When She Was Bad

by Patricia Pearson

  163 “A woman whose rage is under wraps”: Rich, Of Woman Born, p. 206.

  164 anomie theory: Virginia Morris, review of Allison Morris, Women, Crime and Criminal Justice, in Women & Criminal Justice 1:1 (1989). Morris was quoting Eileen Leonard, from Women, Crime and Society, p. 93.

  165 scientific mothering: Rima D. Apple, “Constructing Mothers: Scientific Motherhood in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Social History of Medicine 8:2 (1995), 161–178.

  166 comments about Genene Jones: Peter Elkind, Death Shift (New York: Viking Penguin, 1989).

  167 “That we have so much difficulty seeing these mothers”: Schreier and Libow, Hurting for Love, p. 102.

  168 Roy Meadow research: “Suffocation, Recurrent Apnea, and Sudden Infant Death,” Journal of Pediatrics 117:3 (September 1990), 351–357; see also C. P. Samuels et al., “Fourteen Cases of Imposed Airway Obstruction,” Archives of Diseases in Children (1992); Ian Mitchell et al., “Apnea and Factitious Illness,” Pediatrics 92:6 (December 1993), 810; W. Alexander and R. Smith, “Serial Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy,” Pediatrics 86:4 (1990); Diana Brahms, “Video Surveillance and Child Abuse,” The Lancet 342:8877 (October 16, 1993). See also W. Alexander and R. Stevenson Smith, “Serial Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy,” Pediatrics 86:4 (1990).

  169 Chicago study of crib deaths: K. K. Christoffel, E. J. Zieserl, and J. Chiarmonte, “Should Child Abuse and Neglect Be Considered When a Child Dies Unexpectedly?” American Journal of Diseases of Children 39 (1985), 876–880.

  170 SIDS concealing homicides: See, for example, John S. Emery and Mary Newlands, “Child Abuse and Cot Deaths,” Child Abuse & Neglect 15 (1991), 275–278; Robert M. Reece, “Fatal Child Abuse and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: A Critical Diagnostic Decision,” Pediatrics 91:2 (1993).

  171 Martha Woods case: V. DiMaio and J. D. Bernstein, “A Case of Infanticide,” Journal of Forensic Sciences 34:2 (1975).

  172 “A lot of doctors are very naive about these cases”: DiMaio interviewed by Egginton, Cradle to Grave, p. 203.

  173 proposed genetic cause of SIDS: A. Steinschneider, “Prolonged Apnea and the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: Clinical and Laboratory Observations,” Pediatrics 50 (1972), 646–654. When Connie Chung asked Steinschneider about his article’s influence, he replied: “Not the paper. I’m influential. I’m a big man”; from “Eye to Eye with Connie Chung,” June 16, 1994.

  174 account of Deborah Gedzius: “Eye to Eye with Connie Chung,” June 16, 1994.

  175 child abuse rates nationwide: Karen McCurdy and Deborah Daro, “Child Maltreatment: A National Survey of Reports and Fatalities,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 9:1 (1994), 75–94.

  176 mothers more likely than fathers to commit child homicide: Fifty-five percent of parental-child (under-twelve) killings were carried out by mothers. U.S. Department of Justice, “Murder in Families” (Washington, D.C., 1993). The figures were based on prosecution and convictions, and some critics charge that they don’t tell the whole story. It’s possible that fathers, stepfathers, and boyfriends have a greater propensity than mothers to kill the children in their care; by the same logic, of course, it’s equally possible that mothers have a higher rate than reported. For child homicide in England, see Morris and Wilczynski, “Rocking the Cradle,” in Birch, ed., Moving Targets, p. 201.

  177 smaller samples: According to Murray Straus, Richard J. Gelles, and S. K. Steinmetz, Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1980), mothers had a 62 percent greater rate of physical child abuse than fathers. Mothers beat their children nearly twice as often as fathers do, and fathers are less likely than mothers to throw objects at, slap, spank, or hit their child with objects. See also Leslie Margolin, “Child Abuse by Mothers’ Boyfriends: Why the Overrepresentation?” Child Abuse & Neglect 16 (1992), 451–551. Margolin notes that the majority of physical abusers are women.

  Sexual abuse rates are the most difficult of all to determine, because the whole framework of inquiry is geared toward the assumption that men molest children. Only recently have data emerged to challenge that assumption. See, for example, David Finkelhor and Diana Russel, “Women as Perpetrators: Review of the Evidence,” in Finkelhor, ed., Child Sexual Abuse. See also F. F. Knopp, F. F. Lackey, and L. B. Lackey, Female Sexual Abusers: A Summary of Data from 44 Treatment Providers (Orwell, Vt.: Safer Society Press, 1987); K. Faller, “Women Who Sexually Abuse Children,” Violence and Victims, 2 (1987); K. L. Kaufman et al., “Comparing Female and Male Perpetrators’ Modus Operandi: Victims’ Reports of Sexual Abuse, Journal of Interpersonal Violence 10:3 (1995); R. L. Johnson and D. Shrier, “Past Sexual Victimization by Females of Male Patients in an Adolescent Medicine Clinic Population,” American Journal of Psychiatry 144:5 (1987).

  178 “Women are linked more intimately”: Steffensmeier and Streifel, “Trends in Female Crime,” in Culliver, ed., Female Criminality.

  179 “When a person cannot talk”: Miller, For Your Own Good, p. 242.

  180 influence of child abuse on subsequent criminal behavior: Several studies of wife-assaulters reveal that these men were abused as children and that the abuser was as likely to be the mother as the father. See, for example, Lynn Caesar, “Exposure to Violence in the Families-of-Origin Among Wife-abusers and Maritally Non-violent Men,” Violence and Victims 3:1 (1988), 49–63; C. Cappell and R. B. Heiner, “The Intergenerational Transmission of Family Aggression,” Journal of Family Violence 5 (1990), 135–52.

  Cathy Spatz-Widom’s research on the relation between child abuse or neglect and adult arrest for crime shows that 16 percent of girls who were abused (in her sample) were later arrested for adult crime, twice as many as girls who were not abused. “Child Abuse, Neglect, and Adult Behaviour: Research Design and Findings on Criminality, Violence, and Child Abuse,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 59:3 (1989).

  181 impact of sexual abuse on subsequent sex offending: A. Nicholas Groth, “Sexual Trauma in the Life Histories of Rapists and Child Molestors,” Victimology 4:1 (1979): 10–16; Freda Briggs and Russell Hawkins, “A Comparison of the Childhood Experiences of Convicted Male Child Molestors and Men Who Were Sexually Abused in Childhood and Claimed to Be Nonoffenders,” Child Abuse and Neglect 20: 3 (1996): 221–33; David Finkelhor and Diana Russel, “Women as Perpetrators: Review of the Evidence,” in David Finkelhor, ed., Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory and Research (New York: Free Press, 1984).

  182 “Defenselessness and helplessness find no haven”: Ibid., p. 117.

  BALANCING THE DOMESTIC EQUATION

  183 “shameful secrets”: Ann Jones, Next Time, She’ll Be Dead: Battering and How to Stop It (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), p. 236.

  184 “responsibility of women in domestic abuse”: Judith Shevrin and James Sniechowski, “Women Are Responsible, Too,” Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1994.

  185 lesbian abuse: See Claire Renzetti, Violent Betrayal: Partner Abuse in Lesbian Relationships (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications 1992); Nancy Hammond, “Lesbian Victims of Relationship Violence,” Women and Therapy 8 (1989), 89–105; M.J. Bologna, C. K. Waterman, and L.J. Dawson, “Violence in Gay Male and Lesbian Relationships: Implications for Practitioners and Policy Makers,” paper presented at the Third National Conference of Family Violence Researchers, Durham, N.H., 1987 (the authors found that 18 percent of gay men and 40 percent of lesbians admitted to being victims of aggression in their current relationship); Gwat-Yong Lie and S. Gentlewarrior, “Intimate Violence in Lesbian Relationships: Discussion of Survey Findings and Practise Implications,” Journal of Social Service Research 15 (1991), 41–59 (in their 1990 survey of 1,099 lesbians, Lie and Gentlewarrior found that 52 percent had been victims of aggression by their partners); G. Y. Lie et al., “Lesbians in Currently Aggressive Relationships: How Frequently Do They Report Aggressive Past Relationships?” Violence and Victims 6:2 (1991).

  186 percentage of severe violence in spousal abuse: Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz, Behind Closed Doors, p. 40.
>
  187 male approval of spousal assault: Murray Straus and Glenda Kaufman Kantor, “Change in Cultural Norms Approving Marital Violence from 1968 to 1994,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Los Angeles, August 1994.

  188 survey of family violence: Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz, Behind Closed Doors, pp. 40–41.

  189 research “patriarchal”: See, for example, M. Bograd and K. Yllo, eds., Feminist Perspectives on Wife Abuse (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1988).

  190 resurvey of family violence: Murray Straus and Richard J. Gelles, “Societal Change and Change in Family Violence from 1975–1985 as Revealed by Two National Surveys,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 48 (1986), 465–479. “We found that among couples where violence occurred, both partners are violent in about half of the cases, violence by only the male partner occurs one-quarter of the time, and violence by only the female partner occurs one-quarter of the time.… These results cast doubt on the notion that assaults by women on their partners primarily are acts of self-defense or retaliation.” In terms of damage done, the study found that levels of medical care, days off work, and time spent bedridden were not significantly different between the sexes (162–163). Women, however, reported much higher levels of depression.

  See also “Physical Assaults by Wives: A Major Social Problem,” in Richard J. Gelles and Donileen R. Loeske, eds., Current Controversies in Family Violence (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1993).

  191 study of young American military couples: J. Langhinrichsen-Rohling, P. Neidig, and G. Thorn, “Violent Marriages: Gender Differences in Levels of Current Violence and Past Abuse,” Journal of Family Violence 10:2 (1995), 159–175.

  192 new books on the self-help market: See, for example, Patricia Evans, Verbal Abuse: Survivors Speak Out on Relationship and Recovery (Holbrook, Mass.: Bob Adams, Inc., 1993).

  193 high degrees of female verbal hostility by women in violent marriages: See, for example, D. Vivian and K. D. O’Leary, “Communication Patterns in Physically Aggressive Engaged Partners,” paper presented at the Third National Family Aggression Research Conference, University of New Hampshire, July 1987.

  194 battered husband syndrome: S. K. Steinmetz, “The Battered Husband Syndrome,” Victimology 2:3/4 (1977).

  195 familiar with Murray Straus as a man: Pat Marshall’s remarks described by David Lees, “The War Against Men,” Toronto Life, December 1992. Lee quotes Marshall as saying: “I know Murray.… I was speaking at an international conference a few years ago in Jerusalem.… Met a woman there and … didn’t know her name … I have never met a woman who looked so victimized. Never in my whole, whole life. By coincidence, it happened to be Murray Straus’s wife. I have never met somebody who was trying so desperately to be invisible in the space that she occupied. I mean, it was just dramatic.”

  196 Kentucky Commission on Violence Against Women: M. Schulman, “A Survey of Spousal Violence Against Women in Kentucky” (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1979). The raw data were reviewed by C. A. Hornung, B. C. McCullough, and T. Sugimoto, “Status Relationships in Marriage: Risk Factors in Spouse Abuse,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 43 (1981), 675–692. The authors found that 38 percent of the violent attacks in the Kentucky survey were by women—against men who had not assaulted them.

  197 emergency medical admissions in Detroit: Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women (New York: Simon & Schuster 1994), p. 201.

  198 violent dating: Walter DeKeseredy and K. Kelly, “The Incidence and Prevalence of Woman Abuse in Canadian University and College Dating Relationships: Preliminary Results from a National Survey,” unpublished report to the Family Violence Prevention Division, Health and Welfare Canada, 1993.

  199 physical aggression by young women in premarital romance: See, for example, D. B. Sugarman and G. T. Hotaling, “Dating Violence: Prevalence, Context and Risk Markers,” in M. A. Pirog-Good and J. E. Stets, eds., Violence in Dating Relationships: Emerging Social Issues (New York: Praeger, 1989); Diane Follingstad et al., “Sex Differences in Motivations and Effects in Dating Relationships,” Family Relations, 40 (January 1991), 51–57: Two and a half times more women than men cited “control” as a motive for assaults. More males cited jealousy. Twenty percent of females said they had the right to use violence, whereas no males did. See also A. DeMaris, “Male vs. Female Initiation of Aggression: The Case of Courtship Violence,” in E. Viano, ed., Intimate Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Bristol, Pa.: Hemisphere Publishing, 1992); P. Marshall and L. Rose, “Gender, Stress and Violence in Adult Relationships of a Sample of College Students,” Journal of Social and Personal Relations 4 (1987); Sarah Ben-David, “The Two Facets of Female Violence: The Public and the Domestic Domains,” Journal of Family Violence 8:4 (1993).

  For female sexual coercion in dating relationships, see, for example: L. O’Sullivan and S. Byers, “Eroding Stereotypes: College Women’s Attempts to Influence Reluctant Male Sexual Partners,” The Journal of SexResearch 30 (1993); Kate Fillion, Lip Service: The Truth About Women’s Darker Side in Love, Sex and Friendship (Toronto: HarperCollins, 1996).

  200 survey on alcoholism and domestic violence: Reena Sommer, “Male and Female Perpetrated Partner Abuse: Testing a Diathesis-Stress Model,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Manitoba, 1994. See also R. Sommer, G. E. Barnes, and R. P. Murray, “Alcohol Consumption, Alcohol Dependence, Personality and Female Perpetrated Spousal Abuse,” Personality and Individual Differences 13:12 (1993), 1315–1323.

  201 Therapist Michael Thomas: Interview with the author.

  202 differences among women: Mildred Pagelow, Family Violence (New York: Praeger, 1984).

  203 “specious notion”: Susan Brownmiller, “Hardly a Heroine,” The New York Times, February 2, 1989, p. 25.

  204 Nussbaum: Jones, Next Time, She’ll Be Dead, pp. 167–198.

  205 “search for causation a wild-goose chase”: E. Wilson, What Is to Be Done About Violence Against Women? (London: Penguin, 1983).

  206 “If a man abuses his wife”: Final Report of the Federal Panel on Violence Against Women, Ottawa, Canada, 1993, p. 8.

  207 “same old crap”: Ann Jones, “Where Do We Go From Here?” MS., September/October 1994, p. 57.

  208 “For men, abuse is a double whammy”: Murray Straus, in interview with the author.

  209 “slapping the cad”: Straus, “Physical Assaults by Wives: A Major Social Problem,” in Gelles and Loeske, eds., Current Controversies in Family Violence, p. 58.

  210 “I suspect that some academic”: Jones, Next Time, She’ll Be Dead, p. 81.

  211 abused lesbians unable to go to local shelter: Renzetti, Violent Betrayal, pp. 93–94.

  212 “When shelter workers”: Hammond, “Lesbian Victims,” 95.

  213 no “lesbian utopia”: Barbara Hart, “Preface,” in Kerry Lobel, ed., Naming the Violence: Speaking Out About Lesbian Battering (Seattle: The Seal Press, 1986), p. 10.

  214 “tactics may look the same”: “Women Who Batter Women,” Ms., September/October 1994, p. 53.

  215 “Women use the same rationalizations”: Laurie Chesley, interview with the author.

  216 patriarchal attitudes about marriage: P. Burke, “Gender Identity, Self-Esteem, and Physical and Sexual Abuse in Dating Relationships,” in Pirog-Good and Stets, eds., Violence in Dating Relationships.

  217 distinction between “strength” and “power”: Renzetti, Violent Betrayal, p. 117.

  218 “many … believe”: Walker, The Battered Woman, p. 96.

  219 “I was his one-eyed teddy bear”: Quoted in Joyce Johnson, What Lisa Knew: The Truth and Lies of the Steinberg Case (New York: Zebra Books, 1990), p. 209.

  220 “intense displays of rage”: Arlene Istar, “The Healing Comes Slowly,” in Lobel, ed., Naming the Violence, pp. 163–172.

  221 female abusers with “personality disorders”: L. K. Hamberger and J. Hastings, “Characteristics of Mal
e Spouse Abusers Consistent with Personality Disorders,” Hospital Community Psychiatry 39 (1988), 763–770.

  222 “Violence is a learned behavior”: Debbie DeGale, in interview with the author.

  223 children who are beaten by their mothers more likely to become victimizers: Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Neidig, and Thorn, “Violent Marriages.” See also J. Malone and A. Tyree, “Cycle of Violence: Explanations of Marital Aggression and Victimization,” paper presented at the 86th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Anthropology, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1991.

  In R. Sommer, unpublished doctoral dissertation, 1994, 34.78 percent of males and 40.91 percent of females who perpetrated physical abuse had observed their mothers hitting their fathers, a higher rate than for those who had observed fathers hit mothers.

  224 “Domination begins with the attempt to deny dependency”: Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), p. 52.

  225 “dependency” for lesbians: Renzetti, Violent Betrayal, p. 116.

  226 “couples’ violence ultimately results from partners’ insecurities”: William A. Stacey, Lonnie R. Hazlewood, and Anson Shupe, The Violent Couple (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994), p. 104.

  227 “dance of mutual destructiveness”: Shevrin and Sniechowski, “Women Are Responsible Too.”

  228 “spent most of their time drinking”: Eve Lipchik, “Spouse Abuse: Challenging the Party Line,” The Family Therapy Networker, May/June 1991.

  229 case of Favell and Pelly: For a different interpretation of the relationship, see Lisa Priest, Women Who Killed, p. 15.

  230 “abuse aimed at the men’s resources or abilities”: Stacey et al., The Violent Couple, p. 63.

  231 “According to former patrol officer”: R. Kim Rossmo, in interview with the author.

  232 Green and Julio: “the official victim is the one who submits”: Jeanne P. Eschner, The Hitting Habit (New York: The Free Press, 1984), p. 21.