Super Bowl Sunday

Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday, that unofficial holiday where Americans celebrate that uniquely American sport, football. It's a day of food and comradery and really creative television commercials. It's also a day where incidents of domestic abuse spike.

Picture this. They are fighting inside their mobile home. He is wearing a white tank aptly named a "wife beater." With a cigarette dangling from his lips and a can of beer in his hand, he bellows at his barefoot, pregnant little wife. She backs away to avoid yet another blow. It's a stereotype, my friends. This image distracts us from the reality of abuse. The reality is this: it's not always physical. It affects straight and gay couples. It respects no socio-economic boundaries. Women are perpetrators just as truly as men are.

Abuse thrives in secrecy and shame. We as a nation have failed to shine a bright light on it. We have failed to educate the public. We have failed to provide a safety net for those who need it.

Abuse is not about physical violence, although violence can play into it. It's about control. Abuse is cyclical. It typically has three components: 1. the abuse 2. a honeymoon period, with sweetness, apologies and improved behavior 3. a relatively calm period. Then it starts all over again, spinning in endless circles. Abuse is cunning. If the abuser were awful all the time, the victim would be gone very early on. But sometimes the abuser is really wonderful, and it's those times the victim holds on to. That's what pulls the victim in even more tightly. That's what really gives the abuser control.

I enjoy football. I learned to love it when my younger son played in high school. It is a violent sport, but I don't think all violence is bad. I am working tomorrow, but I will catch a little of the Super Bowl. The commercials are my favorite part. Wouldn't it be great if one of those commercials would be a public service announcement about domestic abuse?

Susan