Hope Solo - Does Domestic Violence Have A Double Standard?
September 26, 2014 1:26 PM   Subscribe

Female football star Hope Solo was recently arrested and charged with two counts of domestic abuse in connection with an assault on her sister and 17-year-old nephew. Although domestic abuse has rightly ended the careers of male athletes like Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy, Solo continues to play for two teams (including the US National team) and maintains her sponsorship with Nike. The BBC asks; does domestic violence have a double standard?
posted by Effigy2000 (123 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 


We need standards in the first place for there to be any kind of "double standard." Fear of outcry from your advertisers does not a standard make.
posted by barchan at 1:32 PM on September 26, 2014 [8 favorites]


Although domestic abuse has rightly ended the careers

It is far from clear that anyone's career has been ended.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:32 PM on September 26, 2014 [13 favorites]




Wait, is Slate really trying to argue that a grown woman verbally abusing, then beating up a 17 year old relative is somehow not "real" domestic violence because she's a woman and he's not? That's some of the most toxic shit I've heard in a long time.
posted by Itaxpica at 1:41 PM on September 26, 2014 [13 favorites]


No, that is not what Slate is arguing at all.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:43 PM on September 26, 2014 [11 favorites]


No, that is not what Slate is arguing at all.

Sorry, wrong article, I meant The Atlantic. I had both tabs open at once.

'And it also true that what Hope Solo is alleged to have done is violent and wrong. But they are not the same specimen of violent and wrong.'

'There is a reason why we call it the "Violence Against Women Act" and not the "Brawling With Families Act."'

This reads to me a lot like saying "well, hey, there's domestic violence and then there's domestic violence"
posted by Itaxpica at 1:45 PM on September 26, 2014 [23 favorites]


Domestic Violence can be against a man or a woman. But violence against men is an isolated crime while violence against women is an epidemic.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:47 PM on September 26, 2014 [14 favorites]


If you believe that athlete charged with crimes should not play, then Hope Solo should not play.

If you believe athelets convicted of a crime should play, then Hopo Solo can play.

If you believe that Adrian Petersen should not play, because he has been charged with a domestic violence crime, but that Hope Solo should, because she's only been charged, then you are, in fact, asserting that it's OK to play after being charged -- if you are a white female who plays soccer, but not a black man who plays football.

And if you want me to give any respect to that position? Sorry. I won't.

There is no "if" or "unless" here. This is DV. There is no if or unless. The USWNT has a huge influence on young women in the US, and what the USSF is saying is that it is okay to beat family members if your on the first team, and I won't abide that position or grant credence to anyone trying to say that Hope Solo playing last week was ok.

It wasn't. It was a shit move by USSF, it was a doubly shit move to make her the captain, and you'd all be screaming for heads if that national team member with the DV charges was named Tim Howard, and I am frankly digested at you giving a pass to the other national team goalie.
posted by eriko at 1:48 PM on September 26, 2014 [61 favorites]


One interesting parallel between Hope Solo and Ray Rice -- both of them got married really, really fast after domestic violence incidents.

Years before the incident discussed in this post, Hope Solo married her husband Jerramy Stevens, a former NFL player, hours after Stevens appeared in court following a domestic incident. At the time, it was speculated that the marriage was set up to so that they could not be compelled to testify against each other. However, they had gotten a wedding license days before the incident.

Similarly, Ray Rice married Janay Palmer, the woman he struck in the video, one day after being indicted by a grand jury for striking her. "Sources" said they had planned the wedding for weeks.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:53 PM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


But violence against men is an isolated crime while violence against women is an epidemic.

I can see how that justifies differential approaches to combating the problem (i.e., committing more resources to specifically combatting male-on-female domestic violence, social education programs, women's shelters etc.). I can't see how it changes the calculation about what is or is not an appropriate response to proven, individual acts of violence by individual players. If what Hope Solo did would merit a ban had it been done by a male player, then it merits a ban in her case.
posted by yoink at 1:53 PM on September 26, 2014 [19 favorites]


... you'd all be screaming for heads ... I am frankly digested at you giving a pass ...

What "you" are you referring to here? I'm not seeing anyone in this thread making that argument, so maybe it would help if you clarified?

At a more meta level, I'm honestly tired of the pattern of finding one crappy thing done by one woman used as a zinger to supposedly balance an enormous pattern of crappy things done by men, and then to have that held up as a "double standard." That's so obviously a shitty and worthless approach that I'm disappointed to see it even being quoted here.
posted by Dip Flash at 1:55 PM on September 26, 2014 [72 favorites]


This is a thread that calls for speaking with nuance and attempting to recognize the nuance in what other people are saying. I think we can safely say nobody here believes domestic violence deserves a pass. I think we believe that different cases merit different responses depending on the circumstances involved in a general sense.

Ray Rice committed a particular sort of domestic violence...Male on Female...that is incredibly common and sometimes socially promoted. It leads to many deaths. Solo engaged in a more rare form of violence that will generally have less severe consequences. We have to engage with both how the events are similar and how they are different.

My personal view is she probably should have sat out at least a little while, but it would be unfortunate if we sent the message that she is no different than Rice. So for the most part this is one of those issues where I just throw up my hands and say, "I'm glad nobody is actually depending on me to figure this out for them."
posted by Drinky Die at 1:56 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


beating up a child

A seventeen-year old that held her down on the ground by her hair and broke a broom over her head.

I'm not sure that Solo should be treated more leniently because she was "brawling" with her family. I am sure that characterizing what happened as "beating up a child" is misleading.
posted by oneirodynia at 1:57 PM on September 26, 2014 [25 favorites]


It'd be interesting if everyone posted their gender along with their opinions on this. As a follower of the USWNT *and* the Reign, I've definitely been keeping my eye on this story, and while it's not completely polarized along gender lines it is close.

My feeling is that unless the player has either been convicted OR there's a video which is pretty much incontrovertible/overwhelming evidence, the team should be able to choose whether to play or not play their employee based on what the teams feel about the situation.

More importantly I feel every league should come up with a policy and stick to it, even if that policy is 'we don't differentiate domestic abuse from other crimes' - having SOMETHING in print and enforceable is critical.

I also feel the USWNT made a serious error making Solo captain at any point during this until the situation is resolved one way or the other.
posted by taterpie at 1:58 PM on September 26, 2014 [5 favorites]


It's about power to control a relationship. Hope Solo was not clearly not fighting to control the relationship with her sister or her nephew. She was just being a run of the mill violent douchebag. Plain old assault and battery and, as I understand, happened on both sides in this case. Gender really has nothing to do with it.

She should be thrown off the team for brawling with family members. But this "any violence is domestic violence" shtick has to stop. Domestic violence is committed in a specific way for a specific purpose. This was not domestic violence. Not by a long shot.
posted by Talez at 1:59 PM on September 26, 2014 [15 favorites]


Maybe this is naive or stupid of me, but I have always been confused as to why any of this would be considered to have anything to do with someone's employment rather than being a matter for the police and the courts. I am not trying to be disingenuous or trivialize the issue, I just honestly don't see how it's at all related or relevant. (Bear in mind I feel this pretty universally ... if it doesn't affect or occur on the job, I don't see how it is an employer's business at all.)
posted by kyrademon at 1:59 PM on September 26, 2014 [4 favorites]


Does domestic violence have a double standard? Of course it does.

Violence against women is more common, and is also more likely to result in death. But Domestic Violence against anyone, regardless of gender, is equally unacceptable.
posted by leotrotsky at 2:00 PM on September 26, 2014 [7 favorites]


Kyrademon, things change when someone is a public figure and a potential role model to potentially hundreds of thousands of younger girls out there.
posted by Talez at 2:02 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


If you believe that Adrian Petersen should not play, because he has been charged with a domestic violence crime, but that Hope Solo should, because she's only been charged, then you are, in fact, asserting that it's OK to play after being charged -- if you are a white female who plays soccer, but not a black man who plays football.

This seems like an odd interpretation, to me; the only reason that Petersen wasn't treated like most Black men get treated by the justice system is because he's a wealthy athlete with powerful interests behind him, which is also true about Solo, though to a lesser degree. Their demographic characteristics weren't really an issue because their status as wealthy, valuable athletes are all that anyone cared about until that fact, itself, became apparent.

At the very least, race doesn't seem to explain as much about differing reactions as gender does. In addition, though, Hope Solo was violent with someone who was much closer to her in strength than Petersen, and that incident is also (as others have pointed out) very different in terms of what social patterns it falls into.

So, while I don't think that Hope Solo should go unsanctioned or unprosecuted, I do think it's somewhat arbitrary to elide relevant contrasts between the two cases by suggesting that the relevant difference is race and gender.
posted by clockzero at 2:03 PM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]


It'd be interesting if everyone posted their gender along with their opinions on this.

All right, I'll play this game. I'm male, and I think that Ray Rice, Hope Solo, and any other athlete regardless of gender who is arrested for domestic violence (or any violent crime) should be benched and not allowed to resume play until they're cleared of charges by a court of law. If found guilty, they should be banned for life.

Maybe this is naive or stupid of me, but I have always been confused as to why any of this would be considered to have anything to do with someone's employment rather than being a matter for the police and the courts.

Because athletes are role models on a grand scale, and thus their actions should be treated accordingly. This is more than just about 'employment'.
posted by Itaxpica at 2:05 PM on September 26, 2014 [7 favorites]


" If what Hope Solo did would merit a ban had it been done by a male player, then it merit's a ban in her case."

It has "merited a ban" in the NFL for literally the last two weeks.

The goalposts on this issue are MOVING AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT, it is reasonable that the massive bureaucracies that are US sports governing bodies/leagues have not yet all found parity on this issue ... particularly given that the NFL's magic newborn stance against domestic violence was not motivated by concerns of justice or morality or safety, but concerns about bad press and exposed coverups. Not that that makes existing policies okay; just that it's ridiculous to pretend the NFL is suddenly more "just" than other leagues. No, the NFL just had videotape and whistleblowers and found religion in the hopes of defusing the blowback.

Also, for all the folks whining "Why is there no coverage on Hope Solo?" that just shows they don't give a shit about women's sports (and that women's sports are comparatively culturally powerless and unimportant); people who follow women's sports even a tiny bit have been reading extensive coverage of Solo's legal problems stemming from this event since June. SOOOOO glad the man-o-sphere "discovered" this event has had "no coverage" just in time to forward their "feminists are unfair!!!!" message. No, dude; women's media and women's sports media has covered this extensively. Your total lack of interest in lady-things, except insofar as they advance your narrative of how men get a bum deal and therefore domestic violence isn't important, just goes to prove the point that women's sports don't matter very much to the national conversation on violence.

(I am of the opinion this has far more in common with "plain old assault and battery" than "intimate partner violence," as the latter is about more than just regular violent asshattery but a pattern of power and control and silence within an intimate relationship that is extremely difficult to escape. I don't believe she has any custodial care over the child in question, which is also a thing makes for a more complex and difficult situation and differentiates this from several other recent high-profile child assault cases. But an adult just plain assaulting a minor is plenty bad on its own, and I am in favor of serious penalties and have applied quite serious employment penalties in similar cases.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:07 PM on September 26, 2014 [103 favorites]


when a video surfaces of hope solo punching unconscious a victim more than 100 pounds lighter than her in an elevator, i'll support her suspension.
posted by bruce at 2:12 PM on September 26, 2014 [7 favorites]


"Maybe this is naive or stupid of me, but I have always been confused as to why any of this would be considered to have anything to do with someone's employment rather than being a matter for the police and the courts. I am not trying to be disingenuous or trivialize the issue, I just honestly don't see how it's at all related or relevant."

I do think the part of the conversation that's been elided in the discussion of the NFL's policy towards domestic abusers is that some idiot who saw the Ray Rice tape was willing to divert him into a program for non-violent offenders. What the hell, police and courts?

I understand the history and dynamics of how we got to a place where we expect sports leagues to police crimes committed by their players, but it is a totally flummoxing cultural moment when you stop to think about it. Just bizarre.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:12 PM on September 26, 2014


it's ridiculous to pretend the NFL is suddenly more "just" than other leagues

It's kinda ridiculous to pretend that anyone in this thread is making that argument, too.
posted by yoink at 2:15 PM on September 26, 2014 [5 favorites]


Obviously Solo's problem is that she spends too much time around her former-NFL-player husband and has learned bad habits from him. See, getting rid of NFL players would even solve domestic violence in women's soccer!
posted by the agents of KAOS at 2:15 PM on September 26, 2014 [5 favorites]


Ray Rice, Hope Solo, and any other athlete regardless of gender who is arrested for domestic violence (or any violent crime) should be benched and not allowed to resume play until they're cleared of charges by a court of law. If found guilty, they should be banned for life.

I think everyone can get behind this. Whether this is domestic violence or not muddies the issue, as does debating whether this is a double standard or a different crime. She is accused of a violent crime and athletes should be benched until they are cleared of charges of violence. I'm looking at you too Kobe.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:16 PM on September 26, 2014 [5 favorites]


I have always been confused as to why any of this would be considered to have anything to do with someone's employment rather than being a matter for the police and the courts.

Back in the 60s, with the nation's eyes on the astronauts that would try for the moon (and the spotlight on their families too), having "The Right Stuff" also meant being squeaky clean, being good in the spotlight, being a living epitome of America that America could be proud of, a citizen and a family that the nation could look up to and be inspired.

Today, in the ultra-connected 21st century, any public-facing job, where people can (mis)associate you or your actions with the company you represent, requires similarly having The Right Stuff as far as that company is concerned. The actions of the face that the company shows the world are very very much to do with their employment.

I am the opposite of public facing - the company keeps strong walls between people like me and anyone not already in the company, and yet even so, we all know to avoid anything that could cause the appearance of inappropriate behavior being linked to the company.
In the 21st century, that's just basic professionalism. You want to be a pro, you've got to act like one.
posted by anonymisc at 2:20 PM on September 26, 2014 [5 favorites]


Uh, they are the same. Both have been charged with domestic violence.

No, there is not a double standard. Police in both jurisdictions believe there was enough evidence to charge each athlete with domestic violence.

Is there a double standard by the sports leagues and U.S. Soccer?

Good question. The original penalty for Rice was a 2-day suspension. Solo is allowed to play.

Rice's bigger suspension is for either (a) not being truthful about it; or (b) NFL caught covering it up.

So in one sense, yes, Hope Solo should have a 2-game suspension.

Is there a double standard in how we talk about it?

A foolish question. some people have such standards, some don't.

what are the facts?
In a 1995-1996 study conducted in the 50 States and the District of Columbia, nearly 25% of women and 7.6% of men were raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or dating partner/acquaintance at some time in their lifetime (based on survey of 16,000 participants, equally male and female).
Approximately 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States.
Stalking According to the Stalking Resource Center:

1,006,970 women and 370,990 men are stalked annually in the United States.
1 in 12 women and 1 in 45 men will be stalked in their lifetime.
77% of female and 64% of male victims know their stalker.
87% of stalkers are men.
59% of female victims and 30% of male victims are stalked by an intimate partner.
81% of women stalked by a current or former intimate partner are also physically assaulted by that partner.
31% of women stalked by a current or former intimate partner are also sexually assaulted by that partner.
The average duration of stalking is 1.8 years.
If stalking involves intimate partners, the average duration of stalking increases to 2.2 years.
61% of stalkers made unwanted phone calls; 33% sent or left unwanted letters or items; 29% vandalized property; and 9% killed or threatened to kill a family pet.
28% of female victims and 10% of male victims obtained a protective order. 69% of female victims and 81% of male victims had the protection order violated.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:31 PM on September 26, 2014 [7 favorites]


Role models can be human. Instead of just the great achievements by themselves, it's the circumstances a person has gone through and their response that are interesting and enlightening. This perception of role models (especially politicians...) being perfect makes it so, so very mentally easy to attack the weaknesses of others instead of considering the person as a whole.

But I still think she should be suspended for a while. I can simultaneously say that you can learn from a public person and penalize them based on social code.
posted by halifix at 2:34 PM on September 26, 2014


Every one of those stats you just posted mentions a partner, not a father, sister, cousin, nephew. That alone is sort of an apples to oranges situation.

If you wanted to apply the equivalency to say, Adrian Peterson re child abuse, you'd do better.

(lady here)
posted by taterpie at 2:34 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


It's about power to control a relationship. Hope Solo was not clearly not fighting to control the relationship with her sister or her nephew. She was just being a run of the mill violent douchebag. Plain old assault and battery and, as I understand, happened on both sides in this case. Gender really has nothing to do with it.

We basically know nothing of the motivations of either person in the case. Domestic violence charges only turn on the status of the victim and alleged perpetrator. Whether someone is attempting to control someone or not is irrelevant.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:36 PM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]


no, potomac avenue, i can't get behind that.

suppose a lawyer was accused of resisting arrest and assaulting a deputy sheriff with a flashlight, and convicted by a municipal court jury, before he filed an appeal. should he be "benched" upon the filing of the charge? the answer is, he's allowed to continue practicing until the judgment of conviction becomes final. that's the standard that applies to the officers of our courts, who arguably perform much more sensitive, critical and responsible functions than the athletic entertainers named in this thread.

the judgment of conviction never became final, because i won the appeal (pro se!) and made it all go away.
posted by bruce at 2:37 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


I think the distinction between Ray Rice/Adrian Peterson and Hope Solo is that Rice and Peterson were the aggressors in one-sided altercations while it seems like Hope Solo was a participant in a fight. The nephew she assaulted broke a broom over her head and pointed a gun at her (source).

I could be wrong. But I think that there is a difference between being the aggressor in a fight and being one participant in a fight of 2+ participants. That doesn't make it okay but it is different.
posted by kat518 at 2:39 PM on September 26, 2014 [12 favorites]


kyrademon: Maybe this is naive or stupid of me, but I have always been confused as to why any of this would be considered to have anything to do with someone's employment rather than being a matter for the police and the courts. I am not trying to be disingenuous or trivialize the issue, I just honestly don't see how it's at all related or relevant. (Bear in mind I feel this pretty universally ... if it doesn't affect or occur on the job, I don't see how it is an employer's business at all.)

I made a similar argument over in the Ray Rice thread, though more in defense of Peterson than Rice. (The circumstances surrounding Rice not facing charges are confounding enough that I'm not as comfortable dying on his particular hill.)

The fact that athletes have historically been role models doesn't mean we have to buy into a cargo cult mentality that assumes that they must be role models. Sanctioning employees outside of the legal system based on matters not yet adjudicated by the courts could lead to some very bad outcomes. Yes, employers have the right to decide who represents them, but letting them selectively make decisions about how they take away peoples' livelihood without any due process sounds like a very bad idea when you extend it beyond the realm of billionaires who pay millionaires to throw and catch a ball.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:41 PM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]


Every one of those stats you just posted mentions a partner, not a father, sister, cousin, nephew. That alone is sort of an apples to oranges situation.

If you wanted to apply the equivalency to say, Adrian Peterson re child abuse, you'd do better.

(lady here)


Good point.
One fact that is clear across the board: perpetrators of child abuse and neglect are most often the child's own parents. According to NCANDS, a 2005 study showed that 79.4% of child abusers were the parents, and the next largest pool of abusers consisted of unmarried partners of the parents of child victims. A whopping 40% of child victims were abused by their mothers acting alone, and a disturbing 17.3% were abused by both parents.
I'm surprised these numbers are so high for women, but apparently 40% of all child abuse victims are abused by their mothers acting alone, 17.3% were abused by both parents. and 42.7% were abused by men alone.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:42 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


I think it's really hard to have this conversation without pointing out that Hope Solo is a person that a lot of people love to hate. She's the Tonya Harding of women's soccer. ANYTHING she does that the media can put before the public is going to receive more attention -- and more negative attention -- than it would if we were talking about someone other than Hope Solo.
posted by mudpuppie at 2:43 PM on September 26, 2014 [6 favorites]


But I think that there is a difference between being the aggressor in a fight and being one participant in a fight of 2+ participants.

According to police, she was the primary aggressor and the broom was used essentially in defense. Obviously, that isn't how Solo and her lawyer see it.

Police said Solo's nephew and sister had visible injuries. After interviewing witnesses, police determined that Solo was the "primary aggressor and had instigated the assault," the statement said.
-
When the half-sister walked in, Solo attacked her, according to the document. The nephew took a wooden broom that he "broke over (Solo's) head" in an attempt to stop the assault, the affidavit states.

posted by Drinky Die at 2:43 PM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]


Although domestic abuse has rightly ended the careers...

I'm not entirely convinced it's "right" that their careers ended for something unrelated to their work, but then I don't feel bad about it because it's apparently the only consequences they're going to face. These are situations where "rightness" doesn't really matter to me.

My understanding is that the argument for why it's important for the NFL to be involved and investigating this sort of thing where other employers would not is because these guys are role models to young people. That much is not really different for Hope Solo, and there should probably be some consequences if that's the expectation for sports leagues and the way we're going. That said, I do agree that it shouldn't necessarily be the same severity.

The nephew she assaulted broke a broom over her head and pointed a gun at her (source).


After she punched him, by my reading.

"One thing led to another, and, after the nephew accused Solo's family and father as being the crazy ones, she allegedly charged and punched him. According to the report, they grappled and Solo wound up punching her nephew and half-sister several times. Attempting to stop Solo from assaulting his mother, the report states, the nephew broke a broom over Solo's head. When that didn't stop her, he grabbed a broken BB gun from somewhere, pointed it at Solo and told her to leave."
posted by Hoopo at 2:44 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


suppose a lawyer was accused of resisting arrest and assaulting a deputy sheriff with a flashlight, and convicted by a municipal court jury, before he filed an appeal. should he be "benched" upon the filing of the charge?

As the person who made the post Potomac quoted: no, because thousands of children don't look up to lawyers as role models, and allowing the lawyer to continue practicing doesn't model to those children that violence is acceptable and normal.

If a child worships a sports hero, and that hero is arrested for a violent crime but is able to continue doing the thing that makes them a hero in the first place, you're telling that kid that violence doesn't preclude you being the kind of person they look up to - that in fact, it may be a part of what makes them who they are. And that's something we as a society, especially considering the nearly staggering propensity towards violence we show in the first place, need to push back against hard.
posted by Itaxpica at 2:45 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


letting them selectively make decisions about how they take away peoples' livelihood without any due process sounds like a very bad idea when you extend it beyond the realm of billionaires who pay millionaires to throw and catch a ball.

We're talking about that realm right now, though.
posted by Itaxpica at 2:47 PM on September 26, 2014 [4 favorites]


(Re: my comment above: I didn't mean that domestic violence shouldn't receive negative attention. What I meant to say is that any story involving Hope Solo is going to have a certain amount of media spin and salaciousness, which makes me wary.)
posted by mudpuppie at 2:48 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


I am sure that characterizing what happened as "beating up a child" is misleading.

With rare exceptions, a 17-year old is usually legally a child in the United States. But that differentiation here — for the purposes of discussing how society responds to the issue of (domestic) assault — seems almost entirely beside the point.

If anything, that differentiation suggests the severity of assault is graded differently, with less weight applied to the severity of the violence and more weight applied to other, less relevant factors (age or gender of the victim, or the response to the acts of assault, etc.) that perhaps suggest that a victim was less victimized (or was the real victimizer).

Though the details of the alleged assault are clearly functionally different from those of Rice, apart from the legal issues that will be decided in the courtroom, it is useful to note how the response leads to similar explanations or rationalizations for violent acts, which ultimately boil down to — in one form or another — redirecting blame away from the victimizer and to the victim.

The legal issues will be worked out through that machinery. But outside of the courts, it is just human nature to make and apply different rules for people we want to make and apply different rules for. No legal structure can rewire that impulse, but it is always worth evaluating our biases, all the same.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 2:51 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


Itaxpica: We're talking about that realm right now, though.

I did not say it made sense in that realm, either. It doesn't, and the fact that you insist that their status as role models is a prime reason we ought to be okay with it shows how weak your case is. As if having them be role models is a good thing that we ought to try to preserve.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:51 PM on September 26, 2014


letting them selectively make decisions about how they take away peoples' livelihood without any due process sounds like a very bad idea when you extend it beyond the realm of billionaires who pay millionaires to throw and catch a ball.

We're talking about that realm right now, though.


just to be clear, nobody is owed due process in the US regarding negative employment actions unless they (1) have a contract that creates it; (2) they are government employees; or (3) they assert a claim under another law which guarantees them due process.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:52 PM on September 26, 2014 [4 favorites]


"should he be "benched" upon the filing of the charge? the answer is, he's allowed to continue practicing until the judgment of conviction becomes final. "

Part of the issue here, and part of why we're asking sports leagues to deal with crimes by players, is that the criminal courts are falling apart under the weight of petty drug charges, increased due process requirements since the 60s, and Ferguson-like tickets and non-appearance warrants and non-payment judgments and self-pay parole and all these other bits of paperwork. They take FOREVER to process cases and barely bother to hear most of them; so many cases are pled out that appellate courts are starting to rule that they constitute a shadow criminal justice system almost totally without oversight, and starting to rule that similar due process protections must apply.

So we have a situation where more than 90% of criminal cases are pled out (often to lesser charges) and where taking a case to trial can easily take well over a year -- certainly longer than a single sports season. It is extremely difficult to trust that the criminal court system will apply appropriate punishments to offenders (plea bargains are typically to a lesser charge, for a lesser sentence, and don't take much interest in guilt or innocence) in a timely fashion, especially in domestic violence cases where conviction hinges on the testimony of an abused spouse.

So we end up with cases like Ray Rice's, where there is actual video of an egregious assault, and he's put into pre-trial diversion. Or, like a case I saw here, where there was video (that became public) of a big male 50-something teacher punching a minor female student because she was mouthing off, and once there was a restraining order in place, the prosecutor's office just dropped it because they didn't want to deal with a small-potatoes case like that. Which left the school system to independently pursue its parallel system of teacher punishment getting the dude's certificate pulled so he wouldn't be allowed back in the classroom. But he wasn't convicted of anything.

Which is part of how we get to a place where we ask employers, from the NFL to school districts to private corporations, to discipline their employees and make judgments about their criminal culpability, before or independently of the courts, because the courts simply can't and won't and don't.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:52 PM on September 26, 2014 [27 favorites]


The two situations differ from one another in a lot of ways. One is in just the degree of harm involved; Solo did not hurt that kid anywhere NEARLY as bad as Ray Rice hurt Janay Rice. Would she have, if she'd been as much stronger than he was as Ray was than Janay? I dunno. But she didn't. That's a real thing that's worth taking into account. She doesn't live with these people, either (I don't think?); violence is easier to avoid when the aggressor and the victim don't share a residence.

Around here in Seattle, when she Stevens beat each other up, the tenor of the commentariat varied from "Oh, Hope" to "Looks like Stevens picked the wrong woman to beat up" to "Those two need anger management classes and to NOT BE MARRIED TO EACH OTHER." She definitely has a reputation for being a dangerous lowlife-type person, I think the Tonya Harding comparison is pretty apt, and this latest incident has definitely tipped the scales in favor of the "violent douchebag" impression for a lot of people, myself included. But even when taken in the worst possible light, Solo's violent acts don't hold a candle to Rice's.
posted by KathrynT at 2:54 PM on September 26, 2014 [5 favorites]


As if having them be role models is a good thing that we ought to try to preserve.

I'm not saying that it's a good thing, I'm saying it's a real thing. We can talk till we're blue in the face about hero worship of sports figures and what we as a culture value but that's not gonna change the fact that whether we like it or not there's a kid out there with a Ray Rice poster on his wall who's learning very real things from all of this.
posted by Itaxpica at 2:55 PM on September 26, 2014 [4 favorites]


Itaxpica: I'm not saying that it's a good thing, I'm saying it's a real thing. We can talk till we're blue in the face about hero worship of sports figures and what we as a culture value but that's not gonna change the fact that whether we like it or not there's a kid out there with a Ray Rice poster on his wall who's learning very real things from all of this.

The correct action with Ray Rice was to have the legal system act appropriately. It did not. Outsourcing the punishment to a private entity only magnifies the problem and takes away incentive to reform the justice system, which is far more accountable than a deal some NFL owners make on golf courses. I just can't get behind this "ends justify the means" thinking that lets people think this is okay just because it creates some vague notion of "justice" being done by something that isn't the justice system.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:58 PM on September 26, 2014 [5 favorites]


I think the NFL makes its own decisions in regards to its image, not in any way to influence or act as a substitute for legal consequences of its players. They regularly fire players for drug use (marijuana, typically) whether or not the legal system is involved.
posted by krinklyfig at 3:03 PM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]


I just can't get behind this "ends justify the means" thinking that lets people think this is okay just because it creates some vague notion of "justice" being done by something that isn't the justice system.

I never said anything about justice. Just punishment for criminal acts can, by definition, only come from the criminal justice system. This isn't about penalizing the offenders, it's about mitigating the harm that they can do by virtue of continuing to hold their positions.
posted by Itaxpica at 3:03 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


Maybe i'm a shitty person for thinking this, but...

If the 17 year old had been arrested and charged with assaulting her, how likely do you think it would be they were tried as an adult? I'd say that's a nonzero chance.

She threw the first punch, which matters a lot in my opinion and makes it what's being described, her assaulting someone(in this case, several somones) and them defending themselves.

I think calling them a child is murky though, and kind of dirties up the conversation. They're legally a child, but they're old enough that i could see a judge saying fuck it. And a lot of 17 year olds are well, college student sized.

I know several people who have stupid, alcoholic or whatever parents that they'd get into brawls like this with when they were that age. It was not a one sided fight. There's a huge difference between punching a 17 year old and punching a 14 year old.

I almost feel gross posting this, but the "child" thing just squicked me out. 17 is not a child, except in some technical senses. You can have your own job, car, and apartment when you're 17. "She assaulted a family member and is charged with domestic violence" is more than good enough. "She assaulted a child!" just seems like a outragebait headline, even if it's technically true, because of what it makes people think of before they actually digest the details.

I'm open to being told why i'm wrong, though.
posted by emptythought at 3:07 PM on September 26, 2014 [4 favorites]


> "This isn't about penalizing the offenders, it's about mitigating the harm that they can do by virtue of continuing to hold their positions."

I don't think it is the NFL's job to provide moral education any more than it is their job to provide a substitute justice system. They seem extremely poorly equipped to do either.

The fact that people can be punished by employers for things which have no relation to their work has always struck me as terrifying and frightening and wrong. I understand that is the way things are in the U.S. The fact that anyone defends the practice, which many people do whenever the subject comes up, is bizarre and puzzling to me.
posted by kyrademon at 3:09 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


Yes, employers have the right to decide who represents them, but letting them selectively make decisions about how they take away peoples' livelihood without any due process sounds like a very bad idea when you extend it beyond the realm of billionaires who pay millionaires to throw and catch a ball.

a) If they have the right, then we have no choice but to let them make these decisions.

b) Athletes being role models is why fans or people in general want to see them punished/banned by the sports league. Athletes being a financial liability because of their bad behavior is why they actually get punished/banned by the league/team.

c) Why would anyone extend this? The whole reason why this is happening is that these people are prominent celebrities. The slippery slope thing isn't applicable. "The public" will ever know what Ned from accounting did, or care, or demand a company takes action.
posted by snofoam at 3:09 PM on September 26, 2014


I'm open to being told why i'm wrong, though.

In some ways it's true, but I'm reminded of all the people scoffing at the idea of calling Trayvon Martin a kid and I just don't wanna go down that path. Maturity levels vary, some 17 year olds are more adult. I was definitely still a kid. I don't think the law is that competent to tell the difference all the time and we should be giving the benefit of the doubt towards kid.
posted by Drinky Die at 3:11 PM on September 26, 2014 [7 favorites]


I don't know enough about the field, Ironmouth, but the gender parity with regard to parental abuse of children points toward domestic violence being about power as some have pointed out. Women abuse kids in near equal numbers as men do because they can. Men physically abuse their partners more than vice versa because men are more likely to be physically stronger/larger than their female partners. I dunno.
posted by Cassford at 3:11 PM on September 26, 2014 [6 favorites]


So. On planet Poe, (let's call it 'equestria') there is a magic button you can press that calls a social service that helps you figure your shit out. They aren't the cops and they don't actually prosecute you, but they can give you a time out or a way out. They provide counseling, and help getting further services.

Responding on the ambulance I saw a lot of situations where this magic button would have helped beforehand, and lots of situations where I wish I could press it before leaving.
posted by poe at 3:12 PM on September 26, 2014 [6 favorites]


She doesn't live with these people, either (I don't think?); violence is easier to avoid when the aggressor and the victim don't share a residence.

Not sure what's being implied here. The account linked above is that she showed up at this house full of wine, got into an argument, was asked to leave a number of times, then got violent.
posted by Hoopo at 3:16 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


Not sure what's being implied here.

Sorry, I didn't write very clearly. It's easier to say "Don't come back here, and if you do, I'll call the police" when someone doesn't live at the same residence than when they do, that's all. It doesn't help in that incident (obviously), but it affects future incidents.
posted by KathrynT at 3:31 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


> "'The public' will [n]ever know what Ned from accounting did, or care, or demand a company takes action."

Except for the fact that Neds from accounting gets fired for reasons unrelated to their jobs with a fair amount of frequency, as has been alluded to in this thread. (E.g. "... we all know to avoid anything that could cause the appearance of inappropriate behavior ...")
posted by kyrademon at 3:35 PM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


From the Atlantic article:

It is now becoming fashionable to ignore human history and dump all manner of insupportable violence committed by athletes into the same bucket. The label on that bucket reads "Something Bad, Which We Should Punish."

If you don't judge individuals on their individual acts (or at most upon their individual histories) then you're judging them in a way contingent to the acts and histories of others seen to be in the same group. It's a gross prejudice to erase a person's legal responsibility and replace it with some kind of communal legal responsibility. Is a man hitting a woman a worse crime because men hit women? Are they being judged because of their violence or because they're a violent man? To follow this through is to establish different classes of person in law who can expect different punishments. Totally illiberal.

In the history of humanity, spouse-beating is a particularly odious tradition—one often employed by men looking to exert power over women. ... That is because we recognize that violence against women is an insidious, and sometimes lethal, tradition that deserves a special place in our customs and laws.

Domestic violence, especially that committed by men, was and is pernicious because people did not see it as unjustified. However many men beat their wives, or however hard they beat them, the pernicious aspect is its acceptability. The earliest campaigns against domestic violence sought to have it recognized as violent assault when so often it was ignored as a "tiff", "quarrel", "she shouldn't speak to him like that", or even, "she had it coming". Women wanted equality before the law, not a special status.
posted by Thing at 3:35 PM on September 26, 2014 [13 favorites]


There's been a quietly unnerving absence of postings about this on my Facebook feed, taking into account that there are several people on my friends list who vociferously post and comment when the abuser is male. And call themselves feminists.
posted by New England Cultist at 3:47 PM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


Except for the fact that Neds from accounting gets fired for reasons unrelated to their jobs with a fair amount of frequency, as has been alluded to in this thread. (E.g. "... we all know to avoid anything that could cause the appearance of inappropriate behavior ...")

I don't see how this is relevant at all. I was just trying to say that public pressure to discipline an employee is only relevant in cases where the public is aware of the employee. Whatever happens to Ned (sorry to pick on you like this, Ned) is a different situation. Perhaps Ned doesn't deserve to be fired, but regardless of what happens to him, it won't be related to public outcry.
posted by snofoam at 3:50 PM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


If Hope Solo had been stupid enough to do what she (allegedly) did in front of a camera, this would, in all likelihood, be a different conversation.
posted by 4ster at 4:06 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


New England Cultist: “There's been a quietly unnerving absence of postings about this on my Facebook feed, taking into account that there are several people on my friends list who vociferously post and comment when the abuser is male. And call themselves feminists.”

I know. It's like... it's almost like... it's almost like people don't know anything about what's happening in women's soccer.

SHAMEFUL.
posted by koeselitz at 4:13 PM on September 26, 2014 [15 favorites]


There really are a bunch of guys out there arguing about how this is a double standard and I hate it. Because they don't care about domestic violence as a problem, they just want to defend the NFL, defend Ray Rice, and defend football because it's the source of their manliness. They view any curtailing of NFL violence as a bad thing, even with former long time players - legends - coming forth with brain issues. This is evidenced by Richard Sherman pre-Crabtree moment trying to say violent hits and concussions weren't a problem because guys knew they could get hit. Also evidenced by Stephen A Smith just yesterday saying the NFL is becoming "a lingerie league".

Anyway, if Hope played in the NFL, then maybe there would be an issue for me. But she doesn't. And the NFL has swept so many domestic violence cases under the rug (there is a grantland piece linked in the Ray Rice thread), and people who know nothing of any domestic violence NFL players committed previously, and don't care. Another thing is, guys on NFL squads face discipline all the time for violating team rules. They miss halves or miss games for missing practices. I think its hilarious to now see people (not in this thread) just beside themselves that a player is going to miss games for some dumb shit they did.

The NFL is not Soccer, or the NBA, or the NCAA. And if you haven't thought about it - think about it. A college student goes to take a test and gets screamed at and called names by the instructor. You're the student's parents - do you get upset? Wait, was it a professor, or a coach? Both agents of the school tasked with teaching students, but wildly different behavior is accepted. Your physics professor calling you a dumb ass or yelling about you missing question #10 on the test in front of the whole class would get a story. Krzyzewski does it, or Urban Meyer does it, and no problem.

Sportsperson A punches Sportsperson B in the unhelmeted face. If it's the NFL, the player gets thrown out, probably fined, but no big whoop. If it's Hockey - ha! If it's the NBA, a bunch of articles get written about a dark time for the player and the player is booed and it's scary and so forth and so on. There are plenty of different standards in sports. The NFL is not Soccer. And there are just way too many guys who have jumped on this whole situation as a way to defend the NFL, it's violence, and its violence toward women.
posted by cashman at 4:20 PM on September 26, 2014 [18 favorites]


No, Hope Solo Is Not "Like" Ray Rice

Wow, that's some weak shit.
posted by jpe at 4:23 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


jpe: No, Hope Solo Is Not "Like" Ray Rice

Wow, that's some weak shit.


Wow, that's some weak shit.
posted by tonycpsu at 4:33 PM on September 26, 2014 [7 favorites]


jpe: “Wow, that's some weak shit.”

What exactly is weak about it? Maybe the scare quotes shouldn't be there – I don't think he meant them as scare quotes, though. But Hope Solo is not like Ray Rice – this much is true. Hope Solo's case is pretty thoroughly different from Ray Rice's case.

For one thing, as Amanda Hess noted, Hope Solo's now-husband is Jerramy Stevens, a former NFL tight end who was accused of a pretty heinous rape in 2000, dodging the charge but paying out a $300K civil settlement. In 2012, Hope's brother Marcus called the cops and told them Jerramy was being violent toward her, but when the cops got there she told Marcus "don't say anything to them," and the case was dropped largely because she didn't want to cooperate with it. Hope and Jerramy got married a few months later.

None of that means Hope didn't do anything wrong. But it does make this case more complicated than Ray and Janay Rice's case. They are categorically different.
posted by koeselitz at 4:45 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


Seems pretty straightforward there is a double standard to me.

In the US, Soccer gets X amount of press, and Football gets 1000X amount press.
posted by el io at 4:46 PM on September 26, 2014 [6 favorites]


... and if you want an example of the NFL's historic stance on rape and domestic abuse, look no further than the Seattle Times' profile of Jerramy Stevens:
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed him — on the cheap — for $600,000, which was $5,000 above the minimum for a player with his experience.

"He is a big, powerful, speedy tight end," said general manager Bruce Allen. "He has had some off-the-field issues that have hampered him a bit. We had a very serious talk with him today. I think Jerramy Stevens is a good young man."

Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren had vouched for Stevens, Allen said.

"Sometimes," Allen said, "you have to give people a chance."
I wondered at first what that "very serious talk" involved. Did they just say 'hey now, try not to go around dragging sorority girls into the dirt and raping them brutally'? But then I realized the "very serious talk" almost certainly wasn't about the rape. It was about the DUI. The rape probably didn't come up at all.
posted by koeselitz at 4:52 PM on September 26, 2014 [5 favorites]


There really are a bunch of guys out there arguing about how this is a double standard and I hate it. Because they don't care about domestic violence as a problem, they just want to defend the NFL, defend Ray Rice, and defend football because it's the source of their manliness.

I don't care about the NFL. I had never heard of Ray Rice until a couple of weeks ago. I do not watch football and never have. Football is not the source of my manliness.

Nonetheless, this situation is clearly a double standard.

The lack of disciplinary action isn't all that surprising, since the USWNT and the NFL are different organizations with different policies. What is surprising, and disturbing, is the way people are bending over backwards to justify or minimize Solo's actions.
posted by jingzuo at 5:06 PM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]


What, 'elements of provocation?' No double-standard there, except no one getting paid Steve Smith bucks is taking Hope Solo's side.

As a person who's followed her career since back before the benching against Brazil, I'll tell you in my opinion Hope's got serious anger issues and I wouldn't have complained had the league or the team benched her, although in all cases I am more comfortable with 1. having an established policy 2. enforcing that policy 3. that policy being tied to proof either incontrovertible or as decided by a court.

Even then, teams will still make their own decisions about what they feel is good representation once the league has had its say.
posted by taterpie at 5:19 PM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]


I think it's great to take a stronger stand against domestic violence or assault whoever is doing it. I think if people are saying "There is a double standard" in order to promote more tolerance of male violence it's really awful and wrong, but I think it's great to take a stand against (non-defensive) violence committed by either males or females.

I also like trying to understand what factors in the environment, upbringing, cultural and physical factors that cause health problems or increases in violence- because I do think there are things that cause or increases it people and preventing is much better for everyone and I'm sympathetic that I think some people might have been influenced by factors beyond their control in some ways. Like this:

"Almost half of the women and one tenth of the men in the nation's jails and prisons say they were physically or sexually abused before their imprisonment, according to a report released by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics on April 11. A third of the women in state prisons, a quarter in local jails and a fifth of the women in federal prisons said they had been raped before their incarceration.

Women in the nation's prisons and jails reported higher levels of abuse as children than women in the general population. More than a third of female state prison and jail inmates said that they had been abused as children, as did about 14 percent of male inmates. The report noted that in the general population, estimates of physical or sexual abuse as children ranged from 12 to 17 percent for females and from 5 to 8 percent for males."

Also this "The new study draws a strong link between prior abuse and violent crime. Among male inmates in state prisons, 76 percent who were abused and 61 percent not abused had a
current or past sentence for a violent offense. Among female offenders, 45 percent of the abused and 29 percent not abused had served a sentence for a violent crime."

However the fact that men commit a large portion of violent crimes but only 10 percent are claiming history of assault or abuse means there is likely a lot more to the story.Meaning even if we viewed survivors who become perpetrators with a slightly different lens, it would not explain a lot of violent crimes and abuse perpetration. In any case, I don't think she should have played.
posted by xarnop at 5:21 PM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]


Interesting to read what the US Olympic Committee CEO, someone who regularly deals with male and female athletes as part of his brand, has to say about Hope Solo.

Also interesting to wonder how the USWNT second string goalie, Nicole Barnhart, must be feeling. She tweeted this photo Aug 21. The sign reads JillianLoydenFoundation. Jill Loyden is another USWNT goalie (out of late with injury) whose sister, Britton, died in 2012. The father of Britton's child, Ismael Pierce, was charged with first degree murder.
According to a complaint lodged by Vineland Detective A. Ramos on Friday and released by the prosecutor’s office Tuesday, Pierce did “. . . cause death to the victim, Loyden Britton (sic), specifically by pushing the victim leading the victim to fall and ultimately causing her death . . .

posted by Emor at 5:34 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


If you believe that Adrian Petersen should not play, because he has been charged with a domestic violence crime, but that Hope Solo should, because she's only been charged, then you are, in fact, asserting that it's OK to play after being charged -- if you are a white female who plays soccer, but not a black man who plays football.

No, the person you are imagining would only be "in fact" asserting that if the only difference between the two cases were the race, gender and sport of the individuals accused. Someone taking the position you described might be "in fact" asserting that people charged with misdemeanors should be allowed to play, while athletes charged with felonies should be benched.
posted by layceepee at 6:17 PM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


Soccer superstar Hope Solo was arrested early Saturday for allegedly striking her sister and her nephew at a Kirkland home.

Just before 1 a.m., Kirkland police responded to a 911 call about a disturbance in the 10600 block of 124th Ave N.E. The male caller had reported that a woman at the residence was hitting people and no one could get her to stop or leave the house, according to an account of the incident released Saturday by police.

Officers arrived and immediately heard the disturbance inside. They entered the house and contacted several people, including Seattle Reign goalie Hope Amelia Stevens (Solo), who officers said appeared intoxicated and upset.

“There was a big party going on at her house. It was an out-of-control situation,” Kirkland Police Lt. Mike Murray said Saturday.

Officers reported that they could see injuries on Solo’s 17-year-old nephew and Solo’s sister. After hearing statements from those involved, officers said they determined Solo was the primary aggressor and appeared to have instigated the assault.

Solo, 32, was arrested and booked into the South King County detention facility. She is being held without bail on two counts of investigation of fourth-degree domestic-violence assault. She will have a mandatory court appearance Monday at Kirkland Municipal Court.

“Hope is not guilty of any crime,” attorney Todd Maybrown said in an email. “In fact, our investigation reveals that Hope was assaulted and injured during this unfortunate incident. We look forward to the opportunity to present the true facts in court and to having this matter behind Hope very soon.”

Just a week ago, Solo, goalie for the unbeaten Seattle Reign and for the U.S. women’s team, posted her record-tying 71st career shutout, as the U.S. beat France 1-0 in an exhibition match in Tampa, Fla. Solo has made 152 appearances for the national team.

She had been excused from Thursday’s Reign FC game in Boston due to a family commitment, but had been expected to be available for Sunday’s road match against the Western New York Flash in Rochester, the team had said in a Friday news release.

The Reign released a terse statement Saturday on the late-night arrest: “We are aware of the situation regarding Hope Solo and are currently gathering information. We have no further comments at this time.”

U.S. Soccer released a statement, too: “We are aware of the situation. At this point, we don’t have any further comments.”

Solo has also played on two gold-medal-winning Olympic teams and appeared on ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars.” In November 2012, her then-boyfriend Jerramy Stevens, a former NFL tight end, was arrested for allegedly assaulting Solo. A stun gun was reportedly used to break up the altercation. Hours later, Stevens and Solo were married.

Stevens, who played football for the University of Washington, was released because of insufficient evidence in the case. He was never charged.

During an interview with The Seattle Times last year after the family dispute, Solo said she’s living in the spotlight.

“I’m in the spotlight, but not the truth,” Solo said. “That’s hard to accept, but that is unfortunately kind of how the world is and how the media is.

“Whether it’s with Hollywood, whether it’s with sports figures, whether it’s the president, that’s kind of how it works. I’m realistic and I understand that. That’s why it’s important for me to know who I am, to know I’m living my life the way I want to live, and that I am happy. At the end of the day, I can’t really let myself get too angry about outside opinions that are or aren’t true.”
June 21, 2014 seattletimes.com

Hope Solo pleads not guilty to assault; documents describe family fight
June 23, 2014 seattletimes.com
posted by theora55 at 6:43 PM on September 26, 2014


Solo was arrested and has filed a plea. The justice system is doing what it is supposed to do. Her team and her league acknowledged the event. No one has made a case that the National Women’s Soccer League is hiding or denying instances of domestic violence, or that many players commit domestic violence with little to no consequences.

Double standard? There's video of Rice. It will be interesting to see what the court decides in his case.

Double standard? How many cases of domestic violence were there in the NFL in the last 12 months, and what's the per capita comparison to Women's Soccer? How many were reported? How many were prosecuted? How many men are afraid to go to a party on campus because they might be roofied and sexually assaulted? How many men are afraid to walk home from the bus stop? How many men stay inside, stay home because of the fear of violence? How many men are murdered/killed by their wives (in something other than self defense)? How many laws have allowed women to assault men with impunity if they're married?

I don't defend Ms. Solo; she has a lawyer for that, but the double standard talk is pure BS.
posted by theora55 at 7:03 PM on September 26, 2014 [10 favorites]


Yes, there's video of Rice. I know jack shit about NFL or US women's soccer, but I saw that video of Rice hitting his now-wife and that shit is cold. I'm not a psychologist by any means, but a man who can knock his girlfriend out, then drag her around, KICK her, then argue with a hotel employee about whether she needs help or not, is a sick fucking person. Perhaps I haven't been exposed to enough US media to be able to judge, but the violence Solo perpetrated was passionate and spur-of-the-moment, and quite different in its intent and execution to that perpetrated by Rice.
posted by goo at 7:15 PM on September 26, 2014 [5 favorites]


> "Perhaps Ned doesn't deserve to be fired, but regardless of what happens to him, it won't be related to public outcry."

Look, this is getting to be a bit of a derail, so I'm not going to dwell on it after this, but of course Ned sometimes gets fired either because there is a public outcry over what he did or his employers are worried there might be. Unless you think that theater critics, university professors, waitresses, other kinds of university professors, and so on are exactly as much public figures as NFL players. Those are just from metafilter threads from the last couple of years and I wasn't looking very hard.
posted by kyrademon at 7:19 PM on September 26, 2014 [4 favorites]


I don't give one shit about athletics, and seeing-people-go-through-mental-gymnastics-to-justify-their-own-points-of-view-or-preferences is included. cf psu, hope solo, ray price, ad infinitum. it's a fucking *ball*.

sorry. just seems like this conversation is being had on a moebius strip. the outrage-ists should dismantle the ncaa. the cultural-institutional-ists should raise cash for leagues unaffiliated with any public money whatsover.
posted by j_curiouser at 7:57 PM on September 26, 2014


Hope Solo strikes me as a particularly sick individual who may or may not benefit from the tides of public justice. Sure, there's video of Ray Rice. There are witnesses to Hope Solo's incident. Significance and context trumps detail, especially to people who are not there.

The point is this is all just a joke. I really get a kick out of how seriously people take this conversation. The guillotine has been revived, and of course, it's in the private sector.
posted by phaedon at 7:57 PM on September 26, 2014


I'm female and I think Hope Solo is a drunken violent asshole. She's had a bad reputation for years.

Having said that I'm not very comfortable with people losing their jobs over criminal allegations or even convictions in most cases as a matter of course (obvs there are exceptions). Private organizations can have any policy they want to about employees who are arrested or convicted but it should be fairly enforced imho.

I am very surprised she kept her sponsorships.
posted by fshgrl at 8:18 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


As noted above, it's because Hope is a pioneer. She's nowhere near alone - athletics is littered with abused loved ones. Singling her out, when other, male players have so, so, so much worse swept under the carpet is suspect.

The governing bodies involved have been caught flat-footed, and because there's no video footage, they were going to let it slide. Then the Ray Rice video happened. Then the sworn court testimony in the Hardy case happened. Then Adrian Peterson is revealed for what he is by a pediatrician.

This is a non-scandal concocted by "what aboot da menz!" misogynists - the real scandal is from NOW, going forward, knowing what we know. If she's caught at it again, now that those in charge of her leagues are aware, she will be nuked from orbit. She's not alone. MLB? NBA? NHL? PGA? IRL? NASCAR? Athletes in every corner of sport must Clue In:

If you hurt someone you love physically, you will be barred from competition.

Hope gets a pass simply because she (narrowly) came in ahead of Rice knocking out his wife on camera, ahead of Hardy beating his girlfriend on a bed of assault rifles, under the cut-off date set by a four-year old with open wounds a week after they were first inflicted. She was from a time when you could ignore the horror.

That time is past. Next slip up, and with abusers, there's always a next time, she's gone.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:32 PM on September 26, 2014 [5 favorites]


Hope gets a pass simply because she (narrowly) came in ahead of Rice knocking out his wife on camera, ahead of Hardy beating his girlfriend on a bed of assault rifles, under the cut-off date set by a four-year old with open wounds a week after they were first inflicted. She was from a time when you could ignore the horror.

As you more or less articulated, this actually has less to do with timing and more to do with distance from the original narrative and the overall narrative catching up to the facts - just as it's being articulated and expanded into some areas and organizations for quite possibly the very first time.
posted by phaedon at 9:02 PM on September 26, 2014


I find intimate partner violence and parent-on-child violence fundamentally different than other family-on-family violence. People who think this is "clearly" a double-standard - you wouldn't feel differently about being violently attacked by your aunt, sibling, cousin, etc as by your partner or parent? The power dynamics of these relationships are very different.
posted by sallybrown at 9:09 PM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]


Well, yes owners of sports franchises, and the management that they hire try to minimize bad publicity. Merchandising is the source of $2.1 billion and is the second largest revenue stream for the NFL.

Comparing Hope Solo to Ray Rice is inaccurate though.

It is however established, at least on the Federal level, that men recieve greater sentences for equivalent crimes as compared to women.
posted by vapidave at 9:52 PM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]


Arguments such as the following (from The Atlantic): "[There is no equivalency between these two because] it also exists outside the bounds of human history" are sheer garbage if you don't include some notion of a statute of limitations here.

Men have historically been aggressors against women in a much larger and systematic scale pretty much universally throughout human history. Granted.

There is not a kind of tit-for-tat about domestic violence where for each man who punches a woman there is a woman who kicks a man in the head. Or for each man who is raped by a woman there is a woman raped by a man. Also granted.

But what is the endgame here? When can we say, "Okay, that's enough women punching and raping men: now it's historically fair."? Is there some tally sheet somewhere of all the male-on-female rapes? Do we need to have 12,000 years of female-dominated civilization oppressing men systematically before we say that it's about equal? Then are we allowed to call out or chastise or punish everyone who does bad things without getting all intersectional about it?

How about we say that violence is wrong?
posted by koavf at 11:28 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


Solo did not hurt that kid anywhere NEARLY as bad as Ray Rice hurt Janay Rice.

This seems like a really dubious line of defense. Solo is reported to have gotten drunk and verbally abused the kid for some time before going after him physically, repeatedly attacking him such that he had scratches all over his arms and a bleeding cut or cuts on his face. Then she attacked his mother when the mother intervened and continued the assault even when the kid broke a broom handle over Solo's head and then pointed a BB gun (which he apparently tried to pass off as a real gun to get Solo to stop) at her. Solo then continued to attack and would not stop. Solo also reportedly has a history of domestic abuse and violence which led to her estrangement from her sister for exactly this sort of behavior.

Is that less bad or worse than a single punch to the jaw which knocks you out? You know what? I'm not going to pass judgment on that. Rice is a big guy and we saw it on video which gives it an extra oomph but I also know that a drawn out affair that you can't make stop no matter what you do, including watching an immediate family member get abused and attacked, is a special kind of torture.

So, yeah, I think there is some minimization going on including by Coates in mathowie's first comment. It's certainly true that the two things aren't exactly the same. But it's also true that it's impossible to judge with the information we have which of the two is actually worse, as though that matters all that much, when they're both pretty goddamn bad.

I would really, really not want Ray Rice to punch me once in the face. But I also wouldn't want to be terrorized and abused over a longer period of time by someone who is smaller than Ray Rice but still stronger and more athletic than I am.
posted by Justinian at 11:58 PM on September 26, 2014 [7 favorites]


Is that less bad or worse than a single punch to the jaw which knocks you out? You know what? I'm not going to pass judgment on that. Rice is a big guy and we saw it on video which gives it an extra oomph but I also know that a drawn out affair that you can't make stop no matter what you do, including watching an immediate family member get abused and attacked, is a special kind of torture.

Um, Ray Rice punched his wife hard, she hit her head on the railing. She could have died hitting her head like that. She could have had a brain injury or a concussion or both.
posted by discopolo at 1:13 AM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]


Then are we allowed to call out or chastise or punish everyone who does bad things without getting all intersectional about it?

How about we say that violence is wrong?


This reads like you read the FPP and just skipped all the many other links and comments here that do say violence is wrong. Your blithe dismissal of the discussion here as "getting all intersectional about it" kind of solidifies the problem here, because there's a lot more going on than the man v woman "game" that sort of statement implies. I don't think anyone here has called for either Solo or Rice or Peterson or anyone else not to be chastised or punished, but we can't just say "these were equal and therefore double-standard." Maybe she'll get treated differently by the legal system, but we don't know that. There's a ton of context missing from vapidave's link: amount of incidents that end with charges, the number of charges made by the victim, the number of cases that make it to trial in the first place, the cases where there are acquittal on some or all of the charges due to bias, and lenient sentencing from judges based on bias. There's certainly a long and storied--and still ongoing--history of the "boys will be boys" defense. We can't just dismiss that and make this out to be some sort of gotcha. Plus, given the disappointing racial dynamics of this country around sports, both the circumstances around Rice's case and the coverage may have resulted in different organizational actions and reactions if his fiancee had been white. No doubt that would be a whole other can of worms that would also merit a discussion, because intersectionality would play a part there. At the end of the day, simply stating that the situations are similar, that's that, "checkmate, feminists" is part of the problem, not the solution. Don't start with "all things being equal," because the one of the biggest problems in our society is that all things are not equal. We have to remember that, not discard it.
posted by zombieflanders at 5:22 AM on September 27, 2014 [10 favorites]


one of the differences is that ray rice has gone through the court process and worked out a deal for pre-trial intervention. there are no questions about the facts in the case, he - according to him - has been upfront the entire time that he punched his (then) fiance, she hit the rail, and she was unconscious. hope solo has been charged (with a misdemeanor not a felony), denies that she is the aggressor, and is still going through the process. it's really weird to me how people keep pretending these are the same thing or saying that rice has only been charged.
posted by nadawi at 9:06 AM on September 27, 2014 [4 favorites]


"Don't start with 'all things being equal,' because the one of the biggest problems in our society is that all things are not equal."

I didn't. It's like you didn't even read what I wrote. The whole point is that if you make this line of argument and you don't have in mind what would constitute a statute of limitations on this type of thinking, then you're BSing. Maybe I'm not being clear about that but I definitely never said what you claimed I said.
posted by koavf at 10:04 AM on September 27, 2014


Reading through this thread today, Isee a couple of times he assertion that Solo has been charged with domestic violence. She hasn't; she's been charged with misdemeanor assault. Hope Solo's situation was not one of marriage or cohabitation with the people she hit. It's not domestic violence. Her sister and nephew are not financially dependent on her, they don't have to live in the same place, they are at some degree of remove from Hope that Ray Rice's fiancee was not.

In 2012, Hope's brother Marcus called the cops and told them Jerramy was being violent toward her, but when the cops got there she told Marcus "don't say anything to them," and the case was dropped largely because she didn't want to cooperate with it. Hope and Jerramy got married a few months later.

They got married that afternoon.

Solo did not hurt that kid anywhere NEARLY as bad as Ray Rice hurt Janay Rice.

This seems like a really dubious line of defense. Solo is reported to have gotten drunk and verbally abused the kid for some time before going after him physically, repeatedly attacking him such that he had scratches all over his arms and a bleeding cut or cuts on his face.


She told him he was fat and unathletic and crazy, and he called her a cunt. They grappled and he was able to hold her down on the floor by her hair. This wasn't an entirely one-sided fight as many people keep making it out to be, though she started with the punching. She apparently refused to talk to police at that time, so while her sister invited police back the next day to photographer her and the nephew's marks, cuts, and blood, there are no photos of any possible injuries to Solo. That doesn't mean she didn't get hurt.
posted by oneirodynia at 11:16 AM on September 27, 2014


Isee a couple of times he assertion that Solo has been charged with domestic violence. She hasn't; she's been charged with misdemeanor assault.

I'm not sure that is correct. Is there another link to clear this up?

CNN reports: Solo, dressed in a white shirt and black pants, said little, telling the judge "I do" when asked if she understood the domestic violence assault charges filed against her. She faces two counts of fourth-degree domestic violence assault.

You should also keep in mind that another woman was involved as well, who was not apparently holding her own as well as the kid according to what the police are saying. You are absolutely correct about the potential financial dependence issues in the Rice situation.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:39 AM on September 27, 2014


if you watch the video on that cnn link, the judge never says domestic violence as far as i can tell. according to wikipedia she's been charged with assault in the 4th degree which doesn't appear to make any specific mention to domestic violence. reading some washington state law definitions i can't figure out if this would fall under child abuse or domestic abuse or if it's just regular ole assault. we'd probably need a washington lawyer familiar with that area of law to really nail it down, though.
posted by nadawi at 12:01 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]


Doing some Googling I stumbled on this from a domestic violence lawyer:

The varying degrees of assault are defined in Chapter 9A.36 of the Revised Code of Washington. Whether or not the alleged assault is also a crime of domestic violence (DV) is determined by the relationship between the parties.
Under Washington law, certain crimes, misdemeanors and felonies alike, can carry with it the DV designation depending on the relationship between the defendant and the alleged victim. In short, if a family or household member commits a crime against another family or household member, or if a person in a dating relationship with another commits a crime against that person, the label of domestic violence (DV) can and most often will be attached to that crime. The Washington statutes governing these definitions are RCW 10.99.020 and RCW 26.50.010.

Pursuant to RCW 10.99.020(3) a family or household relationship means:

spouses
former spouses
persons who have a child in common regardless of whether they have been married or have lived together at any time
adult persons related by blood or marriage
adult persons who are presently residing together or who have resided together in the past
persons sixteen years of age or older who are presently residing together or who have resided together in the past and who have or have had a dating relationship
persons sixteen years of age or older with whom a person sixteen years of age or older has or has had a dating relationship, and
persons who have a biological or legal parent-child relationship, including stepparents and stepchildren and grandparents and grandchildren."
So, at least adult persons related by blood or marriage could apply, but I think you are right we would need a lawyer to figure it out.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:51 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]


Why? She abused and assaulted family members. We are perfectly free to call that domestic violence whether or not a lawyer puts his stamp of approval on it.
posted by Justinian at 1:12 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I'm talking specifically to the question of what she was charged with. It does make a difference when you are talking about potential automatic consequences from the league.
posted by Drinky Die at 1:15 PM on September 27, 2014


not trying to minimize or excuse - as Drinky Die says - we were discussing specifically the thing she was charged with.
posted by nadawi at 1:28 PM on September 27, 2014


Why? She abused and assaulted family members. We are perfectly free to call that domestic violence whether or not a lawyer puts his stamp of approval on it.

We can call anything anything. I think the issue here is whether this incident, as totally fucked as it is, constitutes what we commonly mean whe we use the term "domestic violence." I think it's pretty clear, for those talking about comparisons, that what Ray Rice did is smack in the middle of what we mean when we say domestic violence. I'm pretty much of the opinion that regardless of what she was charged with, Solo's violent behavior does not.
posted by OmieWise at 7:07 PM on September 27, 2014


You seem to be limiting domestic violence to intimate partner violence, but I don't think that's what it is limited to. Child abuse, for example, is commonly seen as a form of domestic violence.
posted by Justinian at 7:19 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm not limiting it to intimate partners, but I do think that in common parlance it means violence between people who live together or have an intimate, not just familial, relationship.
posted by OmieWise at 7:42 PM on September 27, 2014


Man, it's right on the border at best.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:57 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]


When the half-sister walked in, Solo attacked her, according to the document. The nephew took a wooden broom that he "broke over (Solo's) head" in an attempt to stop the assault, the affidavit states.

According to the document, when Solo didn't stop hitting her half-sister, the nephew grabbed a broken BB gun in an attempt to get Solo to leave the house.

She left, but then jumped the fence and re-entered the house, where she attacked her half-sister again, according to the affidavit


I mean, in a standard family brawl does someone start the fight and then leave and then jump a fence to re-enter the house and it's still just three equal participants? Even if she didn't start it she's in some shit if she came back after getting away. It's a fucking mess.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:58 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]


Not to drag this out too much, but – I wanted to say that what is most interesting, and most disturbing, about this case is the clear complications which nobody seems willing to talk about.

As far as we know, Hope Solo is almost certainly a victim of domestic violence herself. She married a man that probably would have been convicted of rape if he hadn't been a football star – his lawyer was forced to pay out $300,000 in a cash settlement to his accuser, who pretty clearly took it as the best she could get after said lawyer did some fairly questionable things to keep it from going to trial – and the police have been involved in at least one domestic violence call that we know of between them, in which Hope was bloody when the cops got there. Hope Solo and Jerramy Stevens got married literally the day after he was arrested for abusing her.

This reinforces something we already pretty much know about domestic violence, but rarely see demonstrated – people who have been victims of domestic violence often grow to become perpetrators as well.

I don't doubt the abuse between Hope Solo and her half-sister was serious. I also believe we have to look at the whole context to judge what's going on. I think Hope Solo has likely been in a bad place for a very long time, and it's not surprising that we're seeing fruit of it right now.

And I think it's worth getting past the side-discussion about "double standards" – which doesn't help anybody, really – and seeing the complexity of this case for what it is. We're talking about a troubled family here, a family that has a history of facing off with this issue.
posted by koeselitz at 9:18 AM on September 28, 2014 [2 favorites]


And to add one more thing: looking a little more at Jerramy Stevens' 2012 arrest for fourth-degree domestic assault:
Kirkland police officers were dispatched to a disturbance call in the 6400 block of N.E. 138th Place at 3:45 a.m. on Monday.

The call involved a physical altercation between eight people during a house party and the use of a stun gun.

Upon arrival, officers contacted several people at the residence who appeared to be intoxicated and were uncooperative as officers began their investigation.

Officers found a 31-year-old female suffering from a laceration to the elbow, a 32-year-old female suffering from a hip injury, and a 34-year-old male suffering from multiple bumps, scrapes and contusions. Kirkland Fire Department personnel treated the injuries.

Based on information provided by those involved and upon the officers’ observations of the scene and visible evidence present, officers arrested Stevens on investigation of fourth-degree domestic violence assault on the female resident who suffered a laceration to her elbow, believed to be [Hope] Solo.
This is violence that has spilled into public before, apparently. Use of a stun gun? That seems kind of nuts. One wonders who the other woman involved might have been. All of this really needs to be taken into account when trying to understand Hope Solo's situation, though.
posted by koeselitz at 9:24 AM on September 28, 2014



You seem to be limiting domestic violence to intimate partner violence, but I don't think that's what it is limited to. Child abuse, for example, is commonly seen as a form of domestic violence.

What makes it domestic violence is a victim who is dependent upon the perpetrator in a way more casual acquaintances are not: i.e. a foster child; a mother-in-law; a common-law spouse; a fiance. These relationships are more intimately tied to financial and housing situations that are also under some (or all) control of the abuser. There is more at stake for a victim who may be left homeless and financially ruined if they confront or leave their abuser. Hope Solo does not live with her sister and nephew, and as far as anyone knows they are not her dependents. They do not need to trust her, talk to her, see her, or tolerate her presence in order to avoid a huge disruption to their lives. They are not dependent on her for having a place to live or food to eat. Hope Solo is not their caregiver, nor their guardian, nor a parent of their children. She has much less power over their response to her violence than a victim in a domestic relationship who must sever stronger ties in order to escape the situation.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:46 AM on September 28, 2014


mean, in a standard family brawl does someone start the fight and then leave and then jump a fence to re-enter the house and it's still just three equal participants?

I'm not sure if this is addressed to me, but if it is, I'm not sure what your point is. The two options are not "standard family brawl" (whatever the fuck that is) and "domestic violence". Hope Solo is obviously a violent, impulsive, and dangerous asshole. She seems to me to be someone with fairly severe mental issues (I say this as a person licensed to diagnose such issues, about which I have some ideas, even though I don't think one can diagnose over the internet). This incident does not seem like domestic violence to me.
posted by OmieWise at 12:00 PM on September 28, 2014


This incident does not seem like domestic violence to me.

The legal system in Washington State appears to take a different view, so far.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 3:12 PM on September 29, 2014


that's actually the thing we were discussing just a little bit above what you're quoting - the legal system in washington seems to have charged her with assault in the fourth degree. as far as i know we don't have access to the actual documents, but from what we can tell she hasn't been charged with domestic violence. it's also not clear that washington state would classify a non-custodial aunt assaulting her underage nephew (if 17 is considered underage for this purpose?) as domestic violence...it might be officially classified as child abuse, but again, there is nothing that indicates that she was charged with anything other than assault in the fourth degree. if you have some proof of that, i'd love to see it.
posted by nadawi at 3:18 PM on September 29, 2014


From all the reports given in news media in the State of Washington, she has been charged with misdemeanor domestic assault in the fourth degree. Further, the state's domestic violence laws are well described by the City of Seattle:
What is Domestic Violence?

Washington State law defines domestic violence offenses as virtually any criminal act committed by one "family or household member" against another. Seattle Municipal Court hears misdemeanor domestic violence offenses including: assault, property destruction, harassment and telephone harassment, intimidation with a weapon, reckless endangerment and violation of no contact or domestic violence protection orders. Felony domestic violence offenses, such as a No Contact Order violation involving an assault, a third violation of a No Contact Order, assault with a deadly weapon, or even murder, are heard in Superior Court. A "family or household member" includes persons who are now or have been married or resided together, who have been or are presently in a dating relationship so long as both parties are at least sixteen years of age, and persons who have a child in common. In addition, parent-child and step-parent, step-child relationships, grandparent-grandchild (including step-grandparents) and siblings come within the definition of a "family or household" relationship.
This seems like an Unambiguous Summary.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 3:36 PM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]


As a random bit of washington anecdata, a friend of mine was arrested for and charged(but not convicted) with DV for getting into a fist fight with his roommate. They were both adult males with no familial relation. The entire thing was based on the fact that, as lungful of dragon says above, they were "household members"

Regardless of what your definition of it is here, that's not entirely relevant to how the legal system in washington handles it.
posted by emptythought at 3:47 PM on September 29, 2014


here are the definitions for domestic violence and family or household members for washington - as we discussed up thread it weirdly might not cover a minor nephew being harmed by a non-custodial aunt, it's a weird quirk admittedly. and i know a lot of news articles are saying domestic violence in the fourth degree, much like the cnn link posted up there, except the video attached doesn't have the judge speaking those words even though the article says it does. it really seems like we don't actually have the answer for her specific charges except that it's assault in the fourth degree. i imagine we'll learn more if it goes to trial.

Regardless of what your definition of it is here, that's not entirely relevant to how the legal system in washington handles it.

yes, which is what i'm talking about. under the list of definitions it covers your friend's situation but not a minor nephew and non-custodial aunt. without seeing the actual documents i don't know that we can say for certain that she was charged with a domestic violence charge.
posted by nadawi at 4:32 PM on September 29, 2014


Apparently the City of Seattle did not first consult with Metafilter on the laws of the State of Washington.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 4:43 PM on September 29, 2014


oh come off it - your own cut and paste doesn't support what you're arguing.
A "family or household member" includes persons who are now or have been married or resided together, who have been or are presently in a dating relationship so long as both parties are at least sixteen years of age, and persons who have a child in common. In addition, parent-child and step-parent, step-child relationships, grandparent-grandchild (including step-grandparents) and siblings come within the definition of a "family or household" relationship.
posted by nadawi at 4:47 PM on September 29, 2014


My point is precisely that the legal definition and the common definition may well be different for most people. I know they are for me. I'm not saying that Washington State shouldn't follow its own laws, or that I know more than Washington State, I'm saying that as with many things, the legal definition is not dispositive (see what I did there?) if we are talking about how people react to something like this. Ray Rice committed what almost everyone would call domestic violence, even though it was committed in an elevator, and not, you know, a domicile. Hope Solo did not, although she beat up her nephew inside of a house.
posted by OmieWise at 6:09 PM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]


Ray Rice committed what almost everyone would call domestic violence, even though it was committed in an elevator, and not, you know, a domicile. Hope Solo did not, although she beat up her nephew inside of a house.

It seems strange to me that you assume more people would think beating up your fiancée is domestic abuse while beating up your sister and nephew isn't. I can't follow your logic there.
posted by misha at 9:40 PM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]


It seems odd to me to use passive language like "a house" to describe where the alleged assaults took place, when the very reason that this treated as a domestic violence case is because this isn't just any house, but the house of — specifically — one of the victims, who is directly related to the assailant. I wonder what the point of trying to minimize such an important and relevant detail could possibly be.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:02 PM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh give me a break.

Hope Solo beat up some family members, not people she lives with or has an intimate AND controlling relationship with.

I'm not minimizing Solo's violence or her culpability, I'm minimizing the ridiculous equivalence people are drawing between Solo and Ray Rice. I think it's misguided and serves a particular anti-woman purpose.
posted by OmieWise at 3:48 AM on September 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


Well, to be clear on my own stance, I don't feel that there is a double standard in sports going on here necessarily because Hope Solo has not gone through the legal system yet.

If she had and if she had been found guilty of misdemeanor domestic assault in the fourth degree and if no disciplinary sanctions such as suspensions or taking team captain away from her were imposed, I would agree that we were setting a bad precedent for young women athletes (and future athletes) not bein held accountable for their actions. But it is way too early to speculate on that aspect.

I do find it really disturbing, though, how people who have barely any information on the specifics of Hope Solo's situation are making wild, unfounded conjectures that in some cases even go against what facts we do have in this very thread.
posted by misha at 8:30 PM on September 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


Hope Solo beat up some family members, not people she lives with or has an intimate AND controlling relationship with.

And sometimes men beat up women just because they are drunk fuckdoucheasses and not because of power dynamics. In this case a woman did that. It's still DV.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:46 PM on September 30, 2014


hope solo's teammate, jillian loyden, has quit soccer to focus full time on her charity, which she started after her sister was killed by way of domestic violence. the full piece is here.
posted by nadawi at 9:46 AM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]


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