This Battered Woman Wants to Get Out of Prison

“This Battered Woman Wants To Get Out of Prison”

I was reading through BuzzFeed as I do a lot to waste time and came across this article. I was wondering if the battered woman had been battered before or after she had been put into jail, what her story was, and it turned out to be a very interesting as well as aggravating one.

This article tells the story of a man, Robert Braxton, sentenced to two years in prison for breaking the femur and ribs of his 3-month-old daughter and his wife, Tondalo Hall, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for not intervening on the abuse he was enacting upon her daughter - even though she never actually caused any physical harm to her daughter.

There was also evidence proving that Hall was also being violently abused by Braxton herself.

Seems unjust, doesn’t it? Agreed.

It turns out that, according to BuzzFeed News, there are at least 29 states with laws that criminalize a parent’s failure to protect their children from abuse. It’s known as injury to child by omission in Texas and as “permitting child abuse” or “enabling child abuse” in other states. There is an understanding that a mother is responsible for her child’s safety - this is something I agree with, but these laws against parents make them responsible for what they did not do and they often place more blame on the parent who failed to seek help rather than on the one who enacted the assault.

The case of Hall and one’s like it bring up a great number of inconsistencies and inequities that exist in our society today. To begin, we can talk about what cases like this say about gender roles.

While most cases of domestic abuse are committed by a father or stepfather, it’s a fact that 34% of cases of child abuse are enacted by women. However, interviews and BuzzFeed News’ analysis show that fathers in very rarely face prosecution for failing to stop their partners from harming their children. Through their studies, BuzzFeed found about 73 cases of mothers who were sentenced to ten or more years under permitting child abuse laws while they found only about four in which fathers were sentenced for the same thing.

It rings true that women bear the weight of these laws. A law professor at the University of Denver reflects on this truth saying “Mothers are held to a very different standard...the lopsided application of these laws reflects deeply ingrained social norms that women should sacrifice themselves for their children.” So what about the fathers? Reading through this article, I find myself asking questions like “why is it that the mother is sentenced for more time in prison for not stopping the abuse executed by her husband? Shouldn’t the father be sentenced for more time for actually perpetuating the abuse?” The father should have the same expectation to protect his child as the mother does, but, for some reason, that expectation is not applied to the father in the same way as the mother in many of these cases.

The fact that Hall was sentenced to more time than Braxton was enforces the very confusing idea that, to some extent, what he was doing to his child is deemed as OK, but her not intervening was much less OK.

“Her tough sentence was meted out despite evidence that Braxton had also been violently abusing her. In statements to authorities in and out of court, and in a recent interview with BuzzFeed News, Hall described Braxton choking her, punching her, throwing things at her, and verbally assaulting her. Even the judge who sentenced her said that during her testimony, Hall seemed to fear her boyfriend.”

There is also a conversation to be had concerning the fact that in many of these cases, the mothers were also being physically abused by their husbands/boyfriends. The biggest reason that they are persecuted under the charges of failing to intervene on their children’s abuse is because, as many attorneys say, “she should have called the police, she should have gotten out of the abusive relationship before she let it get too far.”  

These kinds of cases bring up a common misunderstanding of what it means for women to be trapped in abusive relationships. There is a kind of unspoken culture that exists among women who are victims of domestic violence. From the outside looking in, it may seem silly and irrational that a woman would not do everything she could to get out of the violent relationship that she’s in. However, it seems to be very different for women who are actually in these relationships. Many women reflect on how they wanted to leave, to call the police, to ask for a friends help many times but when they did, it only made their partner angrier and more likely to harm their them or their children.

This whole story and one’s like it are blatant instances of victim blaming - something that seems to exist in multiple corners of our society. Women are in dangerous situations in which they face physical and mental harm to themselves, and then many people put them at fault when they did not leave the relationship. There is some idea that suggests that it’s their fault for not taking a stand against their abusive partner. This makes me ask questions like why are we paying more attention to the fact that a woman didn’t run away from her abusive relationship, rather than the man who is abusing his partner and children? One could possibly make the argument for men in terms of masculinity. It is understood in our patriarchal society that men should be strong, should be dominant, and should be the leaders in the home. Is the reason that we lend so much slack to men in these situations because, as far too many people still say, “boys will be boys”? Because that is not at all a strong argument, nor is it true.

Based on this case and ones like it, I would like to argue that there needs to be more light shed on the abusers role in abusive relationships and what we can do to punish them. I also believe that these enabling child abuse laws need to be re-looked at because it seems that they are causing innocent women who are often also victims to be punished rather than the person who is causing the actual harm. This is unfair and it is contributing to the patriarchal society already in existence.