10.

1177/0891243203255633
GENDER
Rothenberg&/ SOCIETY
BATTERED/ October
WOMAN 2003
SYNDROME ARTICLE
Perspective

“WE DON’T 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 syndrome’s portrayal
of battered women as passive victims resulted in an exclusive definition of who “counts” as a victim. It
further emphasized many abused women’s 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 individual-
ized 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 inade-
quate 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 women’s 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, particu-
larly those who kill their batterers. Walker’s elaborate response about the funda-
mental and inherent gender inequality found in American society fell on impatient
ears. The journalist reportedly dismissed Walker’s depiction of systemic gendered
power differentials by retorting, “We don’t 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

AUTHOR’S 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.
GENDER & SOCIETY, Vol. 17 No. 5, October 2003 771-787
DOI: 10.1177/0891243203255633
© 2003 Sociologists for Women in Society
771
772 GENDER & SOCIETY / October 2003

battered women kill their abusers, I’ll provide a defense for them.” The next day,
Walker found herself staring at the headline in the local newspaper: “Noted Psy-
chologist 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.
Walker’s impromptu answer symbolized the beginnings of a cultural compro-
mise for the battered women’s 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 inter-
ests 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 incorpo-
rated 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 suffi-
ciently 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 vio-
lence issue, multiple victimization arguments, was an attempt by many advocates
to gain much needed support for battered women as both individuals and a collec-
tive. But it was the success of one argument in particular in the 1980s and early
1990s—Lenore Walker’s (1979, 1984) battered woman syndrome—that best
embodied a cultural compromise. Walker’s representation of the battered woman
syndrome had many positive effects on the emerging movement as it enabled advo-
cates to achieve their goals of public sympathy for individual victims. Yet her argu-
ment 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 WOMEN’S 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 “bat-
tered women’s movement.” Advocates—among them feminists, social workers,
social scientists, and shelter workers—devoted 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. Femi-
nists relied on local grassroots efforts to establish battered women’s shelters across
the country and make hotlines and counseling available to abused women. They
 Rothenberg / BATTERED WOMAN SYNDROME 773

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 bat-
tered women, the public’s eye began to fixate on individual women. Over time, the
public’s interest in seeing battered women as weak individuals came to rival advo-
cates’ 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 movement’s discourse. Much in the way that the antirape movement had
relied on feminism to formulate the ideology of their movement, battered women’s
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 analy-
sis 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 women’s movement. They soon discovered that the public was rela-
tively uninterested in finding solutions to a social problem that required a full over-
haul of society’s 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 feminism’s 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 women’s movement—support that was requisite for the
movement’s emergence—many advocates ultimately came to distance themselves
from blatantly feminist rhetoric. Instead, to convince policy makers that interven-
tion was necessary, many chose to focus more on concrete, individualized solutions
that could alleviate battered women’s situations (Tierney 1982).
The abandonment of explicitly feminist discourse did not, however, lead to auto-
matic public support for battered women and their problems. In fact, gaining public
sympathy for abused women had never been a straightforward task. Early propo-
nents had to work through numerous obstacles in their efforts to make battered
women appear to be deserving of public help. Most important, advocates were con-
fronted 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
774 GENDER & SOCIETY / October 2003

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 answer-

ing 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 women’s movement and its appeals to the public cen-
tered 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 gen-
eral. 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 fore-
most 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 physi-
cal 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.
 Rothenberg / BATTERED WOMAN SYNDROME 775

In recognizing that domestic violence was not just an issue of battered women
choosing to stay in individual abusive relationships, multiple victimization advo-
cates 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 social-
ized into traditional gender roles that pressured women to stay with abusive part-
ners (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 bat-
tered 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 pro-
fessions, 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 educa-
tion 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 con-
tended, 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 women’s 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
776 GENDER & SOCIETY / October 2003

suffering battered women experienced could still evoke sympathy. In multiple vic-
timization 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 exter-
nal 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 women’s 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 women’s 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 Walker’s battered women syn-
drome arguably best embodied this compromise.
More than any other multiple victimization argument, the battered woman syn-
drome enjoyed success in the 1980s and early part of the 1990s (Rothenberg
2002b). Clinical and forensic psychologist Lenore E. A. Walker published The Bat-
tered 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 vio-
lence” 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 psychologi-
cal 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 ten-
sion 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 batter-
ing, the batterer’s aggression is unleashed and an assault on the woman occurs. In
 Rothenberg / BATTERED WOMAN SYNDROME 777

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 part-
ners. 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 woman’s 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 con-
cept of “learned helplessness,” Walker also put an unparalleled emphasis on
women’s 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 domes-
tic violence.
Through the mid-1990s, the cultural success of Lenore Walker’s 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 litera-
ture (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 1997—and many beyond—admitted 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
778 GENDER & SOCIETY / October 2003

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 vio-
lence 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). Walker’s acceptance in courtrooms, in addition to the recognition given to
her by the media and other social scientists, arguably made the battered woman syn-
drome the most recognized explanation for domestic violence through the mid-
1990s.

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 “psy-
chology of battered women as victims,” Walker (1979, ix) maintained that society
had traditionally ignored “the battered woman’s inability to help herself.” With
statements such as these, Walker made a strong case for the plight of psychologi-
cally 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 pro-
vided 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 acceptance—most notably, its name. By terming her argument a syn-
drome, 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 vio-
lence. These terms helped to create “symbolic markers” (Wuthnow 1987) that dis-
tinguished the battered woman syndrome’s 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 victim-
ization 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 vio-
lence, 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
 Rothenberg / BATTERED WOMAN SYNDROME 779

to the problems of battered women that could not be offered as easily by other advo-
cates 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
women’s 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. Walker’s (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 Walker’s
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 com-
patibility 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 psycho-
logical 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 indi-
vidualizing the problem and, through its terminology, medicalizing and
pathologizing the deviance of remaining with an abuser. No other explanation pub-
lished in the 1970s or 1980s was able to individualize, psychologize, and med-
icalize 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 women’s advocates openly began to protest the use of the battered woman
780 GENDER & SOCIETY / October 2003

syndrome as a means of understanding domestic violence.3 Many considered

Walker’s 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 Walker’s work by taking issue with the psy-
chologist’s 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 Helpless-
ness, psychiatrist Edward Gondolf (1988) explicitly critiqued Walker’s 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 psycho-
logical 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 bat-
tered 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 Walker’s claim that battered women were psychologically paralyzed or in
need of counseling for their own problems and instead advocated for greater inter-
vention 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 decision-
making women perform to end intimate violence” (Ferraro 1998, 243; see also
Baker 1996, 1997; Bowker 1983).
Other advocates took issue with Walker’s restrictive definition of a battered
woman. Dutton (1996) noted the dangers of using a uniform model like Walker’s to
apply to the diverse situations of battered women. She argued that no “single con-
struct or diagnosis” could adequately represent the body of knowledge now avail-
able on domestic violence (p. 3). She noted that “syndrome language” emphasized
a pathology and did not address the “whole picture that includes the battered
woman’s strengths and efforts, as well as other’s [sic] responses to the situation”
 Rothenberg / BATTERED WOMAN SYNDROME 781

(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 ter-
minology is that a “medical model empowers psychiatric experts rather than bat-
tered women.” Diagnosing battered women with a psychological illness, such
advocates maintained, was the equivalent of blaming the victim rather than focus-
ing on the abuser’s 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 Walker’s 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 psychologist’s 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 Walker’s (1984) study had killed their abusers and that no compari-
sons 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 Walker’s 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 syndrome’s “focus on incapacity and learned helplessness is
inconsistent with the woman’s 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 acade-
mia but from the federal government. As part of the Violence against Women Act of
1994, Congress mandated a report on the battered woman syndrome’s role in the
courts. Specifically, the report was to contain “medical and psychological testi-
mony on the validity of battered women’s syndrome as a psychological condition”
(Violence against Women Act). It was further intended to compile evidence on the
syndrome’s 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 Bat-
tering and Its Effects in Criminal Trials, distanced itself significantly from the bat-
tered 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
782 GENDER & SOCIETY / October 2003

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 Walker’s 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 Walker’s argument for por-
traying a stereotypic image of battered women as “helpless, passive, or psychologi-
cally 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 syndrome—a multiple victimization argument

that had successfully brought attention to the plight of battered women—also
brought about such a wealth of criticisms? In large part, this shift reflected the fact
that the needs of the battered women’s movement had changed, and Walker’s
framework for explaining the syndrome no longer represented the issues later advo-
cates 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
violence—especially women of color, immigrants, poor women, lesbians, gays,
heterosexual men, and the disabled—had largely been overlooked at the time of the
movement’s emergence. In their efforts to portray battered women in the most sym-
pathetic 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 on-
the-ground training, attention is now specifically given to the intersections of gen-
der 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
 Rothenberg / BATTERED WOMAN SYNDROME 783

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 aggres-
sion, or themselves been violent “without provocation” were automatically in dan-
ger of having their sympathy revoked (Rothenberg 2002a). This factor alone is par-
ticularly 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
women’s passivity meant that many who were nonetheless victims of domestic vio-
lence 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 women’s 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 wom-
en’s 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 vio-
lence, 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 rel-
evant 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 woman’and
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 inad-
missible, 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 con-
form rather than as evidence that illuminates the defendant’s behavior and percep-
tions” (Schuller and Vidmar 1992, 287). If, as Walker’s critics argue, the empirical
problems with the battered woman syndrome are significant enough that the syn-
drome does not adequately represent the diverse experiences of domestic violence,
784 GENDER & SOCIETY / October 2003

many victims are likely left out of this equation. And if a woman cannot demon-
strate 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 advocates’interests 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 vic-
tims 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 empha-
size the need for great changes at the societal level. Although Walker’s argument
recognized gender inequality, the individualizing and psychologizing of the prob-
lem made help through therapy and outreach the top priority. As Brush (2003, 221)
observed, psychiatric diagnoses like the battered woman syndrome reframed “bat-
tered women’s 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 Walker’s 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 rec-
ognized 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 institutions—most notably police who follow mandatory arrest
laws when responding to domestic violence calls—have 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 edu-
cation, close the income gap, and move into greater positions of power. In these
ways and many more, American society is more accommodating to domestic vio-
lence victims than it had ever been before, and there is reason to believe that such
positive structural shifts will continue.
 Rothenberg / BATTERED WOMAN SYNDROME 785

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, nonhetero-
sexual 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
women’s advocates found ways to make large-scale improvements despite the fact
that the most prominent explanation for domestic violence focused on the psycho-
logical 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 sacri-
ficing goals—as 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 sup-
port, 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 gen-
eral 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 “valid-
ity” 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 require-
ments 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 women’s advocates have been especially critical of Walker since she collaborated with
the defense team in the murder trial of O. J. Simpson. Many battered women’s advocates were surprised
786 GENDER & SOCIETY / October 2003

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 Walker’s 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 admissi-
bility 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.