Nicknamed the “Day of Dread” and “Abuse Bowl,” Super Bowl Sunday has gained the reputation as an instigator of an outrageous spike in domestic abuse. Domestic violence is an issue easily ignored or inadvertently defended in U.S. culture.
For many viewers, the most striking commercial of Super Bowl XLIX was the PSA featuring a woman calling 911 under the cover of ordering a pizza. The PSA by NO MORE was meant to spread awareness of domestic violence and abuse.
According to their mission statement, “NO MORE is a movement to raise public awareness and engage bystanders around ending domestic violence and sexual assault.”
In a study titled “Family Violence and Football: The Effect of Unexpected Emotional Cues On Violent Behavior” by David Card and Gordon Dahl, domestic abuse is categorized into two overlapping categories. Sometimes, tension within a family unit continues for so long that a breaking point is reached and explosive domestic violence is the result. The second type of domestic abuse tends to happen when a family member impulsively lashes out violently as an effect of sudden anger. Oftentimes, the latter scenario will be followed by feelings of guilt and regret.
In the end, the two University of California professors found that unprecedented losses “lead to an 8 percent increase in police reports of at-home male-on-female intimate partner violence. There is no corresponding effect on female-on-male violence.”
However, domestic violence affects families across the nation on a daily basis, and should not be disregarded. This is not a new argument and the debate has been reiterated consistently and annually as each new Super Bowl approaches. In the past, TV personas like George Will of ABC's This Week have commented on the issue.
Will said, “Just before the game, NBC, which was broadcasting it, reminded men that domestic violence is a crime. Gosh. But this was utter nonsense. The studies supposedly linking football to violence against women were misrepresented — the data, nonexistent. This fraud, disseminated by gullible journalists, demonstrated how easy it is for a few political activists to get a story going if the story fits a politically fashionable theory — such as the feminist theory that football is hyper-masculinity, and masculinity is a menace.”
I find it imperative to clarify that feminism is not based in the idea that men are bad. Are there extremists? Always, in nearly every situation. But, feminism is the belief that women are equal to men. Of course, there are feminists who focus on injustices that exist in unequal pay or in the exclusiveness of professional sports. But, I would hope it could go without saying that the goal of feminism is not to put anyone down or destroy the Super Bowl.
“So ladies,” Will concluded, “Relax and enjoy the game.” As ladies, we are instructed to relax and enjoy the game. Relax and ignore domestic violence and abuse. Relax and ignore the PSAs that are trying to raise awareness, because when presented with a campaign to end domestic violence, the response is “gosh.”
This year, NO MORE’s campaign reached approximately the 111.3 million Super Bowl viewers. Not all of those viewers have experienced domestic abuse or sexual assault, but 1.3 million women and 835,000 men experience abuse from an intimate partner in the U.S. annually. Meanwhile, 293,066 people are sexually assaulted every year. A significant portion of the population has either themselves experienced or known someone that has experienced domestic or sexual abuse, making NO MORE’s PSA highly important.
Super Bowl Sunday has become a beacon for the debate of domestic violence whether it is a cause of it or not. PSAs and campaigns like NO MORE are vital in raising awareness of an issue dealt with by millions each and every day.
Reach the columnist at smmaki@asu.edu or follow @Syd_neym on Twitter.
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Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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