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Mad, Bad, or Reasonable? Newspaper Portrayals of the Battered Woman Who Kills

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Abstract

A heated debate about battered women who kill abusive male partners started in the 1970s. In this study, we tracked the public discourse on battered women who kill by coding 250 newspaper articles published between 1978 and 2002. Using four typifying models, we found that leading explanations for why battered women kill medicalized then criminalized their actions; they were mad then bad. We also found that reporters used quotes from claims makers supporting conventional or medical typifications of battered women to a much greater degree than statements from alternative, feminist sources. In conclusion, simplified, sensational and conventional understandings of crime causation drove the social construction of “the battered woman who kills”. She may be mad or bad, but rarely has she been portrayed as reasonable. Suggestions for promoting feminist narrative in the media are also provided.

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Notes

  1. Please contact the first author for statistical results on support variables.

  2. Un-coded articles account for about 10% of the relevant articles. These 21 articles, while an interesting counterpoint to the themed articles, were not included in the results and reported here. They were deemed irrelevant to the discussion of typified views.

  3. We chose a 1990–1994 categorization based on some high profile media stories that took place those years, such as Ohio Governor Richard Celeste’s highly publicized move to grant 25 battered women clemency in 1990 and O. J. Simpson’s murder trial in 1994. These stories represent focusing events, which Kingdon [32] refers to as a crisis or disaster that calls attention to a previously unperceived problem.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

    Marianne S. Noh

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA

    Matthew T. Lee & Kathryn M. Feltey

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  1. Marianne S. Noh
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Correspondence to Marianne S. Noh.

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Noh, M.S., Lee, M.T. & Feltey, K.M. Mad, Bad, or Reasonable? Newspaper Portrayals of the Battered Woman Who Kills. Gend. Issues 27, 110–130 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-010-9093-9

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