Domestic Violence

The lens through which a society views itself plays a critical role in how it identifies, measures, and interprets a social problem, the mechanisms used to disseminate the findings, and the types of programs developed to address the problem. Acceptance of the status quo is jarred when isolated facts that are incongruent with a common […]

Since the 1970s significant progress has been made in documenting the nature and extent of different types of woman battering, as well as in the implementation of emergency shelters, 24-hour crisis hotlines, transitional housing, legal aid, criminal justice responses, and social services aimed at reducing the prevalence of this widespread problem. According to recent statistics, […]

‘‘Battered woman syndrome’’ (BWS) is a descriptive term that refers to a pattern of psychological and behavioral symptoms found in women living in abusive relationships. Battered women sometimes use physical force to kill their batterers. These women may be charged with a criminal offense. When women are charged with murder or manslaughter for killing their […]

Introduction Leaving an abusive relationship is difficult for many women. On average, battered women attempt to leave abusive partners approximately five to seven times before they are successfully out of the relationship (Ferraro 1998). There are some women, however, who even after numerous attempts to leave have been unable to get away from their violent […]

From a sociological feminist perspective, a battering relationship is one of captivity, and battered women are survivors of terror. Battering is an obsessive campaign of coercion and intimidation designed by a man to dominate and control a woman, which occurs in the personal context of intimacy and thrives in the sociopolitical climate of patriarchy. For […]