Open thread for discussion of Jian Ghomeshi acquittal

Well.
When I disclosed my then ongoing rapes at the age of fifteen (they started when I was in grade three) I was told to not report because nothing could possibly come of it. This was in Ontario as well.
It broke my spirit and destroyed all of my faith in any sort of societal system. I’m still learning to live with both of these aspects, which now includes reconciling my subsequent anarchism to our capitalist system. If I hadn’t had my faith destroyed maybe I wouldn’t be rioting in the streets on a regular basis and facing the subsequent “love” that protesters experience.

In a way I’m thankful that I was so shattered that I couldn’t progress through the system, despite how evident the scars are in my mind and on my body. I’m devastated today that this happened; there is no way that I would have survived similar as a teen.

If you need me I’ll be crying in a corner. I’ve had to be a professional all day today, and the sobs are building up. I don’t want to be in a world where this bullshit carries on.

Just post the URL with http instead of https and no &w= and h= delimiters– the board sizes it for you. (Although editing a post may cause it to fail.)

Huh. I had that working for a moment, and then when I edited the post to clarify the text it didn’t embed. Weird. (Edit: Apparently the board software needs a little catching-up time, ’cause it’s there now.)

Anyway– typically, posting a negative thing in a positive thread would be called “threadcrapping”, but what would you call posting a positive thing in a negative thread? I just thought we might want a breather from the lousy day, and so I wanted to show y’all the very nifty gift a friend of mine sent me:

They are vignettes in the style of vintage dioramas called “diableries”.

I stopped following this case cause I knew he’d be exonerated. I recently saw an article about the victims “colluding” with each other. Not sure if that’s what worked to get this verdict, but its indicative of how rape is framed depending on its social context. In the West, unless its the maniac-in-an-alleyway trope, rape does not exist. We are too “civilized” for that, and of course, civilized here is translated as white, European, straight and male. So women who accuse men of rape in this context are “falsely accusing” because rape does not exist in the civilized western world. Whereas, elsewhere, it is part of “their culture”. The Cologne attacks are a perfect example of this dichotomy. Those rapes were “real” because they were committed by non-white, “foreign” men, outsiders on the edge of civilization. Cause its always them, and never us… cue the rightist blathering… and on and on and on…

@Aerina: gotcha. I thought it might be a bit more personal and unusual than the usual brain bleach of cute fuzzy critters, but it really was a delightful surprise to get those in the mail today…

As for the verdict: like far too much of the news lately, I reacted with a sigh and something between disgust and resignation. And if I dwell on it too much I will make myself crazy. (Even Prozac may have its limits, after all.)

The defence lawyer had the emails and text messages because Gomeshi kept them.

I’m still mad.
I could have come to terms with the verdict in and of itself, since the crown clearly was a disaster and I actually do believe in a high bar to prison.

But the judge’s almost vindictive insistence on “they weren’t good victims” is gross and enraging.

I actually was surprised in this case. It seemed like everyone who had defended him had turned on him. Canada as a whole didn’t seem to be on his side so I thought maybe just this once a rapist would face some version of our vaunted Canadian justice. Nope! Turns out that even that was having to much faith in both humanity and Canada.

Ehh…I’m not touching this one right now. Too triggering.

@Auntie Alias
Nice to hear from you–it’s been a while! It’s a shame that the thread had to be a sad one.

The lawyers representing the women did a horrible job preparing them:

The first witness:
http://www.chatelaine.com/news/what-i-wish-id-known-before-testifying-in-the-ghomeshi-trial/

“I wish I’d known that my memory, above all, would be on trial…I wish I’d known how important that was; I would have prepared more to defend my memory. ”
Her lawyers didn’t make this clear to her? Her word vs. his word were the only facts to base the case on; WHAT ELSE was the defense going to go after to defend him?

Why hasn’t anyone else noted this?

DeCoutere speaks about the trial:
http://www.chatelaine.com/news/exclusive-lucy-decoutere-on-the-ghomeshi-disaster/

“But because I was brought in early, the Crown never sat with me and said, “This is how you answer the freaking questions.””

“Gillian didn’t prep you on Henein’s strategies?”

“No, because I don’t think she’d seen them. I was told that [Henein] would pace around.”

Why wasn’t she worried about her contact after Thea alleged assault:
” I didn’t think it mattered — because it shouldn’t matter. Now I understand that it matters because it measures your memory. I didn’t know my memory was on trial.”

This last sentence if proof that her lawyers did NOTHING substantial to prepare her for the trial. The only proof about something that happened over a decade ago is her word vs his word AND the fact defense attorneys alway do their best to go after the credibility of the accuser makes it clear to anyone with familiarity with rape cases, that her memory is the only thing on trial because it is THE only evidence in this case.

That both women were surprised that their memory was on trial and were not prepared for it says a lot of nasty things about their lawyers.

This American Life just did a podcast about two police investigations; the first one was about a rape victim not ‘behaving appropriately’ and thus ending up literally arrested by the police herself. (It’s difficult listening but it does have a ‘happy’ ending.)

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/581/anatomy-of-doubt

I can’t help but wonder why the show doesn’t point out that the first victim was a poor foster child and the second victim was a well-off graduate student….

Someone just recently wrote this on another blog I read, and I found it a helpful reframing exercise:

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2016/guest-post-abuse-isnt-actually-a-reaction-to-the-other-person/

I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds these situations completely no-win for the victims. I can’t immediately find it, but I recently read a post somewhere saying that the worst thing we can call a woman is ‘too’. A rape victim is always too quiet, too emotional, too angry, too calm, too clear in her memories, too vague–it’s not possible to strike that perfect balance and not be ‘too’ anything. I’ve been trying to explain to work colleagues, with little to no success, that any woman looking any way and doing any thing is always going to be ‘too’ something.

I wish I hadn’t tried to read this over breakfast.