I posed this question on my facebook page.
I sincerely was asking. Only one person answered me and it is a person I've known for 25+ years who is a football fanatic. She lives Penn State football and Pittsburgh Steelers.
Sadly that is her life. This made her quite angry. I should have known.
Here was my post:
I do not follow football. I have no interest!! But I do have a question to those that do. Why do we always hear about rape, beatings, murder, domestic abuse from a majority of football players more than any other sport? I realize it happens everywhere, but why so prevalent in football? Is there a reason? It has been said that this is now America's past time. If that is true, it says a lot about us doesn't it? None of it good.
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Now this woman who calls herself a feminist, asks what is wrong with the woman who was beaten staying married to him? Or worse being beaten while engaged and then marrying him. (we are talking about Ray Rice if you live in a cave)
I ask, why does it always come back to the woman's fault for this mans horrific behavior?
I am a strong woman who would never ever tolerate that - EVER.
It can be hard to wrap your head around the fact that there are women who do APPEAR to tolerate that behavior. But should they be to blamed?
Unless we live in their shoes (women) we don't know what is going on, why they are doing this. I happen to believe weak women do a lot of things from fear, raised like this, no way out etc.
Bottom line, no one should hit another, mentally or physically abuse another. Period.
No exceptions to this rule. This goes beyond football obviously.
But back to my question. Why does it appear to be so prevalent in football?
Sure there are horrible men in other sports as well. But you hear many more football players than any other sport for rape, murder and abuse.
I'm seriously interested in the reason why we hear about so many football players more than anything.
13 comments:
Maybe it has something to do with the certain personality type that would be playing football in the first place? More aggressive than say like swimming you know?
Football teams are larger than other sports. They are more likely to get team members who are bad apples because of that. Also, they are more likely to have their misbehavior tolerated because football is a revenue-generating sport, unlike most of the others.
My take is that it's a violent sport and you need to be "tough-violent" to play certain positions. What kills me is that it's such a money maker that people are willing to overlook anything these guys do. You notice that the NFL couldn't find the tape BEFORE the game, but TMZ found it just fine. Makes ya think, doesn't it?
Julie your comment actually made me giggle....more than swimming. :-)
Heidi - more than a baseball team? I think not. You have all the men on the field, the bull pen, the bench etc. Not any more. All sports are revenue generated. (you don't follow baseball do you?) The money can't be the reason they are violent. Then Bill Gates must be knocking Melinda around pretty good.
Tia/Cottage - But aren't hockey players violent? I guess not as much they do skate while football players only hit.
Steroids.
Mike might have something there too.
Typical pro football teams have a 52 man roster. Hockey is usually around 22, basketball is maybe 12 and baseball is who knows? 25 - 30? Football IS a much more violent sport too. With the exception of the quarterback and kickers, everybody else on the field is expected to hit at least one person on every play.
There's lots of collisions in hockey, but most aren't the sort of "I wanna rip your legs off" type of hits. That's sort of the goal in football.
I completely agree that the initial assault wasn't Janay Palmers fault. Nobody deserves to be hit by another person. But WTF did she marry him for?!?! Anything that happens to her after that incident in Atlantic City may not be her fault either, but you can't say she couldn't see it coming!
bikinifool - perhaps she thought the first time was a fluke. Perhaps her mother was beaten or she was as a child and this is normal for her. Like a dog, who is beaten, he is still loyal to his loved one/human. And he will get kicked again. A weak woman who allows this to happen appears to be the same way. I also think she saw $$ perhaps to get out of the life she had - it couldn't have been good to be with a low life like him. I can't blame her no matter what. They both need counseling. She needs a backbone and some self respect. He needs a boat load of counseling. I don't feel sorry for him, only their children. I hope she runs but I think she's too weak. People treat you the way you allow them to treat you. he'd be dead if he hit me. My family alone would kill him!!
"People treat you the way you allow them to treat you." I couldn't agree with you more on this. As for why so much more in football, most of these guys are little more than neanderthals to begin with.
That's the only thing I could think of - she thinks it's worth a million or so to let him vent some anger now & then. But if he can knock her out with one shot, killing her with the next one isn't far fetched at all, and what good is that cool million doing you now?
Now that he's out of football, how long do you think his money is going to last? I just don't see this ending well. But - not my problem.
Brian
Brian - thankfully not mine either.
Last night while watching a baseball game I saw 2 of my men get hit. One in the face and one on the elbow and knocked him down(Jeter) Then they broke into my game to show Marlins Stanton getting hit in the face with a fast ball and he was taken out on a stretcher. The look on the face of the pitcher was fear and honest to God he felt badly. I don't think Rice even felt that badly and it was his significant other.
I think I've seen enough hitting this week that's for sure!
TGIF
it's really very simple.
we have a violent culture that glorifies and rewards violence.
then within that culture we have a game that more than any other requires players to engage in violent acts.
then the rosters of those teams fill up with men who are good at violence and emotionally predisposed to it.
granted, some football players are regular guys, but you get a lot more ray rices than you get tim greens.
then on those teams the men use a lot of steroids, and they don;t call it "roid rage" for nothing.
add in head injuries, which make it difficult to regulate anger responses and float all that in a culture in which celebrity athletes are paid huge amounts of money and don't answer to laws or rules and it's surprising that the incidence of domestic abuse and other violent crimes isn't higher than it is.
flask, best answer yet.
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