Just recently I watched an episode of the Maury Povich talk show where there was a woman on who had nearly been killed in the middle of the night by her husband beating her with a hammer against her head. After several blows and her blacking out now and then, he came in with a knife to stab her. Then her 6-year old son came out of his room and saw his mother lying in a pool of blood. The husband was trying to stab her when she somehow found enough strength to kick his leg, which made him fall and stab himself instead. He was prosecuted and sent to jail for only three years. From what I know, I would consider what he did to his wife as attempted murder. I don't believe that somebody who obviously tried to kill his wife should only go to jail for three years. Once this man gets out, he will come back for her. Who will protect her next time? .
The Women's Studies Encyclopedia simply states that "as many as 4 million women in the United States experience severe or life-threatening assault from a male partner. Women are more likely to be injured in their homes by a violent attack than in any other place (Tierney 1: 157). Why is it always women who are made to feel like the victim in their own homes? Because, women will try to stick things out for the sake of the children, economic dependence and for the hope that the man she once loved will return again. .
Now, I am not saying that all women who plea Battered Woman Syndrome are sincere. There are women who are just trying to find an easy way out. They use BWS as .
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a way to not accept responsibility for a premeditated murder or for hiring a hit man, so that they can get a lighter sentence. But what about the majority of women out there who really did commit murder in the name of self-defense? Should they not be able to present their case in their defense? Absolutely not, if we exclude this type of defense we would be sending a woman to jail for a crime, which she honestly had no choice but to commit.
