To be a female football fan is an uneasy bargain. Often women can participate in the camaraderie with little thought to gender, politics or power. Other times the National Football League makes a controversial decision that forces women to question their loyalty. The latest example? It punished Ray Rice, a Baltimore Ravens player accused of domestic violence, with a two-day game suspension.

Last February, police arrested the talented and well-liked Baltimore Ravens running back for assaulting his then-fiancee in an Atlantic City casino elevator. Rice, 27, allegedly punched and knocked out Janay Palmer during an altercation; she was also arrested. Rice pleaded not-guilty and his wife did not want to pursue the case. But a surveillance camera recorded the aftermath — Rice trying to move her limp body into the hallway, standing over her as she lay facedown on the floor.

It's an agonizing scene, and many predicted the NFL would harshly sanction Rice, particularly since the league has worked hard to transform its female fans into fanatics. But when the league recently delivered Rice's punishment — the two-game suspension at the cost of a half million dollars — it sparked a weeklong outcry.

It sent a message to fans, particularly women, about the NFL's priorities and values — and it was far from pretty.

Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, second from left, speaks with team president Dick Cass, left, owner Steve Bisciotti, second from right, and Kevin Byrne, senior vice president for public and community relations, after a training camp practice, Thursday, July 24, 2014, at the team's practice facility in Owings Mills, Maryland. Image: AP Photo/Associated Press

While the NFL and the Ravens may see Rice as a good-hearted friend and brother who made a terrible decision, women who watch football are wondering what the lenient sentence says about their place in the league.

The NFL has increasingly come to see women as more than a niche audience. They account for 40% of all fans, a third of the crowd at games, and nearly half of the consumers who purchase licensed apparel, according to Experian Marketing Services. Women are arguably more valuable during the Super Bowl, when the viewing audience becomes almost evenly split between women and men, according to Nielsen.

In recent years, the NFL has catered to these customers with products designed for them, including fitted jerseys in team colors — not just a shade of pink. It also launched a savvy marketing campaign during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which includes a screening and fundraising campaign.

The statistics alone should call for special attention to Rice's penalty. Yet, the Ravens actively supported Rice following the suspension, publishing a piece about the quality of his character and a post about how fans gave him a standing ovation at a recent practice. The latter acknowledged Rice has "been in the court of public opinion," but did not identify why. All this after the the team posted a widely criticized tweet in May noting that Rice's wife, who admitted to striking Rice, "deeply regrets" her role in the assault.

The Ravens' PR strategy proved boorish.

Janay Rice says she deeply regrets the role that she played the night of the incident. — Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) May 23, 2014

On Friday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell publicly addressed the criticism around Rice's suspension, unequivocally condemning the athlete's behavior. "We have a very firm policy that domestic violence is not acceptable in the NFL and that there will be consequences for that," he said. But he also empathized with Rice: "He recognizes he made a horrible mistake, that it is unacceptable, by his standards and by our standards. And he’s got to work to re-establish himself."

Coming from the NFL, a multi-billion dollar organization known for bungling past accusations against players involving abuse and assault, the tender treatment of Rice felt tone-deaf.

Last year a reported 21 of 32 NFL team rosters had a player previously charged with domestic or sexual violence, according to an analysis of data collected by the San Diego Union-Tribune. Data journalism website FiveThirtyEight found that while domestic violence arrests in the NFL are lower than the national average, they still account for 48% of all arrests for violent crimes in the league.

Observers pointed out that players who use drugs routinely receive stricter discipline than Rice did. Last year, for example, the NFL suspended Jacksonville wide receiver Justin Blackmon for four games without pay after he violated the league's substance abuse policy. Commissioner Goodell explained on Friday that the substance abuse policy is dictated by a collective bargaining agreement, whereas other violations are not.

"We have dealt with it in a serious manner, and we’re very confident that this young man understands where he is and what he needs to do going forward," he said of Rice's case.

The NFL would not comment further when asked by Mashable about whether or not Rice's controversial punishment has any bearing on its female fans and their relationship with the league. The Baltimore Ravens also declined to comment on the matter. A poll conducted by Huffington Post and YouGov indicates a more stringent penalty would have been well-received by the American public. Of the 1,000 respondents, nearly a quarter said assaulting a partner should result in a lifetime ban from the NFL, and almost a third endorsed a season-long suspension.

Indeed, the NFL and the Ravens may be blinded by their personal admiration of and relationship with Rice, who has spoken out against bullying and appeared remorseful in a press conference on Thursday. Though Rice was not tried in court, he was placed in a diversionary program and is receiving counseling.

Jacob Simpson, a 29-year-old Baltimore native and Ravens fan, wrote an impassioned op-ed for the Baltimore Sun decrying how both the NFL and the team handled Rice's sanction. A pastor and self-described "advocate against domestic violence and rape culture," Simpson told Mashable that while Rice may genuinely be a good person who made an awful choice, now is not the time to talk at length about his redemption.

"They are promoting him like he’s a fallen hero who needs to lifted up," Simpson said. "If the Ravens wanted to do something about this [they could] put a story up there that a survivor is willing to share. They could make an effort to change the conversation for the better instead of circling the wagons and trying to plug the proverbial leaks."

It's not clear yet whether female fans are satisfied with the NFL's response or if some will turn on the league. The Ravens have the fourth largest local fan base in the country, according to Nielsen, and it's possible they will forgive Rice and forget, regardless of dissenters like Simpson.

On a Facebook page for "Purple Ladies," a Ravens' fan group for women with more than 30,000 "likes," Rice's name hadn't come up all week. The conversation on the team's official Facebook page, though, quickly became heated; at least one woman said she'd never watch a game in which Rice played while another said his punishment was sufficient. What they'll all be watching, to be sure, is how the NFL disciplines the next player accused of abusing a woman.