The panel featured presentations by Jeremy Tai, an Assistant Professor in History and Classical Studies specializing in modern China; Wanming Wang, a Ph.D Candidate in East Asian Studies; and Brian Bergstrom, a course lecturer in East Asian Studies.

The talk opened with an introduction by Yolanda Zhang, the Event Coordinator of SCS. The discussion focused on the ways in which social and political institutions in China and Japan perpetuated the stigma of being a ‘leftover’ woman.

“We agreed to do this talk because we observed that it was a hot topic on social media in China, and it definitely relates to the direction of feminism today,” Zhang told The Daily in an interview. “The topic of leftover women resonates strongly with women with higher education, so it’s really pressing in an academic setting like McGill.”

Scholarly presentations

Jeremy Tai discussed the history of the term ‘leftover women’ and how it became widely used in Chinese society. The term was popularized by Leta Hong Fincher’s 2014 book Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China. According to Tai, the stigma around ‘leftover women’ – or shengnu – has existed in Sinophone communities for over ten years. The term originally applied to women over thirty, though the age limit involved has gradually decreased to 25.

“The Chinese state is currently invested in pressuring women from a certain class and educational background to marry for the sake of social stability,” Tai explained. China’s existing gender imbalance resulted from the increase in sex-selective abortions following the one-child policy introduced in 1979.

Currently there are twenty million more men than women under thirty which, according to Tai, explains why marriage is a state concern in China.

“The Chinese state is currently invested in pressuring women from a certain class and educational background to marry for the sake of social stability.”

“The theory is that within the context of a slowing economy, these restless single men will ferment political unrest out of personal dissatisfaction,” Tai said. “I think we all should be very troubled here by the seeming quantification of self-worth.”

Wang’s presentation was centred on the pushback against the misogynistic label of ‘leftover women’ by individual women and activist groups. Wang mentioned the ways in which the ‘ticking biological clock’ concept is entrenched and accepted across different cultures. She displayed viral posts made on Chinese social media expressing anger and indignation against the social pressures to marry out of obligation.

“Leftover women are becoming more and more confident,” she said. “They choose to be so-called leftover women and this is a gesture, a strong reaction, to the propaganda of the state that has been prevalent for decades in China.”

Brian Bergstrom’s presentation discussed the Japanese context, elaborating on the term makeinu, referring to a single woman in her thirties who has not had children. The translation of makeinu is “loser dog.”

“When makeinu became a sort of word in the late 90s, it was more about makeinu women who had not succeeded, which meant that they were not married,” Bergstrom said. “In response to makeinu discourse, you had people like Sakai Junko who wrote books that were like, ‘Yeah, I am a makeinu.’”

Student reactions

Zhang, an organizer of the event, stressed that the discourse around ‘leftover women’ often excludes the non-middle-class population: “One thing I want to point out […] was the concern with intersectionality in the context of middle-class women, because the whole topic still speaks to a middle-class audience.”

Thomson Yu, the President of SCS, spoke about the relevance of ‘leftover women’ to North America in an interview with The Daily.

“The topic of leftover women is directly relevant to the experiences of ‘career women’ in North America,” he said. “It’s important to realize that Chinese women in North America have the so-called east-west culture clash they need to deal with. Again, you have an immigrant culture that celebrates and values family life clashing against the North American culture that celebrates individual freedom and liberties.”

Yu mentioned that the issue is a result of competing expectations. “In my opinion, the issue of ‘leftover women’ emerges due to the frictions between these two cultures. And for the foreseeable future, will likely to continue to be a hot issue as Chinese communities continue to negotiate and adapt to social changes,” Yu said.

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The Montreal-based pop-rock and alternative band came together during the starting members’ first year at McGill.

Speaking to The Daily, vocalist Sid Ahmed, lead guitarist Zia Zakaria, and vocalist and guitarist Atanu Chowdhury explored the merging of musical genres, music as a form of self expression for the diaspora, and the balancing act of playing gigs and shooting music videos amid working nine-to-five, post-graduation. Bassist Andre Homier and drummer Guillaume Lauzon were not present at the interview.

The McGill Daily (MD): So how did you all meet?

Sid Ahmed (SA): It was the first week of school, and Zak and I met through the BSA [Bangladeshi Students Association]. I was in New Rez, and when we met, we were like, ‘oh wow, we’re from the same country.’ So we kept meeting, kept jamming, and doing covers. Then this one time, Zak’s like, ‘do you have any originals?’ I was too shy to show anyone – I had never really done that before – but that was how our first song happened. We found these two buddies from rez to play shows, and after our first charity show, we kept playing as much as we could.

Zia Zakaria (ZZ): When you’re playing with students, a lot of them have to pursue their own future. So they have to leave the country and stuff. We went back to square one at one point after graduation, and it was just me and Sid again. That’s when I suggested to take Atanu into the band.

Atanu Chowdhury (AC): We had a lot of free time after graduation. The biggest problem is that most people involved were engineers, so, you know, they’ve got internships – but we’re science kids; we were here doing our research. But we always jammed together, played a lot of Eastern classical music, [even though] we [were used to] different genres.

MD: In terms of genre, what would you identify as your present music and influences, compared to what you started off with?

SA: When we all got together, it was kind of like magic. We were both vocalists, and [Atanu] was trained in Eastern classical music. I was kind of trained on the fly during People and Space, but I grew up with punk rock.

ZZ: I was mainly into heavy metal, and then we needed a drummer and bassist. That’s how we got Gui, who’s also punk-influenced, and our bassist is into the jazz and blues kind of thing. So it was a really good mix. Eastern classical music is a lot different from Western classical music. It has a lot of like, vocal vibratos, [and] a mix of both major and minor scales. It’s really different, so when you fuse it with rock and pop, that creates an interesting element.

MD: You’re juggling nine-to-five jobs, but you still make music a priority. How do you manage that?

AC: If you ask me, music is something I did since forever, [ever] since I knew what it was. So when I came here given the struggle, given schooling, living alone – it was the thing I knew I was good at. It was the constant thing that I could bring from home. I brought the culture with me. So no matter what happened, that was always the standard. So even if I was working nine-to-five, I would always come back home. Even if it wasn’t jamming, I would just take the guitar and play two songs by myself.

ZZ: After I graduated I felt like that part of my life was missing. And you know what, the nine-to-five life gets redundant. It’s the same: you wake up, you work. But starting music again was an escape from that redundancy.

SA: In my point of view, music was like refuge. Coming here from so far away was kind of a shock, all of a sudden. The transition was so fast […] I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere. But when we played music together, that was like a safe refuge. It was like a shelter. It would hold us and embrace us. Music gave [me] a chance to identify myself in society, to represent myself. It helped me make new friends, and since I used to write poems and sonnets, it gave me a chance to get those poems out. All of those experiences that I trapped in tiny boxes, [music] helped me release [them] and share [them] with people.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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More than a decade after her death and an ocean across from where she did most of her work, Montreal’s Imago Theatre has produced a theatrical memorandum to Politkovskaya in the form of Intractable Woman. The play details her fight for freedom of the press and freedom from state censorship as she exposed aspects of the war in Chechnya.

Without asserting sanctimonious moral claims, the play nudges the viewer to reflect independently and conscientiously. This encouragement for autonomous interpretation is fundamentally linked to the artistic philosophy of the play’s director, Micheline Chevrier. Speaking to me on the topic of art’s ability to subvert a mainstream line of thought, Chevrier explained that “the good plays are the ones that really ask difficult questions and don’t provide answers, so they trigger in us a reflection and an urge to investigate things that we probably wouldn’t normally.”

“That’s what I love about good art,” Chevrier continued. “It doesn’t tell me what to think or what to feel, but it asks me what to think or what to feel.”

Imago Theatre is one of Montreal’s longest running independent English-language theatre companies. As the Artistic and Executive Director, Chevrier has refocused the company’s mandate to “[highlight] the feminine perspective.” This refocus aligns with Imago Theatre’s mission to be “a catalyst for conversation, an advocate for equal representation, and a hub for stories about unstoppable women.”

“That’s what I love about good art. It doesn’t tell me what to think or what to feel, but it asks me what to think or what to feel.”

I sat down with Intractable Woman’s all-female cast – comprised of performers Deena Aziz, Laura Condlln, and Warona Setshwaelo, who all play Politkovskaya – and inquired about the universal relevance and timeliness of Politkovskaya’s story.

“Here we are, in this dangerous, anxiety-filled time, so what a better time to lift [Politkovskaya’s] story and her words,” Condlln began. “We want to share it with as many people as possible because of course, safeguarding the right to free speech and the necessity of truth in trauma, in atrocity, in disaster, in troubled times – is a necessary action.”

Aziz elaborated on how journalistic freedom in Canada is not always guaranteed and that Canadian audiences should be self-reflective when analyzing the context in which Politkovskaya worked.

“We’re certainly not immune to this, in Canada. Most particularly under the Harper government, there was so much clamping down on the freedom of the press,” Aziz said. “It would be a mistake to imagine that we are somehow above this.”

Setshwaelo further spoke about how the arts can bring urgent, pressing questions into public consciousness. “It’s important to program stuff like this and not just if something is happening, because you don’t know what is actually happening. There’s no way that this just came up all of a sudden in the last two years. It was still there two years ago – we just didn’t know. That’s why it’s important to always tell these stories, because they’re always relevant.”

“I think somehow we use entertainment in the wrong way,” Chevrier said, expanding on the role of theatre in society. “To entertain something is to consider it and entertainment to me is that: ‘consider this.’ And I think that’s what theatre does.”

Anna Politkovskaya and the Second Chechen War

Stefano Massini, the playwright of Intractable Woman, had this to say of Anna Politkovskaya: “It’s as if conjuring this woman’s name could suddenly put the broken shards of the Russia-Chechnya mirror back together.”

The Russian-Chechen conflict dates back to 1785, with low-level insurgency persisting today. Politkovskaya reported throughout the Second Chechen War during a time of heightened violence, receiving death threats as she detailed the desperation civilians faced against Russia’s oppressive army.

“Safeguarding the right to free speech and the necessity of truth in trauma, in atrocity, in disaster, in troubled times – is a necessary action.”

“Blood, snow. Blood, snow. Blood, snow,” on stage, Condlln’s Politkovskaya repeats, her mind struggling to break free from the inflicted violence. The droning mantra lasts for minutes as the play nears its culmination. At this point, the audience has followed Politkovskaya through harrowing ordeals: beatings, arrests, death threats, and state-sanctioned censorship. Her repeated calls contrasts blood – warmth and humanity – with snow – coldness and indifference – revealing the hopelessness of living through a war that seems never-ending.

When I asked why Chevrier decided to cast three performers for the same role, she stressed that the struggles Politkovskaya went through as a journalist are neither isolated to her life nor her socio-political context.

“Even though the play is about Anna Politkovskaya and she was a Russian journalist, […] there are many journalists from all over the world who suffer the same challenges and consequences,” Chevrier explained. “It was important for me that it wasn’t just relegated to one part of the world, or one kind of person, so I wanted to have a representation that was asking us to think about that.”

“When you’re […] one third [of a character], you’re all relying on each other to literally finish each other’s sentences,” Setshwaelo added. “Working so closely, there’s always an unspoken energy that surrounds the three of us that we have to have in order to feel safe to do this. It’s pretty exposing, vulnerable stuff up there.”

Condlln added, “what we are doing right now with our art, with this play, is dangerously parallel to what is happening [in the real world].”

Politkovskaya’s fight for freedom of the press and freedom from censorship continues to have pressing relevance, which Imago Theatre underlines in its message to the public: “Be Intractable in your defence of a world that fights for freedom from censorship; a world that embraces a plurality of perspectives.”

Intractable Woman runs from February 9-18 at the Centaur Theatre. Each showing has a Pay-What-You-Decide option at the end of the play.

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Hosted by Rebecca Munroe, a radio host at CJLO – 1690AM, the talk featured three panelists: Dominique Pirolo, a Talent Acquisition Specialist for the German multinational software corporation SAP; Tracey Steer, a writer and blogger whose work has appeared in Today’s Parent and Reader’s Digest; and Christina Vroom, the Associate Director of University Advancement at McGill’s Faculty of Dentistry.

The panel discussion accounted for the first part of the event, in which the panelists explored when and why they censored themselves. Following this, audience members were invited to share their own experiences of self-censorship. Eventually, the conversation progressed into a collective exchange of strategies to combat the entrenched structures that contribute to why women feel inclined to recede and self-silence.

The event was organized as part of the launch of Imago Theatre’s Intractable Woman, an upcoming production about Anna Politkovskaya, the only Russian journalist to have covered the war in Chechnya who was subsequently assassinated for her work. Imago Theatre described Intractable Woman as “a story about the inalienable right to freedom of expression.”

Speaking to The Daily on the importance of organizing such events, Jen Quinn, the Artistic and Administrative Associate of Imago Theatre, emphasized that media has a unique role to play in catalyzing dialogue.

“We always try to create a platform to empower,” Quinn said. “Part of the work that we do is always about engaging in conversation and making sure that it is a lateral conversation that anybody is welcome to participate in.”

Béatrice Média echoes a similar mission to “[spark] the kind of authentic conversation that boosts empathy and explores new ways of improving the female experience every day,” according to its website.

Panel discussion

Munroe commenced the panel discussion by asking the panelists to think back to an experience when they felt as if they couldn’t speak up. The varied answers emphasized different silencing factors, such as family dynamics, gender expectations, and race.

Pirolo reflected on her childhood, citing the expectation of diplomacy as one of the reasons that she censored herself.

“I was a people-pleaser. Most girls want to please and be a people pleaser. So we’re not really thinking about forcing your opinion, you want to keep it peaceful, you want to fit in,” she said. “And then I started experiencing things later on that changed all that. Back then I was very quiet and now I’m very vocal. I object to everything.”

Vroom’s reflections similarly pointed to how the expectation of politeness and tact contributed to her self-silencing.

“With my two brothers, I felt very much like I needed to be the peacemaker in my family,” Vroom said. “I had an opinion but I didn’t know where it fit in or whether I should vocalize it […]. I didn’t like rocking the boat when I was younger. It made me very uncomfortable.”

Steer spoke of how being a Black woman influences her experiences with self-silencing. “I live in Westmount – and it’s a mostly white neighbourhood, and I’ve lived mostly among white people my whole life, it’s not a problem,” she shared. “But it’s also a strange little neighbourhood because I’ve been mistaken for the maid and the nanny all the time, and that never happened before.”

“There’s also something to be said about not wanting to be ‘that person.’ I don’t want to be the sort of person who’s always talking about race, or that angry Black woman,” she continued.

Steer further shared an instance of self-silence: “[I was] walking around with my kids, and my baby, and people would fawn over my son and a woman said to me once, ‘Is your husband Caucasian?’ and I said, ‘yes,’ and she said, ‘Oh he’s so beautiful, you’re lucky he has white features’.”

“The thing is, I knew she was trying to give me a compliment. I knew that,” she continued. “I was gobsmacked. There was that thing in my head that said, ‘say something.’ But I didn’t, because I didn’t want to make the situation uncomfortable for her. But those kinds of things have happened many, many times. And there’s nothing really that small about it.”

Vroom also spoke about the issue of not speaking up to make sure other people feel comfortable.

She shared that there is “an individual that I have to work with, so if you will, my client, and this individual has made me extremely uncomfortable, this individual likes spending time with me and I’m not interested in anything except the work that we do together. I find myself in a knot when I have to see this individual or spend time with them.”

“One of these days I need to stand up to myself and draw the line and say, ‘This is our time together, this is what we will discuss, it will not go beyond those boundaries.’ I haven’t done that yet, and it’s been two years,” she continued.

“It’s like that expression pick your battles. And that expression has been used so often […]. And I agree with it because there are times when it’s not worth it, but at the same time, that’s a form of self-censorship. Why shouldn’t we say ‘that made me uncomfortable, that upset me,’ when that happens?” she elaborated.

The discussion concluded when Munroe asked the panelists about how they have progressed from self-silencing to freely communicating their thoughts and concerns.

“When I became much more assertive with myself and not shy,” Vroom said,” a male friend of mine–we’re not friends anymore, said, ‘you’ve become very aggressive,’ and I said, ‘I think you mean assertive,’ and he said, ‘no, aggressive’. So in his eyes, I was aggressive. And he said, ‘I think that’s why you’re single.’”

“You don’t want to be seen as a bitch,” Steer added. “If you’re still in a place of feeling like you need to please people, you don’t want to rock boats, you don’t want to make people uncomfortable.”

Audience reactions

The second part of the event involved an audience talkback in which people shared experiences and strategies for navigating difficult situations. Audience members expressed concerns over the talk’s perceived lack of attention on systemic structures of oppression that figure in why women are more inclined to censor themselves.

In an interview with The Daily, Rhiannon Collett, a playwright who attended the event, shared that she “felt that the conversation had been veering around the ghost of the actual problem.”

“A lot of the conversation was about moderating our opinions and behaviour in reaction to a system that constantly [tries] to get us down,” she said, ”so, the conversations around how to be assertive and not aggressive really frustrate me because what we’re actually talking about is a systemic problem.”

However, Ocean DeRouchie, Fringe Arts Editor for Concordia University’s student newspaper The Link still noted that “it was really nice to be able to talk in a room full of women, and just being able to hear their thoughts and experiences. As another woman working in media, it’s sometimes really hard to have your ideas heard and this is that reminder to keep kicking ass.”

Speaking to The Daily, the host Rebecca Munroe, shared DeRouchie’s sentiments: “When [an audience member] brought up the fact that when she was in high school, she was able to put up her hand and be very vocal in class, and in the moment she got to university she all of the sudden stopped talking, that resonated with me.”

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Divided into two parts, the forum heavily focused on integrated group discussion: the first part involved brainstorming about the issues that affect the LGBTQ community on campus. Recurring topics included the lack of centralized community, visibility of queer issues, diversity in curricula, and gender neutral washrooms on campus.

The issue of “deadnaming,” the act of referring to a transgender person’s birth name instead of their chosen name, was also identified as an institutional problem that McGill’s Information Technology (IT) Services imposes by not using preferred names on official transcripts and email addresses.

The issue of “deadnaming,” the act of referring to a transgender person’s birth name instead of their chosen name, was also identified as an institutional problem that McGill’s Information Technology (IT) Services imposes by not using preferred names on official transcripts and email addresses.

The second part of the forum discussed the initiatives that are being taken and can be taken to tackle the outlined issues, serve the diversity of the LGBTQ community, and foster solidarity and allyship on campus.

Measures that were discussed include those presently being undertaken at McGill, such as mandatory equity-based workshops and training for staff, faculty, and students. These include projects like the Safer Spaces workshops offered to all staff, faculty, and graduate students, and Rez Project, a mandatory peer-facilitated workshop for first-year undergraduates living in residence that focuses on sexuality, consent, and race.

The forum was facilitated by Lynn Kozak, the Chair of the JBSCE Subcommittee on Queer People.

Speaking of the importance of workshops and training, Kozak said in an email to The Daily that “so much discrimination comes out of ignorance rather than malice. Training can help people see that their words and actions might be hurting others, even unintentionally.”

Tynan Jarrett, the Equity Educational Advisor (LGBTTQ) of the Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) office, who was present at the forum, concurred.

“Workshops strive to provide not only awareness, but also skills and tools needed to support the creation of equitable and inclusive living, learning and working spaces here at McGill,” Jarrett told The Daily in an email.

“So much discrimination comes out of ignorance rather than malice. Training can help people see that their words and actions might be hurting others, even unintentionally.”

“They offer an opportunity for staff and faculty to engage around important issues that are impacting marginalized and underrepresented students, staff and faculty at McGill,” Jarrett added.

“SEDE’s role is to provide education and advising on equity-related topics to the entire McGill community, with a specific focus on staff and faculty,” Jarrett continued. “We help units apply an equity lens to their policies and practices, and we work with individual faculty members to help them integrate equity material and equitable practices into their curriculum and pedagogy.”

This lack of diversity is most likely symptomatic of a greater issue: the lack of engagement at McGill with issues that affect the LGBTQ community. The forum highlighted that McGill’s engagement with these issues should not only extend to the classroom, but into other campus spaces as well, such as libraries.

Michael David Miller, the Liaison Librarian for French Literature, Economics and LGBTQ+ Studies at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, said in an email to The Daily that “librarians and staff of the library must continually accentuate the library as an inclusive place where everyone of all origins, genders, and sexualities are welcome to participate […] in conversations surrounding challenges facing LGBTQ+ communities in Quebec and abroad.”

“[Libraries can] build inclusive and diverse collections that represent the linguistic, cultural, gender and sexual diversity of our campus,” Miller elaborated.

Speaking about student engagement and allyship, Kozak told The Daily, “Community engagement around queer issues is crucial, first just because it’s so important for us to have a community, to get to share our experiences on campus with other people who might better understand us, and then to work together to improve those experiences overall at McGill.”

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UAEM describes itself as a global student organization that seeks to improve innovation, access, and empowerment in the field of international healthcare. If the McGill chapter’s motion passes on November 7 at the GA, the motion will push the University to “adopt an open access framework for all future medicine patents created at McGill and sold to the private sector.”

Peter Grabitz, UAEM’s European coordinator and member of the McGill chapter, explained in an interview with The Daily why UAEM McGill introduced their motion.

“[Our] basic issue is that a lot of research, that is eventually leading to innovation, is done at the university level,” Grabitz explained. “However […] once the University is licensing and patenting innovation in a way that allows the product to be bought up [and monopolized] by a company.”

“The public is basically paying two or three times [the product’s cost],” he explained. “They’re first paying for the basic research, and then they’re paying for the marketing, and the profit margin of the company afterwards. One easy way to stop this is changing the licensing condition at the university level.”

“What we want to do,” he added, “is to have McGill introduce licensing conditions that ensure global access to medicine and to the innovation that comes out of it.”

While McGill’s UAEM chapter has been active for five years, this is the first time that the student group is bringing forth a motion, entitled “Policy Regarding Global Access to Medicines”, to a SSMU General Assembly in order to implement concrete action to secure institutional accountability.

“The McGill chapter first and foremost wants to push for the access framework at an institutional level at a General Assembly motion,” said Sonia Larbi-Aissa, Co-President of UAEM McGill and a former Daily editor. “What [the motion] is, is actually a policy that would become an official agenda item for SSMU senators for the next five years.”

The motion overall emphasizes accessibility in the hypothetical event of a humanitarian health crisis. Drawing parallels between the 1990s HIV/AIDS epidemic and the 2013-16 West African Ebola virus epidemic, Larbi-Aissa explained that “in the event of a humanitarian crisis like that, […] this document that we cite in the motion states […] that what would happen is that the patent and that drug would be available in the developing country in question.”

“What we want to do is to have McGill introduce licensing conditions that ensure global access to medicine and to the innovation that comes out of it.”

“People would never be able to afford the market price of that drug,” she continued, “because pharmaceuticals are pricing it at monopoly prices, which are above the fixed cost of producing the drug.”

Speaking about the importance of student involvement, Christine Kim, U3 Pharmacology student and Co-President of UAEM McGill, stated that the issue of inaccessibility in international healthcare is rarely critically engaged with in academic study.

“I’m a pharmacology major and even the students who learn about this issue, they learn it in a very different manner from how we’re doing it here and during our workshops and meetings,” she said. “I think it’s important for there to be an organization from the students on the other side of things. […]There’s also a large amount of students that don’t even learn about this in class,” Kim added.

Chloe Hogg, a U3 Arts student who founded three chapters of UAEM in Melbourne, Australia, spoke about the importance of realizing the power McGill wields in how it licenses research.

“The way basic research is licensed off by big research institutions like McGill makes it unavailable to developing countries because the prices are so high,” she clarified. “We want to change McGill’s policies so that medicines are more accessible to all.”

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“Cassandra among the Creeps” is the title Rebecca Solnit, writer and contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine, gives her 2014 piece about silencing in cases of sexual violence. The title alludes to the Trojan princess Cassandra, to whom Apollo gave the power of prophecy in an attempt to seduce her. Upon her refusal of his advances, Apollo cursed her so that no one would believe her prophecies. The tale of Cassandra serves as an apt parallel to the reality that many sexual assault survivors face. Often, testaments of sexual assault are disregarded, citing the teller’s lack of credibility. This pattern exists within public purview and its repercussions echo throughout: on March 24, when Jian Ghomeshi was found not guilty on four counts of sexual assault and one count of choking, the 90-minute verdict cited the complainants’ “inconsistencies” and “deception” as the basis for Ghomeshi’s acquittal.

An ongoing Toronto Star investigation has detailed allegations against Ghomeshi from 15 women, but only three came forward to the police. During the trial, which began on February 1, the three women testified to instances of Ghomeshi’s violence, which they claimed had come without warning or consent. One woman testified that Ghomeshi had yanked her hair forcefully and punched her in the head multiple times. Another stated that he had choked her, pushed her up against the wall, and slapped her three times. The third woman said that he had choked her. With Ontario Court Justice William Horkins claiming that “it is impossible for the Court to have sufficient faith in the reliability or sincerity of these complainants,” it’s hard not to see reflections of Cassandra, the ‘liar.’

As advocates who work with sexual assault survivors have said, the trial could deter and discourage survivors from reporting. Lenore Lukasik-Foss, head of the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres, reports that responses to the unfolding of the case include comments like, “Wow, I’m so glad I didn’t report,” and, “I don’t know that I could ever report because of this. I don’t want to be treated like this.”

The aftermath of the trial has sparked public outcry and an outpouring of sympathy, as well as outrage. The case resonated with women across Canada. Its ripples were felt on a national level, they were felt here at McGill – where a demonstration in support of survivors was held last Thursday – and I felt them in my own personal life. As this widespread rippling effect makes clear, the ramifications of our culture of silence extend beyond highly publicized cases. Upon reflection, I found that they were also echoed in both my friends’ and my own experiences.

Layers of silence

As it stands, sexual assault is the most underreported violent crime in Canada, with only 5 per cent of survivors contacting police. From that already dismal pool of reported cases, sexual assault cases in Canada have a conviction rate of 45 per cent – the lowest for violent crime exempting attempted murder. Several lawyers who specialize in sex crimes state that fear and mistrust of the courts are major reasons why survivors don’t report their assault.

Legal proceedings are an inherently harrowing experience for survivors of sexual assault. Testifying means inviting an anonymous crowd to dissect and scrutinize intensely personal events. In that way, survivors are made to constantly re-live their assault when most would prefer to repress those memories. Their credibility is also questioned, and they place their experiences in the public eye with no guarantee of results. Understandably, survivors think twice about seeking legal justice.

In her essay, Solnit describes the multiple factors that push survivors to keep quiet as concentric circles of silence. The innermost circle consists of internal inhibitions, like shame, repression, self-doubt, and confusion. These inner conflicts make it difficult for a person to speak out. However, in the rare instance when someone does voice their experience, there still exists a surrounding circle of forces that attempt to silence them. For instance, family and friends may try to dissuade the person from speaking out in order to preserve a specific reputation. If this barrier is overcome and the story is voiced, the person still risks facing the final circle of silencing: the outermost ring in which both the testimony and the speaker are completely discredited by society at large.

These are the obstacles that survivors face when they choose to speak out. Doing so already requires immense courage and strength, and it’s reprehensible that survivors of sexual assault are subject to multilevel silencing forces. I feel outrage at this system, especially after witnessing first hand how the consequences have affected those close to me.

The mental haze and the aftermath

“It’s funny,” my friend Anna* begins, “how people aren’t aware of what they’re doing.”

She tells her story. “My sexual assault – everyone has their own story – but mine was that I hooked up with this guy who I had never met before. I didn’t want anything personal, so I was fine not knowing him. Anyway, we did it. After we finished, people immediately knocked on his door. I thought he was going to tell them to go, but instead he leaves and his friend comes in. I was so vulnerable – I was in bed, I didn’t have anything on me. I opened my eyes and he started to kiss me. I said, ‘Let’s not do that.’ We struggled and circled around the room for about 15 minutes. He would touch my body. I said, ‘No, don’t.’ I made it clear that I didn’t want him to touch me. He left the room and a different guy came in. I was scared. This time, I had nothing in me to fight back. All right, okay. He puts on a condom and rapes me.

I didn’t think things could happen to me like that. It was almost like you’re watching a movie. You’re in the middle of everything, but you’re not in control of it. You’re just not given the right to any action. You feel, but you don’t contribute to the plot. The third guy left and the second guy came in. He said, ‘How come he got to fuck you?’ Fine. I’m not going to argue with you. I don’t even know these people. We had sex.

I was in bed after. They all came in. One of them said, ‘Which one of us was the best?’

I was new to sex. It was very novel to my life – I had never done that before, go over to someone’s place like that. I realized what happened only later. After, the three of them asked me if I was hungry and gave me some chips. They were casually speaking. It’s like… they just don’t know what they’ve done. I think they regarded me as someone who provided the service. The first guy said, ‘I’m going to get up early tomorrow so you better leave.’ It was like a business transaction. The second guy texted me later asking if I wanted to chill. I said, ‘Do you even know what you did?’ Then he said, ‘We thought you were having fun.’ That was the last that I’ve heard from any of them.

I would feel irresponsible if I didn’t report to the police. But at the same time, it felt like it wasn’t right. It was personal, you’re the only witness. There’s no one who can speak for you. Especially when you were in it, you don’t remember everything that happens – it’s hard to recall everything. You’re suppressing that part of your memory, and when it happens, you’re in the film.

I waited a long time. I felt that I needed to think it through. After it happened I went to the clinic to do some tests and make sure I was physically okay. There was a social worker there, she was nice. They were all nice. I feel numb. I bear the burden of this piece of memory.”

Four months after the incident and one month after reporting, the police denied Anna’s case.

When “nothing happened”

The Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS) defines sexual assault as “any unwanted act of a sexual nature.” This deliberately general wording leaves room for people to define their own experiences – a consideration that becomes important when thinking about infringements that don’t include physical violation.

I incidentally heard about an instance like this while some friends were over for dinner. We were joking about how one of us, Enya*, always lands herself in abnormal situations. Somebody offhandedly mentioned Café Campus. My curiosity was piqued – I hadn’t heard that story before.

***

“What happened at Café Campus?” I ask.

“Oh, it was a while ago,” she says with a laugh and a dismissing wave of the hand. “There was a creepy guy.”

We smile, anticipating something funny. “How so?”

“I don’t know,” she starts. “He was so weird. I mean, he bought me a drink and then left right away. After, I was just sitting down on the floor and I couldn’t stand.”

Smiles drop and eyebrows furrow. “Wait, what?”

After a prolonged silence, someone asks, “What happened?”

Enya laughs uneasily. “Well, he just approaches me and says, ‘Hey, you want a drink?’ and I say, ‘Sure.’ So he goes away for five minutes and comes back with two shots of tequila. We drink it then he just leaves. Doesn’t say anything and walks back to the bar. I remember thinking that it was so strange, how he was just watching me. By that time everyone’s saying, ‘Oh, let’s go,’ so we leave for some air. We’re at coat check and I just – I sit down. Everyone’s telling me to stand and I’m like, ‘I can’t.’ They all laugh at me because they think I’m drunk, but then they realize that I can’t get up. My roommate took me home after that, so it’s okay. You guys don’t have to be so weird… I mean, nothing happened.”

***

A situation like this is difficult to orient in the general discussion of sexual assault, as the term “assault” innately implies a point of contact. Not everyone would agree that an incident lacking the breach of physical boundaries, like slipping something into a person’s drink, counts as violation. A non-physical transgression occurs in a different, less tangible sphere. Experiences of emotional infractions do not transcend to a universal level of understanding, and speaking out can rouse comments like, “It could’ve been worse.”

This kind of dismissal is not always external, but can also be part of the internal dialogue of the person who experiences the transgression. Like Enya said – “It’s okay… nothing happened.” However, the lack of direct physical assault does not excuse the infraction or make it less severe. The “it could’ve been worse” mentality carries heavy implications: it insinuates that the situation doesn’t warrant any reaction, and thus minimizes the gravity of the event. Such erasure of serious experiences contributes to inaction and the broader cultural act of silencing.

The in-between

After a few personal experiences on the Montreal metro, I started to weigh in on the question of how severe a violation of personal space has to be before it can be obviously defined as sexual assault. In the first case, an older man had asked me for the time, pointing to my watch. Before I could respond, he took my wrist and twisted it in his direction. On his way out, he patted me on the knee with a smile and a “merci, chérie.” I felt a nagging agitation that I dismissed, after reasoning that I wasn’t harmed. I had gone to the clinic with Anna – this was nothing in comparison.

A few weeks later I was on my way home, cutting through the post-rush hour emptiness of the Lionel-Groulx station. A man’s arm reached out as if to grab the edge of the door, yet ended up winding around my chest. I froze in shock, not realizing what had happened. There was a lag between my mental processing and the physical contact. By the time I processed what had occurred, he had already disappeared down the escalator. I laughed – an absurd reaction, in retrospect. It struck me as bizarre how he was merely on his way, going through the rest of his day.

When I got to my room afterward, I stared at the ceiling for half an hour to sort through the disorientation that trailed behind me on my way home. The state of not knowing what to feel echoed the previous instance, with the watch and the knee. I realized that both experiences left me in the same place emotionally, despite the fact that one was clearly more severe than the other. However, I tried to dismiss this incident too, because I couldn’t justify the indignation that I felt: the situation just didn’t seem grave enough.

The concentric circles of silence are such that we question our most innate reactions. Am I overreacting? Is it appropriate to feel violated? Are my feelings valid? The confusion that follows can lead to a pattern of dismissal. If it seems like certain experiences aren’t enough to deserve a strong reaction, then the obvious conclusion is to brush them aside. However, dismissal becomes a form of self-silencing.

Repression never fully works: lingering effects still manage to surface. It’s as if the confinement that begins from the enclosed setting of assault gradually evolves into the confinement of the mind. Pushing these things down means indirectly allowing them to keep happening, since perpetrators continue to get away scot-free.

Confronting our culture of silence

The total impunity enjoyed by perpetrators serves as the common denominator in all these cases.

It’s abhorrent that in only our first year of university, my friends and I, along with countless others whose stories remain unvoiced, have already accumulated these experiences. There’s no denying the culture of silence when we live in a world of its consequences.

However, just because this culture is so deeply ingrained does not necessarily mean that it’s impossible to overcome. The world is shifting in response to the sheer exasperation of those affected by sexual assault and their supporters. The nationwide outrage in the wake of the Ghomeshi verdict shows how people are discussing sexual assault and drawing attention to the issues at hand, despite society’s insistence on cloaking these experiences. Last week was SACOMSS Sexual Assault Awareness week.

Addressing and dissolving the silencing cloud surrounding sexual assault means unmuting the experiences of survivors. By raising the subject into an audible, visible sphere, the voices of survivors gain the weight and traction that they deserve. This is a necessary step toward believing survivors and treating their accounts with respect and sympathy.

At the demonstration held by McGill students in support of survivors last Thursday, speakers emphasized the dire need to support survivors and change the structures that allow for acts of sexual assault to continue in silence. Regarding these structures, speaker Sadie McInnes stated at the demonstration, “We are angry and we are sad.” Most importantly, we are not quiet.

*Names have been changed.

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