Ray Rice is just the latest example of a
professional athlete charged with violence or sexual assault on a woman in the
last year or so alone. We can add the richest athlete in sports, Floyd
Mayweather Jr., who reported has assaulted at least four women, including one
that induced 90 days in jail in 2012 and another that is currently suing him
for holding a gun to your head, choking her and essentially locking her in
their apartment (UT
San Diego). There is the Florida State’s Heisman Trophy winning quarterback
Jameis Winston, who is alleged to have raped a recent graduate in 2012 (Time).
There is MMA star War Machine who beat his ex-girlfriend and friend almost to
death (Daily
Mail). There is the South African double-amputee and Special Olympics (and
regular Olympics) star Oscar Pistorius, who will soon realize his fate after
fatally shooting his model girlfriend (NY Daily
News). If we go back a little further, we can add boxer Mike Tyson, former
NFL player Darren Sharper, ex-NBAer “Fast” Eddie Johnson, former skater Mark
Rogowski (who raped and murdered a 22-year-old) and a whole host of others.
Why is it athletes are so often implicated
in violence against women? Is it the nature of sports? Steroids? The sense of
invincibility that financial and competitive success reap? The hyper-masculine
world of professional sports in general? Or something else? The sad reality is
that these athletes serve as role models to young men inside and outside sports
and set an example that only reinforces the male-gaze, misogynistic spectacle
they are surrounded by. In the case of Ray Rice, a star running back for the
Baltimore Ravens, there was an uproar among some after he was only handed a
two-game suspension after reports of the beating originally emerged. But the
video released by TMZ yesterday forced the hand of both the Ravens and the NFL,
and he was essentially “fired” from his job, losing tens of millions in salary
in bonuses.
A victory for women? Not exactly, if we
consider the rather meager original punishment, the fact that many support
these athletes after these allegations are made and the fact that many go on to
earn further fame and fortune either after they get off, or out of prison. And
the words of his now wife only reinforce the notion that she is one among an
endless array of battered women who condone the violence against them. For
those who missed it, here is the original tweet on her now private account:
I recently published a story about a
heartwarming story from sports; it’s too bad that this is the sort of news so
often coming out of the world of sports. Cheating, corruption, greed and violence
have become too big a part of sports and one hopes that recent examples like
Donald Sterling, Rice and Bruce Levenson deciding to sell the Hawks will serve
as a warning to players, coaches and owners that the racism and sexism of the
past will no longer be abided in professional sports. Maybe Rice has reformed
his ways and his wife is supporting the man he has become, but it is time to
stop condoning the horrific behavior of what were once our heroes.
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