By Carlla Horton, Executive Director Hopes Door www.HopesDoorNY.org
Just weeks after the Callaway Golf episode in which a woman was violently shoved to the ground as part of a supposedly humorous advertisement, we now have an AI-generated video depicting a coach slapping ESPN reporter Holly Rowe.
And apparently, some people think it’s hilarious.
It isn’t.
It is deeply concerning.
It is deeply disturbing that in a culture where women are being beaten, strangled, shot, stalked and murdered by intimate partners, violence against women continues to be packaged as humor or entertainment.
First, it was a real woman being shoved to the ground for a golf joke.
Now it is an AI-generated woman being slapped for a laugh.
What comes next?
How many images of women being attacked do we need to see before we recognize that there is nothing funny about violence against women?
And let’s be very clear: AI may make the violence artificial. The normalization of it is not.
Every time violence against a woman is presented as funny, clever, harmless or entertaining, we teach another generation that a woman being hurt can be a punchline.
At Hope’s Door, we know what happens when violence is normalized. We see the fear. We see the trauma. We see the children who witness it. We see survivors fighting to reclaim their lives. And we know that the violence that begins with a shove, a slap or a threat can escalate to something far more harmful and too often deadly.
There is no room for normalizing the violence that leads to domestic violence, femicide and family annihilation.
Not in advertising.
Not in sports.
Not in AI.
Not anywhere.
A woman being assaulted is never funny. Not even when it is fake.
We all should be outraged.
I certainly am.
Hope’s Door supports and helps empower survivors of domestic violence. If you are living with abuse – physical, sexual, emotional, financial, and/or psychological – we are here to help. Call our free and confidential Hotline at 888-438-8700. You are not alone.