Men & Wo(men)

   I'm going to start this out a bit frivolously, as if to cover my unsettled reaction to what recently appeared in the recent NY Review of Books after they published their almost frivolous reflection (since corrected in the online edition) on the firing of Jian Gohmeshi who once hosted the Canadian broadcast of Q (which is still on the air but with a new host, Tom Power).  And I use the word frivolous so as not to chase anyone (mostly men) away for this is a very serious topic.  So let's start with the Democrats in the U.S. (whaaat??).  Here's how the London Review of Books summed up the "problem" in an earlier piece by writer Jackson Lears: We can gauge the corrosive impact of the Democrats’ fixation on Russia by asking what they aren’t talking about when they talk about Russian hacking.  For a start, they aren’t talking about interference of other sorts in the election, such as the Republican Party’s many means of disenfranchising minority voters.  Nor are they talking about the trillion dollar defence budget that pre-empts the possibility of single-payer healthcare and other urgently needed social programmes; nor about the modernisation of the American nuclear arsenal which Obama began and Trump plans to accelerate, and which raises the risk of the ultimate environmental calamity, nuclear war -- a threat made more serious than it has been in decades by America’s combative stance towards Russia.  The prospect of impeaching Trump and removing him from office by convicting him of collusion with Russia has created an atmosphere of almost giddy anticipation among leading Democrats, allowing them to forget that the rest of the Republican Party is composed of many politicians far more skillful in Washington’s ways than their president will ever be.  Basically, this is the art of distraction.  When something gets to be too much of a concern, follow the rule of magicians and use distraction, something many of us and apparently especially the Democrats in the U.S., are proving a bit more easily captivated and tricked by than most.  North Korea, separating children from their immigrant parents, building a wall (not a fence, mind you, but aka Berlin, a "wall"), taking away monuments, rolling back pollution laws...all of those once hot issues have pretty much been forgotten, almost as quickly as the confirmation hearings of the most recent lifetime appointment of a justice to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh (for heavens sake, this was just a few weeks ago).  Why bring that up?  Because the one woman they allowed to testify (a few of the other woman were privately interviewed but were denied public testimony in the Republican-controlled Senate's rushed effort to get Kavanaugh confirmed before our midterm elections in a few weeks), caused justice Kavanaugh to stammer, get angry, feel taken aback, perhaps try to remember, and basically do everything except acknowledge or apologize for what allegedly happened (as one editorial wrote, how many of us can accurately remember something that happened over 30 years ago, but one would think that a respected justice would simply say that he may have had a bit too much beer to drink back then and that he honestly couldn't remember whether if what Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was saying in her testimony --under oath, a felony punishable with prison if not telling the truth-- actually happened.  It would have been end of story.  All of which brings us to men, of which I consider myself a semi-representative.

   Here's one big fact, and that is that for some reason most men don't like to apologize; or perhaps to put it a different way, admit that they are wrong.  Likely most men have memories of what may have happened in their lives, events which they maybe regret, chalking it up to being young or hormones or testosterone or that's just how it was "back in the day."  I can't imagine having to live with that sort of rationale if I'd just lynched someone in the back woods, or committed a hit and run, or sexually assaulted someone...but everyone is different.  Many men (mostly older, mostly white, if I had to generalize) still use that excuse, all backed with the full faith and trust of the shield of position, or money, or power.  Okay, some of you guys are already on the defensive, and this is not meant to be a judgement by any means because everyone is his or her own person and let's face it, we're all different and that's what makes the world go around.  But even the most hardened guy has to love the movie of the good guy winning, the loyal and monogamous weak or tough guy who sticks to his beliefs and morals and is willing to stand by them at any cost...but then again maybe that's how most of the people in our Congress feel and that their decisions are well thought out no matter how it looks.  Not for me to judge. (although I can recommend the excellent song/video presentation that sums up my beliefs in what needs to be defended in this country in today's world)

   I jump now to earlier pieces that I somehow saved because here's basically fact number two about men and that is, we don't understand women (okay, now the women are at least in unison there).  Writer Jessi Klein summed up her feelings this way in her address to men who cheat: The body that you crave when you're married or in some other monogamous arrangement for a long time is --drumroll-- any body that isn't ours.  New.  Different.  The one thing women can never be to their partner, no matter how hard they try.  This is why the most beautiful women in the world are cheated on constantly.  The Halle Barrys, the Jennifer Garners, the Uma Thurmans...All of these women are the most beautiful women in the world yet their partner still cheated on them.   Half of them were cheated on with the nanny...I can understand how this might seem dispiriting.  But on the other hand, maybe we could all see it as liberating.  If you can admit that what you really want is just someone who isn't "us," doesn't that give us permission not to try as hard to look like the mythical "them"...So maybe we don't have to do the Bar Method or SoulCycle and steam our vegetables.  Maybe we can go for a walk and occasionally melt cheese all over our fried veggies, the way we like.  Or we can just buy a wig and some Grouch Marx glasses.  Or better yet, we can get divorced, take a break, and two years later have you and your hot new wife hire us as your nanny.  Good as new.  Here's another broad (excuse the crude pun, not intended) observation by an editor at Elle: Women have preferences, see, and we don't make a secret of them.  Each of us has a favorite flower, ice-cream flavor, fragrance, cocktail, jewelry designer.  If you're paying attention, it's virtually impossible not to know what we like...Skip the airport gift shop...as well as any clothing store your mother likes...She'll value holding you hand that night at the theater/baseball game/Beyoncé concert far more than any dumb scarf...Wrap every gift, every time.  Even if --especially if-- the wrapping costs more than what's inside.  Effort, man.  Effort.

   We men don't always get it right, to quote a misogynist or two.  But ladies, we're not all bad (and in a corollary, ladies you're not all great).  What's that saying, boys will be boys?  But here's the horrifying (to me) definition of that phrase in the Cambridge online dictionary: ...said to emphasize that people should not be surprised when boys or men act in a rough or noisy way because this is part of the male character.   Remember this from ages ago that made the rounds on the internet:  If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?  Men will likely answer different that women would.  The woman in the question didn't have an abortion, of course, deciding to go ahead with the delivery and giving birth to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

   So back to Jian Ghomeshi...one must first read the piece, Reflections from a Hashtag, or portions of it at least, or perhaps listen to the testimony of now-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh.  Once done, MEN especially, you might be whammied by something even more revelatory than the article and that would be the women's responses.  The New York Review got so many letters that the magazine acknowledged its error in printing the article, fired the editor*, and devoted three full pages of tiny-font responses to the piece (one of the few male responses comes across as rather meek and a bit too full of the male traits I listed above).  Admittedly, this post is already long but at the very least read the first letter of response they printed, for despite all of my own shortcomings and me thinking that I've learned a bit more about women in my many years, these letters brought out an entirely new understanding to me, that certain things and actions are not forgotten, that certain events that might have meant little to a man or teenager at the time might have created or contributed to years or a lifetime of trauma to another (male sexual abuse, while not as prevalent, is likely just as long-lasting and traumatic as witnessed in the ongoing Vatican/Cardinal controversy), and that perhaps despite all the joking and guffawing in the locker room of the good-ol-boys club, we men probably still have a long ways to go toward understanding women...and perhaps to growing up in general.

   The initial and gut-wrenching letter from Joanne O. in Ontario is a letter that helps us all to understand the courage it took for Dr. Ford to testify, and to try and understand how and why so many male and female Senators could toss her testimony and reputation aside, perhaps all just for the sake of party...baffling.  So herewith, the letter:
   
   It took me exactly twelve minutes to read the Jian Ghomeshi article [NYR, October 11] on your website today.  As someone who was personally victimized by Ghomeshi in 2013, I ask that you allocate the same amount of time to what I’m about to write to you.  That way we’ll have each spent the same amount of time feeling uncomfortable and sick to our stomachs.

   The choice to publish Ghomeshi’s piece was also a choice to remind all of the women he has victimized that his story is worth more than ours.  As I read of his woes --dipping into a savings account to pay for his legal fees and awkwardly meeting women while gallivanting around Europe-- I thought about the thousands of dollars I’ve put on my credit card to pay for the counseling that has remained a constant over the past four years, because trauma changes you on a physiological level that feels impossible to understand.  I thought about the days I missed work because I lay frozen in bed filled with a hollowness that can only be felt when your humanity is stripped from you by the (physical) hands of a man who manipulated you to establish dominance when he held the power from the start.  I thought about the fear and frustration deep within my being, which fractured friendships and relationships and forced me into seclusion for nearly a year.

   My experience is so similar to other women’s, you may think we must have colluded.  But no, we don’t have to speak to one another to know how this reality feels because this reality is so common for far too many of us.  We fumble through each day, coping with the confusion that was once our intuition, trying to decipher whether or not we will ever feel “OK” again.  Our stories are rarely ever heard beyond a sensational article in which we rip ourselves open to expose our wounds for the salacious  reader. Once those wounds have been pried apart, dug out, and dried up, we are left with little to no resources to suture ourselves together.  We don’t have the savings and we aren’t in Europe, we are waking up every day, trying to live a normal life with the scars that no one can see but that ache in our bodies without remedy.

   Today, you tore through that scar, exposing my insides again and reminding me of my place in the world.  You reminded me that a powerful man’s story of being labeled an outcast for hurting women is more important than the part of your identity that breaks when a man tells you how precious you are while his one hand is held firmly over your mouth and nose and the other grips tightly around your neck.  To this day, I can still feel the sting in my lungs from not being able to breathe, and I still jump when anyone puts their hands close to that spot.

   Four years later, over one thousand days, and I am still traumatized.  Do you know the places your mental health goes when you feel the effects of trauma for over one thousand days?  Through the darkness, I have found light in those who have stood with me in solidarity, demanding justice that goes beyond the legal structure that was not built to protect us.  By uplifting the voices of those of us who don’t make it past the sensationalist headlines, you offer hope to the millions of people whose voices have been silenced by violence.

   The only reason I can imagine you chose to print this story is for the money.  But we can’t take our money with us when we die; it’s our legacy that we leave behind.  Today, your legacy is that you gave a man --who already benefited from his position of power, who was found not guilty by a justice system that continues to fail victims of violence, who can go to a different country and flirt with unsuspecting women-- a platform to tell his side of a story when so many of his victims have never had the chance to tell theirs.  Instead, we are told our stories “have no value” (actual words I was told by an editor).

   So, what’s your next move? Press on with full pockets lined with cash that may as well be glued across the mouths of women like me?  Or, do you consider the impact of countering Ghomeshi’s article with writing by women, who may not be searchable on Google but whose stories could change the lives of readers in the most profound way?  I would say I’m hopeful for the latter but I haven’t reached a point where I feel hope yet, not while “Reflections from a Hashtag” is considered a valuable piece of writing.


*Originally written as "fired the writer," when in fact it was the editor who was fired...since corrected in the text.