Women problems in NFL

The #NFL sent a message with its latest disciplinary move, suspending Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice because of a domestic incident that it deems to be a violation of its personal conduct policy. Unfortunately, the recipients of Commissioner Roger Goodell’s message are women.

Rice was suspended the first two games of the season after a February incident in which he allegedly knocked his then-fiancée unconscious in the elevator of an Atlantic City casino. The incident was captured on disturbing video and Rice entered a not-guilty plea to a third-degree charge of aggravated assault. He avoided trial by being accepted into a pretrial intervention program in May. The following month, he met with Goodell, who can use the league’s personal-conduct policy to suspend players even if they are not charged or convicted of a crime.

The suspension sparked an instant and heated debate over how the league dishes out punishment, given that drug violations typically draw longer suspensions. It particularly resonated poorly with women, sending the wrong message just as NFL viewership among them is at a high and when the league is, once again, openly courting the audience of women and their financial clout. At a time when some women employed as cheerleaders are suing teams in several cities over low wages, the suspension especially strikes another oddly off-key note for a league that has always been better at PR than this.

In fact, the NFL would do well to remember that women haven’t always flocked to its games. There was a time when the league had to do damage control, especially after Rae Carruth of the Carolina Panthers was sent to prison for his role in the shooting death of his then-pregnant girlfriend in 1999. The league embarked on an image makeover, doing things like having players hand out roses to women at breast cancer walks. Now, in addition to clothing specifically designed for and marketed to women (yes, there’s a Ray Rice women’s jersey), there’s a league-wide initiative to raise breast cancer awareness every October. Yet recent incidents involving Panthers defensive end Greg Hardy, Arizona Cardinals linebacker Daryl Washington and Rice are troubling.