Domestic Violence is a serious subject — one I ran into a lot in my
decade practicing in family court. Like all serious subjects, though,
it should be addressed without hyperbole and fear-mongering, and
certainly without distorting statistics. One of the biggest distortion
campaigns in recent years is the one stating that Super Bowl Sunday
has the highest incidence of domestic violence against women of any
day in our national calendar.
thin winter coat
so little protection
against her boyfriend
Along with several other sources, Snopes.com has done a good job of
debunking the SB/DV link, in its “Super Bull Sunday,” which includes
a timeline by Christina Hoff Summers showing “how the apocryphal
statistic about domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday was foisted
upon the public over the course of a few days leading up to the Super
Bowl in January 1993″ — when the group FAIR convinced NBC Television
network to run a public service announcement prior to the start of the
Super Bowl broadcast. The announcement warned: “Domestic violence
is a crime.” The Snopes piece states:
“Unfortunately, nearly every cause will encompass a sub-group
of advocates who, either through deliberate disingenuousness
or earnest gullibility, end up spreading ‘noble lies’ in the further-
ance of that cause. The myth of Super Bowl Sunday violence is
one such noble lie.”
“Sommers concluded, ‘How a belief in that misandrist canard
can make the world a better place for women is not explained’.”
When pressed for statistics, in 1993, those who most strongly touted
the SB/DV link basically stated they never said they had statistical studies,
but only referred to anecdotal reports” from domestic violence shelters and
advocates (suggesting a 40% increase in incidents). Statistics backing
up the link still do not exist, but we discuss a study below that rebutts it.
These debunking efforts led to many articles last January saying that
the SB/DV link is just a myth, and many again this year. See, e.g.,
Seatlle Post-Intelligencer, “Big game, bigger urban legends,” Feb. 2,
2006; 15Now.com, Madison, WI, “Super Bowl/ Domestic Violence Link
a Myth;” and (with a somewhat misleading headline) Public Opinion Online,
“Domestic violence numbers go up in January” (Feb. 3, 2006).
Why am I irked and writing on this topic today? It’s because I searched
Google News for Super Bowl” +”domestic violaence“> yesterday and
found a number of results on the first two pages that linked to efforts to
re-establish the connection. None of them present any additional, useful
evidence or argument.
For example, an article at the Alcoholism/Substance-Abuse section of
About.com asks “Does Domestic Violence Increase on Super Bowl
Sunday?” In a section labelled “Debunking the Debunkers”, however,
the piece merely repeats the 1993 claims by FAIR spokesperson Laura
Flanders that the group had never claimed to have statistics or studies,
but was using anectodal evidence. About concludes:
“What is the bottom line on this issue? Flanders’ article spelled
it out: “Workers at women’s shelters, and some journalists, have
long reported that Super Bowl Sunday is one of the year’s worst
days for violence against women in the home. FAIR hoped that
the broadcast of an anti-violence PSA on Super Sunday, in front
of the biggest TV audience of the year, would sound a wake-up
call for the media, and it did.”
“That PSA saved lives, Flanders said.”
Not a lot of meat there. Nonetheless, the About.com piece ends up being
the most substantive one I could find. WFAA-TV, KVUE.com in Austin, TX,
has an online article, by Rebecca Lopez, Feb. 3, 2006. that is headlined
“Super Bowl weekend may see domestic violence rise,” Here is the entire
piece:
“This weekend may be a big one for football fans but there’s also a
darker side many people may not realize. Super Bowl Sunday is a very
busy day for domestic violence calls. Around the world – one out of every
three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in
her lifetime. Many people watched yesterday’s police car chase unfold
on television. A man holding a rifle to his girlfriend after allegedly kidnap-
ping her and her young daughter.”
Finally, on Feb. 3, KVEWtv in Washington State’s Apple Valley had a segment/
article headlined “Police Expect Busy Super Sunday Domestic violence calls
and drunk driving arrests spike during Super Bowl,” by Jessica Swain. Here is
the entire text, which never again mentions domestic violence:
“Super Bowl Sunday traditionally makes for a busy evening for law
enforcement in the Mid-Columbia. Extra Washington State troopers
will be on the highways, and police will be watching streets within city
limits looking for drunk drivers. Police say with the Seahawks in the
game this year, it’s sure to be a party in the Mid-Columbia. “If you
start doing 2, 3, 4 drinks an hour, you’re becoming intoxicated and so
you need to monitor it and if you’re a party make sure there’s food,”
says Sgt. Ken Lattin with the Kennewick Police Dept.
“You’ve heard it before: if you do plan to drink in Sunday, police say
plan ahead, designate a sober driver or take a cab home.”
All Hat and No Cattle.
Before I leave this topic, I want to address two more issues: First, at his
weblog Communication, Cognition, and Arbitrary Thoughts, S.D. “Sam”
Bradley has a post today called “Regrettable side of the Super Bowl.”
Sam presents data from a significant study headed by Walter Gantz,
that looked at the SB/DV link. They were not able to get statistics from
women’s shelters and emergency rooms, but they did receive date-specific
information on 911 domestic violence dispatches from 15 of the 30 police
departments in NFL cities that we targeted — ending up with 26,192 days
of domestic violence data.
Despite the headline on the post, Ganz et al. did not find a significant
showing that the Super Bowl is a domestic violence villain:
“In the final analysis, we were looking at 1,366,518 separate
domestic violence dispatches. How many were statistically
related to the Super Bowl? According to our analysis, 272 of
those incidents were due to a Super Bowl falling on a given
day (we also included the day following the Super Bowl to
apture any 911 dispatches that happened after midnight since
the Super Bowl starts so late on the East coast). In the total
pool of incidents, this is a small fraction (.0199 percent); however,
for those 272 individuals, the threat is very real.
“If we look at all of the incidents on Super Bowl days, then those
272 incidents represent 6.5% of the total incidents for those days.
This is no small increase — especially for those involved. To put the
Super Bowl in perspective, however, our analysis predicted that 1,238
incidents — almost 1,000 more — were due to Christmas.”
Sam explains further: “In the end, the Super Bowl does not look like a Super
villain. Instead, it looks a lot like a holiday. The Super Bowl puts more people
together and sprinkles in alcohol. In the final piece, we wrote:
“Viewed from this perspective, it appears that the Super Bowl has
all of the elements to spark holiday-related domestic violence: increased
expectations, close domestic interaction, and alcohol consumption.”
An earlier press release for their preliminary study said it well:
“Previous studies have raised concerns about a pattern of violent behavior
against women around the time of the Super Bowl. But the preliminary
study . . found that the number of cases that day was relatively small
compared to those reported on holidays such as Christmas or Memorial
Day.”
The report on this study will soon appear in Handbook of sports and media,
A. A. Raney & J. Bryant (Eds.), in a chapter entitled “Televised NFL games, the
family, and domestic violence,” Gantz, W., Bradley, S. D., & Wang, Z. (2006).
One last issue, is a question: Just what would those who see a major link
between the Super Bowl and Domestic Violence have us do? Most important,
what would they have “high-risk” women do? Tell their significant other they
will be on guard, invite protectors to their home, pack a weapon? Today, at her
Banned Breed weblog, Raine Devries has a post called “Serious Sunday,” where
she states (emphasis added):
“Before I get to the heart of today’s opinion, I would like to mention
that on Super Bowl Sunday, there are higher than normal reports
of domestic violence. If you or someone you know is at risk today,
please invite them to a film, go to a restaurant, or just get together and
watch something on TV — just get them out of the line of fire for a few hours.”
That sounds to me like a recipe for turning what could be an enjoyable day for a
couple into a major sore spot — before and after the woman gets home. If the male
is drunk, and either unhappy or empowered by the results of the Game, the “today,
I’m really afraid of you” posture does not seem to be desirable or beneficial.
As I said at the top, Domestic Violence is serious business. It deserves serious,
frank discussion, treatment and action.
superbowl sunday…
the priest presents a sermon
on paganism
touchdown
momentum shifts
to the bookie
“loveSeatF”
now that I have
turned off the television
the winter night
Quiet Enough (Red Moon Press, 2004)
Find out why the flatulence is lethal
on Super Bowl Sunday.
Super Bowl Party –
the aging bachelor
brings the Beano
dagosan
. “snowflakeS”
I wonder what Grandpa thinks of the CNN.