Jian Ghomeshi: Rowdy or Rapist?

Here are the facts:








TA DA! THERE ARE NONE.

We have CBC firing one of its most prominent faces and allegations of sexual assault from four anonymous women. We have one man's "poor me" sympathy card facebook status and an outpouring of supportive, questioning, trolling and hateful blog posts and updates and tweets and statuses.

Instead of making some snap decisions, I'm just encouraging people to read what they read with a critical eye. Ask yourself some questions as you read through the various articles and stories written about our c-list celebrity.

Questions like:

1. Why would CBC fire someone for being kinky?
2. Why would four women fabricate a story?
3. What is your understanding of BDSM?
4. Have you read 50 Shades of Grey? (kidding)
5. Do you believe any of this is your business?

I'm not going to try to answer any of those questions for you. I'm not going to come up with reasons to support or refute Ghomeshi or these women. Unfortunately our parents were right when they said there are three sides to a story...in this case: hers, his and the truth. Are we really qualified to assume we know #3?


I do ask that you consider what you say about women fabricating tales of sexual assault. If one in 5 women in North America is sexually assaulted in their lifetime (and this is the most conservative estimate), chances are your words are being heard by a survivor who may be suffering in silence, due to the very ideas you are perpetuating if you suggest that women lie about sexual assault.

(It is statistically just as likely to be falsely reported as any other crime - which is a very low rate. But you never ask someone if a person really broke into their car or if a person really stole their identity)