waterandsilver:

spaceinvaydr:

holdencaulfieldisaliar:

feminismisahatemovement:

holdencaulfieldisaliar:

feminismisahatemovement:

waterandsilver:

Unfortunate reminder that domestic violence in England goes up by 26% when England plays and 38% when they lose.

For anyone who needs it tonight, the national helpline for domestic violence is 0808 2000 247. Please consider sharing this even if you’re not an England fan.

This is an update of the “Superbowl Sunday Hoax” all the way back in 1993 where feminist groups claimed the same thing about American football, with the same absence of any evidence whatsoever:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/domestic-violence-super-bowl-sunday/

Basically, feminists claimed on Superbowl Sunday
there was a 40% rise in wife-beatings, hospital admissions

and calls to domestic violence hotlines, and every newspaper but one repeated it as true. Then one reporter actually did his job and rang round the emergency rooms,
domestic abuse hotlines and women’s shelters to check the claims and found out that there was no change in domestic violence incidents on that day to any other, and that, among other things, a quote from a
forensic psychologist

used in the original article was completely made up.

What’s amazing is that, even after being thoroughly and inarguably debunked like that, the lie continues to be repeated every year right up until the present day, until now it appears in another country hanging onto the coat-tails of another sport.

And what’s most troubling is how many people are willing to repeat and reblog such a load of old shit without ever stopping to question or fact check it at all. See the notes of this post for a demonstration.

Even if it isn’t true, there is no harm in reblogging this information in case it IS true and has the capacity to help someone. The only thing that’s ‘troubling’ is your resolve to not help women in need

That’s a curious way of rephrasing “not wilfully perpetuate groundless hysteria and fear cynically propagated for political gain”

It’s not for political gain, it’s an intensely intimate thing. Some of us have to capacity to, I don’t know, care about other people, and hope that they don’t get hurt.

Tumblr is the only website where saying that “lying is bad” is a contentious statement. Willfully lying in any way is unacceptable for any reason other than immediate self defence/preservation

Hi, OP here. Tumblr definitely has issues with how it does social/political issues, and I will be the first to say that I dislike the way opinions can be spread on this site. There is a problem with snappy posts that are phrased in a “word of god” style with no context of the debates and facts behind them. Fact-checking is super important, especially in 2018.

However, I’m not “willfully lying”. These statistics come from a study by Lancaster University, and it has been cited by a number of major news websites and used in a recent anti-violence campaign. Here is a BBC article. Here is an Independent article. Here is a Huffington Post article. Here is a tweet from the British government-funded NHS. Here is a statistical case study from 2012 that found domestic violence spiked on days when England won and lost a match during a previous World Cup. And this is literally only the tip of the iceberg of the literature on this subject.

Tumblr also has a problem with being US-centric. You’re the third person to assume that the information in this post came from that American Superbowl study (which I had never heard of before today) when this post was clearly made by an ENGLISH person about an ENGLISH social issue for ENGLISH people who might need it. It would literally have taken all of 12 seconds to google “world cup domestic violence england” and find all the results I linked above. I should have cited sources in the original post, and I’ve apologised for that three times now, but I was on mobile so I couldn’t link. I had absolutely no idea this post would blow up like it has. I have barely any followers. I hoped it would get a few hundred notes at most. I thought the “world cup” tag would be swamped with people talking about the match, but apparently I overestimated how much Tumblr cares about football.

Now I’d like to say something about the purpose of this post. I made it shortly after England lost, because I was talking with a friend yesterday afternoon and she mentioned that domestic violence rose whenever England played and especially when they lost. She showed me this tweet, which is clearly making fun of the fact that girlfriends and wives get abused when male football fans are disappointed:

Later, when they lost, I remembered what she’d told me and researched it. I found the sources I’ve linked above. I found some tweets raising awareness, but nothing on Tumblr. As I don’t have any other significant social media presence other than Tumblr (and I barely have one on here), I thought that making this post was my way to contribute to awareness about this.

This post was for people who might be in an unsafe home, to remind them to take care, to reach out for help if they needed, and to remind other English people to be aware of their neighbours and family and friends. 30k notes later, I’ve seen countless replies and tags from people saying “yeah, I’ve experienced this” either in previous years, or right now.

And was there an increase in domestic violence last night? Yes, there was, as predicted. But as that tweet also states, the majority of fans were responsible. I never said that all football fans, or all male football fans, are abusers. The majority of football/England fans that I know are lovely people. My dad is a huge England supporter, and he’s the most calm, mellow, respectful man I know. I’m saying that there are a LOT of football fans out there, it’s the biggest sport in the world, and some of them are abusive people anyway, and the heightened emotions of the match are likely to provoke an abusive response from these kinds of people.

I’m not interacting with responses on this post anymore because I have no desire to engage in a debate with you or anybody else. I’ve covered my ass, I’ve linked you some pretty reliable sources, unless you want to contest the reliability of the BBC and the NHS, in which case, I suggest you do so in you own post. I think I’ve proved that I’m not “willfully lying”. I was quoting a piece of research and providing a helpline for those in need. Is the study I cited perfect? Probably not. But if you have an issue with it, I suggest you get in contact with the university that conducted the research, or any of the news websites that reported it. They are much more educated on this issue than a sleep-deprived girl with a Voltron blog who literally just wanted to provide a helpline for those who might be in need of one in a time of heightened danger.