variable and, still, contribute to the characterization of these groups through the description of specific attributes such as aggressiveness or passivity for instance (Uma, 2020). Therefore, it remains clear that the woman's natural fragility must be proven. It must be proven that the woman is in a situation of repeated abuse or in any other similar situation for the bartered syndrome to be accepted as a defense.

The social stereotypes about women as caregivers and responsible for the well-being of the whole family mean that, when they are in the cycle, they set themselves the task of softening all the possible causes of the anger of the aggressor so that the “true man” with whom they married, (the third phase) reappear. However, it is important to spread these three phases so that women victims of gender violence are aware that phase three does not appear without one and two, and they are also cyclical and repetitive.

The battered wife syndrome causes the woman to experience a traumatic event for which she is afraid of physical injury or loss of life, with the side effects of that event lasting for more than four weeks. The side effects have a significant impact on the victim's life, such as work or her relationships with others. The battered wife syndrome and Post-traumatic stress syndrome have some common notes. A punctual and isolated traumatic event (such as those caused by natural phenomena or terrorist attacks) is perceived by the victim as something unexpected and out of control. Repeated traumatic events (such as those experienced by soldiers on the battlefield, or victims of domestic or gender-based violence) also experience a similar psychological impact, but victims of domestic violence have other characteristics of their own than those typical of the post-traumatic stress syndrome as they develop skills to handle the situation with a wide variety of methods, such as minimizing the facts, denying the danger, or repressing their feelings, among others.

Battered Wife Syndrome as Self-defense

As stated by Uma (2020), the criminal defense of women accused of killing their husbands who mistreated them, appeared in the United States in the mid-1970s. The author states that, although there are disagreements among American authors about whether there is the exclusion of the criminal responsibility of the abused woman, it is correct to affirm that the homicide committed by the woman who reacts, at a certain moment, to the prolonged aggressions practiced by her husband, cannot be subject to any criminal sanction.

The allegation that the defendant suffers from a battered wife syndrome allows one to claim self-defense which can result in different verdicts (Van Brown, 2019). There have been cases in which the jury simply acquitted the defendant and cases, more frequent, in which the charge of qualified homicide was converted into manslaughter with a reduced degree of guilt (manslaughter), with lesser penalties. There were also cases of conviction because the jury did not accept the defendant's claim of self-defense. Also, there are cases in which the jury clears the defendant of the homicide charge, but convicts her of illegal possession of a weapon.

The battered wife syndrome is not such a simple line of defense. The defense must prove that some characteristics of the syndrome apply to the client. The main one is that this situation is the result of a whole process of repetitive violence, which prevents women from reacting to abuse, until the day it explodes. The theory, studied by psychologists around the world, is based on Martin Seligman's research in the 1960s where he reported on an experiment in which dogs were placed in a cage, with a separation in the middle that they could jump (Maier & Seligman, 2016). When the part that a dog was on was electrified, the dog would jump to the other part. When electrifying the second part, the dog would jump to the first. The process was repeated to the point where the dog no longer jumped to the other side and endured the shocks quietly because it realized that there was nothing to do.

The experience applied to the woman victim of constant violence suggests that she reaches a dead endpoint, because she does not want to react or denounce her husband for several reasons - among them, the shame of being known in the neighborhood as the woman who she is beaten by her husband, the financial dependence that prevents her from supporting her children and herself, the fear of dying in a confrontation, the attribution of guilt to herself and the regret of her husband who loses her forgiveness and promises never to attack her again (but which is a broken promise), etc. In short, the woman becomes passive, unable to react, until the day when some circumstance gives her the courage to do so - or the impetus to end the situation, even if in an irrational way, such as killing the aggressor. In some cases, the woman claims that on the day she killed her husband, she had drunk alcohol, and this time she simply reacted to the assaults.

Conclusion

Cases of domestic violence are regularly experienced in the United States according to a joint report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Justice. The legal questions, therefore, seeks to ascertain whether the woman who kills her husband during the marital relationship after long years of suffering acted covered up by an excluder of illegality or guilt. The battered wife syndrome is a psychological condition that affects the behavior and the evaluation capacity of women victims of systemic domestic violence in the marital relationship. The syndrome causes a psychosocial block in the ability to assess abused women. These women, due to this psychological shock, are unable to extricate themselves; get out of the destructive relationship.

The conjugal homicide practiced by these women is the result of the periodicity of the aggressions they suffer and the consequence of the exhaustion of the marital relationship in which they are inserted. The aggressive reaction, therefore, comes from a state of post-traumatic stress. Therefore, the woman who is inserted in the context of the battered wife syndrome should receive different treatment from criminal law, due to all the factors that influence her way of acting. As a consideration, the phenomenon of the battered wife syndrome, if analyzed in isolation - out of context - is not suitable to exclude the criminal liability of the abused woman. However, if analyzed according to the whole context, it can exclude the responsibility of the woman who periodically suffers abuse in the marital relationship.

References

Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. (2016). Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience. Psychological review, 123(4), 349. doi: 10.1037/rev0000033

Mossière, A., Maeder, E. M., & Pica, E. (2018). Racial composition of couples in battered spouse syndrome cases: a look at juror perceptions and decisions. Journal of interpersonal violence, 33(18), 2867-2890.

Redd, N. J. (2019). Learned Helplessness and Battered Woman Syndrome. The Encyclopedia of Women and Crime, 1-2. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118929803.ewac0323

Uma, S. (2020). Female Criminality, Mental Health & the Law. In Gender and Mental Health (pp. 143-156). Springer, Singapore. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-5393-6_10

Van Brown, B. L. (2019). Battered Woman Syndrome Defense. The Encyclopedia of Women and Crime, 1-2. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118929803.ewac0024