The Love Letters Don’t Matter

If any of you are like me, then you’ve been following the Jian Ghomeshi trial that is ongoing. If you don’t know what’s going on, basically, Ghomeshi is on trial for allegedly punching/slapping and choking three women without their consent (there are others that have accused him of this but only three are on trial). The first and third witnesses’ identities are protected under a publication ban, so we don’t really know who they are. The second witness to testify was actress Lucy DeCoutere of Trailer Park Boys fame. I’ve been watching this investigation and trial closely for two reasons:

1. When the news of Ghomeshi’s firing from the CBC first broke, there were many women who had worked with him claiming he sexually harassed them in their workplace. He was a powerful man in the CBC and arts community and appeared to have gotten away with this harassment for years. I had just recently quit a job wherein I’d been sexually harassed by my boss and was unable to get any support.
2. Depending on how this trial plays out (so far, not looking good), women will soon have very good confirmation of how victims of sexual assault are treated and it will show us whether or not the justice system respects victims of sexual assault or not.

The trial has played out precisely as I expected it would. Ghomeshi’s lawyer has humiliated the victims and thrown red herrings all over the place in order to discredit them, distracting us from the actual case at hand. I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the only thing being examined is if Ghomeshi slapped, punched and choked these women without their consent. That’s it. What Ghomeshi’s lawyer has done is make us question the women’s behaviours and motives, making them seem guilty and him as a poor guy who has been wrongly accused.

I think DeCoutere is a prime example of what Ghomeshi’s lawyer has done, simply because she and Ghomeshi have had so much correspondence and is the only victim to want to be named. As court ran on, it came out that DeCoutere and Ghomeshi had spent time together following the assault and continued correspondence for years. DeCoutere sent Ghomeshi flowers after the assault and told him she wanted to fuck him the very next night. She even wrote him a six page love letter, all after this man had sexually assaulted her. All of this information of course makes us question DeCoutere’s behaviour. Why in the world would you ever send a love letter to the man who assaulted you? Why would you want to maintain contact with a guy who is such a monster? It doesn’t make sense, does it?

The questions and comments on various articles are now claiming the women worked together and falsely accused Ghomeshi because they were spurned lovers. Comments indicate that they feel an innocent man could potentially be going to jail. This is exactly the story Ghomeshi’s lawyer wanted to have us all believe. These women are just so upset that Ghomeshi didn’t want to date them that they’ve rallied together to falsely accuse him. That is absurd! Women are well aware that victims of sexual assault are humiliated and, essentially, re-victimized when they report these crimes. That’s no surprise, we live in a society that blames victims for their actions. Women grow up being told to watch what they wear, watch how much they drink, watch how late they stay out and be careful where they go because they might get assaulted. Why don’t we tell men not to rape? It’s a disservice to men to have them seem as some sort of primal animal that is incapable of restraining himself because he saw a woman’s thigh. It’s ridiculous and an insult to men.

Women are expected to be nice and proper. We aren’t to be rude and we have to be friendly to everyone. If we say “yes” and consent to sex, we are sluts. If we say “no” and refuse sex, then we are putting men in the “friend zone”, which is just as bad. We can’t win. I remember when the man who raped me kissed me without consent the first time and how freaked out I was. It was weird and creepy and I wanted to avoid him. I wondered if it was a one-off kind of thing and if I had done something wrong. I still wanted to be away from him, but because of his connection to my family, I constantly ran into him. He knew what he was doing and essentially groomed me for the relationship that was to come. When I broke up with him and he raped me that night, I got away from him as fast as I could. But I still ran into him again, because of the family connection, and I still hear regular updates about him from my family. You’re wondering why I didn’t report my rape. The answer is that I was 18, he was 27, I was a kid and he was an adult. We had been in a relationship and had since broken up. I didn’t have injuries that I could point to. Nobody would believe me. If I went to the police, my parents would find out, my friends would know. He would go in and tell the police I was lying and when I explained what happened, the police would say it wasn’t a big deal. It wouldn’t go to court and I would be humiliated in front of my friends and family and he would go on as the poor damaged man who had been falsely accused by some weird little girl. He would have gotten away with it anyway.

With all three witnesses in the Ghomeshi trial, it’s easy to see how they are being blamed. They claim that Ghomeshi assaulted them but one sent him a bikini photo, DeCoutere sent a love letter and the third went on another date with him. We ask again, why did they do that? All of these women seem to have been running in the same circles as Ghomeshi and he was popular and powerful. These women likely knew their careers could be negatively affected by coming forward and, as I felt, who would even believe him? This was not some guy in an office building who nobody know, this was a powerful man, a celebrity, who had lots of pull in the industry.

In my experience, I didn’t come forward when I was being sexually harassed at my job because my boss was powerful, like Ghomeshi. My boss was super close with the CEO of the company, my boss decided my pay, he was well connected in the industry and if I had come forward early on, he would have blacklisted me and fired me. I’d never work in that industry again and would struggle to find a job. As it turns out, when I did come forward before I quit, nobody believed me at first. I was asked if I was sure he wasn’t joking and I just didn’t get the joke. Eventually, my union came to bat for me and I spoke to them, HR, and a number of lawyers. I retold the stories over and over, and you know what happened? I was told I was making this up because I was unhappy with my salary and that it was all a big misunderstanding. My case is in limbo, he continues to collect his massive salary and harass women. All of that, and what did it get me? Nothing.

I know the anti-feminist agenda likes to propagate the idea that women frequently falsely report rapes and assaults because they regret sleeping with someone. Either they got a bit too drunk and made a mistake or they’re jealous and conniving and trying to get back at a man who wasn’t interested in them anymore. Really though, what woman in their right mind would put themselves through what these witnesses have been through just because they thought they regretted their actions? Is it worth being humiliated in court and before the media? Is it worth being stigmatized as a victim? Is it worth all your friends, family and colleagues knowing what happened to you? Being judged? Coming forward about and assault or harassment is humiliating. You go in knowing it’s unlikely anyone will believe you. You go in expecting you’ll have some dignity as everyone promises you’ll have, but there is none. You’re vilified. No man is worth it for a woman to be humiliated like that. Is there never a false report? No, of course not, there are exceptions to every rule. But I’m willing to bet that the vast majority of reported assaults are true assaults and not spurned lovers or women with regrets. We victim blame as a society.

DeCoutere and the two other witnesses likely expected the same thing I experienced. Who would believe them? There were other women who worked with Ghomeshi and claimed he sexually harassed them at work. The women who Ghomeshi sexually harassed at the CBC needed their jobs and knew that he was powerful and he could impact their careers, both positively and negatively. No wonder they didn’t come forward. When you’re the victim of a crime, you feel completely alone. I can imagine that each woman that Ghomeshi assaulted felt completely alone, tried to normalize the situation or just tried to move on. When the reports came about about what Ghomeshi had done, these women likely realized that what happened to them wasn’t a one-off, this was his behaviour and he did it over and over and over. The people claiming that they made everything up and have falsely accused this guy have likely never been victims of sexual assault. As I said in the previous paragraph, it’s embarrassing and degrading to have to tell people what happened to you on it’s own. To then have to get up and be grilled over your every action, as if you brought the assault on yourself, would be reliving the whole thing over again and re-vicitimizing the victim.

All of this to say that when you drill down to what Ghomeshi is on trial for, DeCoutere and the other witnesses actions after the assaults do not matter. It doesn’t matter that DeCoutere said the next day she wanted to sleep with Ghomeshi. It doesn’t matter that DeCoutere sent him a six page love letter. It doesn’t matter that the first witness sent a bikini photo to him. It doesn’t matter that the third witness met Ghomeshi for dinner after the assault. Their actions after the assault don’t matter, they’re irrelevant. This is the only question at this trial: Did Ghomeshi slap, punch and choke the victims without their consent? That’s it. Ghomeshi’s lawyer is doing a great job attempting to make us forget that. There is some small hope that he will be found guilty since the case is only being heard by a judge, without a jury. Realistically, I don’t believe Ghomeshi will be found guilty, as a society we are still too focused on blaming the victim and normalizing violence against women, particularly when the accused is a rich, powerful celebrity.

I will always believe one woman over a powerful man.

Curvy Barbie Proves We Have a Long Way to Go

 

Barbie’s got a few new body types.

I suppose we are supposed to see this as progress for women. Finally, Barbie has shed her tin-waist-massive-bust utterly unrealistic body type in favour of a more “curvy” figure. We can get into the merits of how realistic the new “curvy” bodies are, and it’s fairly clear they’re still not all that realistic. I still see tiny waists, flat tummies and perfectly made up faces. I do not see this as progress. We’re still discussing and judging women’s bodies, a win would be when we no longer need to judge women’s bodies.

I came across an article about this new “curvy” Barbie on my national news site and dipped down into the comments to see how people were reacting, as it’s always interesting. The comments are incredibly unintelligent and do what the internet loves to do, fat shame! Hooray! Some individuals went so far as to call these new Barbies obese. I do have some favourites:

“Instead of celebrating “Fat Barbie” how about they promote “Fitness Barbie” a doll with a good diet who exercises enough.”

“Yeah, cuz Americans need more fat role models…”

“For those of us who have lived athletic lives, and who can at 60 almost fit into the clothes we wore in high school, this is lost on us! We just don’t get it. Barbie and Ken, get your lazy asses off the couch and go for a run for God’s sake.”

Constant streams of articles and the never-ending stream of stereotypes assume that someone’s weight is tied to their health. Reality and science tell us in fact that being fat doesn’t kill you, of course when you search it you get a CDC-sponsored study that says 350,000 deaths a year are the result of people being oversight or obese. The same journal published a re-analysis of the study with more accurate results showing the number is actually closer to 25,000 (94% difference). This post is not supposed to be about how the size of a body is not always reflective of its health and the fat shamers who always accompany these types of articles. This post is about how society still thinks it’s their right and business to tell women what their bodies look like.

Women’s bodies are constantly judged. We are expected to look a certain way, we’re supposed to dress a certain way, we may only eat certain things, we must exercise to avoid having a fat body, and we must remain pleasing to the male gaze. We have to be sexy so men see us as desirable. Women’s bodies are commercialized and made into something disgusting and evil that we must maintain or it will get out of control and we’ll become sexually unappealing. If it’s not age, it’s fat. Women’s body size is expected to be small so that we don’t take up space. Bodies that are not deemed sexy are to be covered and hidden away. We’re told “that’s not very flattering” which really means “I can see your belly isn’t flat in that shirt”.

Two of my girlfriends in particular have just had children and listening to them is depressing. They have a “pouch” they can’t get rid of, they’re going on a diet to be thin, and they hate themselves. One friend has just divorced and we’re going out to celebrate. She wanted to go dancing, I thought it would be fun. It’s turned into an exercise in pleasing the male gaze. She is getting fake eyelashes, she’s wearing spanx, we had to shop for hours to find her a top that “flattered” her and emphasized her breasts, she is terrified of being compared to the gorgeous younger women in the bar and she tells me every day how much she hates her body. I doesn’t matter how many times I tell her she is beautiful, she’s got a smile that is absolutely incredible, and that I think she is gorgeous no matter what she looks like or what size she is. When I was getting married, my friends wanted to take me out for dinner a few weeks before. I agreed and when one friend presented the restaurant we were going to the other loudly said, “she doesn’t want to eat there, she has to fit into a wedding dress”. I laughed, told them it’s fine. I wasn’t trying to lose weight for the wedding. It’s wrong that that’s seen as rebellious.

Back to this article, though. Men need to insert themselves into a discussion about women’s bodies further by asking for a Dad Bod Ken doll. Then as they compare unrealistic body types they show He-Man and say that women are too sensitive. Certainly, He-Man is unrealistic, I don’t disagree. I wonder how many little boys are afraid of food and think their bodies are going to betray them and so develop eating disorders? I wonder how many little boys see images of men portrayed the same way as women in regular advertising? And let’s not forget the exposure to pornography where women’s bodies are there to be used and abused by men. I wonder how many little boys look forward to be the one suffering facial abuse?

Let’s go back to the Dad Bods. My male friends adore this. They happily show off their beer bellies with pride while my female friends are panicking about a post-pregnancy “pouch”. My male friends order what they want to eat at a restaurant, my female friends say “I really want to get the burger with fries, but I’m going to get the salad without dressing”. I’m not saying to eat foods that are considered unhealthy. I’m saying do what makes you happy. If the burger and fries is what you really want and will make you happy then order it and enjoy it. If the salad with no dressing is what you really want and will make you happy then order it and enjoy it.

So, if Dad Bods are awesome, where are the Mom Bods? Oh right, Mom Bods aren’t sexy or pleasing to the male gaze.

Bros and fat shamers, I await you in the comments.

 

Normal Men Don’t Date Teenage Girls

During my teen years, I didn’t really spend much time with boys of the opposite sex. I was completely focused on ensuring I had good grades in high school because I wanted so desperately to go to university. My parents had drilled it into my head that if I did poorly in university, a future of flipping burgers at your pick of a fast food restaurant was all I’d have to look forward to, if I was lucky. I had friends that were in the popular crowd and their parties and exploring sex sounded like a terrible idea to me. I avoided all those parties and just did my own thing.

My grandpa passed away when I was 15 and that was the first time I met AH. AH was nine years my senior and was child of friends of my parents. The funeral for my grandpa coincided when AH decided to go to university in the town where we were living. I remember that AH had been over to our house long before the funeral, my parents felt obligated to have him at events. I never really spent any time with him, because what did a 24 year old man and I have in common? My first real interaction I recall clearly with AH was at the reception after the funeral. He immediately made me uncomfortable, asking me about my clothes, boyfriends and telling me how good I looked. He ultimately dropped out of university and moved away, and I thought I’d never see him again.

A year and a half later, AH came back determined to try his hand at school again. He convinced my grandmother to let him live with her, rent-free. She was so lonely, she agreed. I was in university by this point and my grandmother’s home was on the way to school so I swung by every morning. This meant seeing AH more and more. He began accompanying me to school and following me about. When I started swimming in my grandmother’s pool in the mornings, he started swimming. I was extremely uncomfortable that he had started swimming, I didn’t like him looking at me. He was 26 and I was 17, we had nothing in common and he just watched me and got uncomfortably close. Girls are taught and expected to be nice and polite. Don’t be mean, don’t hurt people’s feelings. I never said I wanted him to get away from me because I didn’t want to be rude.

AH moved out of my grandmother’s house after a few months and began renting a place near the downtown area of our city. He began asking me out and although I was uncomfortable, I was flattered. This 26 year old man was taking me to art films and documentaries, he thought I was smart and cute. I’d never dated anyone before so I didn’t really know what the normal was, I just assumed my unease was related to the new relationship. One evening, AH invited me over to watch a film at his house, he repeated the gibberish he had heard about it trying to seem like an intellectual. The film ran on and on, I was a bit nervous because it was late and I felt like I was expected to provide him with something. When I got up to leave, AH grabbed me and began tickling me. I asked him to stop and he ignored me. I remember feeling frightened, I’d never really been prevented from leaving before. The tickling escalated and I grabbed his fingers to stop him, I wrenched on his fingers until I heard one pop. Feeling guilty after he cried out, I stayed longer and put some frozen vegetables on his fingers. AH took this time to kiss me.  I stood, threw my coat on and ran out the door. I got in my car, drove away three blocks and cried my eyes out. That was my first kiss. I think back now and clearly my reaction should have been enough to let me know that I should have stayed far away from him, but I was embarrassed and I didn’t want my parents to know. So, I didn’t stay anything and tried to ignore him.

Being ignored didn’t suit AH, and he moved into the neighbourhood where I was living. At the time, I was a little flattered. This older guy had moved to be close to me and had fallen so in love with me, he wanted to be with me. Thinking back on it now, 13 years later, that’s a bit of a stalker move. I should have been scared, and I should have told my parents. When sex entered the equation, I knew that AH wanted to know he was taking my virginity (it isn’t something you give or take, it’s a stupid concept in my opinion) and when he asked about it, the gross look in his eye convinced me to lie to him. I told him that he wasn’t my first, my high school boyfriend was (I’d never had a boyfriend). I could tell he was disappointed, but I didn’t want him to know. I remember sitting in my room one night and I was justifying why I’d have sex with AH. I convinced myself that my first sexual experience was ok to be with a guy I wasn’t really into because then when I met someone I actually liked, I’d be experienced. That is a terrible, horrible reason to have sex with someone. I was pressured and instead of walk away, I gave in with a stupid justification.

I met a new guy at university and while I wasn’t interested in dating him, I said I was. He became this incredible ‘get out of jail’ card. My new relationship with him provided me an excuse to break up with AH. I remember sitting on AH’s bed, he had no furniture, trying to explain to this now 27 year old man why I didn’t want to be with him. He kept trying to make me justify it to him, I kept trying to be nice, to be polite and tried to answer his questions. After a couple of hours and getting nowhere, I said that I had to go, the hairs on my neck were standing up and my whole being was screaming to get out of there. I told him if he had any questions he could call me. As I got up to leave, AH grabbed my wrists and forced me down onto the bed, he got on top of me and even though I said no and I told him to stop, he ignored me. When he finished and got off of me, I jumped off the bed and grabbed my pants off the floor and ran into the bathroom. I pulled my clothes on, dialled 9-1-1 into my phone and held my thumb over the send key. I remember taking a deep breath, opening the door, stepping into my shoes and running out the door.

It has taken me 13 years to admit that I was raped by AH. I buried everything for over a decade and I blamed myself. I should have known better, I should have left sooner, I should have told my parents. Really though, what kind of man dates at teenager? He knew that there would be a power imbalance and that he would have all the power, it was all tipped in his favour. Although he made me think that I was mature and smart, he manipulated me but I was still flattered because of this attention. I thought I was special. He thought he had a right to use my body for his own pleasure, regardless of what I wanted.

I’ve never told anyone what happened to me.

I found out that AH became a teacher where I used to live (I moved away shortly after I was assaulted, purely for school). He teaches students aged 14 to 18, his preferred age of girls. I threw up when I found out he was teaching girls that age and I called the school where he teaches dozens of times. I could never bring myself to tell them what a monster they had working for them. I was scared I wouldn’t be believed and I was scared that I’d be blamed (I’ve blamed myself for years). Why didn’t I go to the police? Who’d believe me? My biggest regret is not reporting him to the school he teaches at. I will never forgive myself if he does this to one of this students.

I recently found out his wife miscarried. I knew I hadn’t gotten over the assault when I realized I was happy. What he did to me will be with me forever. Maybe someday I’ll tell my husband about it, but right now, I still don’t have the courage.

Welcome

I’ve spent a long time trying to come up with the first post for this blog. I’ve seen some really great first posts and I wanted an equally great one to explain what this blog would be about. Unsurprisingly, life happens while you’re trying to craft the perfect first post. 

So, I give up on having a clever first post. I’m going to explore ideas and tell stories and really, this blog is for me but maybe someone out there will read it.