Guest Blogger Bio: Andie lives in Canada and is mother to two girls on the brink of adolescence. She has a background in sociology with an interest in intersectional feminism and a love of popular culture, with a soft spot for Canadian music and television. You can read her personal blog at Inspiration Strikes. In The Kneecaps where she writes about feminism, current events, her kids, her cat, her decrepit house and cancer.
[Content Note: sexual abuse, harassment]
I’ve been wanting to get this guest post done and finished, but every time I turn around this story just keeps unravelling.
This week both my Twitter and Facebook feeds blew up with the news that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had quite suddenly cut ties with long-time radio host Jian Ghomeshi, citing information that had come to their attention which precluded their continued relationship. Ghomeshi had recently announced a leave of absence due to some personal problems.
Speculation abounded as to what information would precipitate the CBC to cut ties so swiftly. A tweet from media critic Jesse Brown hinted that an ongoing investigation was about to blow up.
Before the end of the day news outlets were reporting Ghomeshi’s intent to sue the CBC for $50 million CAD and Ghomeshi himself had posted a 1600+ word missive on his Facebook page, claiming that he had been let go because he had engaged in some BDSM with an ex who was now colluding with a freelance journalist with the intent to smear his name. He claimed he was being unjustly punished for his private activities in the bedroom.A lot of people accused the CBC of puppeting for Stephen Harper, and more accused the women in question of being out for some kind of payout. In the first day or two after the story broke, there was a lot of public support for Ghomeshi, who was the co-host of the radio interview show Q for 14 years. People decried the move by the CBC by invoking Pierre Trudeau’s speech about the Canadian government having no place in Canadian bedrooms. It looked perhaps like Ghomeshi was being rail-roaded for being a kinkster. However, as Andrea Zanin pointed out:
Remember the openly bisexual Sook-Yin Lee, who masturbated and had non-simulated sex on camera in the 2006 film Shortbus? She’s been working with the CBC for well over a decade, and while they initially considered letting her go when the controversial film was making headlines, support for her was so strong that they kept her on. Fast-forward eight years: the CBC knows that their audiences support even the very public sexual explorations of CBC stars.
For me, the allegations of kink-shaming didn’t quite ring true, and the pre-emptive Facebook strike seems like a case of ‘methinks [he] doth protest too much.’
The next day, The Star published a front-page story reporting that Ghomeshi had been fired due to allegations of abuse from three different women.
On Facebook, I saw myriad people defending Ghomeshi and talking about the benefit of the doubt and dragging out tired arguments about jilted ex-girlfriends and questioning if he had assaulted them, why didn’t they report it. A fourth woman who worked for the CBC had told the Star that she had reported Ghomeshi for harassment in 2010 when he came up behind her and told her how he wanted to “hate-f*ck” her. She said that when she complained to officials, she was asked what she thought she could do to create a less toxic work environment.
I get it. I never really listened to Q, but I did like Moxy Fruvous (Ghomeshi’s quirky early 90’s a capella band) and back when I was in the hospital and I read and enjoyed his memoir. I get wanting to not believe the worst of a public figure. At the same time, I was dismayed at the number of people that read his rather self-serving account of events, shrugged and said “Hm. Sounds Legit,” even though when you really think about it, it seems less likely that a group of women would collude to bring down a media darling than it is that maybe, just maybe, he is a huge asshole and possibly an abusive one at that.
Meanwhile, women on Twitter across the country, women who have worked in radio, television, women with ties to the indie scene, were sharing a collective “YUP,” when the allegations came forth. A particularly poignant post by Melissa at Nothing from Winnipeg was passed to me from a friend, and describes how for years women, and some men, in certain social and professional circles have been subtly warning each other about Ghomeshi:
I turned to an old friend of mine, a man who had logged many years in the music biz. “Isn’t that Jian Ghomeshi?”
He sipped his beer and nodded, but what he said next I had not expected.
“Be careful,” he said, with the dark and searching eyes of someone who is holding a story that isn’t theirs to tell.
“Why?”
“Just be careful,” he repeated, darkly. “He’s weird, with women.”
Warned by this, I kept my distance and just watched. I saw the way he moved towards women, introduced himself, and pushed his way into their space. There was something about the way his hands slid over tense and hunched-up shoulders, found their way to the small of a half-turned back, a waist, a hip. Nothing you’d call a crime, not quite. Nothing you could name. Just a sense, all the little things that added up to say — this isn’t safe. This person is not safe.
Melissa unravels some of the reasons behind why for years, although everybody seemed to know something was up, nobody said anything. It’s a fantastic take down of some of the reasons that women may allow abuse and harassment, both overt and subtle, go on for years.
Would you, if you had nothing besides stories that weren’t yours, little things you’d seen, a million tiny red flags that quietly added up to make you feel unsafe? Would you, if sticking your neck out meant publicly taking on one of the most influential people in the Canadian media landscape, someone with more money than you, more lawyers, more protection from his fame? Would you, if you knew that with a few carefully maneuvered cocktail meetings, a few woe-is-me turns of phrase, this person could quietly ensure that you didn’t work in that big town again?
Oh, please. “You see, officer, there was just something about the way he pressed himself against her back, about the way her body tensed and she tried to step away from that… and then my friend asked if I knew about Jian…”
I highly recommend reading the whole thing.
In the time that I have written this post, no less than 8 women have come forward (warning: that link has an autoplay video), including Lucy DeCoutere, an RCAF captain who also played Lucy on Trailer Park Boys, and just in these last few hours, author Reva Seth has also come forward as well. I’m still seeing people who claim that until criminal charges are pressed, we should give Jian Ghomeshi the benefit of the doubt, that he is “innocent until proven guilty,” forgetting that the court of public opinion is NOT a court of law. Countless articles and blog posts have been written in the past few days about the myriad reasons women who have been assaulted may A) not want to be identified and B) not want to press charges.
The revelations about Jian Ghomeshi’s history of abuse has opened up a number of dialogues over the last week, about consent; about rape culture and the way society is quick to excuse public figures for egregious crimes against women; how we assign guilt to accusers while insisting on giving the accused the benefit of the doubt even after numerous victims come forward. The dialog has also touched on BDSM and consent and how BDSM is not inherently abusive, but can be used as a cover for abusive behaviour. It’s also opened up discussion about workplace harassment as the CBC investigates harassment claims that date back at least as far as 2010.
The discussion is a well-needed one. I have had a few friends online who initially supported Ghomeshi (when it still appeared he was being targeted for being ‘kinky’ as opposed to abusive) who have since reversed their position. Hopefully the discussions that #ghomeshigate (please, please can we stop adding ‘gate’ to every single scandal to hit the news?) has opened up help to foster more understanding towards abuse victims and create an environment that lends decreased amounts of support to sexual predators.
I’m not holding my breath, yet.