Barbara Boxer: “As we learned more about stopping violence against women, we found out something very ugly, which is sometimes women are…”

“As we learned more about stopping violence against women, we found out something very ugly, which is sometimes women are in such a desperate circumstance, after being battered for so long, that they lose their center and their balance and they fight back. Sometimes you will have a case that comes before a court, and in defending a woman they want to bring in an expert to talk about battered women syndrome-- why is it that a woman, who is otherwise peaceful, otherwise decent, with no criminal record, no criminal history, would suddenly break out and do violence to another. If you do not understand battered women syndrome, it makes it difficult. Janice Rogers Brown was the only member of the court to say a jury should not hear expert testimony in a domestic violence case about ``battered women's syndrome''--the only one. How is that in the mainstream of thinking? How is that in the mainstream of American values? How is that going to help us learn more about why people would act in a certain way? It does not say how a jury has to find. They just wanted to have this testimony. All of her colleagues found it would be perfectly appropriate. Not Janice Rogers Brown--out of the mainstream, in the extreme, standing alone time after time. Janice Rogers Brown, the only member of the court who voted to bar an employee from suing for sexual harassment because she had signed a standard workers' compensation release form.…”