Dear Editor,
I never could understand how misogyny originated way back in the days before the Abrahamic religions compounded the problem by forcing their faithful to worship an Omnipotent Father and Son.
Is it any wonder that so many people have such strange views about love, when the father of three religions was willing to kill his son to prove his love for a father god?
Since we still pay homage to those potentially dangerous beliefs, it is debatable how much enlightenment we’ve achieved since Abraham’s days.
Women have been legally persons for only less than a hundred years, not enough time, it seems, to truly respect them as fully equal.
So, most women are familiar with their perspective, their viewpoint, their opinion, their experience, their knowledge, their efforts and contributions to the whole being minimized, ignored, ridiculed, criticized, discredited, dismissed or regarded with suspicion by self-appointed governing male authority figures.
To interject with the argument that there are females who have been granted power, authority and well-paid positions and that they also abuse, is to distract ourselves from the still widespread problem that this Jian Ghomeshi scandal has brought to light.
It has been reported that workplace complaints about his treatment of co-workers went unaddressed. It sounds like it was fairly common knowledge within the industry that he mistreated women. Since this story broke, there has been much criticism of and blaming his victims. There have been questions about why none of the victims went to the police or took it to the courts. Of course, most of those questions have been from men, or women thoroughly conditioned by men who have paid no mind to how women’s voices are still disregarded, especially if in conflict with the male voices usually deemed more credible.
But to anyone sensitive to life in the still-patriarchal world, it is perfectly understandable why a woman would not report such abuse, especially when she has no proof, as in most of his victims’ cases. So, most of them continue to wonder what the hell happened, why did a charming feminist-friendly celebrity suddenly brutally attack them?
Because there was little chance of justice being served in our court system, I am finding it most satisfying that at least the court of public opinion has granted these women justice. But I don’t put all the blame on Jian Ghomeshi.
The way our still-patriarchal society and its legal system operates is also to blame for why and how a man could continue to beat and abuse women for over a decade and get away with it while his victims were traumatized and powerless to bring him to justice.
There are two sad consequences to this: Because what a woman says carries so little weight in our world, not only does that encourage injustice, unbalance, and misogyny, but much feminine wisdom is not integrated into society. Secondly, a gifted man’s career is probably over when it needn’t have come to this if the problem had been addressed years ago before it got so sick and out of control.
This scandal is showing us that there is something wrong with the channels that lead to our legal system; it is a ringing bell that is telling us that it is time to pay more attention to how essential it is for mass consciousness to evolve, at least to a place where all persons are equally regarded in all realms of life.
There are still too many aspects of our patriarchal culture that foster injustice and dysfunction.
Evone Monteith