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The return of the “Battered husband Syndrome” through the typification of women as violent

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Abstract

The process of the social construction of woman abuse includes the essential idea of typification: that how we “typify” abused women can be a part of justifying help, or it can provide the scientific justification for a male discourse which legitimates abuse and buffers batterers from guilt. Because Straus and Gelles are widely used by the press and academics as authorities, it is essential to recognize their return to an ideological position they once seemingly abandoned: that women are as violent as men, are not acting in self-defense, and may be ultimately responsible for male violence. As this debate is carried on in public, “newsmaking criminology” must be used to provide the media with alternative feminist views.

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  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio University, 45701-2979, Athens, OH, USA

    Martin D. Schwartz

  2. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, K15 5B6, Ottawa, Ont, Canada

    Walter S. DeKeseredy

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  1. Martin D. Schwartz
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Schwartz, M.D., DeKeseredy, W.S. The return of the “Battered husband Syndrome” through the typification of women as violent. Crime Law Soc Change 20, 249–265 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01308453

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