rape culture

We Failed Domestic Violence Victims- Preemptive Strategies and Losing (or Finding) Jian Ghomeshi

(***TRIGGER WARNING***: Several links here and throughout this post refer to descriptions of violence that may be triggering for survivors.  My previous entry, prior to the revelations of additional claims and Lucy DeCoutere and Reva Seth’s coming forward, is here).

(UPDATE #2 (10/31): The digital age is ripe to be exploited for misinformation, but this case now appears to provide a compelling case for how one ripple in the digital world can lead to the disclosure we wish for but do not often volunteer. A detailed story published by the Toronto Star indicates that Ghomeshi may have inadvertently sped up the investigation on himself by reacting in paranoia to the Twitter account, Big Ears Teddy, which only posted tweets from April 9-11. An official investigation is finally underway).

(UPDATE #1 (10/31): Apologies that I missed this item before submitting this, but Navigator has dropped Jian Ghomeshi as a client).

If you only click on and read one link in this entire post, make it this one. This summarizes the tremendous frustration about the terrible events that make the story right now.

On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning (while packing and preparing for #collegemedia14), I did something of which I’m not sure I’m horribly ashamed, but of which I certainly know I’m anything but proud.

I went on a Jian Ghomeshi listening/watching binge (and no, I’m not linking any of it).

I listened to the podcast of his last Q episode from start-to-finish. I listened to several interviews of him from his book tour of 2012. I listened to bunch of his “audio essays.” I listened to some of his best & in some cases (Howie Mandel) poignant interviews as a radio host. And I listened, in a state of surreal shock, to his Gamergate interviews—in which women detailed to him the horrors of cyberstalking and death threats they were experiencing—which were conducted only ten days ago.

I think, somehow, I knew— as Robyn Urback wrote today— the dam was about to break. And I theorized in conversations that there was any number of reasons why I found myself compelled to go on my listening binge before it did. Those reasons including:

— The natural temptation to see if there was any clues in the public persona that had been staring us in the face all along. Oh sure, he was smarmy…but how many smarmy media personalities are there out there? Are they all this horrible?
— Similarly listening for the clues in his book tour interviews: the descriptions of a life as an outsider due to Persian background and the seemingly strong connection to his recently deceased father. How could someone who claimed to work so hard to make his dad proud be something so much different?
— The surreal feeling of listening to a person’s last known photograph. Somehow the public Jian Ghomeshi feels…not so much like he was never real. But like he was killed by the private Jian Ghomeshi. And that man took his time doing it. And he physically abused and emotionally scarred possibly countless women- real, very real, very non-fictitious people- along the way.
— The cruel fate that his last two episodes would encompass Gamergate conversations, the Ottawa shootings and the subjects of depression and suicide with Clint Malarchuk. (Malarchuk, not knowing what was to unfold, tweeted this afterwards).

And finally, listening to a historical archive of a man being a voice of reason for the nation…and slowly realizing something dark and sinister. And something that, quite frankly as someone who advises student journalists and radio hosts for a living, is downright haunting:

If Jian Ghomeshi the radio host was a different person than Jian Ghomeshi today, he’d be the first person most of Canada would have turned to for commentary on this story.

Not any of the women. Not any of the women who knew the women. Not any of the friends that tried to provide shelter to the women. You can very easily surmise the first voice on the matter on a Monday morning would have been Jian’s, ever so calmly starting with his signature “Hi there,” ostensibly presenting his “word of radio god.”

And even just that one realization tells you right there: we failed. We failed the women of Canada, the women of the world. We keep failing, and I’m right there with all of us.

———-

One of my students wrote a powerful story for The Signal earlier this semester on why sexual assaults go underreported and that story doesn’t lead all that differently from this one that I linked above, the most important story of all. My students’ story was accompanied by a staff editorial, which was well-intentioned and, quite frankly, strongly reasoned.

But still, more often than not, we do not report. Oftentimes, it’s up to the good journalists, it’s up to the Toronto Star muckrakers we’ve seen in action, to wrangle up as much as earthly possible in a story to uncover the truth. Why? As “Melissa” from Nothing From Winnipeg wrote: “Do you know about Jian?” That’s why.

Those horrible feelings that something is not right, with enough people feeling the same thing all around you, with enough people whispering terrible things but somehow no one ever really being able to point to the person that can corroborate it in a way that everyone can know… even though…they know. I don’t have any close friends near the situation, but many have moved to various places across Canada and have heard from those who know about Jian. Some of them bit their lip because they felt it might not be ever possible to prove.

When the dam bursts, it becomes impossible to deny. Oh sure, we still have not an ounce more of physical evidence than we had on Monday when many of us tried to hold our feelings on the matter at bay. But now we have people putting names to their accusations. Now we have people offering vivid descriptions. Now we have a conspiracy theory of Ghoeshi’s (lawyers’) imagination so vast that moon landing conspiracy theorists would state “I’m sorry, that’s a stretch.”

But why do we have to let the dam reach the breaking point? Why do so many assaults go unreported (or underreported)? Why did it take not one assault by Ghomeshi to merit a journalistic investigation but a virtual plethora of them? Much of it stems from how we take our the principle of the presumption of innocence to a rather twisted end.

—–

I described Ghomeshi’s approach in his Facebook statement as a “a multi-pronged reduction of offensiveness approach: bolstering (reminding everyone of his work as a ‘good (CBC) solider’), minimization (‘we’re not talking about assault, we’re talking about consensual BDSM’) and attacking the accuser (insinuating this is the “campaign” of ‘jilted ex-lover’).”

But others were much more to the point and accurate: his team was trying to pull a David Letterman. Furthermore, It was only logical that this was the only aim because winning the accompanying lawsuit was swiftly judged as pragmatically impossible.

We’ve logically come to a very quick conclusion about the Letterman strategy: it failed. There are two reasons for this.

The minimization effect worked for Letterman because the blackmail attempt was a much easier story to believe. The most Ghomeshi could hope for was that the accusations towards him would remain as vague as they did on Monday so that his conspiracy theory could hold water. That didn’t even remain a reality for 24 hours. By Wednesday morning, the accusations were so varied, descriptive, and from differing social circles with no real compelling interest to defame Ghomeshi seeming obvious. On the other hand, Letterman’s story was easy to believe right away and thus his infidelities were immediately minimized against what was perceived as a greater crime, that of trying to blackmail him.

Second, Letterman’s story stopped unfolding. He didn’t just get ahead of it. He stopped it. There was no danger of Letterman being arrested. His infidelity may have been reprehensible but it posed no danger of arrest nor did any suggestions it would lead to assault take hold. Letterman was deemed by some to be “merely” reprehensible, Ghomeshi is now understood to be dangerous.

And that second difference is why we’re all kicking ourselves now. The law indicates Ghomeshi is “innocent until proven guilty” and we carry that so far so as to not even begin or demand a police investigation now after this many allegations. In the police’s case, possibly out of respect of victims’ fears of vengeance of a perpetrator before a sentence can be laid out. In the public’s case, because of a false equivalency between a rush to investigate and a rush to judgement.

I write all of this not to pin blame on a specific person other than Jian Ghomeshi. Any assaults committed by him, however many they be, are his responsibility and his to be punished for. But that doesn’t mean that we as a collective haven’t failed. Because Ghomeshi’s story hasn’t stopped, more come forward. Yet still we do not do enough. We try to walk the delicate line of respecting victims, respecting the justice system but yearning to take assault allegations seriously, despite the overwhelming evidence we collectively don’t.

And after everything I’ve written, I have few solutions. Here’s two starting points, though:

– You don’t have to believe every single rape or assault allegation you hear. But you should never disbelieve it until it can be soundly disproven. The mythological “pot of gold” that a false rape accuser gets still eludes us all- the sensible ones of all, that is. Hateful, sexist dialog towards accusers of people you want to stick up for is inexcusable, no matter how good of a friend, ally or figure that might be. The consequences of stigmatizing an accuser, no matter how frivulous a charge may seem, is far greater than the consequences of giving an accusation a chance to be investigated.

– Here are some resources. Get familiar:

http://www.cwhn.ca/
http://www.canadianwomen.org/facts-about-violence
http://www.nrcdv.org/
http://www.dvrc-or.org/
http://www.thehotline.org/
http://www.ncadv.org/

——

One last thought,

Jian Ghomeshi said something in one of those many “Q essays” (again, not linking it) and it seems like he was oblivious to it. “Journalism is not a crime.” We tell our students, “you the student are subject to the same journalism that you practice on the students you write about.” Perhaps there are people who think they are media figures think they get immunity. They don’t.

After all of this, it remains as true, and in as dark of terms as possible, as when I first wrote it: something very sad has happened. Not just at CBC, but across Canada.

Something Very Sad Has Happened at CBC

Resources for victims of domestic violence can be found here.

(UPDATE #3 (10/29/14): **TRIGGER WARNINGS**, This following links contains either written or audio descriptions of violence which may be triggering to survivors. An anonymous woman claims abuse at the hands of Ghomeshi, citing the incidents as just over a decade ago, on the CBC radio program As It Happens. And the first woman to come forward publicly did so shortly thereafter, actress Lucy DeCoutere, to the Toronto Star).

(UPDATE #2 (10/28/14) Even more relevant to my world is this reflection on the furor and what it says about the power of radio from Paula Simons at the Edmonton Journal).

(UPDATE (10/28/14): Since I posted this, there have been a couple of excellent stories on the various angles of this situation. Brenda Cossman offers an excellent legal analysis for The Globe and Mail. Soraya Nadia McDonald writes for The Washington Post about the suspicions from many in the kink community of Ghomeshi’s public statement).

It’s no secret that due to my job description, history with the station and genuine affinity for it and its content, I usually find myself listening to Album 88 during my morning commute. But there are sometimes exceptions to the rule. Being a big sports fan, I may occasionally check out the local sports stations for my favorite teams. Or I’ll check in with college radio stations from my past.

And I’ll sometimes check in on my hometown and nation by accessing the Sydney feed of CBC radio. Which means that I occasionally find myself listening to the national radio show Q.

By any reasonable standard, Q is an excellent public radio program featuring a wide range of guests on a wide range of subjects and some of that credit, at least, must go to its now-former host, Jian Ghomeshi. You might love his smooth delivery, ability to make interviewees feel at ease (well, most interviewees…) and ask questions beyond the usual drivel of “tell me about your latest album/movie and is it the greatest thing you’ve ever done?” On the other hand, you might find him to be a “typical public radio host,” in the perjorative sense of the word, who’s too much in love with the sound of his voice. This is something that was rather expertly parodied several times on This Hour Has 22 Minutes (the 50 Shades references hit closer to home now, don’t they?). It’s fitting that his last Q “essay” introduction came on the heels of the tragic events on Parliament Hill in Ottawa last week. If you like Ghomeshi, it serves as a great parable for a gravitas well-earned. If you hate him, it serves a great parable for self-appointed pomposity.

It’s hard to recap what led to Jian’s departure/dismissal from the show this weekend, and no one web source provides a tidy timeline. But this is CBC’s version of events, this is Jian’s version of events and this is the version of events from the one publication that claims to have been investigating sexual abuse allegations against Ghomeshi for a long while.

The public relations war has already begun (when we’re dealing with a $55 million lawsuit, how can a PR war not happen?). Ghomeshi has hired a high profile firm to defend him. He (and they) are employing a multi-pronged reduction of offensiveness approach: bolstering (reminding everyone of his work as a “good (CBC) solider”), minimization (“we’re not talking about assault, we’re talking about consensual BDSM”) and attacking the accuser (insinuating this is the “campaign” of “jilted ex-lover”).

Of course, the Twitterverse is weighing in along with all other forms of social media (especially the multiple comments sections). And I find myself incredibly saddened by the situation, which provides no sunny interpretation, and the public response so far.

On the one hand, I feel as though there is a lot of presumption of guilt from critics who don’t have a lot of the facts of the case in front of them. Going back to last year, when a xojane contributor made thinly veiled allegations presumed to be about Ghomeshi, there has been a rush from some to immediately castigate the radio host for something only whispered about and not proven beyond the faintest of “he said, she said” terms. It is entirely possible that Ghomeshi, as he is suggesting, simply has a right to a private sex life, that includes kinks and fetishes the public may dislike, without it affecting his job. It’s not an inconceivable blackmail scenario and many who get riled by the telling of a story without first evaluating its truth value are likely to be riled up.

But on the other hand,

The rhetoric of those rushing to have the host reinstated also rings painfully hollow with me. It seems that his defenders have taken his statement of “I was fired because CBC was embarrassed by what this blackmail attempt will reveal about me” at face value. It’s interesting that his defenders talk of being innocent until proven guilty: Ghomeshi isn’t the defendant in the lawsuit, CBC is. Until proven otherwise, the trite principle actually suggests we must assume CBC had a perfectly good reason for letting Ghomeshi go.

There is a level of star-crossed worship at play here. In one of the many facets of “adult life mimics high school life,” I’ve often found that those inclined to find themselves in the arts community will deride celebrity-worship, particularly of athletes. This is very au courant because mounting testimonials and evidence suggests that if you’re watching the NFL (which I freely admit I do), you’re likely watching a lot of wife-beaters in action– which is a horrible reality to contemplate.

Being someone who was as likely to be found at the game as he was at the local indy show was always something of an awkward situation for me…and still is.  The suggestion of many “anti-jock” types was that the popular kids and meathead jocks were the sexist bastards of the universe, unjustly glorified for “just being able to put a ______ in a _____ on a (insert playing surface),” elevated to the status of gods and thus far more susceptible to perpetuating rape culture.

However, there’s an observable discomfort when people we assume to be intellectually, culturally or socially “refined” or “superior” in some way face similar allegations. It’s why cultural critics (moderate, right-wing or otherwise) often call out the (perceived, at least) left for too hastily defending auteurs like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski despite their crimes. Huffington Post contributor Justin Beach hits to the heart of this in a fine op-ed piece: many people are rushing to Ghomeshi’s defense simply because he seems too good a cultural archetype to be guilty of this sort of behavior.

But this doesn’t hold up to any reasonable scrutiny. Gamergate and alt-lit disputes, for example, demonstrate that any culture that leads to adulation can foster rape culture and that adulation need not be on a mass scale. Furthermore, the castigation of accusers before details can be gathered can have a chilling effect. If it comes out that CBC fired or dismissed Jian not because they thought he was guilty of a crime, but because they found having a morning radio host that was into BDSM distasteful? That’s on CBC, not anyone who’s accused Ghomeshi of assault, harrassment or sexual misconduct.

Any statements or public reaction that discourage victims of sexual assault from coming forward are beyond the pale of disheartening, they’re sinister- whether unconsciously or otherwise. If Ghomeshi is the victim of a disaffected ex, that’s a terrible thing for him. But let’s not kid ourselves, victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse suffer slings and arrows that $55 million lawsuits cannot deflect.

So, it might be best not to conclusively rule on anything other than to say that we’re definitely faced with a coin flip that is terrible either way.

On the more trivial side, either a public figure many of us admired was much less than we thought he was or we were deprived of an excellent radio host for no tangibly good reason. On the less trivial side, either the state (the CBC in this case) has placed itself in the bedrooms of the nation or Jian Ghomeshi got away with deplorable things due in no small part to a culture that turned the other way from his behaviour. And least trivial of all, either a select number of people have suffered battery and/or abuse or they have diminished these very serious types of crimes with false allegations.

Either way, something very sad has happened at the CBC.