Don’t Underestimate Battered Women

For those of us lucky enough to enjoy healthy partnerships, it can can be difficult to understand battered women. “Why doesn’t she just leave?” is a question I’ve often heard, and it reveals how deep the public misconception of battered women runs, even today. We tend to think of them as compliant, passive women with low self-esteem who are in denial about their situation, but this stereotype could not be farther from the truth.

To help deepen our understanding of—and empathy for—battered women, I invited Dr. Sherry Hamby onto my radio show. Dr. Hamby is a Research Professor of Psychology and Director of the Life Paths Research Program at the University of the South. She is also a founding editor of the APA journal Psychology of Violence, as well as the author or co-author of more than 100 works. Her most recent book is Battered Women’s Protective Strategies:  Stronger Than You Know (Oxford University Press, 2014). As a licensed clinical psychologist, Dr. Hamby has worked for more than 20 years on the problem of violence, and I was very eager to hear what she had to say about the public stereotype of battered women and how we can defeat it.

First of all, it is not just the general public that harbors this stereotype, says Dr. Hamby. She sees it in her very own field, as well as that of law enforcement. Some states discriminate against women who reunite with their batterers, which sends the message that their choice to remain in the relationship compromises their right to protection. This viewpoint—that battered women are self-harming, in denial, and somehow responsible for the violence they experience—is not an evidence-based perception at all, says Dr. Hamby. National statistics show that battered women seek out professional help from law enforcement at similar rates to other crime victims. 80-90% of battered women turn to friends and family for help. Think about how we as a society respond to life problems like depression, anxiety disorders, or mental illness. We take a therapeutic stance; we certainly don’t blame the sufferers. So why do we think differently of battered women?

Dr. Hamby has a few theories. First of all, there’s a “just world” phenomenon, a particularly American worldview, that says good things happen to good people. So, when something bad happens, we have a primitive, instinctual desire to find fault with the victim, because we want to believe they somehow have control of the situation. It is extremely uncomfortable to think about a really good person finding herself in an abusive partnership that she cannot escape. We want to believe that’s impossible. Another reason for this battered women stereotype is this pervasive, cross-cultural ideal of the “perfect victim” –a passive, weak, helpless woman in need of our assistance. Many agencies have used this “perfect victim” character to fundraise, or to raise awareness about domestic violence. But this stereotype is completely untrue.

What we do not understand about battered women is that they often face an impossible choice, which Dr. Hamby only fully understood after she herself had children. We talked a bit about this, because the way motherhood changes one’s worldview is a deep interest of mine. Some domestic violence shelters in the US do not admit male, adolescent children. Sometimes, they won’t even allow boys over the age of 6 (CT shelters accept women with their children). If you were advised to leave a relationship and to put your son in a homeless shelter, or foster care, or with family members that have no legal claim to the child and therefore cannot protect him from his father, would you do it? We criticize battered women for staying, when we should really be criticizing the system that puts them in these impossible situations.

What can we do? Dr. Hamby mentioned one great resource that I found extremely interesting: church communities. Many churches will help battered women move, or pay their electric bill, or find a place to stay, no questions asked. No forms, no waiting list, no bureaucracy to deal with: women can get immediate help with no strings attached. It is so strange to Dr. Hamby that this resource is not recognized in her field. Sure, there are some religious communities that encourage women to stay in terrible relationships, but one bad doctor does not prompt us to write off western medicine. So let’s not write off all religious communities simply because we don’t agree with some.