More than victims: battered women, the syndrome society, and the law (Book Review)

Review of the book "More than Victims: Battered Women, the Syndrome Society, and the Law" by Donald Alexander Downs.

Downs, Donald Alexander. More than Victims: Battered Women, the Syndrome Society and the Law. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Pp. 309. $27.50 (cloth). Because many jurors mistakenly believe that battered women have ample oppor­tunity to leave their assailants, they regard battered women as unjustified in kill­ing their batterers. Battered women's syndrome (BWS), a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder, has recently been introduced to explain why battered women of­ten do not leave their batterers. Advocates ofBWS maintain that women who are routinely beaten by their intimate partners acquire "learned helplessness," which makes it appear to them impossible to leave. In order to correct the false beliefs of jurors, many courts permit expert testimony on BWS in trials of women who have killed their batterers. Downs is opposed to this trend because he sees BWS as incompatible with holding women responsible for their actions and therefore as incompatible with the principle of equal citizenship. Downs proposes that the traditional law of self-defense be modified to take into account the conditions of captivity suffered by many battered women. Downs convincingly argues that these modifications will ensure that women who kill their batterers get a fair trial with­out resort to a politically worrisome syndrome that portrays such women as men­tally unstable rather than as taking the only course of action available to protect themselves. C. A. S.