Superbowl Myth Has More Lives Than a Cat

TheRealityCheck.org ^ | February 3, 2005 | Trudy W. Schuett

[FreeManDC]

SUPERBOWL MYTH HAS MORE LIVES THAN A CAT

Just three days before the 1993 Super Bowl game, a news conference was called in Pasadena. There Sheila Kuehl, an attorney for the California Women’s Law Center, stepped to the podium to report some shocking news: according to a study by Old Dominion University, emergency room admissions of women rose by 40% following football games won by the Washington Redskins.

Media representatives got the warning that Super Bowl Sunday is “the biggest day of the year for violence against women.” Soon a media advisory went out warning women, “Don’t remain at home with him during the game.”

The next morning, Friday January 29, psychologist Lenore Walker appeared on Good Morning America and repeated the same frightening news.

By Saturday, the hysteria had reached a fever pitch. A January 30 Boston Globe article claimed that women’s shelter and hotlines are “flooded with more calls from victims than on any other day of the year.”

Just before the coin flip for the big game, NBC ran a 30-second spot reminding men that domestic violence is a crime.

Then the Washington Post decided to do a little detective work. Post reporter Ken Ringle called Janet Katz, one of the researchers from Old Dominion University, to verify the claim. “That’s not what we found at all,” Katz responded. To the contrary, she said any increase in emergency room admissions “was not associated with the occurrence of football games in general” [www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/superbowl.asp].

Ringle’s report, “Wife Beating Claims,” appeared on the front page of the Washington Post on January 31. This was the upshot of the story: the assertion that watching football games provokes men into a frenzy of wife-beating was actually a hoax.

Within hours, Lenore Walker and the Boston Globe reporter pulled back on their original claims, admitting they hadn’t seen the original study. On February 2, the Boston Globe ran a retraction.

Later the Family Violence Prevention Fund would conclude, “Although there are claims linking sports broadcasts to increased violence and abuse, no rigorous national studies have confirmed a link” [http://endabuse.org/programs/display.php3?DocID=262].

The Super Bowl hoax is now cited in journalism textbooks as a case study in ways the media can mislead the public. But that doesn’t stop the myth from being endlessly recycled.

Two years later, one NBC affiliate urged all women to pack a suitcase the evening before the Super Bowl, in case hubby got a little violent. Look around, and you will find the Super Bowl myth reported as “fact” in books, newspaper articles, and TV stories.

Just last year on January 30, Rebecca Cohn, member of the California State Assembly, issued a chilling press release. “Calls to domestic violence shelters jump by a 40% increase on Superbowl Sunday,” according to the release. Not only that, “Attempted murders increase by 40% the week following the Superbowl game.” [http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/members/a24/press04/p242004004.htm] Amazing how that 40% figure keeps popping up all the time.

The factual errors and shrill tone of Cohn’s press release makes one wonder if the intent was to alarm and frighten, not educate and inform.

So how do we explain the creation and continuation of this domestic violence hoax?

Turns out, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware had been working since 1990 to get a law passed that would increase federal involvement in protecting battered women.

In 1994, one year after the press conference was called in Pasadena, the Violence Against Women Act was signed into law. The Act not only provided $3.5 billion in funding for programs to assist battered women, but also defined domestic partner abuse as “gender violence,” suggesting that only women are at risk. In another, less politically-correct era, this law never would have been passed, as some believe it violates the equal protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution.

Ten years later, the practical result is a law that discriminates against male victims, and refuses to acknowledge the existence of abusive women who need help.

The Violence Against Women Act will expire later this year, and domestic violence advocates are expected to introduce renewal legislation within the next few months.

So what propaganda-like stunts will they try to pull this time around?

[goldstategop]

Good question. The feminists look for problems that don't exist.

Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News."

[Yankee]

What crap.

I only beat people up after a Yankee loss.

Never a football game.

[Allegra]

What a load.

[Ditto]

"In 1994, one year after the press conference was called in Pasadena, the Violence Against Women Act was signed into law. The Act not only provided $3.5 billion in funding for programs to assist battered women...

Now, about Global Warming....................

[PennsylvaniaMom]

The mythology impacts the abortion argument as well. Legalized abortion is promoted as 'safe' (ie, no complications, which is fraudulent--statistics are not widely compiled or reported) yet 'millions' of women are said to have died from complications of illegal, 'back alley abortions.' Appararently, what the fits the agenda at hand is what is reported.

And please no flames, I am not one of those pro-lifers who bring the abortion debate to every thread.

[7.62 x 51mm]

Gosh, I only beat my wife and kids up in the 3rd quarter...

< /major league saracasm >

[Jeeper]

I am a graduate of ODU('96) so the story caught my eye. I'm glad Janet Katz helped put an end to the lie,looks good for ODU. I don't know if ODU staff were aware their report was being misused. If they did know didn't try to stop it... not good.

This reminds me of a by gone era in American political history. A time I like to call "PAHA" (Post Anita Hill America). A time when candlelight vigils were held on the steps of the Capitol, awards were passed out to women who had the courage to speak up about their sexual abuse, women were believed without reproach (after all, women don't lie about such things), laws were passed to protect them from abuse (who's going to vote against the "Violence Against Women Act"?), the 'Year of the Woman' was proclaimed. ODU installed "emergency phone booths" for women throughout the campus in the early 90's, complete with blue lights on top so they could be easily found at night.

PAHA came to an end because a woman spoke up about sexual abuse by a sitting Democrat President.
That really says it all about PAHA for me, and defines what it was really all about.

[Pete'sWife]

My son came home from school the other day repeating this nonsense.

To prove my point, I looked up "Superbowl Spousal Abuse" on snopes.com.

Nothing.

Is there a factual source I can access to put this lie to bed?

Thanks in advance.

[Pete'sWife]

Nevermind. I just looked up "Superbowl" at snopes.com and found the info.

[Mad Mammoth]

Now if they really wanted to put this lie to rest, they would have tracked down Sheila Kuehl (the attorney who started this crap in '93), and had some NFL linebackers sit on her while the word *LIAR* was tattooed on her forehead and she could spend the rest of her life explaining what it was all about.

At the minimum, an attorney who lied to the public like that should be disbarred. Even Emperor Billigula had his license yanked after sufficient prodding to the Arkansas Bar.

[Fido969]

Well, this is one in a series of lies - "Domestic violence is the leading case of birth defects", "The biggest single reason women are admitted to emergency rooms is domestic violence", and the most recent whopper, "pregnant women are more at risk to die from domestic violence than anything else".

These lie continue to look to gain support for domestic violence programs, a multi-billion dollar a year business, a business that employs probably about 20,000.

While we can condemn domestic violence, you have to wonder about why the folks that promote these programs come up with such whoppers to enlist support. When you consider that after 20 years and throwing billions of dollars at this issue the true recorded incidences of domestic violence have dropped about the same as the crime rate over all.

But, the folks drawing salaries running these programs would rather you look at their lies than the truth.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Beating fat, ugly feminazi skanks at the polls was sure fun this fall. Can we have an instant replay at halftime during the Superbowl?

[-YYZ-]

It's said that 92.8 % of all statistics are simply made up on the spot.

[christynsoldier]

Now if they really wanted to put this lie to rest, they would have tracked down Sheila Kuehl (the attorney who started this crap in '93



...actually, they just keep reelecting this most leftwing,
radical way out lesbian to the CA Senate so she can keep cramming her agenda down CA school kids throats...

[AmishDude]

Here ya go: Super Bull Sunday (Keep in mind, also, that Snopes leans left on political issues, so if they say this is false, it truly is. And this is false. In fact,

The claim that Super Bowl Sunday is "the biggest day of the year for violence against women" demonstrates how easily an idea congruous with what people want to believe can be implanted in the public consciousness and anointed as "fact" even when it has been fabricated out of whole cloth.

(To buttress my point, snopes.com calls this a "noble lie".)

[KC_Conspirator]

Where did you get that Denny Crane quote and who is he?

[Fido969]

http://www.rebeccacohn.org/1_30_04.htm