SportsWorld as a Site of Violence Against Women

Abstract

Many scholars have attempted to address the perplexing question of why athletes — both intercollegiate and professional — engage in so much violence. In particular, the focus is typically on the disproportionate percentage of African American football and basketball players who are accused of and even charged with acts of violence against women; especially rape/sexual assault and domestic violence. This paper examines the role that the highly sex-segregated and privileged world created by SportsWorld plays in the ways in which cases of gender based violence are handled by the criminal justice system when professional athletes are the alleged perpetrators. The data are based on news accounts of accusations of rape/sexual assault and domestic violence against professional athletes. The results show that the treatment professional athletes receive when they are accused of gender based crimes are shaped by a complex web comprised by their gender, race, and the sport they play. Perhaps most interestingly, though the criminal justice system itself has long been a site of racial discrimination, the degree to which this plays out in cases of professional athletes examined in this paper demonstrates that the treatment they receive is further shaped by the sports they play and the fact that the allegations are of a gender based crime.