A year after Ghomeshi scandal, still long way to go on violence against women issue

He was the darling of Canadian public radio, the former frontman for a rock and roll band turned frontman for a flagship talk show heard across the country every day.

He had a penchant for waxing poetic on everything from music to movies to women’s rights.

So when Jian Ghomeshi’s star fell from the sky a year ago amid allegations of sexual assault and workplace harassment, the wreckage spread far and wide.

“In succession we got a few high-profile cases in the national press and then Jian, I think, really was a tipping point in public consciousness,” says Dusty Johnstone, a post-doctoral teaching fellow in women’s studies at the University of Windsor.

Over the previous year, a number of scandals on university campuses across Canada put a spotlight on the issue of sexual violence and so-called “rape culture.” More than one class of university freshmen was caught chiming in on “rape chants” during frosh week and there were allegations of sexual assault and later charges against two members of the University of Ottawa hockey team.

Then Ghomeshi.

The saga began in mid-October of last year, when CBC announced the morning show headliner was taking a leave to deal with “personal issues.” On Oct. 26, the public broadcaster announced it was severing ties.

Within a few hours, Ghomeshi announced a $50-million lawsuit. In a lengthy statement on his Facebook page he himself disclosed the reason for the rift.

“I’ve been fired from the CBC because of the risk of my private sex life being made public as a result of a campaign of false allegations pursued by a jilted ex-girlfriend and a freelance writer,” the 48-year-old radio host wrote on the page that has since been taken down.

Ghomeshi said the situation involved “adventurous” sex.

“Someone was reframing what had been an ongoing consensual relationship as something nefarious,” he wrote.

In the following days, more women would come forward. In November, police laid the first charges of sexual assault and choking.

“I do think that Jian’s case contributed to a public discussion around consent that’s really valuable,” Johnstone tells Yahoo Canada News.

Related or not, there have been significant changes over the past year in the discussion, she says.

Most universities have or are putting specific plans in place and Ontario has announced a $40-million action plan to stop sexual violence and harassment.

Ghomeshi’s case — and that of comedian Bill Cosby in the United States — followed a familiar trajectory, she says. The immediate response was to doubt the victims, who had not gone to police and who did not want their names made public.

Then Ghomeshi was charged.

“I think it’s a really important moment of self-reflection,” Johnstone says.

The initial reaction to the allegations against Ghomeshi prompted a visceral response from Sue Montgomery, then a well-known Quebec journalist.

“For me it was the last straw when the public was saying, ‘Why don’t these women come forward, why don’t they give their names, why don’t they go to police?’” she recalls.

“I know why. Because none of us do.”

She wrote a heartfelt account of her own experience with the hashtag #beenrapedneverreported. The hashtag penned by her and journalist friend Antonia Zerbisias immediately went viral, used millions of times around the world in just the first few days.

“I couldn’t care less what happens to Ghomeshi. He’s done. His career is finished and that’s good enough for me,” Montgomery says.

But “I think that the dam has burst and I think people are talking about it.”

On the down side, despite the headlines and the more than one thousand missing and murdered Indigenous women, sexual assault and violence against women has failed to be an election issue, she says.

“I think if one in four or five men were being sexually assaulted it would be a major campaign issue,” Montgomery says.

“We still have a long way to go. Our society has a really hard time talking about sexual assault.”

Last year the renowned medical journal The Lancet dedicated an entire issue to preventing violence against women and girls. The United Nations has an ongoing global campaign to end violence against women.

“I think that Ghomeshi was part of a bigger ongoing movement and recognition about how systematic and insidious these problems of sexual violence and sexual harassment really are,” says Dr. Janice Du Mont, of the violence and health research program at Women’s College Research Institute in Toronto.

It brought attention to workplace harassment and opened up opportunities for women to come forward with the expectation of being believed, she says.

It also happened a couple of months before the 25^th anniversary of the Montreal massacre – one of the darkest days on the Canadian calendar when it comes to violence against women, Du Mont points out.

At CBC, where Ghomeshi once enjoyed star status, the self-reflection continues.

A third-party investigation following the scandal found numerous shortcomings in the way the case was handled and in the overall protocols around workplace harassment.

Based on the recommendations from that report, the public broadcaster just announced a confidential helpline for bullying and harassment.

Mandatory training for managers will be rolled out this fall and training will also be offered to employees.

“I would have to say that people are very much, after an extremely tough year, moving forward,” says Susan Marjetti, the new executive director of radio and audio at CBC and a member of an internal committee charged with implementing the report recommendations.

“Whether people were close to what happened or having some distance from what happened last October, I think everyone felt it and everyone was affected.”

But CBC has been unequivocal that harassment and bullying will not be tolerated, Marjetti says.

“That’s really the focus now, is moving forward. I find people have very much turned a corner…,” she says.

Ghomeshi faces five counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

His first of two trials is set to begin in February.