The national football lie

A number of pundits have suggested that the NFL’s recent policy changes on domestic violence—not to mention video of former Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice punching his then-fiancée in the face—will “raise awareness” about the issue of domestic violence.

Is there really anyone who didn’t know that women get punched in the face by intimate partners? Did you need to see a video to know it happens?

There’s a lot of irony here, starting with the fact that the NFL, a supposedly nonprofit organization, makes a boatload of money by encouraging the sort of aggressive behavior that so often leads to intimate partner violence. It’s simply not reasonable to tell people to “man up” and dish out the hits, then expect that all of them will stop once they’re off the field.

But most people haven’t got a clue about how widespread the problem is, if only because we tend to save our outrage for when someone’s dead—or when there’s video. Here’s a clue: Between 1999 and 2010, almost 17,000 women were killed by spouses or intimate partners.

Meanwhile, we’ve lost slightly less than 10,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

So, where’s the terror? Right in your own home.

Women are not the only victims. Domestic violence happens in our closest relationships, though we usually don’t include child abuse in that category, and we should. If anything sets the stage for further domestic violence, it’s violence against children—including spanking, which teaches the assaulted child that using size and strength on a less-powerful person is a perfectly normal response to being displeased with that person’s behavior.

I’ve got a relative who insists, “I got beat, and I turned out OK.” I’d suggest that, at the very least, he turned out to be someone who thinks it’s OK to beat children. But for many people, the real lesson that comes from this first violence is that violence is always an option.

And therein lies the problem. It’s not just stern penalties, but a complete change in thinking that needs to occur. We need to change the way we think about violence—which is really about power and control.

We can start by going back to kindergarten. No biting, spitting, scratching and most of all, no hitting.