Ted Barris

It struck me the moment the Jian Ghomeshi allegations became public. It was 2014, when the CBC relieved the host of his duties on his daily show, “Q.” I contacted a young woman who had attended my journalism classes and who had then completed a placement (unpaid employment) at the same radio show. I wondered whether any of the horror stories going public about Ghomeshi’s alleged treatment of women might have included her.

“The truth of the matter is that I did feel threatened during my time at ‘Q,’” she wrote in a note to me. “He would flirt with me … This always happened when I was the only person in the office.”

My young student had survived the placement experience. And as we all know, in the criminal trial that followed in February 2016, Jian Ghomeshi was found not guilty on four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking.

But this past week, as I watched the Senate committee hear the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh, it struck me how little has changed. My former student – I’ll call her Sandy – felt both violated and paralyzed.

But why, I wondered, didn’t she get angry? She knew as the youngest production assistant on “Q,” that her future broadcasting career rested on her ability to tolerate the stress of a daily current affairs radio program, but in this case, it also depended on her deference to a man with authority over her.

“When things took a turn and became more physical, I backed away,” Sandy wrote me. “A part of me is still kind of worried that it will reflect badly on me and hurt my career.”

I suspect in the case of Dr. Ford, backing away meant grappling with an assault against her at a house in Washington in 1982, when she says she was forced onto a bed by high school student Brett Kavanaugh, groped and in her words fearful that “he was going to rape me.” Throughout last Thursday morning, I watched Dr. Ford on TV recount this awful assault and admit that she was “terrified,” but in so doing she remained composed and in control.

Unlike Judge Kavanaugh, who sipped water, sniffed uncontrollably, nervously poked his tongue into his cheek to fend off tears, and then ranted.

“I’ve never sexually assaulted Dr. Ford. Or anyone,” he snorted. “This confirmation process has become a national disgrace … a calculated and orchestrated political hit … This is a circus!”

Why wasn’t Christine Blasey Ford allowed to show her frustration this way? Why couldn’t she sniff and sip and rant? Because she is a woman and women aren’t allowed to show emotion in male-dominated board rooms, construction sites, houses of parliament or courtrooms, lest they be considered weaker, mentally unstable, or uppity. I thought Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren crystalized the problem this week in her response to criticism levelled at Dr. Ford’s testimony.

Warren wondered about a society in which Judge Kavanaugh came into the Senate proceedings in Washington as if he were entitled to the seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. She wondered how the judge could be allowed to be outwardly so hostile that somebody might want to ask tough questions of him, while on the other side a woman who was having to relive what was probably the worst day of her life, had to contain herself.

“Do you need a break?” Warren quoted Chairman Chuck Grassley.

“Will that work for you?” Ford said.

“I feel like this is what’s going on all around the country,” lamented Senator Warren in her analysis of the Senate hearings. “Girls aren’t supposed to be angry because it makes us unattractive to powerful men who want us to be quiet.”

Clearly that powerlessness provoked the women who cornered Republican Senator Jeff Flake in an elevator outside the hearings. Clearly they wouldn’t allow him to close the elevator door, run away, or even look down and away from their rage. They were angry and he had no choice but to face it. “I was sexually assaulted and nobody believed me,” Ana Maria Archila shouted at Flake. “And you’re telling women that they don’t matter, that they should stay quiet because if they tell you what happened to them you are going to ignore them.”

A few hours later, Sen. Flake voiced his vote in favour of confirming Kavanaugh as Supreme Court Judge, but only if his Senate colleagues allowed an FBI investigation into Dr. Ford’s allegations.

Sadly, my former student Sandra, faced with the prospect of losing her placement at a prestigious CBC network radio program, and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, deferring to the authorities in the Senate committee room, were not allowed to express their fury. If it’s OK for male judges to be angry about the way they’re treated, so should it be permissible for the rest of us, especially women.