Rethinking Battered Woman Syndrome: A Black Feminist Perspective

Abstract

The plight of battered women gained national attention when Farrah Fawcett portrayed a battered spouse in the television movie The Burning Bed. 1 The program depicted the physical and psychological torture that leads a battered woman to take the life of her batterer, and the subsequent legal challenges she faces when claiming self-defense in response to a murder charge. Viewers observed a woman in the throes of a psychological breakdown and in fear of losing her life. But viewers never saw her anger. The lack of any hostility in the act of killing her husband made her actions appear justifiable, excusable, or at least sympathetic. This perception of battered women as psychologically impaired and lacking hostility is not limited to the confines of television programs or movies. Consider, for example, the real-life stories of Hedda Nussbaum and Geraldine Mitchell. Each woman claimed to have been battered by her companion, and each woman was charged with the battering death of the child in her care. The charges against Nussbaum were dropped because "she was so beaten down emotionally and physically that she had been