Concordia and Canlit

Hobbs,

Would be interested in your opinion on the latest with Concordia and CanLit

http://canlitaccountable.com/  Article by Mike Spry

Concordia University vows to probe 'disturbing' allegations of sexual misconduct CBC article

Steph and I were discussing this case yesterday, as well as complaints against some ballet instructor. All of these cases I'd put as part of #metoo. I taught two classes on this subject last semester under the context 'moral panic and the legal system' so I can give my general thought from this persepctive but I have zero insight into any specific accusations.


1) The moral panic is occurring in industries where wealthy white females have gained enough power to stop this sort of exploration. The true hot-spots of mass sexual exploitation still remain in low-class minority female jobs like waitressing and hotel cleaning.

Hopefully this largely elite moral panic will trickle down into empowering less powerful women and I personally witnessed an example of this recently - but out of respect to those involved I'm not going to publicly discuss it.

2) I would call this a 'progressive' moral panic because it is punching upwards towards powerful men. 90% of moral panics are the opposite, usually the majority scapegoating some demonized minority (from literal witchhunts, to the big anti-left McCarthyite purges of the 50s and 60s, to Satanic Ritual Abuse of the 1980s).

3)It is interesting to note that both #metoo and MMIW (Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women) are 'progressive' moral panics with political elements. #metoo was triggered by Trump's election after he made several bluntly misogynistic comments, MMIW seriously helped defeat Steve Harper.

4) Moral panics are not rational mass movements - never have been, never will be. This is how populism works. The emphasis on sex and gender panics is absolutely necessary to effect large-scale cultural change but it does lead to an overly-moralistic culture milieu. Too much moralizing makes me uncomfortable and may lead to a new puritanism,a misogynistic backlash, or even a large war (as wars tend to re-polarize gender roles). Little progress is made without triggering some sort of counter-offensive.

5) #Ibeleivethevictim is dangerous because in a this type of panic every victim is also an accuser. The accusers in the Jian Ghomeshi case completely blew their criminal cases by believing their own hype. Just because the media has 'convicted' a man, doesn't mean the court system will.

6) The 'arts community' has been a hotbed of dubious sexual activity since forever, in the 1500s England banned all theaters and actors for this reason. But so are the military and policing communities, finance capitalism and most industries based on minority female labour. The difference is that women are too weak in those industries to publicly oppose such exploitation.

7) I have not seen any Woody Allen films but I have read enough synopsis of his films to know that older men imparting knowledge/power in trade for sex with younger women is a wide-spread trope among intellectuals and artists. I'm pretty sure you can trace this back to the Ancient Greeks (except with boys). Simply using power to extort sex goes back to our simian origins.

In my informal experience the psychology/neuro-psych departments are ripe for this sort of house-cleaning.

9) I wonder how this all plays out in the younger generations still trying to find their ways through tricky realms of gender relationships? On one hand you have the hard-core misogyny of internet porn and the alt-right/pepe/kek, on the other hand you have cultural norms increasingly influenced by feminism & queer rights. In the middle is the hyper-exploitation of sexuality by corporate media and social media. That's a volatile mix.

Sorry for the jumbled mix but I hope it gives some insight.