`When Battered Woman Kill` Angela Browne

WHEN BATTERED WOMEN KILL

2007

He had it coming ! He had it coming

He only had himself to blame -

If you 'd have been there - if you 'd have seen it -

I 'll betcha you would have done the same

- Lyric from the musical Chicago by Kander Ebb

When Battered Women Kill is the product of a six year study by Angela Browne , a psychologist at the University of New Hampshire 's Family Violence Research Center . During the study , Dr . Browne conducted in-depth interviews with 250 women who

had suffered physical abuse at the hands of their husbands or boyfriends . Of this group , 42 of them had murdered or attempted to murder their abusers . This represents less than 17 of all battered women , but it is a significant enough statistic to warrant such a study

Interestingly , Dr . Browne discovered that the only thing that separated these women from normal ' women (i .e , those who had not killed their abusive partners ) was their experiences . At some point , the woman who is driven to deadly assault is one who perceives that the abuser has crossed a metaphorical line and simply has gone too far . Typically , the woman who kills an abusive partner has no prior criminal record outwardly , she appears to be a fully normal , functioning member of society

Domestic violence is a phenomenon that seems to cross lines of race ethnicity and economic /social class . Oddly , the percentage of people who approve of slapping a spouse on appropriate occasions ' seem to rise with income and education levels a full 25 of college educated people thought it was appropriate to strike a spouse on appropriate occasions (Browne , 1987

Surveys indicate that perhaps more than three million women in the U .S are assaulted by their partners each year of these assaults , 75 result in injuries to the victim . A National Crime survey conducted in 1982 reported that in 91 of the cases , the woman suffered assault at the hands of a husband , ex-husband or boyfriend (7 . In 1984 , 25 of homicide victims in the U .S . were related to their assailants of these nearly half involved someone killing their spouse . Two thirds of these cases (1 ,310 At the time the book was written in the mid 1980s , women were the perpetrators in less than 15 of the homicides in the U .S (10 . By far the majority of homicides committed by women are in self-defense . When it comes to women who kill their husbands , surveys taken in the U .S . and Canada indicate that virtually all of them had previously been assaulted by the deceased

Despite the fact that the overwhelming numbers of women who kill a physically abusive partner have no prior criminal record , they usually face harsher penalties than men who kill their wives (which is to be expected in a dysfunctional patriarchal culture dominated by a twisted misogynistic religion - more on this later

According to Browne , it is important to distinguish violent relationships from those that are...