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Until recently Jian Ghomeshi, a former CBC broadcaster and rock musician, was not much known outside Canada. I now rather wish it had stayed that way. But last September I decided, as editor of the New York Review of Books, to publish Ghomeshi's story of his life after he was tried in 2016 on four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking. He said that the three women involved had taken part in sadomasochistic acts willingly. They said otherwise, and more than 20 other women made similar allegations. In court Ghomeshi was acquitted on all counts for lack of sufficient evidence. Months later he issued a public apology to a former colleague in return for the withdrawal of a separate charge of sexual assault, and signed a “peace bond”, pledging to behave himself.
Instead of going to prison, Ghomeshi was punished by being purged from public life. He lost his job, of course, but also became a vilified figure in social media. Perhaps he richly deserved this. Sexual abuse is notoriously hard to prove in court. Public disgrace may well be his just deserts. But since a similar fate has enveloped an increasing number of men, after being exposed for a variety of sexual offences, some more and some less serious than those of which Ghomeshi was accused, I thought that this experience needed to be better understood. It raised questions about how people ought to be penalised. Due process is important, after all. A prison sentence has limits. Public disgrace is open-ended.
I was also intrigued by the story of a man who had everything, and then lost it all. Ghomeshi was a huge media star in Canada. Now, as far as the public is concerned, he only exists as an online villain. So I published his personal account as part of a package about fallen men, which included a piece on Jim Brown, the black American football star, who was once revered as a civil rights activist and one of the greatest athletes of his time, but was recently exposed as a man who behaved violently towards several women.
I knew this was provocative and expected to be criticised, but nonetheless the ferocity of the reaction surprised me. We were accused of promoting a rapist. My own journalistic writings, going back decades, were scrutinised for proof that I was a misogynist. Online petitions were circulated to get me fired from my job. University presses threatened to pull their ads. I also did a clumsy interview over the phone with Slate, in which I said of Ghomeshi: “The exact nature of his behaviour — how much consent was involved — I have no idea, nor is it really my concern.” By this, I meant that I was mainly concerned with what happened later, but it was read as though I had no concern for what had happened to the women, stoking the fires even higher. As a result, the magazine's owner decided I had to go.
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