Kiran Opal has a post on the Jian Ghomeshi Saga, and the ‘Conquest’ of Feminism. She discusses the massive obstacles to reporting sexual assault and the consequent rarity of official reporting.
In most high profile sexual assault and rape cases, if the women (or in the cases of male victims, the men) don’t name names or don’t come out openly and accuse those who they say have assaulted them, they are called liars. If they name names and come out openly and accuse, they are themselves accused of trying to destroy the alleged perpetrator’s career. Here, we don’t hang women for speaking up about being assaulted like they just did with Reyhana Jabbari in Iran, nor do we stone women to death for reporting their rape and sexual assault, like they did with Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow in Somalia. Here in the civilized West, we only silence, shame, bully, pressure, harass and destroy their lives for speaking up at all.
There are so many ways of doing that. I’ve been learning about some new ones lately.
This whole Ghomeshi mess came as a shock to me and to several of my friends, all of us left-leaning, social liberal, progressive types. CBC Radio‘s show “Q” has been a cultural icon for the last several years, with so many amazing guests, interviews, music performances; I wouldn’t have guessed that in October of 2014, I’d be reading these terrible allegations and the awkward explanations that Mr. Ghomeshi wrote in his Facebook note. I will reserve a final judgement until there’s a proper trial (if ever), and meanwhile, I will consider Ghomeshi’s other actions; like his seemingly blasé attitude about a “debate” on his show on whether rape culture “actually exists” from earlier this year. I am not saying that he’s automatically guilty of the latest accusations, but I am also not one of the people who worship at his altar in the type of cult of personality that Justin Beach eloquently takes apart in his piece. The cult-ish way that people swarmed on social media, having decided based on only his PR letter that the issue was finished and resolved – with no critical thought – was quite disturbing to watch.
Beware of worshiping at the altar of anyone. You can admire, like, emulate (within reason), but do not worship. It never goes well. Ok wait that’s too strong – sometimes it goes well; sometimes the object of worship actually is someone who doesn’t rape or bully or silence. But it goes wrong all too often and anyway it’s abject. Don’t be abject. Be appreciative but not abject. Admire where appropriate but don’t grovel.
Thinking about this and related things has prompted Kiran to see a pattern emerging.
There is a certain breed of men nowadays – often found in secular, progressive, atheist, artsy, hipster enclaves – who behave in a way that I call “feministy”. These men’s so-called support for women’s equality is quite superficial; it’s really a predatory tactic to gain women’s trust. The feministy predator man, in fact, likes to think of himself as a kind of “conqueror” of feminist women. He is exciting at first, but gets predatory in his sexual and romantic pursuits; he tends to seek out strong minded women and try to break down their will. These types of men gaslight women – it starts slowly, but eventually they tend to belittle and demean the woman they’re with to the point that the women may even start believing them. My progressive friends and I run into this type all the time.
One feministy predator type told me not long ago, when he was a bit drunk, that inside every feminist is a submissive woman wanting a man like him to overtake her. That it’s “evolutionary” or “human nature”. This is someone who goes around calling himself a male feminist, and has even written a couple of articles about women’s rights around the world. He seriously got off on that fantasy that feminists secretly all want to be dominated by men, and believed women shared his narcissistic obsession with himself. He had convinced himself, and no amount of evidence that women don’t want relationships like that, or women who had accused him of abuse and violence seemed to get through to him.
I know the type. Boy do I know the type. It makes me want to live in a cave and haul supplies up in a basket.
One of the reasons this story took so long to break has a lot to do with multiculturalism, and the racism of low expectation.
The rumours have been around for some years now, but were never acted on. You have to understand Canada, the CBC and the all purvesive multi-culti ethos in Toronto.
Jian was a darling of the left; an immigrant, a ‘Muslim’, a member of a visible minority and therefore somewhat beyond reach. The mechanism that allowed his predations to continue unchecked are similar to those we saw with the sex scandal in Rotherham England. Everyone, including the women assaulted, are afraid of the ‘racist’ label.
And then there’s this:
There is a certain breed of men nowadays – often found in secular, progressive, atheist, artsy, hipster enclaves – who behave in a way that I call “feministy”. These men’s so-called support for women’s equality is quite superficial; it’s really a predatory tactic to gain women’s trust. The feministy predator man, in fact, likes to think of himself as a kind of “conqueror” of feminist women.
I totally agree with that assessment. Those types of men really do exist and are actually quite common.
I’ve a female friend whose father had sauddenly died in the fall of 1980 and then shortly afterwards one of her idols, John Lennon ,was assassinated. The death of both these figures left her reeling. She was in an Art History programme. Her Prof was artsy, secular and hip and he took advantage of her bereavement and her disorientation to gain her trust, but only in order to sexually assault her. And the fact that he’d managed to ingratiate himself as a kind of father figure just twisted the knife in the wound.
It took her many years to get over that. It was so bad, so traumatic, that her entire live is now bifurcated into a kind of before-and-after scenario
*facepalm* No, Decker. No.
Decker is full of it. The Rotheram rapists got away with it for so long not because
brown folk get so much respect, but because teenage working class girls get so little.
Ghomeshi got away with it for so long not because people cowtow to brown folk, but because people cowtow to celebrity. Jimmy Savile was a white guy, so is Rolf Harris and Ghomeshi was basically following their manual.
The phenomenon of the “feministy” predator is becoming increasingly well-known-
H*go Sch#?zer, anyone?- and it is so, so very disheartening.
At least the MRAs, Evangelicals and “Gangsta” rappers are upfront and honest
about their contempt for women.
Fuck all this.
The two are not remotely similar. Ghomeshi’s case is far more like those of Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris and other media stars: men operating as individuals, and protected by their fame (as well as by rape culture in general), despite widespread knowledge of their behaviour. In the Rotherham case, where the abusers operated in gangs, there is evidence that reluctance to accuse men of Pakistani origin of crimes against white girls* (whether from fear of being labelled racist, or from reluctance to give ammunition to racists) did play a role in the abject failure of councillors and council employees to act; AFAIK, there is no evidence at all such fears or reluctance have played a role in Ghomeshi’s case.
*There is evidence girls from their own community were also targeted.
As resident_alien@3 says, contempt for the girls played a large part at Rotherham (including from some parents – one father apparently described his own daughter as a “slag”); but the concerns of other parents were dismissed by police and social services. It’s also worth noting that the police appear to have been focused on burglary and car crime, while social services are chronically underfunded, resulting in overwork and poor morale – not that this excuses failure on the scale demonstrated.
Would I be letting the evil djinn out of the bottle again if I mentioned a certain so-called “feminist” man whose initials are HS? The one whose idea of helping his female (college) students was to seduce them?
I see someone already did….
Rotherham is NOT the topic here. ‘Star’ culture and the ridiculous power handed over to media front men IS.
A while back the term SNAG was of some use. It stands for Sensitive New Age Guy, and was used to describe manipulative, passive-aggressive, controlling misogynists in disguise. Usually skinny vegetarian therapists with grizzled beards who exuded Politically Correct Manliness as a front for ‘scoring.’
Jimmy Savile got some extra security from being a big-time Public Catholic, so perhaps the ethnic card is worth noticing. But Ghomeshi’s conduct is a lot more about being a radio ‘star’ than anything about color or background.
Oh, man do I know the type. I used to live with one.
Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing
And to think he has a blog where he writes about consent, and lives with his 2 wives and a girlfriend.