Posted on 02/05/2005 3:53:48 PM PST by concentric circles
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.”
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.”
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.” 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?
Feminists that lie to further their evil agenda? I am shocked, shocked I tell you!
Does this mean I can't use the Super Bowl as an excuse to spank the new upstairs maid?
Why would you need an excuse?
I got no problem with programs and education to help battered women and get treatment to abusive men. As a Marine said recently, "men who slap women around...ain't got no manhood left."
But, I can't stand this man-hating victimhood tripe. It's almost like they want women to constantly fear the male species, so the only place they'll have to go is these feminist posses.
And as a sportswriter and football coach, I'm sick of having my game slammed in connection with false domestic violence histeria.
Celebrate the Super Bowl American Style....beat a feminist!
"according to a study by Old Dominion University, emergency room admissions of women rose by 40% following football games won by the Washington Redskins."
This statement has all sorts of scientific problems. A 40% rise compared to what? Games they lose? All other Sundays in the calendar? 'Following' how long after? Are we talking domestic violence, car accidents, coming home from Church, resperiatory issues from all the hot air coming from these liberal think tanks in the Beltway?
I don't know, I could see me smacking a man around while watching that.
Well, it's got more than scientific problems. It's a complete fabrication, plain and simple.
I only smack whatever gets in front of the TV
I wager the only thing that's going to be beaten on Sunday is the spread.
Go Pats!
Feminists that lie to further their evil agenda? I am shocked, shocked I tell you!
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Ain't it amazing. Just another bottom-feeding, low-life lib fringe group and cannot do anything without lying...I know, so what is new, right??? (chuckle)
This one and the lie about the "rule of thumb" being the size of the whip a man could use on his wife are both proof that the feminists don't care about the truth when it comes to attacking men...
The one thing I really couldn't believe was a several years ago when the Lifetime network ran several of their "made for TV" movies on Father's day (and billed it as being a Father's day lineup) about men who abused or molested children.... Some feminists will stop at nothing...
Here is a real statistic. If a woman who had done volunteer work for someone was now needed a paying job with him, she was 98% more likely to be assaulted in the Oval Office than in any office of a Fortune 500 CEO.
This fact lies at the basis of what most of the RAT ads and statements. For those inclined, the most outrageous statements and lies are often recalled as factual on later public opinion polls. It is a function of our basic nature that memory is an active process that strives to maintain a congruency of attitude even when none is logically possible.
"Feminists that lie to further their evil agenda? I am shocked, shocked I tell you!'
As President Reagan pointed out, most of what liberals "know to be true" is actually BS.
Almost everything the conventional wisdom says about domestic violence is false, and this hoax is merely a clear illustration of the rule, not the exception.
The same goes for "the environment," for "poverty and hunger," for race issues.
It is not bad reporting or over-zealous advocacy either. As with the Super Bowl hoax, it is deliberate misrepresentation with conscious intent to defraud.
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