Disclaimer: I almost didn’t write this. In fact, I started it twice, deleting it each time. The third time around, I almost didn’t hit the publish button. I worry it may be a bit self-absorbed, self-critical and may come across as attention-seeking. It’s not meant to be. But I realized that not going ahead just contributes to the silence that needs to end ….
***
Three weeks of Jian Ghomeshi and other harassment stories. Three weeks learning things I wish I could unlearn. Three weeks of words painting pictures in my head, that I want to erase.
Two weeks of hearing about sexual harassment experienced by young women on Parliament Hill. Two weeks of reporting why women don’t come forward.
One week of a former MPP accusing another of sexual assault.
An overwhelming despair about the world in which my daughter is growing up.
***
Now, let me be clear right up front. I have never been sexually assault. I have never been physically abused. But I have experienced verbal abuse – and just like so many other women, I never discussed it. I never told anyone. I never did anything about it.
While I would never pretend to compare my experience to those of women in physically or sexually abusive relationships, I do think my experience gives me a tiny sliver of understanding of why they stay – or stay silent about what has happened to them.\
I’m a smart lady. I have a good education and I worked at progressively more responsible positions before trading in my briefcase for my stay-at-home years. I poured myself into raising my little ones (three in under four years!), and keeping the home fires burning to make it possible for my then-husband to become very successful in his own career. I volunteered in preschool, at church and in kindergarten classes. And even then, I kept my foot in the door by freelancing when the children slept. I wrote and did research for many “name-brand” companies. Life was good.
And then my marriage fell apart.
I suppose it wasn’t that sudden. But it snuck up on me and while the reasons are irrelevant, in the two or three years before it ended for real, I became smaller and less significant. My opinions mattered less and I became fearful of rocking the boat. I watched what I said, but I said the wrong words. I cooked the wrong meals. I did the wrong things. Three babies had made me unattractive. The kids misbehaved because I wasn’t properly parenting them. My clothes were unflattering. No matter that finances were tight; there was no point in me looking for a full-time job because nobody would hire me. I was worthless and so I deserved everything that was flung at me. Talking about it wouldn’t do me any good – he was a good guy and nobody would have believed it of him. Besides, if he thought that about me, others must too.
The words stung – really stung. But I heard them often enough that I believed them. Every last word. Those words became my truth.
It wasn’t until several months after the split, as I was somewhat successfully picking up the pieces and rebuilding my self-confidence through the support of friends and family that it slowly dawned on me what had been going on. And then I got angry at both the man who spoke the words and at myself, for letting it go on and for not saying anything to anyone about it. But in the moment, I accepted it. I thought it was true.
Again, I’m not trying to compare my experience to anyone elses. But it makes me wonder what it is about our society – how can women be made to feel we’re without value, and that others will believe us less than they will believe the men in our lives.
It’s not just on the domestic front, of course. I think about what women in the workforce “put up with”. We all do it. The sexist remark. The old boys club. The wandering eye. The off-colour joke. The meetings we’re excluded from. The “creepy guy” who we encounter at industry events, or in the elevator. We don’t want to make waves or be labelled as the one who complains – the troublemaker (or worse) – so we don’t.
Some are more thick-skinned than others and shake it off. But by not pointing it out, are we making it easier for worse to happen? Certainly, we’re not contributing to changing things for the better. There are many uncomfortable questions about our own behaviours, those of others, and the societal norms that allow it to continue. I don’t know the answers, but I’m glad we’re asking the questions.
It’s time we made waves. It’s time we stood up, stood our ground and made people listen to us. It’s time the people who listen actually hear what they’re being told. It’s time people were held accountable for their actions. And it’s time we changed behaviours.
Perhaps the one positive in the wake of the Jian Ghomeshi mess is that people are talking. We’re still talking several weeks after the first news exploded. We’re talking not just about the insanity of that particular situation, but of many others out there. Conversations are going on in workplaces, in the media and among friends. Women are coming forward and discussing it. Men – at least many I talk to – are looking at their behaviour to make sure they are not inadvertently making women uncomfortable. We’re examining things in a way I haven’t seen before. I don’t think it will be allowed to fade away this time.
I feel a shift. Something has changed that is allowing these conversations to bubble through. And that’s a good thing.
