OIDV Project Of Michigan - Officer Involved Domestic Violence Project Of Michigan

"The claim that Super Bowl Sunday is 'the biggest day of the year for violence against women' is a case study of how easily an idea congruous with what people want to believe can be implanted in the public consciousness and anointed as 'fact' even when there is little or no supporting evidence behind it." [Snopes. September 07, 2001]

The 1993 false domestic violence information that spread across national media for weeks preceding the Super Bowl:

40% increase in domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday
Super Bowl Sunday was the day of the year for the highest incidents of domestic violence and most dangerous day for victims of domestic violence

Who spread the false DV information?

Nationwide campaign mobilized by FAIR, Women's Action Coalition, and national/statewide domestic violence coalitions. [Purported link between Super Bowl and wife beating is doubtful. Seattle Times. January 31, 1993]

Agenda of domestic violence coalitions and FAIR?

"Part of what's going on, apparently, is the twin phenomena of media convergence and media orchestration, in which lenses are focused, hoping to piggyback their message out to millions.

Said author/psychologist (Charles Patrick) Ewing: "It's true there may be an agenda on the part of some people to have this issue put forward just now. They can force NBC to put on those (public service) spots." [Purported link between Super Bowl and wife beating is doubtful. Seattle Times. January 31, 1993]

February 25, 1993 - Was this the agenda of the 1993 Super Bowl DV myth?

"A fresh congressional drive was launched Wednesday to pass long-stalled legislation aimed at reducing violence against women." [Violence bill gets new life - Measure targets abuse of women. Dayton Daily News. February 25, 1993.]
"... a news conference to promote the "Violence Against Women Act of 1993. Democrats included Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr...." [Violence bill gets new life - Measure targets abuse of women. Dayton Daily News. February 25, 1993.]
"Sponsors contended the bill is needed because a woman is raped every six minutes in the United States and a female is beaten every 15 seconds..." [Violence bill gets new life - Measure targets abuse of women. Dayton Daily News. February 25, 1993.]
"The bill could be passed by this summer, according to Schumer and Biden, with the senator adding that President Clinton supports it." [Violence bill gets new life - Measure targets abuse of women. Dayton Daily News. February 25, 1993.]

[Snopes. 09072001]

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

Wikiepdia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_%26_Accuracy_in_Reporting

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) is a media critique organization based in New York City.[1] The organization was founded in 1986 by Jeff Cohen and Martin A. Lee.[2] FAIR describes itself as "the national media watch group".[2] The organization has been described as both progressive and left-leaning.[3][4][5][6]

FAIR publishes Extra!, a monthly newsletter of media criticism, and also produces a weekly podcast and radio program called CounterSpin, which is aired on more than 150 stations throughout the United States.

Mission

FAIR describes itself on its website as "the national media watch group" and defines its mission as working to "invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints." FAIR refers to itself as a "progressive group that believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong nonprofit sources of information."[2]

Activities

First published in 1987, Extra!, FAIR's newsletter, features analysis of current media bias, censorship, and effects of media consolidation. Covering a variety of other issues as well, FAIR addresses news coverage that it finds biased with rebuttals. FAIR also produces CounterSpin, a half-hour radio program hosted by Janine Jackson, which is recorded at the FAIR office in NYC.

References

1. Hays, Constance L. (May 19, 1996). "MAKING IT WORK;FAIR or Not?". New York Times. Retrieved 9 December 2015.

2. "What's FAIR?". Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. Retrieved 9 December 2015.

3. Goodman, Walter (June 17, 1990). "TV VIEW; Let's Be Frank About Fairness And Accuracy –". New York Times. Retrieved May 2, 2010.

4. Shepard, Alicia C. (12 April 2011). "What to Think about Think Tanks?". NPR. Retrieved 24 June 2015.

5. Callahan, David (2010). Fortunes of change: the rise of the liberal rich and the remaking of America. Hoboken, N.J.: J. Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-0470177112.

6. Sheppard, Si (2008). The partisan press : a history of media bias in the United States. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. ISBN 978-0786432820.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)

Influence Watch

https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/fairness-and-accuracy-in-reporting-fair/

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) is a left-of-center media criticism organization based in New York City and founded in 1986 by Jeff Cohen and Martin A. Lee. It routinely attacks conservative media outlets, but also accuses mainstream media outlets (including those generally considered to be on the political left, such as the New York Times[1]) of having an “anti-progressive bias.” [2] The Ford Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Family Fund, Samuel Rubin Foundation, Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, Barbra Streisand Foundation, and the Tides Foundation have all funded FAIR. [3]

FAIR describes itself as a “progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias.” [4] It publishes the Extra! newsletter and produces the CounterSpin radio program. [5]

Agenda and Advocacy

The group’s guiding premise runs counter to the prevailing view of a left-progressive bias in the metropolitan mainstream media. One-time FAIR senior analyst Steve Rendall said in 1996 that any liberal bias in the media is “paltry next to the torrent of violent and racist rhetoric being broadcast” on talk radio. [6]

FAIR says it works with journalists and activists and maintains regular dialogue with reporters at news outlets across the country. The organization sends action alerts and media advisories to a network of activists it claims exceeds 40,000 people. [7]

The organization says it supports “structural reform” to break up media conglomerates. [8] FAIR argues that if media companies are owned by corporations and supported through corporate advertisers that independent journalism is compromised. The organization further contends that concentration of media ownership dilutes diversity in media voices. It calls for the Justice Department to take “aggressive antitrust action” to “break up monopolistic media conglomerates.” [9] The organization further complains that advertisers target affluent, young, white, and male consumers and ignore other populations, which in turn skews news coverage. [10]

Coverage Criticisms

In 2019, FAIR program director Janine Jackson said 83 percent of the media is white and therefore fails to cover the diversity of organized labor and African Americans because few reporters come from racially diverse, working-class backgrounds. “For media elites, the image of ‘America’s working class’ is a white image; black people go in a separate category. It’s divisive and ahistorical and wrong.” [11]

In 2020, the organization chided the mainstream media for acknowledging the pandemic SARS-COV-2 coronavirus originated in China and condemned news outlets that questioned the communist government’s statements about the spread of the disease. [12]

FAIR also criticized the mainstream media in the United States for reporting positively about the movement in Venezuela to oust the socialist regime of de facto dictator Nicolas Maduro. [13]

FAIR co-founder Jeff Cohen complained in early 2020 about the media’s “anti-progressive bias,” largely against left-wing Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and said the media asked too many questions about how much left-progressive programs such as a Green New Deal and Medicare for All would cost. [14]

History

FAIR co-founder Jeff Cohen said in an interview that he was inspired to start FAIR in the 1980s when he determined that dissidents advocating for nuclear disarmament were not getting as much airtime as hawkish conservatives during the Cold War. [15]

In 1994, the organization began issuing the “The P.U.-litzer Prizes” for news coverage it considered to have a right-of-center or pro-business bias. [16]

FAIR’s advisory board has included left-wing celebrities Ed Asner, John Cusack, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, and Gloria Steinem. [17]

When the organization reached its 10th year, the New York Times reported that FAIR identified radio show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Bob Grant as “racist, sexist, reactionary and homophobic.” [18]

In 1996, Pearl Jam, REM, and Bonnie Raitt recorded a combined album putting the words of MIT linguistics professor and radical-left activist Noam Chomsky to music. Much of the proceeds from the album went to FAIR, according to The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower, a 2009 book by Robert F. Barsky. [19]Chomsky was the keynote speaker for the organization’s 15th anniversary party in January 2002 broadcast on the radical-left outlet Free Speech TV. [20]

During the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, FAIR co-sponsored with several other groups a “March on the Media,” claiming: “the mainstream media have marched in lockstep with the Bush administration. Now it’s time to march on the media.” On September 1, the marchers converged at 7 a.m. outside of the CBS headquarters in the city. At 8 a.m. they protested outside CNN about overly what it considered overly pro-George W. Bush coverage. At 9 a.m. that day they protested outside of Fox News making the same claim. [21]

FAIR Nonprofit Information

Accounting Period: June - May

Tax Exemption Received: May 1, 1988

References

1. Eichacker, Nina. “Learning All the Wrong Lessons From the 2008 Financial Crisis.” FAIR, May 12, 2020.

2. Cohen, Jeff. “7 Pointed Questions for Corporate Media About Their Anti-Progressive Biases.” January 20, 2020. Accessed May 22, 2020.

3. “Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.” Discover the Networks. Accessed May 22, 2020.

4. What’s FAIR. Accessed May 22, 2020.

5. What’s FAIR? FAIR. Accessed May 22, 2020.

6. Hays, Constance L. “Making it Work; FAIR or Not?” The New York Times. May 19, 1996.

7. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Idealist. Accessed May 22, 2020.

8. What’s FAIR. Accessed May 22, 2020.

9. What’s Wrong With the News. FAIR. Accessed May 22, 2020.

10. What’s Wrong With the News. FAIR. Accessed May 22, 2020.

11. Elk, Mike. “Labored Coverage.” Columbia Journalism Review. October 16, 2019. Accessed May 22, 2020.

12. Naurekas, Jim. “You Don’t Need to Believe China About China’s Coronavirus Success.” FAIR. April 2, 2020.

13. Koerner, Lucas. “How Western Left Media Helped Legitimate US Regime Change in Venezuela.” FAIR. January 22, 2020. May 22, 2020.

14. Cohen, Jeff. “7 Pointed Questions for Corporate Media About Their Anti-Progressive Biases.” January 20, 2020. Accessed May 22, 2020.

15. “Watching the Media: A Talk With Jeff Cohen.” Mirabai at Woodstock. Accessed May 22, 2020.

16. “Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.” Discover the Networks. Accessed May 22, 2020.

17. “Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.” Discover the Networks. Accessed May 22, 2020.

18. Hays, Constance L. “Making it Work; FAIR or Not?” The New York Times. May 19, 1996.

19. Barsky, Robert F. “The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower.” The MIT Press. 2009. Page 16.

20. “Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.” Discover the Networks. Accessed May 22, 2020.

21. “March on the Media in New York.” Investig-Action. September 1, 2004. Accessed May 22, 2020.

VIOLENCE BILL GETS NEW LIFE

MEASURE TARGETS ABUSE OF WOMEN

Dayton Daily News (OH)

February 25, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

A fresh congressional drive was launched Wednesday to pass long-stalled legislation aimed at reducing violence against women.

"We're here today to say we've had enough," said Rep. Constance A. Morella, R-Md., head of the violence task force of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues.

Morella and Rep. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, co-chairwoman of the caucus, were the Republicans at a news conference to promote the "Violence Against Women Act of 1993." Democrats included Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., chairman of his chamber's Judiciary Committee; Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., co-chairwoman of the women's caucus; and Rep. Charles E. Schumer, chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime.

Sponsors contended the bill is needed because a woman is raped every six minutes in the United States and a female is beaten every 15 seconds.

Many beatings "are called a domestic dispute," said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. "It sounds like a dispute over dinner."

Biden, who has been trying to win passage of the legislation for three years, said he will insist that the measure retain two provisions that make it controversial.

One provision would make gender-based assaults a violation of U.S. civil rights laws. The second would permit victims of felonies "motivated by gender" to bring civil rights suits against their assailants.

Critics, including Chief Justice William Rehnquist, have said the bill would flood the federal courts - an opinion denied by its supporters.

The bill could be passed by this summer, according to Schumer and Biden, with the senator adding that President Clinton supports it.

Key provisions would:

*Create new penalties for sex offenders and increase restitution for victims of sex crimes.

*Extend the "rape shield law" protection to civil cases and expand it in criminal cases. The law bars embarrassing and irrelevant inquiries into a victim's sexual history.

*Provide money for increased lighting and camera surveillance at bus stops, bus stations, subways and parking lots.

*Authorize $65 million for rape education, starting in junior high school.

*Require all states to enforce any "stay away" order, regardless of where it was issued.

SUPER BOWL AND DV CONNECTION HOAX EXPOSED

Message of mythical proportions

Lack of evidence raises doubts over football, violence link

Houston Chronicle (TX)

JANUARY 31, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

As the beer cools and the testosterone surges on this megaday of professional football, a network of feminist activists has orchestrated a national campaign to ask males to stop beating their wives and girlfriends after the Super Bowl.

In an effort to combat what The Associated Press and CBS have labeled a "day of dread" for women, the organizers have prevailed on NBC, broadcaster of the Super Bowl, to air a public service announcement against wife-beating before Sunday night's big game. "Domestic violence is a crime," the announcer intones.

A news conference near Super Bowl Central in Pasadena, Calif., declaring Super Bowl Sunday "the biggest day of the year for violence against women."

An interview on "Good Morning America" in which Denver psychiatrist Lenore Walker claimed to have compiled a 10-year record of violent incidents against women on Super Bowl Sundays.

A story in the Boston Globe declaring that women's shelters and violence hot lines are "flooded with more calls from victims (on Super Bowl Sunday) than any day of the year."

Announcement of a nationwide phone bank to field calls about domestic violence during the Super Bowl and seek funds for the phone bank, by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a media watchdog group with an active feminist wing.

A public relations mailing from Dobisky Associates in Keene, N.H., warning at-risk women: "Don't remain alone with him during the game."

In Houston, banners cautioning of the dangers of domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday adorned many freeway overpasses Friday.

Some experts on domestic violence, however, are dubious.

"You're dealing in an area where there's a lot more folklore than fact," said David Silber, chairman of the Department of Psychology at George Washington University and a longtime scholar of domestic violence. "I know of no study documenting any such link" between football and/or Super Bowls and domestic violence. "And I know the literature very well."

"I don't think anybody has any systematic data on any of this," said Charles Patrick Ewing, a forensic psychologist and author of "Battered Women Who Kill."

Yet Ewing is quoted in the release from Dobisky Associates declaring "Super Bowl Sunday is one day in the year when hot lines, shelters and other agencies that work with battered women get the most reports and complaints of domestic violence."

"'I never said that," Ewing said. "I don't know that to be true."

Told of Ewing's response, Frank Dobisky acknowledged that the quote should have read "one of the days of the year." That could mean one of many days in the year.

The news conference in Pasadena on Thursday cited a study purporting to document a link between domestic violence in Northern Virginia and games played by the Washington Redskins in 1988-89.

According to an Associated Press story on the conference, Sheila Kuehl, managing lawyer of the California Women's Law Center, said a study by sociologists at Old Dominion University in Norfolk found police reports of beatings and hospital admissions in Northern Virginia rose 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins during those years.

But when asked about that assertion, Janet Katz, professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion and one of the authors of that study, said "that's not what we found at all. "

One of the most notable findings, she said, was that an increase of emergency room admissions "was not associated with the occurrence of football games in general, nor with watching a team lose." When they looked at win days alone, however, they found that the number of women admitted for gun shots, stabbings, assaults, falls, lacerations and wounds from being hit by objects was slightly higher. But certainly not 40 percent.

"These are interesting but very tentative findings, suggesting what violence there is from males after football may spring not from a feeling of defensive insecurity, which you'd associate with a loss, but from the sense of empowerment following a win. We found that significant. But it certainly doesn't support what those women are saying in Pasadena," Katz said.

Linda Mitchell of FAIR, who appeared at the news conference with Kuehl and made similar links between domestic violence and Super Bowl Sunday, said she recognized at the time that Kuehl was misrepresenting the Old Dominion study.

Did she, as a representative of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, challenge her colleague?

"I wouldn't do that in front of the media," Mitchell said. "She has a right to report it as she wants."

And what of psychiatrist Walker, who made the case on "Good Morning America" for the link between domestic violence and football? She was out of town when called Friday, but her office referred callers to Michael Lindsey, a Denver psychotherapist and authority on battered women.

"I haven't been any more successful than you in tracking down any of this," Lindsey said.

And the Boston Globe article, citing "one study of women's shelters out west" that "showed a 40 percent climb in calls" to shelters and hot lines on Super Bowl Sunday?

Globe reporter Lynda Gorov said she never saw the study but had been told about it by FAIR. FAIR's Mitchell said the authority on it was Walker. Walker's office referred callers to Lindsey.

"You think," Lindsey asked, "maybe we have one of these myth things here?"

Could be. Part of what's going on, apparently, is the twin phenomena of media convergence and media orchestration, in which lenses are focused, hoping to piggyback their message out to a global audience of millions.

In her appearance on "Good Morning America" with Walker, FAIR Women's Desk coordinator Laura Flanders said NBC's broadcast of the public service spot was the result of a "nationwide campaign" mobilized by FAIR and groups such as the Women's Action Coalition.

However, NBC spokesman Curt Block said NBC made the decision to help them "because their cause is a good one" and not because of any link, real or imagined, between domestic violence and football.

EXPERTS DEBUNK SUPER BOWL VIOLENCE

News & Record (Greensboro, NC)

January 31, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

As the beer cools and the testosterone surges on this mega-day of professional football, a network of feminist activists has orchestrated a national campaign to ask males to stop beating their wives and girlfriends after the Super Bowl.

In an effort to combat what the Associated Press and CBS have labeled a "day of dread" for women, the organizers have prevailed on NBC, broadcaster of the Super Bowl, to air a public service announcement against wife-beating before tonight's big game. "Domestic violence is a crime," the announcer intones.

Some experts on domestic violence, however, are dubious.

Grace Osini, educational coordinator at the Washington shelter called My Sister's Place, said flatly that her shelter has noted "no increase at all" in calls or admissions after either the Super Bowl or any other football game. "I'm a sociologist myself," she said. "When I heard those figures on television, they didn't add up to me either."

SUPER MYTH?

PURPORTED LINK BETWEEN SUPER BOWL AND WIFE BEATING IS DOUBTFUL

Seattle Times, The (WA)

January 31, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

As beer cools and testosterone surges on this megaday of professional football, a network of feminist activists has orchestrated a national campaign to ask men to stop beating their wives and girlfriends after the Super Bowl

In an effort to combat what the Associated Press and CBS have labeled a "day of dread" for women, the organizers have prevailed on NBC, broadcaster of the Super Bowl, to air a public-service announcement against wife-beating before today's big game. "Domestic violence is a crime," the announcer intones.

Despite their dramatic claims, none of the activists appears to have any evidence to link football and wife-beating. Yet the concept has gained such credence that their campaign has rolled on unabated.

Last week, it produced:

-- A news conference near Super Bowl central in Pasadena, Calif., declaring Super Bowl Sunday "the biggest day of the year for violence against women."

-- An interview on "Good Morning America" in which Denver psychiatrist Lenore Walker claimed to have compiled a 10-year record of violent incidents against women on Super Bowl Sundays.

-- A story in the Boston Globe declaring that women's shelters and violence hotlines are "flooded with more calls from victims (on Super Bowl Sunday) than any day of the year."

-- Announcement of a nationwide phone bank to field calls about domestic violence during the Super Bowl and seek money for the phone bank, by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a media watchdog with an active feminist wing.

-- A public-relations mailing from Dobisky Associates in Keene, N.H., warning at-risk women: "Don't remain alone with him during the game."

Some experts on domestic violence, however, are dubious.

"I don't think anybody has any systematic data on any of this," said Charles Patrick Ewing, a forensic psychologist and author of "Battered Women Who Kill."

Yet Ewing is quoted by Dobisky as saying that "Super Bowl Sunday is one day in the year when hotlines, shelters and other agencies that work with battered women get the most reports and complaints of domestic violence."

"I never said that," Ewing said. "I don't know that to be true."

Told of Ewing's response, Frank Dobisky acknowledged that the quote should have read "one of the days of the year."

The news conference in Pasadena Thursday cited a study purporting to document a link between domestic violence in Northern Virginia and games played by the Washington Redskins in 1988-89.

According to an AP story, Sheila Kuehl, managing lawyer of the California Women's Law Center, said a study at Old Dominion University in Norfolk found police reports of beatings and hospital admissions rose 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins.

But when asked about that assertion, Janet Katz, professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion and one of the study's authors, said, "That's not what we found at all."

One of the most notable findings, she said, was that an increase of emergency-room admissions was not linked to football in general or watching a team lose.

When they looked at winning days, however, they found that the number of women admitted for gun shots, stabbings, assaults, falls, cuts and wounds from being hit by objects was slightly higher. But certainly not 40 percent.

"We found that significant. But it certainly doesn't support what those women are saying in Pasadena."

Kuehl, who described the study in Pasadena, could not be reached.

Linda Mitchell, of FAIR, who appeared at the news conference with Kuehl and made similar links between domestic violence and Super Bowl Sunday, said she recognized at the time that Kuehl was misrepresenting the Old Dominion study.

Did she, as a FAIR representative, challenge her colleague?

"I wouldn't do that in front of the media," Mitchell said. "She has a right to report it as she wants."

And what of psychiatrist Walker, who made the case on "Good Morning America" linking domestic violence and football? She was out of town when called Friday, but her office referred callers to Michael Lindsey, a Denver psychotherapist and authority on battered women.

"I haven't been any more successful than you in tracking down any of this," Lindsey said.

And the Boston Globe article, citing "one study of women's shelters out west" that "showed a 40 percent climb in calls" to shelters and hotlines on Super Bowl Sunday?

Globe reporter Lynda Gorov said she never saw the study but had been told about it by FAIR. FAIR's Mitchell said the authority on it was Walker. Walker's office referred callers to Lindsey.

"You think," Lindsey asked, "maybe we have one of these myth things here?"

Could be. Part of what's going on, apparently, is the twin phenomena of media convergence and media orchestration, in which lenses are focused, hoping to piggyback their message out to millions.

Said author/psychologist Ewing: "It's true there may be an agenda on the part of some people to have this issue put forward just now. They can force NBC to put on those (public service) spots."

In her appearance on "Good Morning America" with Walker, FAIR Women's Desk coordinator Laura Flanders said NBC's broadcast of the public-service spot was the result of a "nationwide campaign" mobilized by FAIR and groups like the Women's Action Coalition and "national and statewide anti-domestic-violence coalitions."

However, NBC spokesman Curt Block said the anti-abuse coalition was "only one of many groups hoping to get their message out to the very large Super Bowl audience" and said NBC made the decision to help them "because their cause is a good one" and not because of any link, real or imagined, between domestic violence and football.

As for the anecdotal evidence of such a link, Ewing said, "I think the best you could do would be to go to some women's shelters and ask people."

Dan Byrne, coordinator for domestic violence at the House of Ruth in the District of Columbia, said "we've never run any figures" on such things after the Super Bowl or Redskins games.

If there had been the big yearly increase that Super Bowl critics were describing, wouldn't it have come to his attention?

"Well, yes."

And had it? "No."

Grace Osini, educational coordinator at the D.C. shelter called My Sister's Place, said flatly that her shelter has noted "no increase at all" in calls or admissions after either the Super Bowl or any other football game.

"I'm a sociologist myself," she said. "When I heard those figures on television, they didn't add up to me either.

"You know," Lindsey said, `" hate this. I've devoted 14 years of my life trying to bring to the public's attention the very serious problem of battered women. And when people make crazy statements like this, the credibility of the whole cause can go right out the window.

EXPERTS DON`T AGREE ON SUPER VIOLENCE

Times Union, The (Albany, NY)

January 31, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

In an effort to combat what the Associated Press and CBS have labeled a "day of dread" for women, the organizers have prevailed on NBC, broadcaster of the Super Bowl, to air a public service announcement against wife-beating before tonight`s big game. "Domestic violence is a crime," the announcer intones.

Despite their dramatic claims, none of the activists appears to have any evidence that a link actually exists between football and wife- beating.

Yet the concept has gained such credence that their campaign has rolled on anyway, unabated. Last week, it produced:

A news conference near Super Bowl Central in Pasadena, declaring Super Bowl Sunday "the biggest day of the year for violence against women."
An interview on "Good Morning America" in which Denver psychiatrist Lenore Walker claimed to have compiled a 10-year record of violent incidents against women on Super Bowl Sundays.
A story in the Boston Globe declaring that women`s shelters and violence hotlines are "flooded with more calls from victims (on Super Bowl Sunday) than any day of the year."
Announcement of a nationwide phone bank to field calls about domestic violence during the Super Bowl and seek funds for the phone bank, by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a media watchdog group with an active feminist wing.
A public relations mailing from Dobisky Associates in Keene, N.H., warning at-risk women: "Don`t remain alone with him during the game."

Some experts on domestic violence, however, are dubious.

"You`re dealing in an area where there`s a lot more folklore than fact," said David Silber, chairman of the Department of Psychology at George

Washington University and a longtime scholar of domestic violence. "I know of no study documenting any such link" between football and/or Super Bowls and domestic violence. "And I know the literature very well."

"I don`t think anybody has any systematic data on any of this," said Charles Patrick Ewing, a forensic psychologist and author of "Battered Women Who Kill."

Yet Ewing is quoted in the release from Dobisky Associates declaring "Super Bowl Sunday is one day in the year when hotlines, shelters and other agencies that work with battered women get the most reports and complaints of domestic violence."

"I never said that," Ewing said. "I don`t know that to be true."

Told of Ewing`s response, Frank Dobisky acknowledged that the quote should have read "one of the days of the year."

The news conference in Pasadena Thursday cited a study purporting to document a link between domestic violence in Northern Virginia and games played by the Washington Redskins in 1988-89.

According to an AP story on the conference, Sheila Kuehl, managing lawyer of the California Women`s Law Center, said a study by sociologists at Old Dominion University in Norfolk found police reports of beatings and hospital admissions in Northern Virginia rose 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins during those years.

But when asked about that assertion, Janet Katz, professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion and one of the authors of that study, said "that`s not what we found at all."

"These are interesting but very tentative findings, suggesting what violence there is from males after football may spring not from a feeling of defensive insecurity, which you`d associate with a loss, but from the sense of empowerment following a win. We found that significant. But it certainly doesn`t support what those women are saying in Pasadena," Katz said.

Did she, as a representative of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, challenge her colleague?

"I wouldn`t do that in front of the media," Mitchell said. "She has a right to report it as she wants."

EXPERTS QUICK TO BLITZ STATEMENTS LINKING SUPER BOWL, WIFE-BEATING

January 31, 1993

Watertown Daily Times (NY)

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

"Domestic violence is a crime," the announcer intones.

Last week, it produced:

A news conference near Super Bowl Central in Pasadena, Calif., declaring Super Bowl Sunday "the biggest day of the year for violence against women."

An interview on "Good Morning America" in which Denver psychiatrist Lenore Walker claimed to have compiled a 10-year record of violent incidents against women on Super Bowl Sundays.

A story in the Boston Globe declaring that women's shelters and violence hot lines are "flooded with more calls from victims (on Super Bowl Sunday) than any day of the year."

Announcement of a nationwide phone bank to field calls about domestic violence during the Super Bowl and seek funds for the phone bank, by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a media watchdog group with an active feminist wing.

A public relations mailing from Dobisky Associates in Keene, N.H., warning at-risk women: "Don't remain alone with him during the game."

Some experts on domestic violence, however, are dubious.

"I know of no study documenting any such link" between football and/or Super Bowls and domestic violence. "And I know the literature very well."

"I don't think anybody has any systematic data on any of this," said Charles Patrick Ewing, a forensic psychologist and author of "Battered Women Who Kill."

"'I never said that," Ewing said. "I don't know that to be true."

Told of Ewing's response, Frank Dobisky acknowledged that the quote should have read "one of the days of the year." That could mean one of many days in the year.

The news conference in Pasadena Thursday cited a study purporting to document a link between domestic violence in Northern Virginia and games played by the Washington Redskins in 1988-89.

According to an AP story on the conference, Sheila Kuehl, managing lawyer of the California Women's Law Center, said a study by sociologists at Old Dominion University in Norfolk found police reports of beatings and hospital admissions in Northern Virginia rose 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins in those years.

Asked about that assertion, Janet Katz, professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion and one of the authors of that study, said "that's not what we found at all. "

One of the most notable findings, she said, was that an increase of emergency room admissions "was not associated with the occurrence of football games in general, nor with watching a team lose." When they looked at win days alone, however, they found that the number of women admitted for gun shots, stabbings, assaults and wounds from being hit by objects was slightly higher. But certainly not 40 percent.

Did she, as a representative of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, challenge her colleague?

"I wouldn't do that in front of the media," Mitchell said.

And what of psychiatrist Walker, who made the case on "Good Morning America" for the link between domestic violence and football? Her office referred callers to Michael Lindsey, a Denver psychotherapist and authority on battered women.

"I haven't been any more successful than you in tracking down any of this," Lindsey said.

And the Boston Globe article, citing "one study of women's shelters out west" that "showed a 40 percent climb in calls" to shelters on Super Bowl Sunday?

Globe reporter Lynda Gorov said she never saw the study but had been told about it by FAIR. FAIR's Mitchell said the authority on it was Walker. Walker's office referred callers to Lindsey.

"You think," Lindsey asked, "maybe we have one of these myth things here?"

DEBUNKING THE 'DAY OF DREAD' FOR WOMEN

Washington Post

January 31, 1993

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/01/31/debunking-the-day-of-dread-for-women/62e0f24b-9b9c-4cd4-b07c-57095018c7ec/

Despite their dramatic claims, none of the activists appears to have any evidence that a link actually exists between football and wife-beating. Yet the concept has gained such credence that their campaign has rolled on anyway, unabated. Last week, it produced:A news conference near Super Bowl Central in Pasadena, Calif., declaring Super Bowl Sunday "the biggest day of the year for violence against women." An interview on "Good Morning America" in which Denver psychiatrist Lenore Walker claimed to have compiled a 10-year record of violent incidents against women on Super Bowl Sundays. A story in the Boston Globe declaring that women's shelters and violence hot lines are "flooded with more calls from victims {on Super Bowl Sunday} than any day of the year." Announcement of a nationwide phone bank to field calls about domestic violence during the Super Bowl and seek funds for the phone bank, by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a media watchdog group with an active feminist wing. A public relations mailing from Dobisky Associates in Keene, N.H., warning at-risk women: "Don't remain alone with him during the game."

Some experts on domestic violence, however, are dubious.

"I don't think anybody has any systematic data on any of this," said Charles Patrick Ewing, a forensic psychologist and author of "Battered Women Who Kill."

"I never said that," Ewing said. "I don't know that to be true."

Told of Ewing's response, Frank Dobisky acknowledged that the quote should have read "one of the days of the year." That could mean one of many days in the year.

The news conference in Pasadena Thursday cited a study purporting to document a link between domestic violence in Northern Virginia and games played by the Washington Redskins in 1988-89.

But when asked about that assertion, Janet Katz, professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion and one of the authors of that study, said "that's not what we found at all. "

One of the most notable findings, she said, was that an increase of emergency room admissions "was not associated with the occurrence of football games in general, nor with watching a team lose." When they looked at win days alone, however, they found that the number of women admitted for gunshot wounds, stabbings, assaults, falls, lacerations and wounds from being hit by objects was slightly higher than average. But certainly not 40 percent.

Kuehl, who described the study at the news conference in Pasadena, could not be reached at her office. She later returned the call but did not leave a number where she could be reached.

Did she, as a representative of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, challenge her colleague?

"I wouldn't do that in front of the media," Mitchell said. "She has a right to report it as she wants."

"I haven't been any more successful than you in tracking down any of this," Lindsey said.

And the Boston Globe article, citing "one study of women's shelters out west" that "showed a 40 percent climb in calls" to shelters and hot lines on Super Bowl Sunday?

Globe reporter Lynda Gorov said she never saw the study but had been told about it by FAIR. FAIR's Mitchell said the authority on it was Walker. Walker's office referred callers to Lindsey.

"You think," Lindsey asked, "maybe we have one of these myth things here?"

Could be. Part of what's going on, apparently, is the twin phenomena of media convergence and media orchestration, in which causists show up wherever the most TV lenses are focused, hoping to piggyback their message out to a global audience of millions.

Said author/psychologist Ewing: "It's true there may be an agenda on the part of some people to have this issue put forward just now. They can force NBC to put on those {public service} spots."

As for the anecdotal evidence of such a link that the advocates cite, Ewing said, "I think the best you could do would be to go to some women's shelters and ask people."

Dan Byrne, coordinator for domestic violence at the House of Ruth here in the District, said "we've never run any figures" on such things after the Super Bowl or Redskins games. If there had been the sort of major yearly increase feminist critics of the Super Bowl were describing, wouldn't it have come to his attention?

"Well, yes." And had it? "No."

Grace Osini, educational coordinator at the District shelter called My Sister's Place, said flatly that her shelter has noted "no increase at all" in calls or admissions after either the Super Bowl or any other football game. "I'm a sociologist myself," she said. "When I heard those figures on television, they didn't add up to me either."

"You know," Lindsey said, "I hate this. I've devoted 14 years of my life trying to bring to the public's attention the very serious problem of battered women. And when people make crazy statements like this, the credibility of the whole cause can go right out the window."

Super Sunday violence link disclaimed by study authors

Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA)

February 1, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Women's rights activists misinterpreted a report on football's link to violence against women at a pre-Super Bowl news conference, the study's author said.

Garland F. White, a sociologist at Old Dominion University, said lawyer Sheila Kuehl erred when she told reporters Thursday that the study showed that beatings went up by 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins during the 1988-89 season.

"We didn't publish that," White said Sunday.

"What we said was that after the Redskins won (in 1992), we found that women's trips to emergency rooms . . . were slightly higher than average," White said.

"We found that significant but something in need of much further research."

At the Rose Bowl news conference, Kuehl and Linda Mitchell of the media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting said shelters and violence hotlines are flooded with more calls from victims on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year.

Police in several cities contacted by The Associated Press said there was no rise in the typical number of domestic violence calls Sunday evening. Almost every South Bay police department reported normal levels of calls from battered women Sunday.

"We've had a couple of spousal abuse calls but nothing out of the ordinary," Carson sheriff's Lt. Ron Dayhoff said.

At a battered women's shelter in San Pedro, a counselor said she had received one call Sunday from a woman who had been assaulted. Sundays are normally a busy time for domestic violence calls, but calls were down in Hawthorne during and after the Super Bowl broadcast, Sgt. Don Shrum said.

But at least one agency confirmed the activists' claim after this year's game.

"This is traditionally our busiest domestic violence day of the year," said Tess Wiseheart, director of the Portland (Ore.) Women's Crisis Line.

VIOLENCE STATS TAKE A HIT

STUDY'S AUTHOR DISAVOWS SUPER BOWL CONNECTION

Dayton Daily News (OH)

February 1, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

An author of a report on football's link to violence against women said Sunday that the study was misinterpreted in Super Bowl week statements by women's rights activists.

Garland F. White, a sociologist at Old Dominion University, said lawyer Sheila Kuehl erred when she said Thursday that the study showed that beatings went up by 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins in the 1988-89 season.

"We didn't publish that," Garland F. White said in his Norfolk, Va., home. "What we said was that after the Redskins won, we found that women's trips to emergency rooms . . . were slightly higher than average," White said. "We found that significant but in need of much further research."

Kuehl, Linda Mitchell of the media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting and other activists said shelters and violence hot lines are flooded with more calls from victims on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year.

The activists said that NBC-TV had agreed to air a public service announcement against domestic violence. The spot aired during Sunday's pre-game show.

Kuehl, who cited the study's findings to bolster her argument of a connection between football viewing and violence against women, said she did not think she had distorted the research.

Kuehl, managing lawyer for the California Women's Law Center, said she did not talk to the researchers, but read an article outlining the research in a journal called Violence and Victims, published in 1992.

Study on battered women, football misread, author says

Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX)

February 1, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

LOS ANGELES - Women's rights activists misinterpreted a report on football's link to violence against women at a pre-Super Bowl news conference, the study's author said.

Garland White, a sociologist at Old Dominion University, said lawyer Sheila Kuehl erred when she told reporters yesterday that the study showed that beatings went up by 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins during the 1988-89 season.

"We didn't publish that," White said yesterday in a telephone interview from his Norfolk, Va., home.

"What we said was that after the Redskins won (in 1992), we found that women's trips to emergency rooms . . . were slightly higher than average," White said. "We found that significant but something in need of much further research."

At the Rose Bowl news conference, Kuehl, Linda Mitchell of the media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting and other activists said shelters and violence hotlines are flooded with more calls from victims on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year.

The activists used the news conference to announce that NBC-TV had agreed to air a public service announcement against domestic violence. The announcement aired during yesterday's pre-game show.

Kuehl, who cited the study's findings to bolster her argument of a connection between football viewing and violence against women, said she did not think she had distorted the research.

Kuehl, managing lawyer for the California Women's Law Center, said she did not talk to the researchers, but read an article outlining the research in a journal called "Violence and Victims," published in 1992.

"I was simply quoting from their own summary of the research," she said, looking at the journal at her Santa Monica home Saturday night. "As I read these numbers, one of the tables does show an increase in admissions of 40 percent over the average intakes. It doesn't say that after every game there was a 40 percent increase.

"And I can't say that every Super Bowl it goes up 40 percent."

VIOLENT SUNDAY?

Lawrence Journal-World (KS)

February 1, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Telephone calls to a Lawrence shelter for battered women apparently increased Sunday night, but a shelter spokeswoman said today she could not attribute the apparent increase to Sunday night's Super Bowl football game.

"It's a pretty hard thing to judge," said Laura Farha, community facilitator at Women's Transitional Care Services. "We don't get a certain number every day. I can't say it's because of the Super Bowl."

Farha would not say how many calls came to the shelter Sunday night.

Sgt. Mark Warren of the Lawrence Police Department said he was unaware of any increases in domestic violence complaints Sunday night.

One battery was reported to Lawrence police during the Super Bowl, police reports show.

Police also were investigating a report that a man fired a shotgun twice at an apartment door from inside the apartment during a party Sunday night.

A POLICE SPOKESMAN said a group of men were inside a residence at Meadowbrook Apartments, 101 Windor Pl. drinking beer and watching the game. Police were called after neighbors heard shotgun blasts. When they arrived, one of the men at the party said a shotgun had accidentally gone off, causing $100 damage to the door.

The man who allegedly fired the weapon had already left the party when police arrived, the spokesman said. No arrests were made.

Meanwhile, a controversy developed over whether women's rights activists misinterpreted the results of a study when they claimed a link between the Super Bowl and violence against women, the Associated Press reported.

``WE DIDN'T publish that,'' White told The Associated Press Sunday in a telephone interview from his Norfolk, Va., home.

``What we said was that after the Redskins won (during the 1988-89 season), we found that women's trips to emergency rooms were slightly higher than average,'' White said. ``We found that significant but something in need of much further research.''

Police in several cities contacted by The Associated Press said there was no rise in the typical number of domestic violence calls Sunday evening.

But at least one agency confirmed the activists' claim after this year's game.

``THIS IS traditionally our busiest domestic violence day of the year,'' said Tess Wiseheart, executive director of the Portland (Ore.) Women's Crisis Line.

``We always find that there's a lot of Super Bowl-related violence,'' she said Sunday. ``We had extra people working today. Our domestic violence calls are up 300 percent. We anticipate a lot of calls all evening, tonight and until tomorrow when the batterers go back to work.''

The activists used the news conference to announce that NBC-TV had agreed to air a public service announcement against domestic violence. The announcement aired during Sunday's pre-game show.

Kuehl, who cited the study's findings to bolster her argument of a connection between football viewing and violence against women, said she did not think she had distorted the research.

Kuehl, managing lawyer for the California Women's Law Center, said she did not talk to the researchers, but read an article outlining the research in a journal called ``Violence and Victims,'' published in 1992.

``I was simply quoting from their own summary of the research,'' she said, looking at the journal at her Santa Monica home Saturday night. ``As I read these numbers, one of the tables does show an increase in admissions of 40 percent over the average intakes. It doesn't say that after every game there was a 40 percent increase.

``And I can't say that every Super Bowl it goes up 40 percent.''

LINK OF FOOTBALL TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN CALLED DISTORTED

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)

February 1, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

An author of a report on football's link to violence against women said Sunday that the study was misinterpreted at a Super Bowl week news conference held by women's rights activists.

Garland F. White, a sociologist at Old Dominion University, said lawyer Sheila Kuehl erred when she told reporters that the study showed that beatings went up by 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins in the 1988-89 season.

"We didn't publish that," Garland F. White said in a telephone interview from his Norfolk, Va., home.

"What we said was that after the Redskins won, we found that women's trips to emergency rooms . . . were slightly higher than average," White said. "We found that significant but something in need of much further research."

At the Rose Bowl news conference, Kuehl, Linda Mitchell of the media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, and other activists said shelters and violence hot lines are flooded with more calls from victims on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year.

The activists used the news conference to announce that NBC-TV had agreed to air a public-service announcement against domestic violence. The announcement aired on Sunday's pregame show.

Kuehl, who cited the study's findings to bolster her argument of a connection between football viewing and violence against women, said she did not think she had distorted the research.

Kuehl, managing lawyer for the California Women's Law Center, said she did not talk to the researchers but read an article outlining the research in a journal called "Violence and Victims," published in 1992.

"I was simply quoting from their own summary of the research," she said.

SUPER BOWL BATTERING LINK MISSTATED, RESEARCHER SAYS

St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)

February 1, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

An author of a report on football's link to violence against women said Sunday that the study was misinterpreted at a Super Bowl week news conference held by women's rights activists.

Garland White, a sociologist at Old Dominion University, said lawyer Sheila Kuehl erred when she told reporters Thursday that the study showed beatings went up by 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins during the 1988-89 season.

``We didn't publish that,'' White said in a telephone interview from his Norfolk, Va., home.

``What we said was that after the Redskins won, we found that women's trips to emergency rooms ... were slightly higher than average,'' White said. ``We found that significant but something in need of much further research.''

Counselors at the Twin Cities domestic abuse hot line said Sunday that they did get more calls than usual, but weren't sure how many or whether the increase could be attributed to more violence or publicity during the Super Bowl.

At the Rose Bowl news conference, Kuehl, Linda Mitchell of the media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting and other activists said shelters and violence hot lines are flooded with more calls from victims on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day.

The activists used the news conference to announce that NBC-TV had agreed to air a public service announcement against domestic violence.

Kuehl, managing lawyer for the California Women's Law Center, said she did not believe that she had distorted the research.

``I was simply quoting from their own summary of the research,'' she said.

Mitchell appeared at the news conference with Kuehl and made similar links between domestic violence and the Super Bowl.

She said that she recognized that Kuehl had misrepresented the study's findings but did not see fit to challenge her.

Staff writer Tim Nelson contributed to this report.

Study linking football, beatings was misinterpreted, author says

Tampa Tribune, The (FL)

February 1, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

LOS ANGELES - An author of a report on football's link to violence against women said Sunday that the study was misinterpreted at a Super Bowl week news conference held by women's rights activists.

"We didn't publish that," Garland White said.

"What we said was that after the Redskins won, we found that women's trips to emergency rooms ... were slightly higher than average," White said. "We found that significant but something in need of much further research."

The activists used the news conference to announce that NBC had agreed to air a public service announcement against domestic violence. The announcement aired during Sunday's pre-game show.

Kuehl, who cited the study's findings to bolster her argument of a connection between football viewing and violence against women, said she did not think she had distorted the research.

"And I can't say that every Super Bowl it goes up 40 percent."

Mitchell appeared at the news conference with Kuehl and made similar links between domestic violence and the Super Bowl. She said that she recognized that Kuehl had misrepresented the study's findings but did not see fit to challenge her.

"I wouldn't do that in front of the media," she said in Sunday's editions of The Washington Post. "She has a right to report it as she wants."

NO LINK SEEN HERE BETWEEN GAME, VIOLENCE

Capital Times, The (Madison, WI)

February 1, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Emergency telephone calls to Dane County Advocates for Battered Women were up slightly following Sunday's Super Bowl game - but crisis workers say there's no evidence the increase had anything to do with the game.

``I was on the crisis line all night. There were maybe a few more serious calls and a few new ones,'' said Char, a worker who asked that her last name not be used.

``A lot of them were repeat calls where people were getting help and wanted to talk. There was no indication the calls had anything to do with football.''

Women's rights activists in California said last week that Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day of the year for domestic violence against women.

``The betting, the bonding and the beer for the men can turn into beating for women,'' Patricia Occiuzzo Giggans of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women said.

Locally, however, that did not hold true. None of the emergency rooms at Madison's three general hospitals reported any domestic violence cases against women linked to the football game.

A St. Marys Hospital spokeswoman said the only game-related case there was ``a guy assaulted so badly during a fight about the Super Bowl game that he was admitted.''

Madison police reported arrests in four domestic incidents Sunday.

Three were batteries, or incidents in which there was an injury, and one was a domestic disorderly conduct.

Police spokeswoman Dorothy Spicer said that the number is not unusally high.

Increased domestic disturbances on holidays or days marked by special events typically are linked to drinking, Spicer said.

She, too, said there wasn't any evidence the incidents were directly linked to the football game.

Meanwhile, the author of a report on football's link to violence against women says the California activists misinterpreted his study.

Garland White, a sociologist at Old Dominion University, said California lawyer Sheila Kuehl erred when she told reporters Thursday that the study showed that beatings went up by 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins during the 1988-89 season.

``We didn't publish that,'' White said Sunday in a telephone interview from his Norfolk, Va., home.

``What we said was that after the Redskins won (in 1992), we found that women's trips to emergency rooms . . . were slightly higher than average,'' White said. ``We found that significant but something in need of much further research.''

Kuehl, who cited the study's findings to bolster her argument of a connection between football viewing and violence against women, said she did not think she had distorted the research.

``I was simply quoting from their own summary of the research,'' she said. ``As I read these numbers, one of the tables does show an increase in admissions of 40 percent over the average intakes. It doesn't say that after every game there was a 40 percent increase.

``And I can't say that with every Super Bowl it goes up 40 percent,'' she said.

SUPER BOWL BATTERING DIDN'T HAPPEN

Columbus Dispatch, The (OH)

February 2, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

An increase in domestic violence predicted for Super Bowl Sunday did not happen in Columbus, authorities said yesterday, and others nationwide said women's rights activists were spreading the wrong message.

Despite some pregame hype about the "day of dread" for some women, Columbus-area domestic violence counselors said that Sunday, although certainly violent for some women, was relatively routine.

Choices for Victims of Domestic Violence received 20 calls Sunday through its 24-hour crisis line and another 20 by late afternoon yesterday, executive director Gail Heller said.

The center had added extra help, and Heller said last week she expected an increase in calls yesterday, when abusers return to work and are out of the house.

She said the number of calls was average for any Sunday and for Monday, and not all the calls were crisis situations in need of immediate attention.

"Right before and after the game, we didn't notice any difference," Heller said. "Earlier in the day, though, we had a little increase in our calls.

"We're certainly not seeing a significant increase this year. Generally, if it's happening on Super Bowl Sunday, it's probably happening every day of the year in that same household."

The Sounding Board Counseling Center had 52 calls Sunday, about 12 more than usual for a Sunday, said Dr. Steven Muncy, the center's executive director. But he suggested that a story in The Dispatch on Sunday was the reason for the increase in calls, not an increase in violence.

"Maybe it was merely people who read that story," he said.

Nationwide, women are battered every 15 seconds, and it is the leading cause of injury to girls and women between 15 and 44 years old, according to the U.S. surgeon general.

Neither Columbus police nor the Franklin County Sheriff's Department received an unusual number of reports of crime on Super Bowl Sunday. Vice bureau detectives did not go on any gambling raids, and officers would not even speculate on the amount gambled on the game in the Columbus area.

A spokeswoman at Gamblers Anonymous in Columbus yesterday, who would not give her name, said only four people were at Sunday night's regularly scheduled meeting of the organization, compared with about a dozen on a regular Sunday. She said she did note an increased number of calls to an answering machine yesterday, possibly an indication of the number of losers who wanted to be set straight.

"They never call if they're winning," she said. "Gamblers Anonymous has no opinion on gambling, but we're here for those who can't do it" without conflict in their lives.

Adding to the hype about domestic violence was a Thursday news conference in California in which some women's rights activists cited a study that they said reported that beatings increased by 40 percent in northern Virginia after games won by the Washington Redskins during the 1988-89 season.

The activists also announced that NBC-TV would run a pre-game public service announcement against domestic violence.

Others, billing themselves as experts, appeared on television and mailed news releases trying to link the Big Game to the worst day of the year for battered women.

But the author of the study quoted by the activists told the Associated Press yesterday that his study was misinterpreted.

Garland F. White, a sociologist at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Va., said his study found only that women's trips to emergency rooms were slightly higher than average after the Redskins won.

"We found that significant but something in need of much further research," he said.

A SPOUSE ABUSE MYTH IS SACKED

Mercury News, The (San Jose, CA)

February 2, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

ANOTHER SUPER BOWL Sunday is history. The beer cans and Crystal Pepsi bottles are in the recycling bin; the chili stains have been scrubbed from the carpet. Once again the day failed to live up to the pre-game hype: Not only was the game an em-barrassment, but Sunday did not turn out to be the worst day of the year for domestic violence.

I have to admit I was taken in by those initial stories declaring Super Sunday a "day of dread" for American women. Supposedly, domestic violence hot lines log more calls on that day than any other.

It seemed to make sense: Get a bunch of guys together to watch a violent game, introduce alcohol and guarantee that half the crowd will leave disappointed. Add resentful women, tired of spending their weekends fixing chips and dip and caring for kids while their men yell obscenities at the TV. Sounds like a prescription for a fight.

The more I thought about it, though, something didn't quite wash. So I was glad to see the story in Sunday's paper debunking the Super Bowl wife-beating myth. It turns out there isn't any documented increase in abuse reports that day. Just to make sure, I checked with local crisis hot lines on Monday and found they hadn't been swamped with calls.

Spouse abuse isn't about football, any more than it is about burned pot roast or a bad day at the office. Women can go crazy looking for logical reasons why the men they love beat them up. Blaming the Super Bowl only deflects attention from the real sources of the problem: patterns of violence passed on from parents to children, alcohol abuse, poverty and despair.

True, football glorifies violence. So do Hollywood, the military and our national anthem. Where do we begin?

A 15-year-old Cupertino girl was shot to death by her 16-year-old boyfriend at a Super Bowl party Sunday. Don't blame that tragedy on the NFL. Instead teach kids to respect themselves and one another. Help them handle their feelings without violence.

I'm glad that the problem of domestic violence got national attention during Super Bowl week. But the message shouldn't be: "Don't remain alone with him during the game." It should be: "Get counseling. Now."

No increases in domestic violence reported from Super Bowl

Hartford Courant, The (CT)

February 2, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Those who work with the victims of domestic violence in Connecticut reported no increase in cases Monday, after a barrage of publicity on the potential link between Super Bowl gatherings and family violence.

However, at least one Hartford-area crisis hot line counseled two women who said they called after seeing a public service announcement donated by NBC during pre-game programming Sunday.

The 30-second message on domestic violence -- the first broadcast during Super Bowl programming -- told men it is illegal to beat women. The announcement, in a time slot valued at more than half a million dollars, gave the telephone number of a crisis hot line for abused women to call.

The announcement capped a week in which women's groups, a nationwide network of coalitions against domestic violence and the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting advocacy group fanned a flash fire of publicity over a potential link between the Super Bowl and an increase in domestic violence.

The media campaign was waged, and the NBC slot was donated, despite the lack of any comprehensive study establishing a correlation between the Super Bowl and increased incidence of domestic violence. Rather, the case was made largely on anecdotal evidence supplied by victims and victims' advocates, who have braced for Super Bowl Sunday and its aftermath.

"People who work in the shelters just know," said Kathleen Holgerson, manager of the Prudence Crandall women's shelter in New Britain. "Holidays are bad. Super Bowls are bad. Hot days and the full moons, these are times that are just sort of legendary.

"I'm hoping that with the media attention this year, maybe someone will do their dissertation on this topic, use their research to see if there is an identifiable pattern," Holgerson said.

Cecile Enrico, executive director of Hartford Interval House, a women's shelter, said the logbook of calls to her center's hot line Sunday contains calls from two women who said they saw the ad on television.

Holgerson said those calls alone make the ad a success.

"If it got only one woman a number where she could get someone to talk to, then it was effective," Holgerson said.

Family services counselors in the state who follow domestic violence arrests into court said Monday they saw little or no increase in their caseloads, and some saw a decrease.

Paul J. Bevins, family services supervisor in the Danbury Judicial District, said his office's caseload Monday was "substantially lower than normal," with four cases rather than the average 10 to 12.

"What was most peculiar for us was that the week before [Super Bowl Sunday] was one of the busiest we've ever had," said Bevins, who estimated last week's caseload was 60 percent above average.

"It could have more to do with the time of year than the Super Bowl game," Bevins said. "This is just the time of the year when a lot of people are home, maybe doing a considerable amount of drinking and drugging. They can't get out."

Bevins recalls that the worst day his office had in recent memory was a Monday after Mother's Day about five years ago; the worst month was a rainy June when people were cooped up in the house.

Family counselors in the Hartford-New Britain Judicial District reported an average Monday caseload. Although three of about two dozen cases related somewhat to the Super Bowl game, one counselor said the details of those three cases suggested they would have occurred anyway.

Steve Grant, a supervisor in the Litchfield family services office, said the 20 cases the office handled Monday were a "very slight" increase over the average 16 to 19 cases, and "not worth noting." Roger Grenier, family services supervisor in the Stamford-Norwalk Judicial District, said his office handled 12 cases in court Monday, compared with an average of 9 or 10.

"At this point the number doesn't seem to reflect an increase from the Super Bowl," Grenier said. "While 12 might be a couple more than normal, there have been weekends without a Super Bowl when we've had 15" cases.

Family services workers in the Fairfield Judicial District, which encompasses Bridgeport, said they wouldn't have their Monday figures compiled until today. Other judicial districts reported no increases or, in some cases, a minor decrease from average Monday caseloads.

NO RISE IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Times Union, The (Albany, NY)

February 2, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Contrary to a report last week that domestic violence escalates on Super Bowl Sunday, local police agencies and battered women`s shelters remained unaffected by the biggest sporting event of the year.

It`s not so much the big football game that propels violence against women, as is the amount of drug and alcohol intake connected with any special event, according to several agencies familiar with violent crimes in the home.

A report last week that violence against women reaches a crescendo on Super Bowl Sunday created a huge hype, one that resulted in a valuable public service announcement airing before the game. A number of activist groups working to stem domestic violence publicized the Super Bowl link.

But on closer examination, the connection between football and domestic violence doesn`t wash, not in the Capital Region anyway.

"This year, I asked my staff to be particularly careful and count crisis line calls. We had three calls," Kathleen Magee, director of the domestic violence program at Equinox Domestic Violence Services in Albany, said Monday.

"None of them made any mention of the Super Bowl," she said. "I would consider all of them just normal calls, it isn`t any more than we would expect."

Magee said the domestic violence publicity probably had more to do with the Super Bowl event than it did with the actual issue.

At area police agencies, from the city of Albany to State Police outlets in East Greenbush, Selkirk, Guilderland and Brunswick to the town of Colonie, the number of calls on domestic violence were no higher than any other day of the year.

"It`s not the Super Bowl. It`s any special occasion - not to do with the occasion, but people getting together," Colonie Police Lt. Steve Heider said Monday. A stressful family gathering combined with alcohol and drugs is more the recipe for trouble than anything else, he said.

Unfortunately, activists who misinterpreted research on the higher incidence of domestic violence and then publicized their findings may have hurt more than helped the cause, according to one expert.

"There is no reputable scientific research that would support such a claim that on one particular day of the year violence toward women is higher than any other day of the year," said Richard Gelles, director of the family violence research program at the University of Rhode Island.

He criticized the football-generated information as advocacy-based research, basically research that supports a specific point of view.

"I believe that despite the worthy goals of the public service announcement and the public relations effort, to say that violence goes up on Super Bowl Sunday is to trivialize the significant pain and suffering caused by wife abuse," he said. "Women are abused every day of the year.

"This is the little girl who cried wolf with stats, but there`s a real wolf, that`s the 365-day-a-year problem," said Gelles, who has studied domestic violence for 20 years.

In fact, Gelles suggested that Sunday might have been the perfect day for female victims of violence to escape the house for good while their partner was glued to the television.

Another local critic of the Super Bowl link to the issue is Doris Meagher, a certified social worker from the Center for Hope and Alternatives in Albany, a group that counsels men who abuse.

None of the spotlight over the last few days has focused on how to correct the problem, an issue she deals with daily.

Men who hit their partners need to be helped in order for the problem to be remedied, she said.

Meagher lauded the commercial before the game that depicted a man in a jail cell saying something like: "I didn`t know I could get arrested for hitting my wife."

However, most follow-up coverage provided phone numbers where women could find help but not for men who would also need help.

On March 25, Meagher will give a free presentation on the effects of domestic violence on children at 1 Broadway Center in Schenectady from noon to 1:30 p.m. For more information, call 427-7904.

She is also pushing for legislation in the Assembly and Senate that would require the courts to consider instances of domestic violence when awarding custody of a child.

WHEN MEN BEAT WOMEN

THE SUPER BOWL MYTH

Virginian-Pilot, The (Norfolk, VA)

February 3, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Do you know who got beat Sunday, besides the Buffalo Bills?

Sound like a joke? It isn't. The answer is: too many women by too many men in too many places.

Could you say, then, as did a spokeswoman for a California women's advocacy group last week, that reports of battered women go up 40 percent on Super Bowl Sunday?

No, you couldn't, not according to authoritative studies or records kept by abuse hot lines. Nor should you conclude, though some women's groups continue to imply, that the Super Bowl causes men to batter women.

Any party situation, say experts on such abuse, can exacerbate the abuse of alcohol and illegal drugs that often triggers a man's battery of a woman. And reports of battery may - or may not - rise in the hometown of a Super Bowl team or in the city where the game is played.

But the battle for power and control that prompts such abuse - typically though not always a man's abuse of a woman - requires no alcohol, no party atmosphere, no smash-and-bash on a TV screen.

Yet again this year some feminist groups perpetuated the Super Bowl-battery myth, even to the extent of misquoting, misrepresenting and misinterpreting studies to bolster it. They do battered women a double disservice:

By singling out Super Bowl Sunday as a ``day of dread,'' they understate the ongoing, constant, daily dread of battered women.

And by forcing authorities to repeatedly debunk the connection as fable, they perpetuate a far more dangerous myth: that the incidence of battery is overstated, that the issue of battered women is just one more weapon feminists wield to wallop men. Worse, they invite the inference that stopping spouse abuse is as simple as stopping football.

The reasons men batter the women in their lives aren't that simple. Neither are the remedies. The reasons women stay with batterers, even return to them, are less simple still. Simple and short-term remedies like shelters help. Distortions never do.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE STORIES CLASHED

Palm Beach Post, The (FL)

Author/Byline: Charles Bond

February 4, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

``The Post continues to confuse me!" writes Robert A. Huttemeyer of Tequesta. "On the first page of (Sunday's) Accent section appears (staff writer) Meg James' story "Battered women loser on Super Sunday." On Page 4A, an article taken from The Washington Post carries a contradictory headline reading " `Myth' links Super Bowl to domestic violence.'

"Should the two stories have been carried on the same page with a `both sides of a controversy' approach or carried with the book reviews under ' fiction'?" he asked.

It seems much of America debated whether violence against women is at its worst on Super Bowl Sunday. Tuesday, The Post carried an Associated Press article that "the talk was ignited by a news conference last week in which women's rights activists cited a new study reporting a 40 percent surge in beatings following the annual football extravaganza. The authors objected -- they said their research was distorted-- but their disavowals were diluted in a sea of Super Bowl hype."

The paper also reported Tuesday, beneath the headline, "No upsurge in batterings," that AP's spot check indicated no more but no fewer domestic violence complaints Sunday. Alongside that article, staff writer Michelle Brown reported that locally, "Sunday was a mixed bag." One shelter director said this was the first she'd heard of abuse associated with the game and saw no indication it had worsened. Another said calls tripled-- as anticipated.

Clearly, some activists had planned to associate a very real problem with the Super Bowl hype. And "myth" or not, they accomplished their goal: NBC broadcast a 30-second public service announcement as part of its pregame telecast.

But the confusion is the same as that associated with articles reporting "scientific" findings but which are quickly contradicted by other studies. You've seen the headlines. "Study: Coffee is good (or bad) for you." Or "Scientists link thinking to cancer risk." Newspapers lose credibility when readers don't know what to believe.

In this case, Christine Edmunds of the National Victim Center in Arlington, Va. told the AP: "The sad thing is that the media attention ends in 36 hours. And what's left to the victims?" she pondered. "The violence doesn't stop. They're no better off. We just kind of move on."

* Charles Bond is an editorial writer for The Palm Beach Post.

TRUTH TAKES A BEATING

Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA)

February 4, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Fans tuned in to the Super Bowl likely saw a public-service announcement against wife-beating. The segment was the culmination of a media campaign by women's rights organizations, which convinced NBC it should give up the pricey air-time because of the harm football causes women.

Earlier in the week, one group declared Super Bowl Sunday "the biggest day of the year for violence against women." The Boston Globe reported a 40 percent increase in wife-beatings on past Super Bowl Sundays. And at a Los Angeles news conference, Sheila Kuehl of the California Women's Law Center cited a study by sociologists at Old Dominion University as part of a similar claim. "This game is terrifying for far too many women," she said.

But the claims are false.

When asked by The Washington Post about the study, one of the ODU professors involved replied, "That's not what we found at all." The Globe reporter said she learned of the study from feminist-leaning Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), which was present at the L.A. news conference. And FAIR's representative said she knew at the time that Sheila Kuehl wasn't telling the truth, but wouldn't say so in front of reporters. So much for fairness and accuracy.

Wife-beaters ought to go to cold jails for long stays. But women's rights activists ought to be able to say so without lying -- and without implying that football turns the average Joe into a cretinous goon.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LINK TO SUPER BOWL DOESN`T MATERIALIZE

Charlotte Observer, The (NC)

Author/Byline: BOB HOHLER, Boston Globe

February 5, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

The image was alarming: Men across America, incited by booze, gambling losses and the body-slamming exploits of their football heroes, could make Super Bowl Sunday the worst day of the year for domestic violence.

Activists trumpeted the warning, saying national studies supported their claim. Much of the nation`s media echoed the alarm.

And NBC, heeding the prediction, aired as its only public service announcement in the countdown to the Super Bowl a 20-second television spot that dramatized for 40 million viewers the horror of domestic violence.

But in an embarrassing setback for the campaign against domestic violence, some of the groups that pressured NBC to air the free spot, including Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, acknowledged this week that they had based their predictions in part on incomplete, inaccurate or anecdotal information.

`Not quite accurate`

Despite the urgent warnings, advocates for battered women reported little or no evidence of a surge in domestic violence during or after the Super Bowl. ``It was not quite accurate,`` Steven Rendell, a FAIR spokesman in New York, said of his group`s assertion that reports of domestic violence increased 40 percent on Super Bowl Sundays. ``It should not have gone out in FAIR materials.``

Rendell said FAIR, a media watchdog agency, said the 40 percent figure, taken from a 1991 book of photo essays, was meant to be anecdotal.

``So, yes,`` he said, ``you should strike that.``

Garland White, a sociologist at Old Dominion University, said lawyer Sheila Kuehl erred when she told reporters that White`s study showed that beatings went up by 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins during the 1988-89 season.

``We didn`t publish that,`` White said. ``What we said was that after the Redskins won, we found that women`s trips to emergency rooms . . . were slightly higher than average. We found that significant but something in need of much further research.``

Kuehl, who cited the study`s findings to bolster her argument of a connection between football viewing and violence against women, said she did not think she had distorted the research.

``I was simply quoting from their own summary of the research,`` she said.

FAIR`s Linda Mitchell appeared at the news conference with Kuehl. She said she recognized that Kuehl had misrepresented the study`s findings but did not see fit to challenge her.

``I wouldn`t do that in front of the media,`` she said. ``She has a right to report it as she wants.``

The error threatens the credibility of the movement to curb domestic violence, according to several advocates for battered women.

``It does hurt`` the cause`s credibility, said Joan Stiles, public education coordinator for the Massachusetts Coalition of Battered Women`s Service Groups.

Meanwhile, workers at numerous shelters for battered women reported little or no increase in the number of calls for help during or after the Super Bowl.

Average` in Charlotte

Charlotte police said last week that Super Bowl Sunday 1992 was an average Sunday when it came to domestic violence calls. And representatives from several Charlotte area shelters agreed. Catherine Reid of the Mecklenburg County Advisory Board, which oversees services for battering victims, said she thought it would be the other way around because ``men are occupied. They`re busy.``

Only in Albuquerque, Cincinnati and Portland, Ore., did shelters for battered women report noticeable upsurges in domestic violence reports on Sunday.

EXPERTS DEBUNK SUPER BOWL VIOLENCE

News & Record (Greensboro, NC)

January 31, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Some experts on domestic violence, however, are dubious.

HYPING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)

February 4, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Summary: Advocacy groups that inflate claims may harm their own causes

Not all of the Super Bowl hype was about football. Some inflated claims were made by women's groups alleging that Super Bowl Sundays are the worst day of the year for domestic violence.

Early reports from across the country suggest that wasn't necessarily true of last Sunday, although one Portland crisis line reported three times as many calls as usual. Nor was there any solid evidence that previous Super Bowl Sundays brought dramatic increases in violence against women.

The Washington Post's reporter Ken Ringle blamed the hype on ``a network of feminist activists'' who he said ``orchestrated a national campaign to ask males to stop beating their wives and girlfriends after the Super Bowl.''

Advocacy groups that exaggerate their claims risk harming their own causes by undermining their credibility and misdirecting public attention and concern. And there is no need for overblown claims about domestic violence.

It is a deadly serious problem. The American Medical Association cites conservative estimates of 2 million women per year who are assaulted by their domestic partners. Around 30 percent of all women murder victims are killed by husbands or boyfriends.

Among other questionable claims, however, Ringle found that:

*The California Women's Law Center, which called a pre-Super Bowl press conference, admittedly misrepresented research associated with Washington, D.C., pro football games in 1988 and 1989. The center claimed a 40 percent increase in domestic violence after games Washington won, when in fact emergency-room admissions were only ``slightly higher.'' Janet Katz, one of the researchers involved, said even that finding was ``very tentative.''

*Patrick Ewing, a forensic psychologist who wrote ``Battered Women Who Kill,'' was quoted by a public-relations firm as saying Super Bowl days were among the worst of the year for domestic violence. ``I never said that,'' Ewing retorted. ``I don't know that to be true.''

*Lenore E. Walker, a Denver psychiatrist, claimed on network television to have compiled a 10-year record of Super Bowl-related violence against women. Another psychiatrist to whom her office referred calls was at a loss to explain her claim.

*``More folklore than fact'' is the way such assertions struck George Washington University's David Silber, a nationally recognized scholar on domestic violence. ``I know of no study documenting any such link,'' he said.

One thing the hype did accomplish was getting a public-service announcement about domestic violence on NBC during the Super Bowl broadcast, which reached an estimated 120 million people. If that was the intent of this misguided campaign, the price in lost credibility was too high.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LINK TO SUPER BOWL DOESN`T MATERIALIZE

Charlotte Observer, The (NC)

Author/Byline: BOB HOHLER, Boston Globe

February 5, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Activists trumpeted the warning, saying national studies supported their claim. Much of the nation`s media echoed the alarm.

`Not quite accurate`

Rendell said FAIR, a media watchdog agency, said the 40 percent figure, taken from a 1991 book of photo essays, was meant to be anecdotal.

``So, yes,`` he said, ``you should strike that.``

Kuehl, who cited the study`s findings to bolster her argument of a connection between football viewing and violence against women, said she did not think she had distorted the research.

``I was simply quoting from their own summary of the research,`` she said.

FAIR`s Linda Mitchell appeared at the news conference with Kuehl. She said she recognized that Kuehl had misrepresented the study`s findings but did not see fit to challenge her.

``I wouldn`t do that in front of the media,`` she said. ``She has a right to report it as she wants.``

The error threatens the credibility of the movement to curb domestic violence, according to several advocates for battered women.

``It does hurt`` the cause`s credibility, said Joan Stiles, public education coordinator for the Massachusetts Coalition of Battered Women`s Service Groups.

Meanwhile, workers at numerous shelters for battered women reported little or no increase in the number of calls for help during or after the Super Bowl.

Average` in Charlotte

Only in Albuquerque, Cincinnati and Portland, Ore., did shelters for battered women report noticeable upsurges in domestic violence reports on Sunday.

Does Most Domestic Violence Occur on Super Bowl Sunday?

"Women's shelters and hotlines are flooded with more calls from victims on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year."

Snopes Staff

September 07, 2001

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/domestic-violence-super-bowl-sunday/

Claim:

More women are victims of domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year.

Rating:

False

Origin

Domestic violence has been a problem all too often ignored, covered up, and swept under the rug. Many well-intentioned and successful efforts have been made in the last few decades to bring the issue to public attention; to get the word out to women that they need not suffer silent, helpless, and alone; to advertise that there are organizations victims can turn to for help and support; and to educate others in spotting the signs of abuse. 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 furtherance of that cause. The myth of Super Bowl Sunday violence is one such noble lie.

The claim that Super Bowl Sunday is “the biggest day of the year for violence against women” is a case study of how easily an idea congruous with what people want to believe can be implanted in the public consciousness and anointed as “fact” even when there is little or no supporting evidence behind it. Christina Hoff Sommers charted a timeline of how the apocryphal statistic about domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday was widely (if erroneously) publicized over the course of a few days leading up to the Super Bowl in January 1993:

Thursday, January 28
A news conference was called in Pasadena, California, the site of the forthcoming Super Bowl game, by a coalition of women’s groups. At the news conference reporters were informed that significant anecdotal evidence suggested that Super Bowl Sunday is “the biggest day of the year for violence against women.” Prior to the conference, there had been reports of increases as high as 40 percent in calls for help from victims that day. At the conference, Sheila Kuehl of the California Women’s Law Center cited a study done at Virginia’s Old Dominion University three years before, saying that it found police reports of beatings and hospital admissions in northern Virginia rose 40 percent after games won by the Redskins during the 1988-89 season. The presence of Linda Mitchell at the conference, a representative of a media “watchdog” group called Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), lent credibility to the cause. At about this time a very large media mailing was sent by Dobisky Associates, warning at-risk women, “Don’t remain at home with him during the game.” The idea that sports fans are prone to attack wives or girlfriends on that climactic day persuaded many men as well: Robert Lipsyte of the New York Times would soon be referring to the “Abuse Bowl.”

Friday, January 29
Lenore Walker, a Denver psychologist and author of The Battered Woman, appeared on “Good Morning America” claiming to have compiled a ten-year record showing a sharp increase in violent incidents against women on Super Bowl Sundays. Here, again, a representative from FAIR, Laura Flanders, was present to lend credibility to the cause.

Saturday, January 30
A story in the Boston Globe written by Linda Gorov reported that women’s shelters and hotlines are “flooded with more calls from victims [on Super Bowl Sunday] than on any other day of the year.” Gorov cited “one study of women’s shelters out West” that “showed a 40 percent climb in calls, a pattern advocates said is repeated nationwide, including in Massachusetts.”

Commentators were quick to offers reasons why this “fact” was so obviously true: Men are mostly loutish brutes, and football is the epitome of mindless, aggressive, violent, testosterone-driven macho posturing, so certainly during the culmination of the football season and its final, spectacular, massively-hyped “super” game, more men than ever were going to express their excitement or disappointment by smacking their wives and girlfriends around. So much attention did the “Super Bowl abuse” stories garner that NBC aired a public service announcement before the 1993 game to remind men that domestic violence is a crime.

Ken Ringle, a reporter for the Washington Post, was one of the few journalists to bother to check the sources behind the stories. When he contacted Janet Katz, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University, and one of the authors of the study cited during the January 28 news conference, he found:

Janet Katz, professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion and one of the authors of that study, said “that’s not what we found at all. “One of the most notable findings, she said, was that an increase of emergency room admissions “was not associated with the occurrence of football games in general, nor with watching a team lose.” When they looked at win days alone, however, they found that the number of women admitted for gunshot wounds, stabbings, assaults, falls, lacerations and wounds from being hit by objects was slightly higher than average. But certainly not 40 percent.

“These are interesting but very tentative findings, suggesting what violence there is from males after football may spring not from a feeling of defensive insecurity, which you’d associate with a loss, but from the sense of empowerment following a win. We found that significant. But it certainly doesn’t support what those women are saying in Pasadena,” Katz said.

Likewise, Ringle checked the claim made by Dobisky Associates (the organization that had mailed warnings to women advising them not to stay at home with their husbands on Super Bowl Sunday) that “Super Bowl Sunday is the one day in the year when hot lines, shelters, and other agencies that work with battered women get the most reports and complaints of domestic violence.” Dobisky’s source for this quote was Charles Patrick Ewing, a professor at the University at Buffalo, but Professor Ewing told Ringle he’d never said it:

“I don’t think anybody has any systematic data on any of this,” said Charles Patrick Ewing, a forensic psychologist and author of “Battered Women Who Kill.”Yet Ewing is quoted in the release from Dobisky Associates declaring “Super Bowl Sunday is one day in the year when hot lines, shelters and other agencies that work with battered women get the most reports and complaints of domestic violence.”

“I never said that,” Ewing said. “I don’t know that to be true.”

Told of Ewing’s response, Frank Dobisky acknowledged that the quote should have read “one of the days of the year.” That could mean one of many days in the year.

In addition, Ringle learned that Linda Gorov, the Boston Globe reporter who’d written that women’s shelters and hotlines are “flooded with more calls from victims [on Super Bowl Sunday] than on any other day of the year” hadn’t even seen the study she’d cited in support of that statement but had merely been told about it by Linda Mitchell, the FAIR representative who was present at the January 28 news conference that had kicked off the whole issue.

Did any evidence back up the assertion that Super Bowl Sunday was the leading day for domestic violence? When the Washington Post‘s Ringle attempted to follow the chain by contacting Linda Mitchell of FAIR, Mitchell said her source had been Lenore Walker, the Denver psychologist who’d appeared on “Good Morning America” the day after the news conference. Ms. Walker’s office referred Ringle to Michael Lindsey, another Denver psychologist who was also an authority on battered women. Mr. Lindsey told Ringle that “I haven’t been any more successful than you in tracking down any of this” and asked, “You think maybe we have one of these myth things here?”

The upshot? It turned out that Super Bowl Sunday in 1993 (as in other years) was not a significantly different day for those who monitor domestic abuse hotlines and staff battered women’s shelters:

Those who work with the victims of domestic violence in Connecticut reported no increase in cases [on the day after the Super Bowl], after a barrage of publicity on the potential link between Super Bowl gatherings and family violence. An increase in domestic violence predicted for Super Bowl Sunday did not happen in Columbus, authorities said, and others nationwide said women’s rights activists were spreading the wrong message.

Despite some pregame hype about the “day of dread” for some women, Columbus-area domestic violence counselors said that [Super Bowl] Sunday, although certainly violent for some women, was relatively routine.

So, on what day of the year is domestic violence against women most prevalent, if not Super Bowl Sunday? It appears domestic violence doesn’t peak on any one specific day, but it does rise at particular times of the year.

For example, a 2006 study published in the Handbook of Sports and Media that examined over 1.3 million domestic violence police reports from every day of the year in 15 NFL cities found only a very small rise in domestic violence dispatches on (or just after) Super Bowl Sunday, but nearly a quintupling of domestic violence police dispatch reports around major holidays such as Christmas. A 2007 study that analyzed patterns of women fleeing domestic abuse found that the highest intake rates of women with children at shelters coincided not with Super Bowl Sunday, but with breaks in the school calendar such as Christmas vacation, spring break, and summer vacation (although that study surveyed when women most often fled from their abusers rather than when they actually experienced the abuse that prompted them to flee).

The weeks and months after the 1993 Super Bowl saw a fair amount of backpedaling by those who had propagated the Super Bowl Sunday violence myth, but as usual the retractions and corrections received far less attention than the sensational-but-false stories everyone wanted to believe, and the bogus Super Bowl statistic remains a widely-cited and believed piece of misinformation. As Sommers concluded, “How a belief in that misandrist canard can make the world a better place for women is not explained.”

Variations: A similar item, circulated during the 2014 World Cup football (i.e., soccer) tournament and based on a study by researchers at Lancaster University, held that “Every time England loses the World Cup, domestic violence against women raises 38%.”

Sources

Cadwallader, Bruce. “Super Bowl Battering Didn’t Happen.” The Columbus Dispatch. 2 February 1993 (p. C1).

Cobb, Jean. “A Super Bowl — Battered Women Link?” American Journalism Review. May 1993 (p. 33-38).

Gantz, W. et al. “Televised NFL Games, the Family, and Domestic Violence.” Published in: Raney, Arthur A. Handbook of Sports and Media. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006. ISBN 0-805-85189-5 (pp. 365-381).

Gorov, Lynda. “Activists: Abused Women at Risk on Super Sunday.” The Boston Globe. 29 January 1993 (Metro; p. 13).

Hohler, Bob. “Super Bowl Gaffe.” The Boston Globe. 2 February 1993 (p. 1).

Oths, K.S. “Give Me Shelter: Temporal Patterns of Women Fleeing Domestic Abuse.” Human Organization. 2007: 66(3), pp. 249-260.

Ringle, Ken. “Debunking the ‘Day of Dread’ for Women." The Washington Post. 31 January 1993 (p. A1).

Sommers, Christina Hoff. Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. ISBN 0-684-80156-6 (pp. 188-192).

Tuohy, Lynne. “No Increases in Domestic Violence Reported from Super Bowl.” The Hartford Courant . 2 February 1993 (p. A3).

The Wall Street Journal. “Football’s Day of Dread.” 5 February 1993 (p. A10).

Does Domestic Violence Really Increase on Super Bowl Sunday?

New Repulic

Jan 30, 2015

https://newrepublic.com/article/120917/super-bowl-sunday-domestic-violence

In the 1990s, reporters began circulating a chilling statistic: Super Bowl Sunday was the most dangerous day of the year for women in abusive relationships. Riled up watching the violence onscreen and often under the influence of alcohol, male football fans were said to unleash their aggression on their partners—leading to a spike in women’s calls to crisis hotlines and visits to the ER. The AP labelled Super Bowl Sunday the “Day of Dread.” The Boston Globe reported that women’s shelters were always inundated on the day of the big game. Just a few months ago, Mika Brzezinski told her Morning Joe audience that Super Bowl Sunday has the highest rate of domestic violence of the year.

Recent events have done little to dispel the idea that there’s a link between football and domestic violence—but this particular stat isn’t substantiated. In fact, the idea that Super Bowl Sunday has the highest rate of domestic violence of all the days in the year was debunked long ago. In 1993, Washington Post reporter Ken Ringle tracked down the researchers cited by the various reporters, and all of them said they had been misquoted or misunderstood. “I proved that all their assertions and demographics were fraudulent,” Ringle told me over email. “But the myth persists. It's harder to kill than a vampire. … It resurfaces every year at this time.”

And the question of whether Super Bowl Sunday is particularly risky for partners in abusive relationships continues to attract researchers’ attention. In fact, new research has suggested that there may be an increase in domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday, though it’s no greater than the increase on other holidays that revolve around drinking and spending time with family.

In a paper published this past summer in the Journal of Family Psychology, a team of researchers led by Randy McCarthy analyzed data on nearly 25,000 incidents of “partner maltreatment” (defined as physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or neglect) involving members of the U.S. Armed Forces. On the week-to-week level, rates of domestic violence were highest on Saturdays and Sundays—a trend that didn’t surprise McCarthy and his colleagues, since those are the days couples tend to spend the most time together. For the same reason, they predicted an increase in domestic violence on holidays: As they expected, rates of domestic violence reach annual highs on New Year’s Day and the Fourth of July. But they also rise on New Year’s Eve, Memorial Day and, yes, Super Bowl Sunday.

In a 2007 paper in the journal Human Organization, Kathryn Ochs and Tara Robertson used another type of data—calls to a local women’s shelter—to examine temporal trends in domestic violence. They analyzed 2,387 calls to a shelter in Tuscaloosa, Alabama over a three-year period, supplementing the phone data by conducting interviews. Unlike McCarthy, Ochs and Robertson found no increase in calls during alcohol-centric holidays like the Super Bowl, New Year’s, and Independence Day. They did observe a significant increase in the summer months, which, they speculate, may be driven by mothers thinking about the upcoming school year and looking for a safe environment for their children.

Jane Shivas, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Coalition for Battered Women, confirmed that the Super Bowl isn’t an especially busy time for shelters in New Jersey. “In New Jersey, the Uniform Crime Reports from the NJ State Police have shown that, for at least the last two years, the highest number of reported domestic violence incidents occurred on Sundays, but do not support the belief about Super Bowl Sunday, specifically,” she says.

Domestic violence experts have been exasperated by this claim for over two decades. “When people make crazy statements like this, the credibility of the whole cause can go right out the window,” a psychologist who treats battered women told Ringle. “The reality is that domestic violence occurs every day in the US,” says Kenya Fairley, a director at the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. “That’s what the conversation needs to be about.”

Yes, Super Bowl Sunday is a crisis for domestic violence -- just like every other day

FOX News

Feb 05, 2016

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/yes-super-bowl-sunday-is-a-crisis-for-domestic-violence-just-like-every-other-day

You’ve probably heard it said that domestic violence spikes on Super Bowl Sunday. It’s the kind of sad statement that just sounds true. It’s a day of heavy drinking and machismo, and by the end of the day, half the people watching aren’t happy.

If you look at the research, though, you won’t find any data to suggest a Super Bowl spike. It’s a debunked myth that nevertheless persists. What the research shows is that the reality is even worse: Domestic violence is a crisis for millions every single day. Every minute, 20 people are victims of intimate partner violence. Every day, three women die from it. In their lifetimes, one out of every four women in the United States will be victims of physical violence by an intimate partner.

Here’s another horrifying truth: Even though we know that legal help is crucial for survivors to escape dangerous partners, gain independence, and rebuild their lives, you’re more likely to get a lawyer if you’re the abuser than if you’re the survivor of abuse. In the U.S., abusers have the right to a lawyer to defend against criminal prosecution, while survivors are often on their own to secure a protective order from an abuser or full custody of their children—matters handled in civil court. That’s because, in civil cases, there is no constitutional right to an attorney if you can’t afford one.

If we’re serious about fighting our domestic violence crisis, one solution is clear: We must invest in civil legal aid organizations to give all survivors the legal help they need to end the vicious cycle of abuse. Research shows that providing legal assistance to survivors dramatically reduces domestic violence—by as much as 21 percent, according to one study.

Last year, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid helped a woman named Julie escape her husband’s abusive hold over her and her child by securing a name change for them and protecting Julie from her husband’s vindictive lawsuits against her. Half of all domestic violence survivors who got help through Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid’s program successfully left their abusers within one year.

But right now, we’re failing to invest in the one solution we know works. We simply don’t put enough resources into civil legal aid to support all survivors. Only 11 percent of domestic violence programs have the resources to offer legal representation to survivors, according to a recent survey by the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

Whether you’re rooting for the Panthers or the Broncos, we can all agree that millions of women shouldn’t have to face violence in their own homes—on Sunday or any other day of the year.

We can help put a stop to this crisis by increasing our investment in civil legal aid, so survivors can get the legal help they need to build a new life for themselves and their children.

The Big Lie about domestic violence keeps getting told

WorldNetDaily (USA)

By Rachel Alexander

January 19, 2022

https://www.wnd.com/2022/01/big-lie-domestic-violence-keeps-getting-told/

Contrary to years of alarming reports by the media focused only on domestic violence by men, women actually commit more domestic violence incidents than men. But the United Nations ran a global campaign this winter titled, "Orange the World: End Violence Against Women Now!" The description of the drive made frequent references to "violence against women and girls" but did not include any mention of "violence against men and boys."

Multiple studies of domestic violence have found that slightly more men than women reported being a victim of domestic violence within the past year, 19.8% to 18.8%. Last year, the Coalition to End Domestic Violence issued a report entitled "Thirty Years of Domestic Violence Half-Truths, Falsehoods and Lies," which revealed massive amounts of bias in this area.

Much of the perception that domestic violence is mainly perpetuated by men against women developed in the 1990s, when then-Sen. Joe Biden drafted the "Violence Against Women Act." Despite all the taxpayer money thrown at the program, there is little or no evidence that VAWA-funded programs have succeeded in reducing rates of domestic violence.

And according to commentator Christina Villegas, protecting persons from partner abuse "has never been the primary intention of VAWA." Instead, the domestic violence campaign has been a "political movement that seeks to change social norms and redistribute resources, power, and control to women, with the long-term aim of a genderless, socialist society."

Another stereotype that persists also began in the 1990s: "More women are victims of domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year." Even the left-wing fact-checking site Snopes labeled that false. Snopes explained, "The claim that Super Bowl Sunday is 'the biggest day of the year for violence against women' is a case study of how easily an idea congruous with what people want to believe can be implanted in the public consciousness and anointed as 'fact' even when there is little or no supporting evidence behind it."

Longtime leading feminist Gloria Steinem once declared, "The most dangerous situation for a woman is … a husband or lover in the isolation of their home." This is false. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the leading causes of injury deaths for women are falls, followed by poisonings and then traffic accidents.

The left-wing dominated legal system is responsible for much of the misinformation. The website of the DOJ Office of Violence Against Women was found to contain massive misinformation. It was so bad that all of the inaccurate fact sheets were removed by 2021.

However, some false data remains on another DOJ website, the Office for Victims of Crime, in a document entitled "Facts About Domestic Violence." Based on findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey, the document incorrectly relates the same inaccurately compiled, tired old statistics.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police mostly ignores the fact that domestic violence is perpetrated against men too. The National District Attorneys Association is almost as bad. The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges issued a pamphlet entitled "Bringing the Greenbook to Life: A Resource Guide for Communities," which contains the words "battered mothers" and "battered women" 27 times, but not a single instance of "battered fathers" or "battered men."

The American Bar Association issued a two-page flyer, "10 Myths about Custody and Domestic Violence and How to Counter Them." The Coalition to End Domestic Violence found, "Overall, the great majority of assertions and conclusions in the CODV flyer were found to be unsupported, misleading, or wrong." Not surprisingly, the ABA took the paper down, but not before it was posted on the Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence website.

Perhaps the reason this myth is perpetuated is because of the outdated perception that women are helpless to defend themselves from men. Times have changed. Women can call 911, own guns, learn martial arts to defend themselves, and use the deterrent threat of shaming on social media and through the news media. Of course there are exceptions to all of that where a woman may be unable to utilize any of those – but there are also situations where a man may be unable to defend himself from a woman, such as situations where she is stronger or has a weapon and he doesn't.

The bias is a problem because it promotes harmful stereotypes of men. Instead of being the protectors of women, they are viewed as abusers and predators. It makes women unnecessarily scared to have relationships with men and puts men on eggshells dating women. It also makes men less likely to contact law enforcement for help with domestic violence – which then perpetuates the myth that there is none – a vicious cycle. The numbers of men who contact services for help are drastically lower than women – as much as 99 to 1 in areas such as legal assistance, sexual assault services and transitional living services.

Contrary to a popular stereotype, black men are more likely than black women to be victims of domestic violence. Mandatory domestic violence arrest policies likely result in disproportionate arrest rates among black men.

Women are also more likely than men to be involved in abuse of their children. They commit 53% of child abuse incidents, and mothers are responsible for 71% of child homicides committed by a parent.

Unfortunately, researchers who attempt to refute the misleading claims are targeted by activists. The late professor Suzanne Steinmetz published a book showing that men and women commit domestic violence at approximately equal rates. For pointing this out, a letter-writing campaign was launched to deny her promotion and tenure at the University of Delaware, and her daughter's wedding received a bomb threat.

Finally, during the COVID-19 lockdowns, there were wild claims that being stuck at home has increased domestic violence. But four different studies found this was not true.

What is it going to take to stop this hurtful stereotype from being perpetuated? It will take people daring to speak up and say enough, especially leaders and men who have been hurt.

HOW FAIR AND DV AGENCIES/GROUPS CREATED THE FALSE SUPER BOWL AND

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CONNECTION

NFL should decry domestic violence

Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA)

January 20, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com

Talk to administrators or counselors at shelters for battered women, and sooner or later they will tell you the one about the football game and the beating. This is not to be confused with the one about the mislaid keys and the beating, or the pink slip and the beating, or the cold hamburger and the beating.

The football game story is omnipresent: The kids make too much noise during a crucial play, or someone steps in front of the screen, or he loses a bet, or he runs out of beer, and "Pow!" One man who works with batterers in Philadelphia says one in four had at least one story in which sports somehow led to domestic violence.

The greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with. The Surgeon General has said that violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44, more common than car accidents and cancer deaths combined.

And much of that violence comes, not from strangers, but from husbands and boyfriends. When the Senate Judiciary Committee issued a report on the subject several months ago, it noted that one in five aggravated assaults reported to police each week is a report of assault in the home.

All of which goes to explain why a coalition of domestic violence groups, under the umbrella of the watchdog organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, has asked NBC to run public service spots on domestic violence when it broadcasts the Super Bowl on Jan. 31.

Although there are no substantive statistics on the phenomenon, women like Donna Edwards, the president of the board of the District of Columbia Coalition Against Domestic Violence, say they frequently hear from shelter workers that calls increase during and after televised games. Some shelters say Super Bowl Sunday is one of the busiest days of the year.

There are those who think the link is spurious. "It may be true," says Estelle Ortiz of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, "but it overshadows the everydayness of the abuse." With more than 21,000 domestic crimes against women reported each week in 1991, if it wasn't the game, it would be the tepid dinner or the lost keys or any other convenient catalyst.

It's interesting that we hear much much more about breast cancer and even AIDS in women than we do about the virtual epidemic of injury women suffer at the hands of men. Perhaps it has something to do with that unfelicitous psychobabble term "empower." When women want to think of themselves as strong and capable, it is disheartening to think of so many as victims.

The Judiciary Committee report noted that there are three times as many animal shelters in the United States as there are shelters for battered women. The nationwide 800 line that provided advice and shelter locations has gone out of business for lack of funding.

So whether or not there's some sick synergy on Super Sunday between beer, betting and beatings, between violence on the field and violence in the home, there is good reason to bring this issue into the national spotlight on this particular day. Football cannot shake its red-meat image. No less an eminence than the "Monday Night Football" majordomo Frank Gifford told Barbara Walters that he would prefer his young son never play. "It's a violent game," he said.

Defenders have always argued that that violence ends at the end zone, that it's only bread and circuses. For some of us, the argument doesn't really play. It's a mean sport, and its message is clear: hit him again, hit him again, harder, harder.

This is a great opportunity for professional football to put its money where its money is, to decry violence in a way that benefits the public weal. In fact, the National Football League would do well to turn over some of the time it currently allots to those fuzzy, forgettable United Way ads the players do.

Although the Super Bowl is traditionally one of the most boring contests of the season, it still has a huge audience, so huge that 30-second spots are reported to run close to a million bucks. Just over a million women report abuse every year. So one Super Bowl public service spot runs about a dollar for each of those woman. As the commercial might say, they're worth it.

Domestic violence, sports linked

Patriot-News, The (Harrisburg, PA)

January 21, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

The greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with. The Surgeon General has said that violence is the leading cause of injury to women between 15 and 44, more common than car accidents and cancer deaths combined.

All of which goes to explain why a coalition of domestic violence groups, under the umbrella of the watchdog organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, has asked NBC to run public service spots on domestic violence when it broadcasts the Super Bowl two weeks from today. It also explains why the network should do so.

Although there are no substantive statistics on the phenomenon, women like Donna Edwards, the president of the board of the District of Columbia Coalition Against Domestic Violence, say they frequently hear from shelter workers that calls increase during and after televised games. Some shelters say Super Bowl Sunday is one of the busiest days of the year.

This is a great opportunity for professional football to put its money where its money is, to decry violence in a way that benefits the public weal. In fact, the National Football League would do well to turn over some of the time it currently allots to those fuzzy, forgettable, aggressively inoffensive United Way ads the players do.

Although the Super Bowl is traditionally one of the most boring contests of the season, it still has a huge audience, so huge that 30-second spots are reported to run close to a million bucks. And the Judiciary Committee report says that just over a million women report abuse every year. So one Super Bowl public service spot runs about a dollar for each of those woman. As the commercial might say, they're worth it.

A defensive game plan against spouse abuse

Tampa Tribune, The (FL)

January 23, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

The greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with. The surgeon general has said that violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44, more common than car accidents and cancer deaths combined.

There are those who think the link is spurious. "It may be true," says Estelle Ortiz of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, "but it overshadows the everydayness of the abuse." With more than 21,000 domestic crimes against women reported each week in 1991, if it weren't the game, it would be the tepid dinner or the lost keys or any other convenient catalyst.

It's interesting that we hear much more about breast cancer and even AIDS in women than we do about the virtual epidemic of injury women suffer at the hands of men. Perhaps it has something to do with that unfelicitous psychobabble term "empower." When women want to think of themselves as strong and capable, it is disheartening to think of so many as victims in their own homes.

Defenders have always argued that that violence ends at the end zone. For some of us, the argument doesn't really play. It's a mean sport, and its message is clear: Hit him again, hit him again, harder, harder.

This is a great opportunity for professional football to decry violence in a way that benefits the public weal. In fact, the National Football League would do well to turn over some of the time it currently allots to those fuzzy, forgettable, aggressively inoffensive United Way advertisements the players do.

Although the Super Bowl is traditionally one of the most boring contests of the season, it still has a huge audience, so huge that 30-second spots are reported to run close to a million bucks. And the Judiciary Committee report says that just over a million women report abuse every year. So one Super Bowl public service spot runs about a dollar for each of those woman. As the commercial might say, they're worth it.

Super Bowl a good time for a worthy fund-raiser

Kansas City Star, The (MO)

Section: OPINION

Author/Byline: ANNA QUINDLEN; 1993 New York Times News Service

January 24, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

The football game story is omnipresent: The kids make too much noise during a crucial play, or someone steps in front of the screen, or he loses a bet, or he runs out of beer, and "Pow! " One man who works with batterers in Philadelphia says one in four had at least one story in which sports somehow led to domestic violence.

All of which goes to explain why a coalition of domestic violence groups, under the umbrella of the watchdog organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, has asked NBC to run public service spots on domestic violence when it broadcasts the Super Bowl a week from today. It also explains why the network should do so.

There are those who think the link is spurious. "It may be true," says Estelle Ortiz of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, "but it overshadows the everydayness of the abuse. " With more than 21,000 domestic crimes against women reported each week in 1991, if it wasn't the game, it would be the tepid dinner or the lost keys or any other convenient catalyst.

It's interesting that we hear much much more about breast cancer and even AIDS in women than we do about the virtual epidemic of injury women suffer at the hands of men.

Although the Super Bowl is traditionally one of the most boring contests of the season, it still has a huge audience, so huge that 30-second spots are reported to run close to a million bucks. And the Judiciary Committee report says that just over a million women report abuse every year. So one Super Bowl public service spot runs about a dollar for each of those woman. As the commercial might say, they're worth it.

WHEN THE VIOLENCE OF THE GAME HITS HOME

Buffalo News, The (NY)

January 26, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

SHE HAS been thinking about the Super Bowl all week, and feeling kind of queasy about it.

She wants them to win.

She needs them to win.

Because the last time they lost, she paid for it.

During last year's Buffalo Bills-Washington Redskins game, her husband screamed and threw a hot slice of pizza at her, supposedly because she got in the way of the TV screen. The pizza caught her squarely in the face and slid down, staining her brand-new white Bills shirt.

And when the Redskins scored their final field goal and she tried to soothe her husband, he exploded, leaping across the room and hitting her in the face, a short pop with his fist, just hard enough to make her nose bleed.

She sat down immediately. "I just remember staring down at my sweat shirt going, 'OK, well, this over here is pizza sauce, this'll come out (in the wash), but that spot there is blood, I'm not too sure that'll come out."

She never called for help. And she isn't convinced her husband is abusive. "He's just a really big Bills fan, and I said some stupid stuff. I shouldn't have even been in the house, 'cause the rest of the year, he's great," she said calmly. "This happens."

During 1991's Bills-New York Giants duel, a South Towns couple went to a Super Bowl party. They left after Scott Norwood's infamous kick, and by the time the couple returned home, both were drunk. Tempers erupted. He accused her of adultery. Then he clocked her across her face. Erie County sheriff's deputies were called to the scene.

A counselor who answers the 24-hour hot line at Haven House, a local shelter for battered women, clearly recalls taking a phone call shortly after last year's Super Bowl ended. "A woman called me and said her husband had bet a great deal of money on the Super Bowl and had lost it," she said. "He came home drunk and they had a very, very physically abusive encounter."

Isolated incidents? Not on your life.

But maybe on someone else's: Super Bowl Sunday is the most violent day of the year for women, according to three studies done in the late '80s by women's groups in Los Angeles, Denver and Marin County, Calif.

And sadly, the Buffalo area is no exception.

"There's a definite spike in the number of calls we got the Monday and Tuesday after last year's game," said Haven House's director, Katey Joyce, who oversees the non-profit agency's domestic violence program and shelter.

"I do see a definite increase. In fact, we were very busy that whole week," Ms. Joyce said. "Very."

This is not a problem just in Erie County, where the Bills games are played.

"When the Bills lose, our shelter definitely gets increased requests," said Gerald Kozak, president of Family and Children's Services of Niagara Inc., a non-profit Niagara County family service agency that runs Passage House, a shelter similar to Haven House.

"In fact," Kozak said, "our director, Nancy Wangler, is not a huge football fan, but will root for the Bills every week because she doesn't want our shelter to fill up."

Sad but true, said Ms. Wangler. "And I worry just as much about the women who are never hit, but are equally abused by fear-inducing behavior," which another Buffalo-area woman experienced during the Bills-Redskins game.

As the Bills' loss became apparent, her husband knocked a box of chicken wings to the floor, saying he was too angry to eat.

As the Redskins widened their lead, he threw a couch pillow at the dog and screamed expletives at it. The woman thought of her son napping upstairs in his crib. "Stay asleep, baby," she remembers thinking. "You can't come downstairs now. Daddy's upset."

After the final Redskins touchdown, her husband punched the wall, and the sound of soft baby wailing floated over the living room intercom. "Now he'll be up all day," her husband hissed, and stomped off to another room. She gathered her son from his crib, wrapped him in a blanket, and together they sat motionless in a corner of the couch, watching the Bills lose.

Add an increased amount of game-day alcohol consumption to the equation, Ms. Wangler and Ms. Joyce agree, and any abusive tendencies are sure to come out of the woodwork.

"People here identify so strongly with the Bills, with winning and losing, their self-esteem gets tied right into that," Ms. Wangler noted. "And as if that weren't enough, the increase in alcohol abuse during games certainly triggers whatever abusive tendencies these men might have toward acting out their anger and frustration."

It's a pattern as old as any end-zone run: The fan pops a beer, the team's quarterback pops an interception, and the fan -- in some way or another -- pops his wife or partner.

But it's a cycle many are trying to end once and for all.

The New York City-based media watchdog agency Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has asked NBC to set aside some time within Super Bowl commercial breaks for public service announcements on domestic violence.

The agency got what it wanted. Sort of.

"NBC agreed to air a 30-second PSA, but only during the pregame show an hour before kickoff," explained Laura Flanders, head of the Women's Desk at FAIR. "We're not really satisfied about this, because this isn't when most violence occurs. We need time in the fourth quarter, or during the postgame show."

The public service announcement shows a white-collar professional-type male sitting in a jail cell, glumly wondering how he got there. An announcer's voice says: "You could go to jail for beating your wife or your partner. Violence against women is against the law." The number of a national domestic abuse hot line then flashes on the screen.

Ms. Flanders said while the watchdog agency is grateful the public service announcement was worked into the broadcast relatively late in the scheme of Super Bowl planning, one brief spot isn't enough. "Frankly, we consider 30 seconds out of a 51/2-hour program inadequate," she said.

"This is the single most-watched show of the year, with the biggest audience. We need to take advantage of that."

Not easily done, given the intricacies of Super Bowl broadcasts and the way commercial time is set aside and sold.

A 30-second spot this year costs advertisers anywhere from $800,000 to $850,000, with a single minute costing double that. There's no denying the Super Bowl is a massive moneymaker for the network, and public service announcement time is doled out carefully.

In fact, said the National Football League's director of communications, Greg Aiello, the NFL actually gets only 60 seconds of public-service air time per telecast. And this year, like so many before it, the NFL will use that minute to recognize the United Way.

"There are some 500 United Way chapters across the country serving more than 1,000 agencies, many of which deal directly with domestic violence," Aiello noted. "This is one way we can address this important issue, along with so many others that need to be addressed."

Yet Aiello said he recognizes the link between football and violence in the home, and believes the NFL does have a responsibility to address that in the future, perhaps with specific NFL public service announcements on that topic.

But 144th District State Assemblyman Sam Hoyt is working on that.

Hoyt sits on the Assembly's Children and Families Committee and is concerned with the problem of domestic violence. So a recent New York Times column by Anna Quindlen, who wrote about the need for domestic violence public service announcements during the Super Bowl, did not escape Hoyt's eyes.

"It dawned on me as I read (Quindlen's column) that Buffalo is in its third Super Bowl, and there is a real possibility for escalation here," Hoyt said over the weekend. "And I've talked to Katey Joyce, and I know her phones ring off the hook for the two or three days after the Super Bowls."

In the past week, Hoyt wrote to NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson, imploring them to pay more attention to this problem.

Hoyt wants more public service air time in the future. And not just before the game, but during it, and afterward.

And, Hoyt said, he wants public service announcements from the Bills themselves.

"If they all got together and made one of these, the impact could be enormous. We could really heighten awareness," Hoyt said.

"We could have these on hand for any day of the year, not just one Super Bowl day."

While he has not yet heard from Ebersol and Tagliabue, Hoyt said he has heard from Roger Trevino of Jim Kelly Enterprises, and Trevino "seems really receptive to the idea," according to Hoyt.

But whether the public service announcements will get made, will air with any sort of regularity, and have any sort of impact, leaves many local counselors and experts unsure.

In a nation where violence on the field is glorified, violence in the home remains largely unspoken and untreated, the counselors say.

And it leaves Passage House's Gerald Kozak feeling helpless.

"It's horrible to think that women and kids' safety could be tied to a team winning a football game. But it is," he said.

"And you know what? They know. The women know, the kids know. If the team is losing, they're tensing. They can feel it coming."

Domestic violence finally gets notice with NFL message

Washington Times, The (DC)

January 26, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

The Sunday afternoon when San Francisco was playing Dallas in the NFC Championship game, Wendy Kusuma walked through downtown, which was quiet and near empty. Most people were home watching TV.

"I had this feeling of dread: Before the night's over, we'll have more battered women in either Dallas or San Francisco. The phones will be ringing in one place or the other," she said.

Kusuma works at Women Inc., which refers battered women to counselors and shelters in the San Francisco area. Football Sundays are heavy workdays for battered women's shelters. Not that most other days aren't.

In America, a woman is battered by a husband or lover every 15 seconds of every day. The U.S. Surgeon General reports that violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44. From one-third to one-half of all female murder victims die at the hands of their spouses or lovers.

For all the high-octane anti-drug campaigns, domestic violence is a more pervasive problem. A person is five times more likely to be involved in a violent relationship than to use drugs on a regular basis.

Super Bowl Sunday could be the worst day of the year for battered women. It usually is.

"It's sort of a violent man's weekend," said Allan Shore of the Oakland Men's Project.

A wife or girlfriend steps in front of the television. She doesn't fetch his beer quickly enough. She can't keep the children quiet. She contradicts him in front of his buddies. Anything can trigger the beating.

But it's the beer, the betting, the bruising and banging of players on TV that lead the way. The athletes on the screen - men often admired to the point of reverence - reaffirm the batterer's beliefs of what it means to be a man: aggressive, dominant, physical.

So who better to take up the campaign against domestic violence than athletes? Who better to counter sports' unspoken message of brutality with a denunciation of brutality in the home?

Responding to a request by a coalition of domestic violence groups, NBC has agreed to air a public service announcement during the Super Bowl broadcast. It is an unprecedented step. Up to now, the sports community has met the issue with silence and avoidance. Even Mike Tyson's rape conviction last year turned into a racial issue rather than a violence issue.

But by airing the issue during the Super Bowl, the sports world finally has pulled back the curtain, however slightly. It raises hope that sports might recognize its unique position of strength in the war on domestic violence.

THE NOT-SO-SUPER PART OF SUNDAY

SUPER BOWL MEANS INCREASED WIFE BATTERING

Daily News of Los Angeles (CA)

January 27, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

It's a pattern that battered women's shelters and hot-line counselors are all too familiar with on Super Bowl Sunday.

A frightened voice on the other end of the phone describes how her husband or boyfriend beat her because his team lost. Or because she refused his orders to make more sandwiches for his buddies. Or the supply of beer ran short. Or she walked in front of the television screen during a big play. Or the kids made too much noise.

At a time when spousal abuse has reached epidemic proportions - one beating every 15 seconds, according to national reports - experts have said there are more such incidents on Super Sunday than any other day of the year.

"Hot lines for battered women around the country ring off the hook. There is a major influx of calls," said Marissa Ghez, spokeswoman for the Family Violence Prevention Fund, a nonprofit education and lobby group in San Francisco. "There is significant anecdotal evidence that Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day of the year for domestic violence."

The Monday following the Super Bowl and New Year's Day are the next two busiest days for battered women's centers and shelters, Ghez said.

To help curb the violence, a coalition of domestic violence groups under the umbrella of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), has asked the NBC network to air a public service announcement about domestic violence during the Super Bowl broadcast.

"There is no better time to address this epidemic of violence than during an event that millions and millions of people will watch on TV," said Becky McSpadden, coordinator of the Malibu/Santa Monica Mountains National Organization for Women. "It might make somebody stop and think. It might prevent some batterings. And it might save a life."

On Tuesday, NBC director of sports publicity Ed Markey said he was unsure if a decision to air the spot had been made.

McSpadden is coordinating a Thursday morning press conference to address the issue at the Rose Bowl, site of this year's Super Bowl between the Buffalo Bills and the Dallas Cowboys. Kickoff time is 3:18 p.m. Sunday.

"It's not up to women to stop the battering," she said. "It has to be up to men, and men have to take on that burden."

The Los Angeles County Domestic Violence Council, established by the County Board of Supervisors in 1979 to study the issue of domestic and family abuse and curb the violence, is helping spread the same message. Council coordinator Carol Arnett said it is considering adopting the slogan, "Real men don't batter."

She suggested that the National Football League pick up the ball and adopt the same platform.

The NFL has no plans of publicizing the problems of spousal abuse on Super Sunday, said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. Its 60-second allotment of public service time during the Super Bowl broadcast will be dedicated to thanking groups and individuals who have supported the United Way.

The United Way provided $61 million last year to nearly 1,000 agencies dealing with domestic violence, Aiello said.

"In our support of the United Way, we are addressing the issue in our way," Aiello said.

He said the league is not aware of any links between the hard-hitting action on the field and spousal abuse in the homes of those watching the game.

Many women's shelters report as much as a 40 percent increase in calls for help on Super Bowl Sunday and the following Monday, according to FAIR, a national watchdog organization.

The Los Angeles Police Department also has reported an increase in felony domestic violence arrests on the past two Super Sundays. The daily average of arrests is about 20. But on the day of the big game last year, there were 34 arrests, along with 27 arrests on Super Sunday 1991. Arrests on the Mondays following the game were slightly higher than average.

All the elements will be in place by kickoff Sunday to make it a volatile afternoon and evening, Arnett said.

"It's got all the worst attributes rolled into one day," Arnett said. ''It's an annual male ritual, and you get this really heavy male bonding. There is the presence of alcohol. Spouses are home together. And it's one big game with a lot of high stakes riding on it.

"You take that, add in the competitive aggression that is built up during the game, and the next thing you get is the beating of women."

Arnett, who describes herself as a major sports fan, a survivor of domestic violence and the ex-wife of a former professional football player, believes the fact that pro football's championship is determined in one game contributes to the high incidence of spousal abuse on Super Sunday.

The other major American sports championships - pro baseball, basketball and hockey - occur during a series of games. And many of the games are scheduled on weekdays, when spousal abuse occurs less frequently, Arnett said. Sunday traditionally is the worst day of the week for domestic violence because spouses often are home together, experts have said.

"It builds up to one big day, and all the festivities ride on one game," Arnett said. "You look forward to Super Bowl parties all year long. And you know exactly what time the game is going to be played, so you can plan for weeks."

She said there are numerous potential flash points for spousal abuse. For example, she said, a man may want to show his dominance in front of his buddies and order his wife to bring food or beer. When the woman questions his authority or says, "Do it yourself," she gets punched.

If there is money riding on the game and the woman expresses concerns over the fate of family income, she also may get beaten, Arnett said.

And if the children misbehave or interrupt a crucial play, the wife might get smacked because she often is held accountable for the kids' actions, she added.

Counselors at the Domestic Abuse Center, a privately funded domestic violence prevention group in Northridge, are coordinating a special meeting Sunday before the Super Bowl to warn male clients about potential consequences of partying and drinking with the guys. The men's group usually meets Sunday nights to help curb spouse battering.

"If that's your tendency, then you're setting yourself up for an abusive situation," center director Gail Pincus said.

The switch in meeting times on Super Sunday ensures a higher turnout, Pincus said. "When we have the meetings after the game, most guys don't come in or they come in buzzed and we send them away," she said.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women, a Hollywood rape and domestic violence prevention and counseling center, is holding a special self-defense class for women Sunday before the game.

Although commission executive director Patricia Giggans acknowledges that Super Sunday is a busy day for the center, she is quick to point out that spousal abuse is part of a cycle of violence.

"There is this focus on Super Bowl Sunday, but it's not the only time that it happens," Giggans said. "In most relationships that involve battering, it's happening over time.

"We love to hear simple answers, like 'He hit his wife for the first time on Super Bowl Sunday,' but it's more complicated than that. It's just another day, another excuse and another part of the cycle."

Estela Ortiz, spokeswoman for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, questions the significance of spousal abuse on Super Sunday and points to possible misconceptions of the link.

"It begins to shadow the lethality of the issue of domestic violence," Ortiz said. "What happens is that all of a sudden we're implying that men beat only during the Super Bowl. That's not the case at all.

"It's an ongoing issue. So Super Bowl Sunday came and went; domestic violence perpetuates itself. It has no end, no particular day. It is existing every 15 seconds."

Ensuring a super, not dangerous, Sunday

Following are tips to prevent spousal battering on Super Bowl Sunday:

Don't encourage or cheer on someone who is making sexist comments. Kidding, ridiculing or making fun of a woman in your presence can be a precursor to violence.
Consider having an alcohol-free party. If you drink alcohol, know your limit. Overindulgence can lead to abusive and argumentative language, which can foreshadow violence.
Don't depend on your spouse to make and bring you and your friends food or drinks.
Hold your temper if your spouse or children get in front of the screen or make too much noise during crucial plays.
Be careful of any aggressive behavior; the bruising action on the field isn't an invitation to roughhouse at home.
Understand that the Super Bowl is just a game. Life doesn't hinge on who wins or loses.

If you witness an abusive situation, call the police. Domestic violence is a crime. Don't ignore it.

If you feel a dire need to diffuse your anger or aggression, call the Batterer's Hot Line (805) 656-4861 or the other domestic violence hot lines listed with this article. Many crisis-management lines have operators trained to counsel potential spousal abusers.

Sources: Domestic Abuse Center and Los Angeles County Domestic Violence Council.

Abuse linked to TV events

Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX)

January 27, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Marianne McCormick fears she won't need to be in California or in front of a TV set Sunday night to know if the Cowboys won or lost.

If the 'Boys go down, more women than usual will likely be beaten in Fort Worth-Dallas, said McCormick, the program director at the Women's Haven in Fort Worth.

And the wives and girlfriends who are punched, kicked or worse will phone or show up at the shelter looking for help.

For years, women's groups, shelters and organizations fighting domestic violence have said that attacks against women increase during televised football games and that the problem is particularly acute on Super Bowl Sunday.

"People get pumped up and that feeds the aggressive side of their behavior," said Debby Tucker, executive director of the Texas Council on Family Violence. "And, of course, that's exacerbated by a fair amount of alcohol consumption."

To draw attention to violence against women and to the assault rate - one woman is assaulted every 15 seconds in the United States - a coalition of women's groups is urging NBC to run a public service announcement about domestic violence during or shortly before or after the game.

"It attracts the biggest audience of the year and it's such a diverse audience that a (public service announcement) could have a great effect," said Laura Flanders of Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, an advocacy group that began the effort last month to pressure NBC to run a spot.

FAIR and other groups say that violence against women increases by as much as 40 percent on Super Bowl Sunday and championship game days. The problem is seen as particularly severe in the home towns of the competing teams.

Such projections are based on anecdotal evidence from shelters across the country. McCormick said that when the Cowboys were last a competitive team, calls jumped from an average of 15 a day to 25 on a Sunday when the Cowboys lost. And admissions to the shelter in Fort Worth jumped from an average of two a day to six when the Cowboys lost.

Similarly, calls to the battered women's hot lines in San Francisco jumped last week when the 49ers lost to the Cowboys, according to Wenny Kusuak of Women Organized to Make Abuse Nonexistent, a Bay area group that counsels battered women and refers them to shelters.

There have been almost no academic studies of the relationship between televised football games and the rate of assaults on women. Indeed, a 1992 study conducted by sociologists at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., found that the frequency of women's admissions to emergency rooms in northern Virginia increased when the Washington Redskins won. The researchers, however, found that an increase in admissions "was not associated with the occurrence of football games in general, nor watching a favorite team lose."

The emphasis on football, Super Bowl Sunday and getting a public service announcement on NBC makes some advocates for battered women uncomfortable.

"To pin it down to one day trivializes a very significant social problem that affects millions of women," said Dr. Richard Gelles of the University of Rhode Island's Family Violence Research Program. "You have to understand the politics of this: Any publicity is good publicity. Given the limited attention span of the media, you use that. So if public awareness goes up I guess it's a useful thing. But, really, this is symbolism and we're well past the point where symbolism matters. What matters is that the national hot line shut down last year because of a lack of funding and women's shelters across the country are hanging by their thumbs."

Still, the groups pressuring NBC believe that a public service announcement is an unparalleled opportunity to draw attention to a national epidemic.

Ed Markey, the NBC director of sports publicity, said yesterday that the network has not yet decided whether it will broadcast one or more announcements. A decision is expected this week.

A spokesman for the National Football League said the league's 60-second allotment of public service time during the game will be dedicated to the United Way, which supports agencies dealing with domestic violence.

A 30-second spot during the Super Bowl costs advertisers between $800,000 and $850,000.

Flanders, however, said that NBC had already privately agreed to air one announcement shortly before the game and was considering airing another shortly after the game. She said the network will not air a spot during the game.

According to Flanders, the network has chosen a 30-second spot produced by the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which depicts a man cautioning viewers that domestic violence is against the law. As the message ends, a prison door closes in the man's face.

"It's a warning," Flanders said.

Unnecessary Roughness

Tampa Bay Times (FL)

January 27, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

It was one of the most thrilling Super Bowls ever played. On Jan. 27, 1991, the New York Giants led the Buffalo Bills 20-19 in the closing moments of Super Bowl XXV at Tampa Stadium. Scott Norwood, the Bills placekicker, came onto the field to try a field goal from 47 yards.

If he made it, Buffalo would win. If not, the game was over.

He missed by a few feet, and for thousands of Bills fans across the country, that meant spending the next few days downcast and disappointed.

But to a woman living a few miles from the stadium, Buffalo's loss meant something far worse.

Hillary Leder, director of community services at the Spring Inc., a shelter for battered women in Tampa, remembered the case.

He was an avid Bills fan and a heavy drinker. She was a homemaker in her mid-30s. They were married and had three young children.

As Norwood's kick sailed wide of the upright, the husband exploded. He started beating his wife and yelling, ""It's your fault they lost!''

By the time she arrived at the Spring, the woman already had spent several days at Tampa General Hospital. She had a dislocated shoulder, a severe head injury, and was so badly beaten she wen into cardiac arrest in the emergency room and nearly died.

Slowly, she recovered. After staying at the shelter for 66 days, she moved into an efficiency apartment.

She has since left the state, changed her name and started a new life with her children.

This isn't an isolated case.

Most of the people who work at shelters for battered women have heard similar stories about how the outcome of the Super Bowl triggered an act of domestic violence. Some shelter administrators say Super Bowl Sunday is one of their busiest days of the year, although the abuse can happen on any football weekend, and even after the home team wins.

""We see an increase in violence even when local teams lose,'' said Leder, whose shelter served about 1,500 women and children last year.

""And it's not just the Buccaneers. During the height of the football season, we might handle as many as three or four cases each weekend that are football-related. When they tell us their story, the violence has been spawned by the team losing.to fear for her safety.''

But it does happen, and with alarming frequency. According to the New York Times, a man in Philadelphia who counsels men who batter their partners says at least a quarter of his clients had at least one story in which sports somehow led to domestic violence.

""I've had women say every Monday night was a problem, that they try to make themselves scarce during Monday Night Football because their husband or boyfriend becomes dangerous and violent,'' said Linda Osmundson, president of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence and executive director of CASA, a domestic violence shelter in St. Petersburg.

The problem of domestic violence is much more complex than the outcome of a game. Experts say the catalyst can be anything - a meal that wasn't ready, a fender that was dented, or someone who stepped in front of the TV during a crucial play.

""Anything can set them off,'' Leder said. ""It can be something as simple as their mother making a better lemon meringue pie than they do. It can be nothing or anything, and sports is one of those things.''

However, the numbers suggest that fans of violent sports, and those who participate in them, are more prone to violence than those in sports such as golf and tennis.

""Men who follow football and hockey and some of the more violent sports do tend to be more prone to violence,'' Osmundson said. ""And the same is true for the players.

""A friend who runs a shelter in Green Bay, Wis., has had several wives and/or partners of (Green Bay Packers) players in their support groups.

""And when I ran a shelter in Gainesville we had more than one incident of a college-age woman being beaten. We had one case where the coach actually took a player off the football team for beating up his girlfriend after a game.''

More than any score or decision, domestic violence, like rape, is an issue of power and control.

Part of the proof is a recent study by Old Dominion University of emergency room admissions in northern Virginia. The study showed that the number of women who suffered trauma as a result of domestic violence increased significantly not after the local team, the Washington Redskins, lost. It happened after they won. Researchers concluded that watching the successful use of violence may give a fan license to use that same violence himself.

""It appears that some aspect of the identification with an organization that is successful or dominates through violent behavior may stimulate violence toward women in some men,'' the report states. ""Being successful through violent behavior may provide the male viewer with a heightened sense of power and may increase domination over his spouse or partner.''

Win or lose, counselors such as Osmundson insist that football games, boxing matches and the like are excuses. If it wasn't the big game, it would be something else.

""Stress, for instance,'' Osmundson said. ""How many of us aren't under stress? And yet most of us don't choose to be abusive under stress.''

If there is a common thread in domestic violence, it's substance abuse. In about 70 percent of all domestic violence cases, alcohol or drugs were involved.

""She's putting on the Super Bowl party for 10 of her husband's friends,'' Osmundson said.

""The men start drinking, and he starts treating her like a serf, acting like a big man in front of his friends. And then it escalates.''

To try to stem the abuse, a coalition of domestic violence groups has asked NBC to run a 30-second public service spot during the Super Bowl, not because the game sometimes triggers violence, but because the problem occurs every day and in staggering numbers.

The FBI reports that as many as 4-million women suffer abuse each year - about one every 15 seconds. Nearly 30 percent of all women killed in the United States between 1985 and 1991 died at the hands of either boyfriends or husbands. The numbers may be higher, since some states don't report whether homicides were the result of domestic violence.

And yet there are three times as many shelters for animals than for battered women.

Until last summer, women at least had a nationwide 800 phone line that gave advice and shelter locations. The service was stopped because of a lack of financing.

To many, this is what makes Sunday's public service announcement all the more important.

""Even those who would never raise a hand to their wives or girlfriends can become part of the problem,'' San Francisco Examiner columnist Joan Ryan pointed out recently. ""When a respected coach such as Joe Paterno of Penn State jokes after a tough loss (as he did in September 1991), "I'm going to go home and beat my wife,' he puts battering women on the same level as kicking dogs or smashing chairs - unattractive but not unacceptable outlets for anger.

""Men joke easily about smacking a woman around,'' Ryan added, ""Most don't mean it, but too many do.''

Women want to confine mayhem to gridiron

January 28, 1993

Boston Herald (MA)

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

When the Buffalo Bills battle the Dallas Cowboys for the Vince Lombardi trophy Sunday, the players won't be the only ones getting hit.

"We get twice as many calls on Super Bowl Sunday," said Wylie Doughty, a volunteer at the Battered Women's Hotline in Cambridge. Some women call sobbing, others speak in a terrified whisper, many use a normal voice. "He's out of control," they say. Or, "He always gets like this when he's drunk. He's threatening me and the kids."

Molly Chaudhuri, an assistant district attorney in Middlesex County and director of the Middlesex Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Project, has seen women beaten because they refused to cook a Super Bowl meal, or serve drunk guests more beer.

"That becomes the justification to push her around," Chauduri said. "When she cries they tell her to 'shut up'."

This Sunday, in an unprecedented move, NBC will run a domestic violence public service announcement during the pre-game show. The network, which got dozens of requests from non-profit organizations, wouldn't comment yesterday on the 30-second PSA. An official statement is expected today or tomorrow.

FAIR, a New York-based media-watch group that analyzes how much coverage issues get, asked NBC to run the PSA because "women's shelters report so many more phone calls on Super Bowl Sunday and because the issue isn't treated as the crisis that it is," said Kim Deterline, organizing director of FAIR. Some studies showed a 40 percent increase in calls to shelters on game day, according to FAIR.

The PSA, made by the Philadelphia Coalition on Domestic Violence, is aimed at men and shows a yuppie agonizing: "I can't believe this is happening. We were just having an argument . . . I didn't mean to hurt her." Bars close as he says, "I didn't know you could go to jail for hitting your wife."

"Domestic violence is a crime," a voice-over says, and a toll-free referral number for abusers and victims is given. (At press time the phone number had not been designated.) Statewide or Boston statistics documenting a rise in domestic abuse on Super Bowl Sunday don't exist. And those who work with battered women stress that violence happens 365 days a year, although holidays - when family is around and people are drinking - are especially rough.

And well-publicized murders, particularly ones where children are also harmed, prompt an increase in women seeking help, said Lois Kanter, a Northeastern University Law School professor who is the director of the Domestic Violence Clinic, a joint venture with Casa Myrna Vazquez, a shelter for battered women.

Victims report that the batters say: "I'm going to do just what that man in Chicopee did." And, "I could kill the kids just like the guy in Chelsea," according to Kanter. "The men are using the stories as a way of threatening the women."

On Super Sunday drunken men with money and emotions on the line are watching a game that glamorizes violence and objectifies women.

"Football is a culmination of a lot of sexism and violence," said Chaudhuri. "The men fight on the field while women in skimpy outfits cheer them on."

"People see those guys beating each other up on screen," said City Councilor Rosaria Salerno. "But the men on the field are dressed for it, paid for it, insured for it - and they agreed to it." Salerno plans to start pushing the NFL now to ensure a powerful PSA for next year's Super Bowl.

Battle of sexes being fought in bedrooms, boardrooms & barracks

Boston Herald (MA)

Author/Byline: Margery Eagan

January 28, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

They were on the State House steps yesterday, beating the drums, chanting the chants, making lots of noise. "Justice for Battered Women!" "Be loud, and angry, and PISSED OFF!"

They were nearly all women, many of them lesbians, some in black leather jackets and boots with short spiked hair and multiple earrings through earlobes and nostrils and maybe even a nipple here and there. Some held hands. Some kissed. One walked slowly through the crowd dragging a ball and chain. Another bellowed, "We're sick of this ----!"

I kept thinking it was really tragic that Mr. Howie Carr, my officemate if not my soulmate, missed this display.

That's the Mr. Howie who wrote in this space yesterday that Bill Clinton's big problem is not rereading "The Taming of the Shrew" and telling Hillary to get her "biscuits in the oven" and her "buns in the bed." Or, failing that, using mobster Larry Zannino's approach: throw the broad out the bleepin' window.

Mr. Howie could've had a field day with this crew.

Hey, look at all these tatooed broads demanding commutations for sister broads who iced their boyfriends just because the boyfriends pummeled them for 20 years. Hey, this is the same crew that wants to get homos in the army. They'll turn the barracks into a regular pink palace.

You know, it seems to me there are three kinds of people here. There's Mr. Howie and company. I have no idea what Mr. Howie really thinks. My best guess: This stuff is good for a few yucks.

Then there are people who hope that Hillary, though extremely annoying, will accomplish something great for health care because we need something great accomplished. These same people may be queasy about gays at Fort Devens, but understand you can't make laws anymore that basically say homosexuals are subhuman.

Then there are people who hate Hillary, maybe because she's a lightning rod for what they blame their problems on: women who pushed them out of jobs or wives who dumped them and took the kids. Before all this feminist stuff, wives couldn't dump anybody. They had no jobs. No money. They knew their place. And look at the mess we're in now.

Or they hate Hillary because they're homemakers or non-careerists who feel demeaned by this superachiever with both a child and superachieving husband. Yet she didn't pay the price that's supposed to go with that: Hillary is neither ugly nor miserable.

Or they hate her because they can't bear the thought that a woman - a pushy, arrogant woman - might just achieve in 100 days what Ted Kennedy has failed to achieve in 25 years - despite his clout, money and international reputation as a swordsman.

Which brings me to the people who can't stand gays either.

"It's mostly a guys' thing," said a National Guardswoman Tuesday. "You don't find lots of straight women panicking about lesbians. You find straight men panicking about gay men."

Maybe that's because in high school the coach patted them on their rear once or twice and, you know, it felt pretty good. So what does that make them? One percent gay? Ten percent gay?

Then there's the I-wish-they'd-keep-it-to-themselves crowd. They say, "Some of my best co-workers are gay, I just don't want to know about it or see any evidence of it. I have no problem with gays, as long as they don't act like gays."

Then there's the old white heterosexual male power and privilege thing. If gays can join the Marines, then where's the status of being a manly man who does manly things with men?

"What's missing from the military debate is that this is all about masculinity," says Jackson Katz of Real Men, a group that tries to prevent violence against women by educating men.

This Sunday Real Men will rally outside the Dockside, a sports bar by Quincy Market, because it's Super Sunday, perhaps the most dangerous day of the year for battered women.

Says Katz, "The military is seen as a macho place. Its core is masculinity."

At the State House yesterday, one of the marchers joked that women with violent husbands better hope no news break-ins during the Super Bowl feature either Hillary Rodham Clinton or homosexual drill sergeants. This might be enough to make their pummeling husbands very annoyed about the biscuits that aren't in the oven and the buns that aren't in the bed and just throw the whining broads right out the bleepin' window.

Study shows spousal violence rises after postseason telecasts

Washington Times, The (DC)

January 28, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

LOS ANGELES - Some news and gossip from the land where smog yesterday cut visibility to less than a mile, making not only vast sections of the city disappear but also the entire Pacific Ocean:

The Super Bowl is a time of merriment in the Washington area, where the hometown team has been a participant four times since 1982. But there is another side.

The Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram reported yesterday in a Page 1 story that the number of spousal abuse cases rises dramatically after NFL championship games, especially in areas where the local favorite has lost.

"People get pumped up and that feeds the aggressive side of their behavior," Debby Tucker, executive director of the Texas Council on Family Violence, told the newspaper. "And, of course, that's exacerbated by a fair amount of alcohol consumption."

Violence against women increases by as much as 40 percent on Super Bowl Sundays, the report said, especially in cities where there are competing teams. Advocacy groups are asking NBC, which will show this year's Super Bowl, to air public service announcements warning against spousal abuse.

There was another interesting aspect to the story. It cited a 1992 study done by sociologists at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., as indicating that women's admissions to emergency rooms in Northern Virginia increased when the Washington Redskins won.

"The researchers . . . found that an increase in admissions `was not associated with the occurrence of football games in general, nor [with] watching a favorite team lose.' "'

Artist to count assaults

Women at risk on Super Sunday

Republican, The (Springfield, MA)

January 28, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

While football fans keep track of the Super Bowl score Sunday, Bob Markey will be tallying the number of battered women.

A few studies have deemed Super Bowl Sunday the worst day of the year for battered women, said Markey, a 45-year-old Ashfield artist.

Amidst the touchdowns, the beers and the cheers from the sofa or the bar stool, he wants people to remember those women.

The question was, where could Markey do a piece of public artwork highlighting that fact so that the most people would see it?

Related story on Page 22. For Markey, a Long Island native, the answer was obvious: Grand Central Station in New York City.

"Where else?" he said.

"There's the feeling that everyone's there. If the phone keeps ringing, you say you feel like it's Grand Central Station."

Boston Common was his second choice, but when Metro Commuter, which runs the train station, gave him the permit, he decided he would be in New York for the Super Bowl.

On Sunday, while millions of men and women will be huddled around television sets watching the game, Markey will be keeping score in Grand Central Station.

He has built a 4-foot-by-8-foot black-and-white scoreboard that sits on legs about six feet off the ground.

Keeping a radio by his side, Markey will update the game's score by hanging black numbers on little hooks next to the teams' names, similar to scoreboards at some Little League games.

But he will be busier changing the score on battered women: He will add another woman to that score every 15 seconds.

That's the national average rate, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. But, Markey says, Super Bowl Sunday isn't an average day.

A study done in Denver based on data from battered women's shelters found a 40 percent increase in battering on Super Bowl Sunday and the following Monday.

"I as an artist need to put that out," Markey said. "I think people may be more open to art than if you yell statistics at them."

Markey has weaved social issues into his work before. A show ending Tuesday at the Arts Council of Franklin County on Main Street is called "Children of the Earth" and features three area artists, including Markey. His sculptures, called "Children of Hope, Children of Sorrow," are about children in war zones. He was inspired to make the sculptures after hearing about the children who have died as a result of the Persian Gulf War.

Markey thinks the battering may worsen Super Bowl Sunday because of drinking, gambling and male bonding. In addition, he thinks football sends a message that violence is acceptable, he said.

"Friends are over and the wife doesn't get the potato chips fast enough and so you knock her around," he said.

The score for the Cowboys-Bills game is being guessed by sports fans and gamblers around the country.

Markey doesn't know what the football score will be.

But he's pretty sure what the score will be for the number of women battered during the Super Bowl game: more than 700.

Garcetti vows Domestic violence increases during Super Bowl Sunday

UPI (USA)

January 28, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Los Angeles's top prosecutor said Thursday he will make an extra effort to be 'in the face' of any man who beats his wife or girlfriend on Super Bowl Sunday.

District Attorney Gil Garcetti issued his warning during a news conference at the Rose Bowl, site of this Sunday's Super Bowl game between the Buffalo Bills and the Dallas Cowboys.

Experts say more spousal abuse occurs on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day of the year.

To help counter that trend and dedicate more resources to domestic violence cases, Garcetti has formed a Domestic Violence Unit in his office.

Garcetti's message to the men who assault their wives and girlfriends this weekend or at any other time: 'I'm going to be in your face if that's the conduct that you engage in.'

Women's advocate Sheila Kuehl said the 'betting, bonding and beer' for the men can turn into a beating for the women.

Many women's shelters report as much as a 40 percent increase in calls for help on Super Bowl Sunday. Police also report a significant increase in domestic violence calls.

The Los Angeles Police Department makes about 20 domestic violence arrests a day. But on the day of the big game last year, there were 34 arrests.

Deputy District Attorney Lydia Bodin, who prosecutes domestic violence cases, said she sees an increase in cases during major sports events.

Men will beat women because their teams lost, or because she refused to make sandwiches for his friends, or because she walked in front of the television during a big play, Bodin said.

She said the drinking and the sudden rushes of adrenalin during sports events can result in beatings.

Sports events 'create a trigger to an already loaded gun,' the prosecutor said.

The best way to curb domestic violence is to heighten awareness and to urge women to report the crimes to the police so offenders can be prosecuted, Garcetti said.

'This is not just a family matter. It's a crime,' he said.

BIG EVENT AND BIG DOMESTIC VIOLENCE BEATINGS OF WOMEN BY HUSBANDS PEAK SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)

January 29, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Everybody was pretty drunk and revved up by the time he started that night.

The living room smelled of beer. Their friends had been screaming and laughing around the television for hours as the Washington Redskins pounded the Buffalo Bills in last year's Super Bowl.

First, her husband made fun of the food she had bought for the Super Bowl party. Then her looks. Her weight. The way she dressed.

He slapped her. He slapped her some more. Then he started punching her face and stomach.

The young woman, in her 20s, was hysterical by the time she called the battered women's shelter, recalls Sue Berman, executive director of Womansplace Inc.

Both police departments and hot lines at most battered women's shelters in Western Pennsylvania are swamped with such calls on Super Bowl Sunday.

Lorraine Cathell, counselor and advocate at Womansplace, a shelter in McKeesport, takes no pleasure in the excitement building over whether the Bills can beat the Dallas Cowboys in this year's contest.

"It's depressing because I know what's coming on Sunday," she said. ''Super Sunday is one of the worst days of the year. We get almost double the normal amount of calls after the Super Bowl."

A violence-prone man drinks and keeps his adrenalin pumped up all day, domestic violence experts say, and then one of the children yells during an important play or his team fumbles the ball. He loses a bet and she loses a few teeth.

"It may start out with yelling, screaming and slapping," Cathell said. ''If she tries to protect herself, it may go to punching, choking, kicking. She may end up with black eyes, cracked ribs.

"When she yells for help, he punches and chokes her more until sometimes she ends up unconscious."

Any football weekend generates lots of calls to police from women beaten by their partners, said Pittsburgh Police Cmdr. Gwen Elliott, who heads the unit that handles domestic violence. But Super Sunday is particularly bad.

The Monday after Super Sunday, the number of women going to Neighborhood Legal Services to request restraining orders to keep their husbands and boyfriends away from them and their children increases. Edward Stevenson, managing attorney of the McKeesport office, said the number of beatings associated with football games peaked whenever the Steelers lost during their Super Bowl years.

Women's advocates held a news conference voicing many of the same concerns yesterday at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Cal., site of Sunday's game.

"There is significant anecdotal evidence that Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day of the year for domestic violence against women," said Sheila Kuehl, former actress and managing lawyer of the California Women's Law Center.

"This game is terrifying for far too many women, and that has to stop."

Many women's shelters report an increase in calls for help of as much as 40 percent on Super Bowl Sunday and the following Monday, said Linda Mitchell of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.

"The Super Bowl is significant because it draws attention to the fact that there is a cycle of violence in many relationships, and that cycle has trigger points," said Patricia Occiuzzo Giggans of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women.

The surgeon general has said the greatest health threat to many American women is their husbands and boyfriends.

Beatings are the leading cause of injury for women 15 to 44, and the second worst for women of all ages, Surgeon General Antonia Novello said in a speech in June. Beatings cause more injuries to women than car accidents. More than cancer deaths. More than both combined.

When the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on the Violence Against Women Act in October, it found the police received at least 21,000 calls each week in 1991 from American women who had been beaten or raped.

The bill would create domestic abuse awareness programs in the public schools, add programs to increase arrests of abusers and allow women to file civil suits treating abuse as a gender hate crime. Its sponsor, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., has vowed to push for passage during this congressional session.

Because of the pattern in previous years, a coalition of domestic violence groups and the Washington-based Fairness and Accuracy in Media lobbied NBC and persuaded the network to run a 30-second spot in the pre-game show of this Sunday's Super Bowl. It shows a man in a shirt and tie being thrown in a jail cell for battering his wife.

Part of the problem with bowl games may be seasonal. The stress of holidays -- especially New Year's Day, with its many hours of football games and excessive drinking -- provokes violence, experts say. Cabin fever and the stress of post-holiday bills also escalate abuse in the winter.

But some of it is the culture of football.

A 1989 study published in the journal Family Violence was one of many that have found a link between football and violence. The study found that when men gather in all-male groups for male-oriented recreation, they tend to become more violent toward women.

Surprisingly, men are even more likely to beat their wives and girlfriends when their team wins than when it loses, say researchers at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. Researchers Garland White, Janet Katz and Kathryn Scarborough theorized that winning suggests to violence-prone men that aggression works, and they imitate it.

The study found that police reports of beatings and hospital admissions in northern Virginia, for example, rose 40 percent after games won by the Redskins during the 1988-89 season.

"Super Sunday is not going to make a non-abusive person violent, but it can escalate an already abusive person to violence," said Janet Scott, community education and training director for the Women's Center & Shelter Greater Pittsburgh.

Beatings become even more likely when beers and bets join the mix. Abusers are people who feel powerless, Scott said, and they gain a sense of power and control when they beat their wives and children.

Abusers and their victims are just as often prosperous as poor, powerful as powerless. "We see as many upper-middle-class professional women as we see lower-income women," Scott said.

"We see abusers who are clergy, who are psychiatrists, who are police, who are attorneys," she said. "So they may have a lot of power in their positions, but they have a need for complete control."

"Often the woman has very low self-esteem," Cathell said. "Often she grew up in an abusive home where she watched her mother get beaten and she thinks it's normal."

The main reason women do not leave is fear that they will not be able to support themselves and their children, she said.

"The woman goes back because he promises he will change," Cathell said. ''Usually, after every beating, he promises he'll change. But only 2 percent of the men who go to counseling ever change their behavior -- and most of them don't go to counseling."

Social service agencies must start intervening between the abuser and the whole family, not just the victim, because "a batterer is going to batter whoever is near his fist," said Chief City Magistrate M. Susan Ruffner, whose City Court includes Domestic Violence Court.

Batterers must be reported and arrested more often, she said. "Sometimes it's the mere fact of arrest that makes men stop.

"The sad thing about domestic violence is that it is self-perpetuating," Ruffner said. "The boys in the household learn (that) you beat up your wife, and the girls learn you are battered. If you can break the cycle here, it will be stopped at the next cycle."

MANY WOMEN BRUTALIZED ON SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

Bradenton Herald, The (FL)

January 29, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Super Bowl Sunday, one of the most widely anticipated days of the year for football fans, is a day of dread for many battered women, activists said Thursday.

``There is significant anecdotal evidence that Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day of the year for domestic violence against women,'' said Sheila Kuehl of the California Women's Law Center.

``The Super Bowl is significant because it draws attention to the fact that there is a cycle of violence in many relationships and that cycle has trigger points,'' said Patricia Occiuzzo Giggans of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women.

``The betting, the bonding and the beer for the men can turn into beating for women,'' she said.

Sidebar/info box:

Violence at a glance

-A study by Old Dominion University sociologists found men are more likely to batter their partners after their favorite team wins.

-Police reports of beatings and hospital admissions in north Virginia rose 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins in the 1988-89 season, the study found.

-The Los Angeles Police Department has reported an increase in felony domestic violence arrests during the past two Super Bowls. The daily average of such arrests in the city is 20, but during last year's game there were 34 and in 1991 there were 27.

SUPER BOWL: A LINK TO SPOUSAL ABUSE?

Charlotte Observer, The (NC)

Author/Byline: BRETT PAULY, Los Angeles Daily News

January 29, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

It`s a pattern some battered-women`s shelters say they are all too familiar with on Super Bowl Sunday.

A frightened voice on the other end of the phone describes how her husband or boyfriend beat her because his team lost. Or because she refused his orders to make more sandwiches for his buddies.

Or the supply of beer ran short. Or she walked in front of the television screen during a big play. Or the kids made too much noise.

A coalition of domestic violence groups, under the umbrella of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), asked the NBC network to air a public service announcement about domestic violence during the Super Bowl broadcast.

Thursday, NBC agreed.

``Hot lines for battered women around the country ring off the hook. There is a major influx of calls,`` said Marissa Ghez, spokeswoman for the Family Violence Prevention Fund, a nonprofit education and lobby group in San Francisco. ``There is significant anecdotal evidence that Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day of the year for domestic violence.``

That hasn`t been the case locally. Super Bowl Sunday 1992 was an average Sunday for the Charlotte Police Department when it came to domestic violence calls.

Representatives from several shelters in the Charlotte area agreed. They said they either don`t have data or don`t notice any more calls on Super Bowl Sunday.

``I would think it would be the other way around,`` said Catherine Reid of the Mecklenburg County Advisory Board, which oversees services offered to victims of domestic violence in the county.

``Men are occupied. They`re busy.``

NBC referred all questions to FAIR headquarters in New York, where a spokeswoman said the network had agreed to air a 30-second spot in the pregame show during the hour before the Super Bowl.

``While it is not during the Super Bowl, it is still part of the Super Bowl broadcast,`` the spokeswoman said. ``We feel absolutely vindicated. It was a successful campaign on our part, and NBC is making a smart move garnering some media attention to this important issue.

``They took us seriously, and they should be given credit for that.``

The Super Bowl, between the Buffalo Bills and the Dallas Cowboys, is being held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., this year.

The Los Angeles County Domestic Violence Council is helping to spread the message. Council coordinator Carol Arnett said it is considering adopting the slogan, ``Real men don`t batter.``

She suggested that the National Football League adopt the same platform.

The NFL has no plans to publicize the problems of spousal abuse on Super Sunday, said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. Its 60-second allotment of public service time during the Super Bowl broadcast will be dedicated to thanking groups and individuals who have supported the United Way.

The United Way provided $61 million last year to nearly 1,000 agencies dealing with domestic violence, Aiello said.

Aiello said the league is not aware of any links between the hard-hitting action on the field and spousal abuse in the homes of those watching the game.

Domestic violence up on Super Bowl Sunday

Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA)

January 29, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Super Bowl Sunday, one of the most widely anticipated days of the year for football fans, is a day of dread for many battered women, activists said Thursday.

"This game is terrifying for far too many women and that has to stop," she said.

Many women's shelters report as much as a 40 percent increase in calls for help on Super Bowl Sunday and the following Monday, said Linda Mitchell of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.

"The Super Bowl is significant because it draws attention to the fact that there is a cycle of violence in many relationships and that cycle has trigger points," said Patricia Occiuzzo Giggans of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women.

"The betting, the bonding and the beer for the men can turn into beating for women," she said.

Kuehl, Mitchell and Giggans were among women's advocates at a news conference at the Rose Bowl, site of Sunday's game between the Buffalo Bills and the Dallas Cowboys.

Mitchell said she hoped pressure from the women's groups would persuade NBC-TV to air a public service announcement against domestic violence during the game. A call to NBC seeking comment wasn't immediately returned.

"Domestic violence is one of the major issues in this country and it needs attention from the media," Mitchell said. "It's been ignored too long."

Kuehl said a study by sociologists at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., found that men are more likely to batter their partners after their favorite team wins. The study found that police reports of beatings and hospital admissions in northern Virginia rose 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins during the 1988-89 season, she said.

The Los Angeles Police Department has reported an increase in felony domestic violence arrests during the past two Super Bowls. The daily average of such arrests in the city is 20, but during last year's game there were 34 and in 1991 there were 27. Arrests on the following Mondays were slightly higher than average.

NBC AGREES TO AIR MESSAGE

Daily News of Los Angeles (CA)

January 29, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

NBC acceded to pressure from a handful of anti-domestic violence groups and the nonprofit organization Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting on Thursday and agreed to run a public service announcement aimed at heightening awareness of the plight of battered women during Sunday's Super Bowl pregame show.

The 30-second spot is designed to call attention to domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday, which battered women's shelters report is one of the worst days of the year for violence against women in the home.

FAIR had urged NBC this week to run the spot several times during the Super Bowl game but settled for a single airing as part of the pregame. Thirty seconds of advertising time during the pregame show is priced at $550,000, while a similar slot within the game is priced at between $850,000 and $900,000.

NBC is donating the time as a public service and will receive no compensation.

"NBC deserves credit for being the first network to address the issue of domestic violence as part of its Super Bowl broadcast," said FAIR spokesman Jeff Cohen on Thursday in a statement.

No one from NBC was made available Thursday to comment on the decision to run the spot. All inquiries were referred to the New York offices of FAIR.

NBC AGREES TO RUN BATTERED-WIVES SPOT

Deseret News, The (Salt Lake City, UT)

January 29, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

Super Bowl Sunday is a dangerous day for battered wives, women's activists warn.

Heeding the warning, NBC has agreed to run a public service announcement before the game on domestic violence.

``The betting, the bonding and the beer for the men can turn into beating for women,'' Patricia Occiuzzo Giggans of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women said Thursday.

Some women's shelters have reported as much as a 40 percent increase in calls for help on Super Bowl Sunday and the following Monday, said Linda Mitchell of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, a media watchdog group. She referred to figures compiled in Virginia and Los Angeles after past Super Bowls.

NBC spokesman Curt Block said the network would run a 30-second spot during the pregame show Sunday at about 4 p.m. EST. The network will lose as much as $850,000 in advertising revenue by giving up time for the spot, Block said.

``We think this is a very important issue for a very significant day,'' he said in New York.

The commercial shows a man talking from a jail cell. ``We were just having an argument. I guess I lost my temper. I didn't mean to hurt her,'' the man says. ``I didn't know you could go to jail for hitting your wife.''

A toll-free number to report abuse or get help is shown.

Los Angeles police have reported an increase in felony domestic violence arrests during the past two Super Bowls. The daily average of such arrests in the city is 20, but during last year's game there were 34.

Women battered most on Super Bowl Sunday

Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, PA)

January 29, 1993

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Super Bowl Sunday, one of the most widely anticipated days of the year for football fans, is a day of dread for many battered women, activists said Thursday.

"This game is terrifying for far too many women and that has to stop."

Many women's shelters report as much as a 40 percent increase in calls for help on Super Bowl Sunday and the following Monday, said Linda Mitchell of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, a liberal media watchdog group.

"The betting, the bonding and the beer for the men can turn into beating for women," she said.

Kuehl, Mitchell and Giggans were among women's advocates at a news conference at the Rose Bowl, site of Sunday's game between the Buffalo Bills and the Dallas Cowboys.

"Domestic violence is one of the major issues in this country and it needs attention from the media," Mitchell said. "It's been ignored too long."

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting urged NBC to air a public service announcement against domestic violence during the game, and the network announced Thursday it would do so during its pregame show.

"We think this is a very important issue for a very significant day," NBC spokesman Curt Block said.

Kuehl said a study by sociologists at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., found that men are more likely to batter their partners after their favorite team wins.

The study found that police reports of beatings and hospital admissions in northern Virginia rose 40 percent after games won by the Washington Redskins during the 1988-89 season, she said.

"They see violence rewarded on television, and some of them react as though that's an appropriate way to behave," she said.

The Los Angeles Police Department has reported an increase in felony domestic violence arrests during the past two Super Bowls.