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(continued from part 2).
Speaking of, “Stop, that hurts, I changed my mind, actually”:.
About a year ago, I was invited to be on Jian Ghomeshi’s radio show. I had to decide fast so I asked around about him. The word from women friends I knew was that he was a horrendous human being who was hated among the women of Canada for being sexually despicable..
I said yes to the interview..
I thought it would be funny to go on the show and ask him about his reputation among women in Canada. Instead I went to the green room, tried to put on some hair and makeup, got ignored by Martin Short, shared a hug with Zack Galifinakias and Bob Odernkirk, talked to Jenny Lewis about her cloud suit, and then went onstage. He interviewed me and it was just a regular/usual/bad end interview. I felt like shit afterwards, but I always do..
Two days later the allegations about him came out. When I heard that he was conflating BDSM with assault, my friends and I flew into a creative rage. There were multiple women describing the same events. He likes to start out talking dirty, but his boner generator is surprising women with violence beyond their point of consent. We made a video about consent with Nina Hartley for WIFEY..
The din died down. He was arrested and charged. I was thrilled. He would go to jail forever. Yay..
Except he didn’t. Some disgusting cis male scum judge who has spent his life on a bench chortling with other men, bathing in their privilege of being able to tell women how women should be, consulted and listened then judged these vagina holders as liars, because they have vaginas..
Is it their vagina envy that emboldens them to obsess about our own word on our own consent in courts of law? They look into each other’s eyes as they make laws about our bodies, they pound their gavels, shake the cum off their dicks, and pass laws about us, around us, for us, but never including us..
The good girl/bad girl Divided Feminine dynamic allows them to perpetuate their story. Dividing us into those who desire (and are therefore shamed) and those who are admired (for holding a boundary) allows men to split us. This split perpetuates their protaganism, their fun, their status as main actor on the planet. It gives them something to talk about, together, in story, in law, on the streets when they drive past you and agree, this one’s fuckable, this one isn’t. Look more closely at the behavior of men and notice that it is often each other and themselves, in the forms of their own dicks, that they are mostly interested in, anyway. Sometimes it seems a rare man who actually loves women..
It is falling to women to vociferously create a new narrative with our creative work, employing female protaganism. We must invent a Divided Masculine, a splitting of men so that they understand that we are finally noticing that some of them don’t know how to act right. Maybe we name them Man/Scum, and Man means Good Man, and Scum means Bill Cosby or Jian Ghomeshi or any man who refuses to ally with us and acknowledge loudly in front of the world and their brothers that -- you know what, actually – hey – you know what?.
You DO know when someone is consenting. Yup, here I am, floating the radical idea that when two people have sex, they have one another’s best (sexual) interests in mind. The radical idea would be that they are both there to have fun, and if one person is only half-certain that the other person is having fun, they should stop..
In this weird week of worst ever news about the election and terrorism, heroes dying and people passing laws meant to state-sanction hate, I’ve been overwhelmed. But more than that I am excited because of how we see each other, spark each other. I write today because of what Zoe Kazan wrote yesterday. She wrote because of what Lena Dunham said about what Kesha said. Kesha spoke because of the women who came out about Cosby. We are finally talking to one another, and we are empowered exponentially towards believing ourselves to be true. There is a gathering, an uprising. We have in our hands these machines, connecting us into an ultra-powerful jungle-gym-shaped touch everywhere in the world at once thing. We join up in this ether: the women, the people of color, the queer, and those who vibrate at the intersections. We are only beginning, but it’s impossible not to be inspired by this movement of constant connection. The Others are talking to Each Other now, daring one another towards truth, onward toward the dream of an ever-evolving #power movement. ..
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CHATTER
This guy is all for what you say here!
I appreciate that people wish the outcome of the trial had been different, but I don’t see how the judge could have done anything other than acquit. The bar for conviction is reasonable doubt.
What changes would people want to see made to the justice system? Should we change presumption of innocence to presumption of guilt in sexual assault cases?
I can understand that in many cases, there are emotional and psychological reasons why a victim might have difficulty with being fully truthful, but again what is the solution, that complainants should be allowed to lie freely, and those lies simply be accepted without challenge, or even taking clear lies as evidence of the crime, because for some reason we should accept that of course a victim would lie?
HILLARY 2016 because vagina
This rant seems to come off as misandrist because it lays all the blame out on men without even addressing the facts. It’s important to stay neutral. While following the Cosby case, I’ve seen this uproar that basically say that if you have a vagina, you should be found trustworthy no matter what. That’s bull. I don’t think that just because a man has a penis that he is trustworthy so why should the opposite be held true? You must understand that when a woman is attacked sexually or physically, there are many “For women” groups that will adopt you without hesitation or reasoning and will back you 100% regardless of facts. When men get accused of a crime of a sexual nature, you’re 100% screwed. No one cares, no group designed to help you out. Your life is moot. So it’s important to focus on the facts. And although I haven’t read much about the Ghomeshi scandal, it sounded like they were out to get him and had inconsistent stories. So it’s important that women go to the police and file a report and get evidence.
Wow…men really feel the need to be defensive when a strong woman writes about assault, rape, being drugged and the horrible court systems and judges that assault women a second time with their words and rulings. That Ghomeshi did not have to speak at the trial and that his victims were the ones interrogated- is horrendous. The only thing that should have been on trial were his actions during the assault, not what women did after. Ghomeshi punched, kicked, fingered, slapped, terrified and humiliated the women he dated. Relationships are murky and messy and filled with manipulations, matters of the heart and second guessing. The rapists and abusers are our fathers, mothers, brothers, uncles, teachers, dates, and people that are sometimes looked up to and adored like (cough) Ghomeshi. That women talked to each other or texted him after their assaults should not be a factor in the case. What should be the only thing talked about is the assaults themselves. Period. We need to change the system entirely. Conviction rates for pedophiles, rapists and abusers in domestic violence cases, date rape and even on college campuses and universities is extremely low. To the first two men who commented: If you want to talk about reading and getting educated, why don’t you get educated on violence against women, sexism and rape in North America and around the globe. If you can’t empathize with the women who are being abused and raped then you are wasting up good oxygen on the planet for those who believe in equity and love and non-violence. Seriously…if your egos can’t handle the words of Ms. Soloway, then why read them and comment? I have my suspicions…But touche and kudos again on the articles, and yes we are changing things, coming together and taking power into our own hands, rewriting stories and creating content, speaking out and so on… And I think the ones with power (men) like to fight this because they just don’t want things to change. I think a couple of the comments on this thread are proof of that! Thanks again for great articles. In solidarity. Okay…enough of my comments! I’ve been digging in all day. 🙂
Agree with everything. The one thing I would add is that what we need most of all is sex education. Not reproductive biology and certainly not abstinence only education. But real sex and relationship education. Sadly, I do not believe that the courts will or will ever be able to truly handle sexual assault cases. I do believe we need better laws and that that might help. Though, education is the key here. Yes, we have to teach all children that women are equal from a very young age. Just as the article talks about the “radical” idea that one does know when another is consenting, this needs to be taught to children and young teenagers along with kinks, respect, communication, pleasure..etc. Imagine if a world with this type of education existed…actually it does exist in some european countries.
Respectfully, the end of this article reads as an ill-researched rant on the ill-fated Ghomeshi trial, and fails to acknowledge progress being made in Canada’s real “power movement”—such as we’re all rooting for.
Ghomeshi’s victims did lie. The judge deemed their memory lapses understandable, whereas their outright lying to build a stronger case was not; he even stated that his verdict *did not* mean assault did not occur. Not so scummy.
At this juncture, official discourse in Canada has moved on asking, how can our criminal procedures better support victims’ confidence, claims and experiences coming forward as they are, without motivation for manipulation?
Huge problem when women know the dice are loaded against us, but Canadian legal procedures will now evolve slightly towards fairer victim support. Your rhetoric does not mention any of this real progress, and by crying out for progress in an unreal void, you seem to forget what our awesome talking to one another is for.
Social evolution is really happening because of ongoing feminist protest and victims’ courage. Yes, courts of law are immutably forums of the status quo. No, it does not follow that all judges who follow fair trial process are “disgusting cis male scum”. We need fair trials and feminism, both.
Maybe you should try to look a little at facts? Rather than hating a judge because he’s male and an automatic “cis male scum judge who has spent his life on a bench chortling with other men, bathing in their privilege of being able to tell women how women should be”…. maybe you should look at it objectively and add some real value in this piece.
You have become a misandrist with your hate speech, which should be condemned as much as misogyny. Try looking at the unbiased facts. Replace all male roles with females and all females with males. Take out who the victims are and look at the cold hard evidence. You can ready many articles about the female judges of this country who would rule the same…despite having a vagina which you like to point out.
And finally… if you really need a lesson on what consent is… check this video out. Pretty self explanatory. It doesn’t matter where in Obama’s sentence you order it. Consent is consent and it is indisputable, no matter how you twist it to fit your argument.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQbei5JGiT8
‘Some disgusting cis male scum judge who has spent his life on a bench chortling with other men, bathing in their privilege of being able to tell women how women should be’… Oh please. Clearly you didn’t spend the time to read the judge’s ruling. Please do. Read it in its entirety. And without emotion guiding your response, tell me the judge should have come to a guilty verdict. Based on the evidence, ‘not guilty’ was the only possible outcome for Gomeshi. The blame for that verdict lies squarely on the shoulders of the victims – not the judge – who knowingly withheld crucial evidence and lied. And this is not victim blaming. They KNOWINGLY lied. Read it for yourself. A witness can’t lie about W, X, Y, and yet be deemed credible when it comes to his or her statement on point Z. That’s not how the legal system works. This is not to say that I don’t believe the three women. I do. I know Jian. He’s a fucking pig. But I’m becoming tired listening to people comment about this case who haven’t even taken the time to read the bloody ruling.
The entire blog can be summed up here:
“I wonder if we are expected to vigilantly guard this entrance…”
The answer, simply, is yes.
Oh my god what an angry woman. Yes all men of power are utterly drive to thwart the needs and retard justice from the opposite sex. “Disgusting cis” as a phrase is inherently intolerant. But please stand upon your pedestal and spout indignant platitudes about how vaginas aren’t trusted by society.
Well said, Jill. Very important work ahead for women. An uprising, indeed. Call it Riot Grrrl part 2. 😉 I started a podcast (Miss Vision) for this purpose: To talk to other independent female filmmakers, give them a voice, hear their voices, see their visions, inspire and encourage each other to keep at it. Thanks for the work you do and for writing this piece. I hope many women will read it and pass it on.
I think that…sometimes the patriarchy destroys all of us. Because I think a lot of those men actually don’t emotionally know what consent is or what emotional awareness is because we don’t allow them to do that for themselves from a young age. So they get to adulthood cut off from their own needs and off course they have no idea how to do that for another person. It takes a lot of work to undo patriarchy emotionally, it is easy cognitively to point fingers and shame people. I think maybe Cosby is a sociopath, but sociopath’s are a product of societies ills. We teach Cosby that as a Black man he is animal and dangerous and then we are shocked a surprised he acts the part. That is white supremacy playing out in our world. That is the evil of us all perpetuated in one mans actions, and we are all responsible.
These articles usually have a lot of implied choice in Men’s actions, but as a genderqueer, female bodied person who deals with both sexism, transphobia and internalized mysoginy: I think there is a lot of healing for all of us that gets lost in the din of finding enemies.
Interesting thoughts.
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