On Change and Accountability: A response to Clarisse Thorn

Note for those who don’t read Feministe.  Clarisse Thorn posted an interview with Hugo Schwyzer.  People objected to Hugo Schwyzer being given this space on a feminist blog as he had, among other things, tried to kill his girlfriend a decade ago. Clarisse Thorn responded by closing comments on the interview thread and writing a post called On Change and Accountability.  This post is primarily in response to that last post of Clarisse’s, which attempted to transfer the debate to a theoretical one about change and accountability.  (Feministe has since offered this apology).  This post will focus on the general not the particular – so you don’t have to have followed all the links to understand it. If you want to follow the wider discussion La Lubu’s post is my favourite (I also think there’s been some good stuff on Tumblr, but I can never find stuff there).

*******

Dear Clarisse

Towards the end of your post On Change and Accountability you asked:

Have you thought about these questions in your own life? I don’t mean abstractly, as an intellectual exercise. Concretely, and with intention. What would you do if, tomorrow, you found out that your best friend was a rapist? Your lover? What would you do if your sibling came to you to confess a terrible crime? To request absolution? To request accountability?

Did you expect your readers to answer no?  Sometime this year, it’ll be a decade since a man tried to rape a woman in my house.  They knew each other, and me, through left-wing political circles.  Since then I’ve known more than ten left-wing men who used intimate violence against women.  I’ve never been central to any collective response, all of which were ad hoc and some of which may have done more good than harm, or been particularly close to the men.  I still have no idea on how to respond to intimate violence on the left in a positive way, but I do have quite a good idea of some of the ways individual and collective responses can do harm.

So yes, I have thought about your questions – my answers and my response to you is deeply intertwined in the experiences I’ve had, the conversations I’ve had about those experiences, and the reading I’ve done.* However, I am being a little bit more focused in my response than you were in your post.  I am very suspicious of attempts to broaden discussions of intimate abuse and abuse of power, to a wider idea of bad things people have done.  Men who use the power that our sexist and misogynist society gives them to hurt women generally find it easy to do so, and get a lot of support when they’re challenged.  I believe that that social context is important. I am going to focus this post on responses to men who abuse women, because that was the situation that triggered your post and it’s what I have most experience with.

I will provide direct answers to your questions  the end of the post. First, I want to outline the ways I disagree with the premise of your post, and why some parts of it I disagreed with so strongly that I felt driven to spend the last few days planning and writing this reply.  You ask:

How can we create processes for accountability? Feminists often discuss crimes like partner violence and sexual assault. Our focus is on helping survivors of these crimes, just as it should be. I personally have been trained as a rape crisis counselor, and I have volunteered in that capacity (if you’re interested in feminist activism, then I really encourage you to look into doing the same). And the history of feminism includes convincing people to actually care about and recognize the trauma of rape: Rape Trauma Syndrome was first defined and discussed in the 1970s.

But perhaps because of our focus on helping and protecting survivors, I rarely see feminist discussions of how to deal with people who have committed crimes. In fact, I rarely see any discussions of how to deal with that, aside from sending people to jail. Let me just say that problems with the prison-industrial complex are their own thing—but even aside from those, the vast majority of rapes and assaults and other forms of gender-based violence go unprosecuted.

I think other people have already pointed out whose work you rendered invisible in this section, but I want to take it in a slightly different direction. Here you seem to suggest that responding to perpetrators and responding to survivors are two separate things and that feminists’ focus on survivors has left little space for dealing with perpetrators. My experience has been that the best response to perpetrators have been more survivor centred, and the worst have been entirely perpetrator-centred. Why?  Because abuse is about power and control – and centring perpetrators is giving them power and control.

A basic assumption of your in the post is that good responses to perpetrators need to be centred around perpetrators.  You barely mention survivors in your post, let alone other people who may have been hurt by similar behaviour and have boundaries and triggers and want to keep themselves safe.  Men who use the power society gave them to hurt women can do so because their experiences are centred in society.  I think centring perpetrators makes it harder for them to change, not easier.

“Accountability teams” are one way I’ve heard of for dealing with this: whether support groups of perpetrators who share their experiences with making amends and changing their ways, or groups of friends who assist a perpetrator with those processes. I would like to see more and larger discussions about those teams, and more acknowledgement that change is possible.

‘Accountability teams’ sound great – but I’m pretty sceptical of them.  When I’ve known support groups set up formally around perpetrators, they have become advocacy groups for those perpetrators.  One man I know, who was part of ‘support group’ for a perpetrator rang up individual members of a collective who had decided that the perpetrator was not welcome in their space; he attempted to pressure each individual member, and ignored a woman who repeatedly stated “I’m not comfortable with this” and kept trying to pressure her.  Likewise, I’m reasonably familiar with government funded programmes which act broadly like the perpetrator groups you describe above.  From what I know of the research, they’re not particularly effective, and there is some suggestion that they actually make people better abusers.

We live in a world with a profound level of ignorance about intimate abuse, and an awful lot of myths that many people believe.  In my experience, perpetrators who don’t want to change have found it easy to surround themselves with friends who support their worldview in some way.  This makes sense – if you’re someone who doesn’t want to be abusive, you are likely to have among your friends people who will support you in meaningful ways, but if you don’t want to change, then it’s very easy to find people who will act as your apologists.  Those who surround themselves with apologists will generally be happy with presenting themselves as trying to change – and use any support group to bolster that claim.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in support for perpetrators who are genuinely trying to change.  I just have known far more perpetrators who were trying to persuade people that they were genuinely trying to change, than those who have genuinely tried to change.  And those who are not trying to change have tended to use systems that have been set up to punish women they have abused.

I can imagine a time, or a circumstance, when I would have been excited about ‘accountability teams’.  I think our disagreement there is just a sign about how many layers of abuse apologist bullshit I have found around every abusive man I have known. However, my disagreement to what you said next is more fundamental:

If we can’t create this kind of process, then how can we expect to create real change around these crimes? How can we expect perpetrators of violence to work on themselves if we can’t give them the space to work? Why should someone work for forgiveness if they know forgiveness can never come?

I want to untangle this, because there are a lot of different ideas here.  First of all, when it comes to feminist blogs, there is no ‘we’, in fact when it comes to communities (which after all are informal sets of relationships with non-formalised power and decision making) there is no ‘we’.  There can be no ‘we’ without a collective decision making process – just a false ‘we’ people talking on behalf of others.

I agree that perpetrators need space and resources to change, but the biggest barrier to that is generally that they are surrounded by apologists and cultural narratives that justify their behaviour.  Outsiders can’t intentionally clear that away, they can only offer alternatives.

But what I really disagree with is the idea that abusive men should be working for forgiveness, let alone your conclusion that that means people need to forgive.

As others have pointed out forgiveness has a lot of religious overtones and baggage, it’s a narrow way to frame responses to abusive men, that will only speak to particular people.  However, even if I translate it to language that resonates more with me, rather than forgiveness I would talk about ‘being OK with someone’, I still think you are talking about deeply personal decisions and boundaries that people can only draw for themselves.  For example, seven years ago I stayed silent, when a woman with black eyes told me it was an accident, even though I knew that wasn’t true.  I have realised, over the years, that I am never going to be OK with what I did.  I also realised that that meant I was never going to be OK with this woman’s boyfriend, because I’m not going to hold myself responsible for my inaction around abuse, longer than I’m going to hold the man who did it (who has  changed more than most men I know who have committed intimate violence – although he has behaved in deeply problematic ways much more recently than seven years ago).

Perpetrators should not be working for forgiveness, because forgiveness is deeply personal.  But more than that I’m incredibly wary of the idea that abusers should be working on stopping hurting people, for any kind of reward, including changing the way people think of them.

One group response I saw from a distance used their silence over a rapist (and were generally very good at silencing other people) to try and get him to attend an anti-sexual-violence programme.  They held out that they would keep his abuse from going too public and got him to take certain steps.  It was, obviously, a disaster – change is fucking difficult and people have to really want to do it.  If you try and use leverage you have over someone to make them change (particularly someone manipulative, as most successful abusers are) then you are going to be unsuccessful.

An easy path back to everything being OK, is often what abusive men who don’t take their abuse seriously (but don’t necessarily deny it) – want.  I’ve known an abusive man demand this, and punish the survivor because he didn’t get it. He used all ll those subtle talking to friend of friends ways that it’s so easy for abusers to punish survirors particularly if other people let them.  One group I know set the simple requirement “you tell us when you think you are ready to come back” and never heard from two different men again.  I think it’s important not to offer short-cuts or a path to people being OK – learning to live with what you’ve done and other people’s reaction to what you’ve done is a perpetrator’s own messy work.

*********

However, none of that was why your post troubled me so much.  You wrote it in response to people who were part of a feminist space and were outraged at the way you had centred in that space a man who had tried to murder his girlfriend.  You were explicit both at feministe, and your place, that criticisms of that man bothered you, and shut that criticism down.

Then you wrote a post that is incredibly dismissive of people who disagree with you:

But I hope I can dim the flamewar into a lantern to illuminate issues that actually matter.

I believe that the politics of this situation are mostly a cheap distraction from truth and honor.

You go further, you go into some detail about why you think Hugo has changed and explicitly argue that your view of Hugo should be other’s view of Hugo:

Other feminists have been angrily emailing me, Tweeting at me, etc with things like “FUCK YOU FOR PROTECTING THIS WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING.” But I have seen no evidence that Hugo hasn’t made an honest and sustained effort at recovery and accountability.

Your entire post reads, to me, like an argument that people who who don’t agree with you about Hugo’s transformation, or the relevance of Hugo’s transformation about the way he has treated should not hold or express those views (partly because you don’t spend much time trying to persuade people on either of these points).  You are demanding a ‘we’ without a collective decision making process.

To explain why I think this is the most anti-feminist position that I have ever read on Feministe I have to tell a story.

In 2006, a man named Ira hit his girlfriend when they were breaking up (he did this in a supposedly radical social centre – he was not the first man to assault his girlfriend in that social centre).  After they broke up the girlfriend (who I will call Anne for the purposes of the post, although that’s not her name) named the abuse within the relationship.  Ira had been emotionally, physically and sexually abusive.

Ira had many defenders, and responses to the abuse focused on him (in fact a lot of my caution about ideas like accountability teams, and my firmness that all responses have to be survivor centred come from this experience).  He was exceptionally good at using mutual acquaintances (and there were many) to punish Anne.  He never made amends with Anne, or anyone else.  He did what most abusers who I’ve known who were seriously challenged do – he left town.

Apparently in this new place, he talked a good game.  He admitted to some of what he’d done, and presented himself as a reformed man.  He didn’t need to make meaningful change, he just needed to present himself as someone who had done so.

In 2009, about three years after they broke up he was part of organising climate camp.  This was supposed to bring people from all around the country to Wellington, where Anne was living.  Anne wanted to go to the camp, but she did not want to be around him.  She wrote to various people, including the safer spaces team, outlining the situation and asking if he could not come.  She got nothing back but vagueness and an argument that they could not do anything because the camp did not exist yet.

One of the arguments of the safer spaces team, which included people who claimed that they were feminists, was that they had talked to Ira and were convinced that he had changed.  They believed, or at least acted as if it was true, that it was their belief about him was important.  They ignored the view of one of the people he had abused, and many other women who felt unsafe around him.

It got messy from there.  Ira left, but only after a protest.  A woman who had been part of protesting Ira’s actions was kicked out of climate camp by the safer spaces committee for being ‘abusive’ because she yelled at a man for hugging her when she didn’t want to be hugged.  Ira got someone connected with Climate Camp to harass Anne – like I said he was good at getting mutual acquaintances to punish her.

The safer spaces committee had made it clear where they stood when they decided that it was their view on whether or not Ira had changed that mattered.

*********

Your post read to me as taking exactly the same position as the climate camp safer spaces committee.  You appeared to be arguing that your view that Hugo Schwyzer was reformed, and that his reforming mattered was important. Why?

Everything about your post oozes pressure.  When you argue: “Why should someone work for forgiveness if they know forgiveness can never come?” You are arguing that people should forgive abusive men, because it’s necessary for them to change.

There is no space in your post for survivors.  Either direct survivors of Hugo’s actions, or survivors of similar violence.  There is no space for people to draw their own boundaries around an abusive man.  Indeed nothing appears to matter in your post except the perpetrator, and his path to forgiveness.  There is no way of getting a unified response – of promising survivors forgiveness – which doesn’t involve asking or demanding that some people ignore their own boundaries.

There is nothing new or transformative in arguing that survivors and those who care about their abuse, should not have boundaries because other people believe that the man has changed. Just a month ago I was in a meeting where someone argued that as far as we knew Omar Hamed hadn’t tried to rape anyone all year, and therefore it was divisive to argue that he should not be welcome at our political event.

I believe that part of being OK with an abusive man, has to be accepting that other people may not be OK and respecting their boundaries.

To pressure women to be OK, act OK, or pretend to be or act OK around a man who has been abusive towards woman, is a profoundly anti-feminist act. That pressure cannot be part of anything that is truly justice, or truly transformative.

*********

I don’t have a generic answer about how I’d act if someone I cared about had raped someone.  There are too many variables. Obviously if anyone came to me seeking absolution, I would tell them that is not something I can give.   But, if I decided that I was OK continuing the relationship then I would tell him that he needed to respect people’s boundaries around him, that some people would never be OK with him, and that he needed to find a way of being that wouldn’t pressure other people and their boundaries (and he would have to be on board with that for me to continue the relationship). I would respect other people’s boundaries around him, and try to ensure that I didn’t put direct or indirect pressure on them.

I feel incredibly lucky, ten years down the track, that I have never had to respond to intimate violence from a man  I cared about.  But I have seen the harm that women do to survivors of violence in defence of men they care about. I’ve seen manipulative men get women to do their dirty work. I’ve seen the way ‘he’s changed’ has been used by other women to pressure both direct survivors, and women who are uncomfortable with abusive men more generally.  I hope I have learned enough to recognise those roles and refuse them.

Do we actually believe that people can change? If so, how do we want them to show us they’ve changed? Is absolution possible? Who decides the answers to these questions?

In reverse order, groups that have genuine collective decision making processes can make group answers to these questions.  Otherwise the decisions can only be individual.

Absolution is a religious idea that is not compatible with liberation.  Whatever we have done, we have done. Nothing and no-one can stop us from being the person who has done the worst actions we have taken.

Abusive men show me that they’ve changed when they stop hurting women and don’t use intimediaries to do their dirty work.  If an abusive man was OK with people talking about their abuse, was OK with people not being OK with it, and understood that responses to their abuse cannot be all about them, but about the people they hurt, then I’d probably be willing to believe that he’d changed.

And yes – I do think people can change. I think feminists have to believe in the possibility of abusive men changing otherwise there’s no hope but a separatist commune.

But I won’t stake anything on that belief, not anyone’s safety, or comfort, or boundaries. I don’t like the odds.  Nobody knows how to stop someone from abusing their power, and most attempts to do so are failures (that’s from friends who have worked in the field and reviewed the research).

I know this post sounds despairing.  Believe me when I say none of the ways that abusive men I’ve known have responded to being challenged has given me any reason to hope.

But still I hope.  And it is that hope that lead me to write this post.  That hope that makes me believe that it is worth writing about my experiences and more and less harmful ways of dealing with abusive men.

In recognition that we are part of the same struggle,

Maia

* I haven’t read the book The Revolution Starts at Home yet, but I have read the zine (warning that link is a pdf) and recommend it, even though as this post probably shows I am deeply unsure about any way forward.  I should point out that one of the problems with the post I am responding to that other people have discussed is the way it renders invisible the work of WoC dealing with issues that you say feminists don’t deal with.

This entry posted in Feminism, sexism, etc, Rape, intimate violence, & related issues. Bookmark the permalink. 

181 Responses to On Change and Accountability: A response to Clarisse Thorn

  1. 101
    Megalodon says:

    I am shocked that everyone else is shocked. Is there someone who honestly didn’t know that active-junkies try to kill themselves and others? Really? THIS IS WHAT JUNKIES DO.

    I was not shocked. Maybe other people were shocked. But despite not being shocked, I still find what he did to be bad and condemnable.

    Why the shock? I think the shock is that it is an educated, upper middle class white cis-male like Hugo, a professor who has published books and has a high-traffic blog. Although he tells people he is an addict, it still seems to shock people when he provides an actual example of past-junkie behavior. Why?

    In addition to being “an educated, upper middle class white cis-male,” Schwyzer also markets himself as a male feminist and ally, the “enlightened” male sort. Some of the “shock” may also be because he admited to committing an act of gendered, domestic violence. And he committed this act after he had adopted his current feminist ally persona.

    Let me put it this way: what if an autistic person was interviewed and some story like this came to light? Or any other emotional or psychological disability?

    Some persons with disabilities and some addicted persons may take issue with your blanket conflation of disability and addiction. But I did read an account from a person whose autistic son tried to rape his own sister. Such accounts might deter people from romanticizing and sentimentalizing autism and other disabilities, a la Rainman.

    Would we be as judgmental if we were talking about someone with schizophrenia?

    I would not be as “judgmental,” but I think it is off base to compare Schwyzer’s behavior with that of a schizophrenic. By Schwyzer’s own account, he was in a period of “lucidity” when he decided to murder this woman and kill himself. He describes his reasons, the planning, and elaborate steps he took to accomplish the act, and he seems to remember it all with lurid detail. He did not do this in some amnesiac drug haze.

    We would condemn the behavior, certainly, but wouldn’t we also attribute a lot of it to the condition itself?

    Certainly we would “attribute” some of it to the “condition itself,” but this attribution probably varies according to the perpetrator and situation, as it should. We might judge differently between a schizophrenic person who kills somebody because he hallucinated a threat versus an alcoholic father who murders his whole family because he is angry and embittered. Some people now hypothesize that Marc Lepine had psychological conditions, but that does not stop observers from condemning him and using his actions as examples of misogyny and gendered violence.

  2. 102
    Mandolin says:

    Daisy, you’re articulating some of the reasons why I’m deeply uncomfortable with this discussion.

    I am a never-addict, I guess (I don’t know the difference between that and a non-addict), but I think the way people are talking about responsibility and agency here has strong implications for dialogue about mental illness.

    Let me put it this way: what if an autistic person was interviewed and some story like this came to light? Or any other emotional or psychological disability? Would we be as judgmental if we were talking about someone with schizophrenia? We would condemn the behavior, certainly, but wouldn’t we also attribute a lot of it to the condition itself?”

    I’m not sure how much that’s true. I think people with mental illnesses are easily stigmatized, othered and dehumanized. I think the treatment might be similar, especially if it was someone who–like Hugo–displays unlikeable traits.

    I’m also uncomfortable with the implications the current argument has for prison abolition.

  3. 103
    Mandolin says:

    By Schwyzer’s own account, he was in a period of “lucidity” when he decided to murder this woman and kill himself. He describes his reasons, the planning, and elaborate steps he took to accomplish the act, and he seems to remember it all with lurid detail. He did not do this in some amnesiac drug haze.

    Is this… um. How much experience do you have with addicts? I don’t have much. But I know that people with bipolar can tell you, in lurid detail, the reasons, planning, and elaborate steps they took to attempt suicide. It doesn’t happen (or have to happen) in some amnesiac manic/depressive haze in order to be a product of altered consciousness.

    Maybe altered consciousness in addicts is fundamentally different in terms of how memory works than altered consciousness in people with mental illnesses. I’d believe that. I’d like to see at least an anecdote supporting it, though.

  4. 104
    ginmar says:

    You’re comparing a rich white guy who chose to try to kill a woman to someone who has a condition they didn’t choose, based on—–? If he could have thought up a better excuse for his almost successful murder, he would have. Drugs just gave him an out because people are so very very eager to blame booze and drugs for what people do while on them. They just amplify the personality that already exists. It’s not like rapists and murderers and wife beaters haven’t been using chemicals for excuses for all of civilization.

    What we should be discussing are cold psychopaths and the way they’ll use anything to make excuses. If anybody can get away with it, it’s a rich white dude.

  5. 105
    DaisyDeadhead says:

    Mega, without getting into details, I was diagnosed with “hypomania secondary to addiction”, since this was before the term “bipolar” was in popular usage. The counselor who tested me believed fully half of alcoholism and addiction was self-medication by people with undiagnosed mental illnesses… what Mandolin said.

    (Recently, one of those “Intervention” shows ended with the diagnosis of the addict as having an obsessive disorder, which any fool could tell you by watching. But I guess these official diagnoses are the going thing, otherwise you are just a common junkie.)

  6. 106
    Jake Squid says:

    I feel like the conversation is moving towards never blaming or holding accountable anybody for anything. A position towards which I have some inclination but a position which also makes it hard to navigate the real world.

    If I, as a non or never addict (which, I dunno, does nicotine count?), can’t choose to believe that Schwyzer is a bad person based on his actions because he’s an addict, can I not decide that my abusive ex is a bad person because she has a mental illnesses?

    Perhaps the problem is using the term “bad person”? Would it be better if I used “dangerous person to be near”?

    I guess that my problem with where the discussion is headed is that we are getting closer and closer to theoretical philosophies that can be neither proven nor disproven. Which, I think, is pretty close to the discomfort that Mandolin expressed. That’s going to leave us shouting at each other over our differing beliefs about stuff that we don’t have the means to prove.

  7. 107
    Mandolin says:

    If I, as a non or never addict (which, I dunno, does nicotine count?), can’t choose to believe that Schwyzer is a bad person based on his actions because he’s an addict, can I not decide that my abusive ex is a bad person because she has a mental illnesses?

    People can be mentally ill and also bad people, which I think is something we agree on.

    I don’t really have a problem with anyone thinking “X is a bad person.” I have a problem with the assumption that everyone else must think so, too.

    I do think “bad person” is an unhelpful way of talking about things in forums like this since it suggests there’s a binary quality to “bad”/”not bad.” (I’m talking about in a public, political situation, not one’s general feelings or dialogue, I don’t really care what people personally think.) I think “dangerous to be around” is a lot more useful.

    IMO, you have every right, plus some fucking righteousness, to declare your ex a bad person and a dangerous person. You continue to have that right even if she hits on a combination of drugs and therapy that mitigates the danger from her mental illness.

    What I’ve always thought about the people I’ve been involved with in one way or another who’ve done me substantive emotional damage is that I hope they move on, grow up, and become better people. But they’ve lost the right to do those things *with* me. I’m glad when I hear they’re doing better. But I’m not going to give myself back to them, those bridges are burned.

    People have different ways of dealing with this stuff? From “fuck you even if you’re better, go suffer” to “I will be at your house on Christmas even if you don’t ever improve a whit”? And all that’s fine on a personal level, I think. But I also think it gets trickier when we’re talking about public responses from people who aren’t personally involved in the situation.

    Not sure if I’m disagreeing w/ you or not.

  8. 108
    Jake Squid says:

    No, I don’t think you’re disagreeing with me. It’s a complex subject. And, in the case of the various fora where this discussion is taking place, it seems to me that the combination of the simple (X is a bad person or not) with the complex (what is responsible for one’s actions?) with the simple (everybody should think X is the sort of person that I think X is) ends up leading us to saying and thinking terrible things about each other.

    Imo, everybody has the right to their opinion/feelings/morals wrt Schwyzer. Everybody has the right to express that opinion and the reasoning behind it. It heads straight to awful when we start saying that those on the other side are terrible, awful, immoral whathaveyous. It heads towards unfruitfulness when we start to discuss unprovable theoretical philosophy while trying to discuss the case of Schwyzer and why or why not we are okay or not okay with him.

    Because yes to your second paragraph and I feel that’s where we’re slowly heading in this thread.

  9. 109
    Megalodon says:

    Is this… um. How much experience do you have with addicts? I don’t have much.

    Some, being the child of a deceased one, and having multiple living ones still in the family.

    It doesn’t happen (or have to happen) in some amnesiac manic/depressive haze in order to be a product of altered consciousness.

    I brought it up to suggest that he was apparently in control of his actions and seemed to know what he was doing and what he wanted to accomplish. If people say, “Yes, I knew what I was doing, but I only wanted to do those bad things because I was on drugs” and we take that at face value, I think we are going further down that unfavorable road that Jake Squid mentioned.

    You said that people can be bad people and do bad things and also be mentally ill, and I’m sure that applies to drug addicted people too. To what degree a person’s potentially altered consciousness should be a mitigator for their conduct should depend on the specifics. I don’t think Schwyzer’s situation is an exculpatory one. I think Mel Gibson really was drunk when he was pulled over and when he was yelling over the phone, but I don’t think what he said was because of altered consciousness.

  10. 110
    Alon Levy says:

    Daisy, I’ll cop to not having experience with homeless people. (I briefly met some hobos, but only after leaving New York – the city is great at making entire classes of people invisible.) Though, for what it’s worth, homeless activists and squatters have had some involvement in Occupy as well as similar protests outside the US, though not in the richest and most culturally dominant encampments.

    The reason I’m uncomfortable with giving Hugo the addict out is, as you say, the constant preaching and the constant asking to be judged, as long as it’s on his own terms. And because of his background, most of the preaching is to people who are well below him in the social hierarchy.

  11. 111
    mythago says:

    I’m a little uncomfortable with excising the issue of Hugo’s addiction from all the other context. This isn’t simply a story of a male feminist/ally, now in recovery, who did a horrible thing in the throes of his addiction. Certainly for many people that would be enough to shut him out – but it’s not that story.

    First, of course, is the way Hugo presented this: My buddy killed a dog by accident, which reminds me of the time I almost killed my girlfriend! Wacky, huh? And then the comment about talking to lawyer friends, which really smacks less of “I acknowledge my actions and accept the consequences” than “Now that my ass is covered and it doesn’t matter, I can tell you all this story.” That was in another country, and besides the wench is dead, eh?

    Hugo also has a problematic history as a feminist ally, ranging from his tolerance and positive approach to many MRAs (which he admitted was part of his attempt to ‘evangelize’ them) to a white-knight approach where he often doesn’t listen to women….and his frequent reference to his wife, who is apparently a person of color.

  12. 112
    ginmar says:

    Well, he just got quoted in Jezebel, talking about MRAs, who he describes as ‘disappointed’—-by whom, I wonder?—–instead of as the raging, rapist apologist, woman-hating, age-of-consent-law abolishing slime they are. Yeah. He was never an ally. He was an opportunist, and thanks to too many people who can’t the difference between his outside and his inside, we’re giving him more opportunities.

    Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. I just get the feeling he’s going to go full-on MRA the first time he finds himself in a situation he can’t weasel and smirk his way out of.

  13. 113
    mythago says:

    I think he genuinely wants be an ally. I just don’t think he’s willing to whittle down his ego enough to really be one. To be fair, he has improved over time, and he has gotten better on some issues – but his kidding-on-the-square “often in error, never in doubt” is something he’s not interested in treating as a problem.

  14. Pingback: Was Hugo Schwyzer’s Confession Embellished? « Student Activism

  15. Pingback: Making Amends and Moving Forward by Hugo Schwyzer « Feminism and Religion

  16. 114
    ginmar says:

    I think he wants to be an ally so he can boast about it. I haven’t ever gotten the feeling that Hugo cares more about women than he does about men, especially given the way he talks to and about his male students’ struggle with students. He was just quoted on Jezebel, sympathizing with murdering MRAs, saying they were ‘disappointed’—-given they’re being pardoned for murder, who would that disappointment be about, I wonder? Obviously victim-blaming, too.

  17. 115
    mythago says:

    The link at Student Activism notes that Hugo’s story has apparently changed over time, and that he’s edited his posts to obscure that fact.

    If I were Hugo, I wouldn’t be so sanguine that my ‘lawyer friends’ had given me sound advice. Prosecutors in California are generally an aggressive bunch and they don’t mind going after cold cases, particularly ones with a high profile.

  18. 116
    Siobhan says:

    For the record, I don’t simply see this as a discussion about men and women, abusers and victims, feminists and non, etc etc, but also about judging practicing-addicts by the standards of non-addicts and never-addicts. I’d like to restrict this conversation to people in recovery, but too late for that now. I just don’t think people who have never sold their asses for a couple of pills, understand what that reality is like and never will.

    This. This whole thing has, for me, been about ME. I read “Hugo did this in addiction and that is the sum total of what he is” makes me feel like “WTF, I might as well start drinking again, since that is all I am judged on.”

    Use of substances to the point which addicts use them literally change your brain. Addiction is a mental illness. We learned in rehab that it takes about a year for a brain primarily fizzled on alcohol to rewire itself… and up to two years for opiate and pill users. So having a lucid moment where you are functional enough to enact a really bad decision is NOT evidence of proper thinking.

    You can say “oh, they do it to themselves.” I was 18, a freshman in college, and got drunk at my first frat party and it was over for me. I did that to myself? Sure, I got drunk + a large chunk of genetics.

    Yes, I’m responsible for everything I did when I was drunk, and make amends to the people I have harmed — including recognition that sometimes the very best amends I can make are never speaking to that person again.

    Re: Feministe: I stopped reading comments at Feministe way early on. And I read both of those threads in full. And it reminded me why I, personally, don’t read comments there and will never participate in the community. Because comments like Sarah’s here:

    There isn’t a way back, there’s no way for atoning for that, justice can’t transform that behaviour.

    Or the ones at Feministe calling him a sociopath and narcissist (and the later comments saying “what? That was a perfectly normal thread”) show that that blog is no place for me. It’s a place for people to spill their hate of everyone else. And if that is how some people need to spend their time, great. Not me.

    When Hugo jumped in to leave a TEXTBOOK AA comment (along the lines of “if me contributing to this thread can help, let me know how, if not, I will remain quiet”) is almost word-for-word from the freaking Big Book. And he was accused of narcissism (again!) and “flouncing.” But that is what we are taught to do. We know we can’t always trust our instincts: Our instincts would literally have us dead from using. So we are given ways to ask for how we should approach situations.

    I have issues with Hugo myself. With his writing, with his attitude. But when, in ignorance, you attack recovery, you attack every person with the disease of addiction. And that is almost all of what I saw and have been seeing. Fuck redemption. No living in society for you. Don’t talk, you’re already wrong because of what you have done. You no longer have any rights as a human.

    ETA: I would love it if someone pointed me to something about Hugo bullying WoC. Because I keep hearing it referred to, but can’t find any original posts. If anyone has them handy, it would be appreciated, if not, I will keep looking.

  19. 117
    ginmar says:

    Sorry. Don’t care. Hugo’s using his addiction as a screen to hide his misogyny behind. Blaming pills or booze or whatever is classic. He’s a woman abuser and yet so many people are eager to make that disappear so they can blame it all on addiction. Or the Devil. Whatever it is, it’s not his fault—or theirs.

    Well, wife beaters use that excuse. The booze made them do it. The pills made them do it. The whatever made them do it. Funny thing is, though. They only ever prey on women. They only ever prey on women who nobody will believe or who can’t or won’t fight back. They never attack their bosses or cops or people who can either help them or serve them. Just women. And look at what Hugo’s gone and done: he’s got a puffed-up resume and is aggressively promoting himself as ‘smashing’ paradigms or stereotypes or whatever.

    The argument here is how to frame this, and some people are trying to frame poor baby Hughie as a poor addict, while others suspect bullshit, because frankly, he’s never been repentant, he’s never been more of an ally than a user, and he’s never had more than a pretense of feminism. He’s never been more committed to women than he’s been to using women to get approval from men. See: can’t I be a player now and save the feminism for later? Or how about the cold unpleasant pool of feminism? Or calling murdering MRAs disappointed? Bragging about how hot he is, how many students he’s fucked?

    So I and a lot of other women are rejecting the framing that Schwyzer chose, specifically because people are using it to excuse his actions—and potentially theirs. He made a lot of choices along the way, and damned near killed this woman—but we’re supposed to accept that he was so impaired he’s not responsible. Yet he wasn’t so impaired it affected his planning, scheming, motor skills, and ability to ensure that his ex wouldn’t be able to press charges. Can’t have it both ways. His behavior, sober or not, has been consistent, as has been his rhetoric.

    People aren’t attacking recovery they’re attacking slimebags like Schwyzer who blame everything they do on it. And yes there are people like this. You’re attacking everybody who won’t enable this guy, nor listen to his excuses.

    If it wasn’t pills, he’d find something else—anything else but him. Not only does this let him off this particular hook, it also gives him the opportunity for more ‘mistakes’, which is a particularly reprehensible way of describing the attempted murder of a woman who trusted him.

    ETALeft out half the post I wanted to make.

  20. 118
    Siobhan says:

    Is Hugo in recovery kind of a douche who isn’t nearly as feminist as he thinks he is? Sure. Is he an abuser in recovery? There has been no evidence of this. None.

    That’s attacking recovery. That’s saying that despite a radical change in behavior, nothing else matters except what he did when using.

  21. 119
    ginmar says:

    No evidence? I’d call trying to kill a woman pretty fucking abusive. What, does he get a freebie before you wag your finger at him?

    He hasn’t had a radical change in behavior, it’s just that certain groups are bending over backwards to make every excuse possible for him. I expect accusations of puppy kicking against his critics will soon follow.

    Let me know when he ever gets to recovery. You can’t be really repentant when you’re whining that people are being mean to you and saying mean things about you…..for trying to kill somebody.

  22. 120
    Siobhan says:

    That is certainly evidence of his abusiveness in active addiction.

    Let me know when you have evidence of abuse in recovery.

    Being kind of a douche who isn’t nearly the feminist he’s reputed to be is not in the same class as being an abuser. He hasn’t displayed repentance in whatever way you think he should… he obviously has in a way other people have signed off on.

    Again, I have zero issue with attacking Hugo for drivel like today’s Jezebel piece. But that’s not abuse. And that’s not attacking recovery. This other stuff IS.

  23. 121
    Alon Levy says:

    Mythago: can you explain the link a bit? What I see is that Hugo used to say that he did not try to kill his girlfriend, but nearly killed her by accident while trying to commit suicide. We now know this is false and it was an attempted murder-suicide, but it reads like a run-of-the-mill not admitting the crime until one actually admits the crime. Is there something I’m missing?

  24. 122
    ginmar says:

    Come on, you know damned well and good you’ll reject any evidence that you don’t like. I’m done. Let’s let all the addicts kill all the women they want to, because the poor dears aren’t responsible for anything.

  25. 123
    Siobhan says:

    Actually, I would love evidence of actual abuse. Because I’m stuck in the position of defending kind of a jerk because I am defending recovery, and if he hasn’t recovered, that makes my life SO FUCKING MUCH EASIER.

    That’s part of why I asked for the actual posts where he was “bullying” WoC. Because I am really sick and tired of “yeah, he’s not a fabulous human being, and he was an actively evil one in addiction, but SO WAS I. And if you are saying nothing matters after that, then you are attacking me, too.”

  26. 124
    ginmar says:

    Because being high makes attempted murder a character flaw instead of a crime, of course.

    And that, right there? Where you say SO WAS I? That’s you, making excuses for trying to kill a woman.

    http://lmgtfy.com/

  27. 125
    Siobhan says:

    No, but “Once an abuser in addiction, still exactly the same person in recovery” is attacking recovery.

    And, by the way — and I am NOT saying this is right, I have mixed feelings about it — generally, in AA, in a situation like this where there was no lasting physical injury and no charges are being pressed, they tell you that you can do a lot more good by not going to jail.

    Googling “Hugo Schwyzer abuse/r” only brings up this stuff. Googling “Hugo Schwyzer racist” brings up posts he has written. I searched for “Hugo Schwyzer” on both Flavia’s blogs because she says she’s written about him. I’ve read everything on Tigerbeatdown, so I know it wasn’t there, and it wasn’t on Pandagon or Shakesville in the last three years. So yes, I am asking for help, thanks.

  28. 126
    Siobhan says:

    And where I say “so was I?” That’s me, talking about 12 years of hell in active addiction. And where you tell me I am making excuses? That’s you telling me I might as well use again.

  29. 127
    Alon Levy says:

    Siobhan: I don’t have a dog in that particular race, but you should try looking for what Hugo wrote about Full Frontal Feminism, and about Amanda’s It’s A Jungle Out There. Both got heavily skewered by nonwhite feminists, and my understanding is that Hugo is/was quite close to Jessica Valenti (at least, FFF quotes him approvingly). Could be that he plugged the books, and when WOC criticized them, he threw a fit.

    I’m just guessing, having read FFF and the ensuing brouhaha but not Hugo’s blog.

  30. 128
    Siobhan says:

    Thanks, Alon, when I get home I will look for those.

  31. 129
    John Spragge says:

    Siobhan, if you want an example of online behaviour by Hugo for which he received heavy criticism at the time, and for which as far as I can determine he has yet to make amends, please look up his You better prove it blog post.

  32. 130
    Alon Levy says:

    John: not sure what exactly happened at the WAM conference Hugo is talking about, but what he’s defending is not very defensible in an academic setting. I’m in math and not gender studies, but I don’t think the citation conventions are all that different.

    In my field, when someone else tells me he’s* found another way to prove a theorem of mine, the least I’m going to do is put in an acknowledgement in the paper. And there are multiple opportunities to do that, from when there’s a proof, to the preprint, to the final editing stage. Even a person with priority should reference others, unless their work is completely derivative. If you listen to talks given by the person who proved a theorem that comprises part of my first paper, on which he has priority, he’ll at least note that I have an alternative proof, and spend a few seconds on saying what I exactly proved, which is a bit different.

  33. 131
    Megalodon says:

    Yes, I’m responsible for everything I did when I was drunk, and make amends to the people I have harmed — including recognition that sometimes the very best amends I can make are never speaking to that person again.

    And it is the prerogative of the people you have harmed to maintain a grudge if they want, or to consider those amends to be forever insufficient. The fact that a person is in recovery does not oblige the people that person has harmed to forgive that person, nor does it oblige other people to characterize that person’s bad actions as forgivable or less important than recovery.

    And what do you mean by “responsible”? You argue that addiction is a mental illness. You seem to be saying that addicted persons who commit certain acts have a diminished, compromised responsibility and should not be held to account in the same way that presumably sober people who committ the same acts are held to account.

    When Hugo jumped in to leave a TEXTBOOK AA comment (along the lines of “if me contributing to this thread can help, let me know how, if not, I will remain quiet”) is almost word-for-word from the freaking Big Book. And he was accused of narcissism (again!) and “flouncing.” But that is what we are taught to do.

    Really? Alcoholics Anonymous always counsels members to engage people they have offended and attempt to make amends? No matter what? There is never any situation or circumstance in which AA counsels members to stay away and not initiate contact?

    But when, in ignorance, you attack recovery, you attack every person with the disease of addiction. And that is almost all of what I saw and have been seeing. Fuck redemption. No living in society for you. Don’t talk, you’re already wrong because of what you have done. You no longer have any rights as a human.

    I doubt the feminist blogosphere could enforce those decrees. Why do you assume that these condemnations of Schwyzer (or of any addicted malefactor), result from “ignorance”? Lots of the Feministe commenters seemed fully aware of Schwyzer’s addiction and drug use. Are you saying that if somebody is properly aware, they “must” accept the conclusion that addiction vitiates moral responsibility? Are you saying that if somebody is properly aware, they “must” accept that the malefactor’s recovery is always more important than the malefactor’s wrongdoing?

    That’s attacking recovery. That’s saying that despite a radical change in behavior, nothing else matters except what he did when using.

    That whole dilemma would seem to apply to all kinds of wrongdoing, not just wrongs done by addicted people. People sometimes think that certain acts are so egregious, that no future change will matter. And I don’t blame people for sometimes maintaining that reaction. If somebody steals from or attacks a person for drug money, the victim may be able to forgive those acts. If somebody tried to murder another person, the victim of that attempted murder might never forgive the malefactor, even if the malefactor never attempts to murder again, and even if the malefactor tries to achieve sobriety.

    The fact that the victim’s refusal to forgive might make the malefactor feel guilty and jeopardize his recovery does not oblige the victim to give up her indignation or her grievance. Nor does it oblige bystanders to assure the malefactor that his actions are forgivable and that his wrongdoing is less important than his sobriety and self-esteem.

    Do you think an addicted person’s recovery is always more important than what he/she did while using? If an addicted person molested a child while using, is the victim obliged to forgive the molester for the sake of his recovery? Is everyone who learns about his actions obliged to assure him that his wrongs are less important than his recovery and his being reaccepted into society?

    “Hugo did this in addiction and that is the sum total of what he is” makes me feel like “WTF, I might as well start drinking again, since that is all I am judged on.”

    That’s me, talking about 12 years of hell in active addiction. And where you tell me I am making excuses? That’s you telling me I might as well use again.

    I bet some addicted people use statements like these as threats against the people they have harmed. “Forgive me and act like everything is okay! If you don’t, I’ll go use again and harm myself (or harm other people)!”

  34. 132
    Siobhan says:

    And it is the prerogative of the people you have harmed to maintain a grudge if they want, or to consider those amends to be forever insufficient. The fact that a person is in recovery does not oblige the people that person has harmed to forgive that person, nor does it oblige other people to characterize that person’s bad actions as forgivable or less important than recovery.

    Absolutely. 100%. You are absolutely correct. And if anyone Hugo — or myself — harmed while in active addiction shows up and wants to tell us how awful he is — or I am — and how they will never trust or forgive us, I will honor their experience and keep silent. However, unless someone has something they want to share, this is NOT between Hugo and his victims. This is saying what he did while in active addiction is the only thing that matters.

    And what do you mean by “responsible”? You argue that addiction is a mental illness. You seem to be saying that addicted persons who commit certain acts have a diminished, compromised responsibility and should not be held to account in the same way that presumably sober people who committ the same acts are held to account.

    I am arguing that. However, once someone is sober, we are responsible for everything we did in addiction. We are responsible for paying back anything we stole, making amends however we can — including leaving someone we have harmed totally and completely alone when contacting them to make amends would be the greater harm. We are also not the judge of that on our own, but work with a group to attempt wisdom. Is the group always right? Of course not. Everyone does the best they can with what experience they have. And we are responsible for making sure we are not that person again.

    Really? Alcoholics Anonymous always counsels members to engage people they have offended and attempt to make amends? No matter what? There is never any situation or circumstance in which AA counsels members to stay away and not initiate contact?

    Of course not. However, in this context, was he in danger of harming the commenters at Feministe? No. Then he did ask them how and if he should respond in a textbook AA way. “How can I best contribute, including not contributing?” is exactly how we are told to approach situations where we may be unsure of how to proceed.

    If somebody steals from or attacks a person for drug money, the victim may be able to forgive those acts. If somebody tried to murder another person, the victim of that attempted murder might never forgive the malefactor, even if the malefactor never attempts to murder again, and even if the malefactor tries to achieve sobriety.

    Yes, and I agree with you AGAIN. Those individuals harmed in the process have every right to never forgive and never forget.

    If an addicted person molested a child while using, is the victim obliged to forgive the molester for the sake of his recovery? Is everyone who learns about his actions obliged to assure him that his wrongs are less important than his recovery and his being reaccepted into society?

    This is 2 different groups of people. One is people harmed, the other is not. If we treat all addicts this way — that our wrongs perpetrated while in addiction are, in fact, always going to overshadow everything we do, then no one will ever recover. No one has any reason to. Addiction is a mental illness that is right now primarily treated by imprisonment — much the same way that schizophrenics were treated 60 years ago. There is treatment, and there is recovery, but if we are going to be pariahs to people who have never known us in our addiction or been harmed by us then, there is no incentive to get better.

    I bet some addicted people use statements like these as threats against the people they have harmed. “Forgive me and act like everything is okay! If you don’t, I’ll go use again and harm myself (or harm other people)!”

    Sure. See above where I made it more general. I was always taught to speak specifically to me, but if you want me to be more general, fine. As long as addicts are told they will always be judged by what they did when in the depths of untreated illness — by everyone, not by the people they harmed, but by society in general — there is no reason to recover.

    Why do you assume that these condemnations of Schwyzer (or of any addicted malefactor), result from “ignorance”? Lots of the Feministe commenters seemed fully aware of Schwyzer’s addiction and drug use. Are you saying that if somebody is properly aware, they “must” accept the conclusion that addiction vitiates moral responsibility? Are you saying that if somebody is properly aware, they “must” accept that the malefactor’s recovery is always more important than the malefactor’s wrongdoing?

    Yes, they were aware of addiction and drug use, and yet the comments seemed to betray an ignorance of recovery itself (e.g., all of the comments accusing Hugo of “narcissistic flouncing” when using textbook AA language) and of the nature of addiction (that the level of usage by addicts does make physical changes in the brain, so that a “moment of lucidity,” even enough to “make a fully formed plan,” is NOT the same as sobriety. People suffering from bipolar disorder often seem fully functional when in fact their brains are, at that moment, sending them down entirely wrong paths.

    Again, you want to attack Hugo for not being feminist? FINE. His writings have pissed me off no end. He speaks from privilege, and doesn’t seem to listen to criticism, and that’s just what I know about so far. But that’s a canyon away from being an actively abusive person. And yet what is being said over and over is “He did X while in active addiction, all that he will ever do is X. Nothing more ever needs to be said.”

    So why SHOULD anyone ever get sober, if that’s what they meet?

  35. 133
    Siobhan says:

    Thank you, John. I guess what I am looking for is criticism of Hugo at the time of these pieces (his blog is pretty easy to find)… and now that I am home I will try googling for the WAM issue as well as the Marcotte book and the FFF debate.

  36. 134
    mythago says:

    I am flabbergasted by the repeated insinuation that nobody judging Hugo negatively understands recovery, addiction or mental illness.

  37. 135
    Siobhan says:

    I am flabbergasted by the repeated insinuation that nobody judging Hugo negatively understands recovery, addiction or mental illness.

    I apologize, I thought I gave clear examples of obvious lack of understanding. And this is only the comments I have read in three places… here, the original post at Feministe, and the second post, On Change and Accountability. In these places, people do not seem to be aware of the physical changes addiction causes, using phrases like “did it to himself,” or that it is a mental illness. If you can show me where they did appear to have knowledge, that would be terrific.

    Of course, I am making a gigantic assumption that the people in these sites are not a group that support discrimination against or castigation of people with mental illnesses.

  38. 136
    mythago says:

    You are also making a giant assumption that nobody on those sites has ever been in recovery or has dealt with addiction in those close to them.

    And the “mean to addicts” issue also, again, obscures the context. This was not simply a random guy saying ‘I was an addict, I did this horrible thing and I am regretful and in recovery’. It happened in the context of Hugo’s turning his feminism into a promotional vehicle (‘slut herder’? srsly?) and his presentation of the incident (“hey, my buddy killed a dog, which reminds me….”) in a very narcissistic way. There’s also the fact that his story has changed from being saved by neighbors to his own last-minute heroism, his editing his posts, and his trumpeting that he is sure he will face no consequences for his actions. Hugo was not a beloved feminist icon who fell from grace because he said he did a bad thing in the throes of addiction.

  39. 137
    Siobhan says:

    You are also making a giant assumption that nobody on those sites has ever been in recovery or has dealt with addiction in those close to them.

    What I quoted demonstrated ignorance. If one of those people was in recovery or had an addict close to them, and they have had access to the education, then it is willful ignorance.

    Hugo was not a beloved feminist icon who fell from grace because he said he did a bad thing in the throes of addiction.

    He changed his story based on new information — it didn’t seem to me as if he was making himself a hero, it seemed like the friend he called while in a blackout at some point said “hey, that’s what you did.” But believe it or not, I am really not defending him in such a way as to say he should be as prominent as he is. He’s kind of a jerk. I’ve said that HERE repeatedly. But while “not the feminist he thinks he is” and “patronizing” and “abuser” may be on the same scale, they are a canyon apart. And so the people saying he is now an abuser because he was then an abuser are damaging to the very idea of recovery.

  40. 138
    Megalodon says:

    However, unless someone has something they want to share, this is NOT between Hugo and his victims. This is saying what he did while in active addiction is the only thing that matters.

    The fact that it is not between Schwyzer and his victims does not oblige the non-victim commentators to adopt a supportive, reassuring, welcoming stance to Schwyzer. Nor does it oblige them to minimize or dismiss Schwyzer’s actions for the sake of his sobriety.

    However, once someone is sober, we are responsible for everything we did in addiction.

    Seems like quite a strong incentive to avoid sobriety. Maybe all addicted people should be entitled to free passes for all the wrongs they did, for the sake of encouraging sobriety?

    We are responsible for paying back anything we stole, making amends however we can

    If an addicted person did something like rape or kill someone while he was addicted and he was never caught for it, do recovery groups encourage him to admit to his crimes and accept any potential legal punishment?

    However, in this context, was he in danger of harming the commenters at Feministe? No.

    Uh, I guess he has not physically harmed any of the Feministe commentators. However, I am told that for feminist communities and survivor communities, harm is not limited to physical or personal encounters. That is one reason why they have these “trigger” warnings. And supposedly, reading an admitted attempted murderer glibly and slickly describe his deeds can be “triggering” and detrimental to members of that community.

    Yes, and I agree with you AGAIN. Those individuals harmed in the process have every right to never forgive and never forget.

    This is 2 different groups of people. One is people harmed, the other is not.

    Yes, these are two different groups of people. However, the fact that the latter group of people were not directly harmed by the malefactor’s actions does not remove their right to morally judge the malefactor and react accordingly. The victim is not the only person entitled to his/her own indignation and reaction. The fact that I was not molested by a child molester does not remove my right to judge and condemn that child molester, should I ever learn of his actions. Other people have every right maintain their own reaction against that person, whether or not the victim has personally forgiven that person.

    There is treatment, and there is recovery, but if we are going to be pariahs to people who have never known us in our addiction or been harmed by us then, there is no incentive to get better.

    It is not all or nothing. It’s not a choice between the community giving every addicted person a hug or giving every addicted person a scarlett letter. I think most people (the non-victims) would base their reaction and judgment upon the severity of the addicted person’s wrongs. Reactions and judgments will vary for some addicts. For others, there may be wide consensus, for either acceptance or condemnation. Lots of people may say, “Okay, you lied, cheated, stole, used people and prostituted yourself for drugs, but your recovery is important and I want you to move past all that and I won’t judge you for that.” And lots of people may say, “Okay, you prostituted your own child to get drugs. What you did was unconscionable. I want nothing to do with you. Stay away from me. I don’t give a damn about your recovery.” I think both reactions are morally valid.

    And this dilemma between maintaining moral disapproval and reintegrating a wrongdoer is hardly uninque to addicted wrongdoers. This applies to every kind of malefactor. There is always the tension between socially condemning a person versus reintegrating that person into law-abiding society. I think lots of felons are unfairly made into “pariahs” because of their past crimes. But I do think some felons have committed crimes so severe that the public in general is justified in keeping them at arm’s length and looking askance at them, if they come to be at liberty again.

    As long as addicts are told they will always be judged by what they did when in the depths of untreated illness — by everyone, not by the people they harmed, but by society in general — there is no reason to recover.

    As long as addicts are told they will always be judged by what they did when in the depths of untreated illness — by everyone, not by the people they harmed, but by society in general — there is no reason to recover.

    Addicted persons will not necessarily “always be judged by what they did when in the depths of untreated illness.” However, they should be warned that not all people (non-victims) dismiss or release their judgment so easily, and are not obliged to do so. And they should also be warned that a lot of people consider some acts to be “beyond the pale” which outweigh the value of the malefactor’s recovery or reacceptance. Like I said, the moral reaction is rarely universal. I thought attempted murder would be beyond the pale for most people, but based upon the number of Schwyzer’s supporters throughout this scandal, it appears I was wrong.

    I take issue with this contention that society in general should always structure its reaction for the benefit of the malefactor’s recovery and reintegration. Yeah, that’s a goal, but it may not always be the overarching one. And what if the victim of an addicted malefactor sees us welcoming him back into society as if nothing ever happened and she reacts with outrage? “How dare you all welcome and reassure this person! Don’t you know what he did to me? It’s like you’re violating me all over again!” Whose reaction and welfare do we prioritize?

    Yes, they were aware of addiction and drug use, and yet the comments seemed to betray an ignorance of recovery itself (e.g., all of the comments accusing Hugo of “narcissistic flouncing” when using textbook AA language) and of the nature of addiction (that the level of usage by addicts does make physical changes in the brain, so that a “moment of lucidity,” even enough to “make a fully formed plan,” is NOT the same as sobriety.

    Even though Schwyzer’s announcement may have correlated with the standard Alcoholics Anonymous script, that does not rule out the possibility of self-absorption, “flouncing,” or him trying to capitalize on his own denunciation. Lord knows lots of addicted malefactors may use the “amends” process as a smokescreen to improperly insert themselves into people’s lives and spaces. As for their opinion that Schwyzer was aware and morally culpable for his actions when he committed them, I do not think the premise that “addiction = exculpatory mental illness” is an obvious, undisputed moral or scientific truth. Not yet anway.

  41. 139
    Mandolin says:

    I have, at best, mixed feelings about the prison-industrial complex. I think the rough equation of “amends” and “participating in the US justice system,” or “experiencing genuine regret” and “therefore being willing to go to prison” isn’t really one-to-one.

    If participation in the prison system and government-administered justice are how you judge someone’s regret and amends, that’s certainly an opinion some people hold. But not everyone holds it, so not everyone is being hypocritical (as implied) when they don’t equate amends and the legal system.

  42. 140
    Megalodon says:

    If participation in the prison system and government-administered justice are how you judge someone’s regret and amends, that’s certainly an opinion some people hold. But not everyone holds it, so not everyone is being hypocritical (as implied) when they don’t equate amends and the legal system.

    Fair enough. Though when somebody prefaces his public “amends” with disclaimers about how he vetted his “amends” with attorneys to supposedly make sure that he had no risk of legal punishment, his “amends” can sound hollow and disingenuous.

  43. 141
    Grace Annam says:

    Siobhan:

    So why SHOULD anyone ever get sober, if that’s what they meet?

    For the future, because addiction behaviors continue to harm the addicted person, and addiction behaviors continue to harm other people around the addicted person.

    Like any transgressor, a recovering addict who has harmed other people has to grapple with the fact that his or her circle of associates will have to be pulled from that smaller subset of humanity who are willing to forgive and engage. You are presenting this as an all-or-nothing prospect, but in fact some percentage of the population will choose each way.

    Grace

  44. 142
    mythago says:

    He changed his story based on new information — it didn’t seem to me as if he was making himself a hero, it seemed like the friend he called while in a blackout at some point said “hey, that’s what you did.”

    “Seemed like”? In other words, he didn’t say that, but it’s your interpretation of what might have or could have happened?

    And by the way, you’re doing a bang-up job of embodying exactly that kind of perpetrator-centered thinking people criticized about Clarissa’s original piece. How dare anyone say these things, they better not, because they’re impacting somebody’s recovery so perhaps they should STFU and figure out who’s important, which is the people in recovery, amirite? After all, why should anybody bother to do the right thing and be a better person unless everybody immediately forgets everything bad they’ve done?

    ETA: Mandolin, while I get your point, “I don’t think going to jail is making amends” is kind of beside the point when we’re talking about a serious crime. Either limit yourself to a confidential situation (like AA or a therapist) or don’t blab about it in public, but telling the whole world and then bragging that yo, my lawyer said I can beat the rap – along with carefully changing details after the fact – is kind of assholery.

  45. 143
    Siobhan says:

    What I have been trying to do is point out that addiction is a mental illness. It causes physical changes in the brain. It’s a stigma. And as long as it continues to be treated as things bad people do, then we addicts all remain bad people always.

    Do I think that those harmed by this have an obligation to let those people back into their lives? No, they were harmed. Do I think they have a right to safe spaces away from those who harmed them? Absolutely. Do I think they have a right to demand blood or complete exile from society? No. We have to balance somewhere.

    This isn’t about “redemption”. It’s about how we treat those who are ill. And how we make room for illness AND those harmed by it.

  46. 144
    Siobhan says:

    “Seemed like”? In other words, he didn’t say that, but it’s your interpretation of what might have or could have happened?

    And isn’t when you say “he changed it to make himself a hero” you doing exactly the same thing? I have OFTEN changed my story when given new information by someone who was there who remembered better than I did. Not hard, since I was blacked out a LOT and was often picking the likeliest scenario in the first place.

  47. 145
    Mandolin says:

    Mandolin, while I get your point, “I don’t think going to jail is making amends” is kind of beside the point when we’re talking about a serious crime. Either limit yourself to a confidential situation (like AA or a therapist) or don’t blab about it in public, but telling the whole world and then bragging that yo, my lawyer said I can beat the rap – along with carefully changing details after the fact – is kind of assholery

    Mythago–yeah, I see that.

    I more meant to defend Siobhan. It seemed to me that some of the criticism of Hugo’s amends was meant to make *her* seem like a hypocrite for not demanding he do his amends through the prison system. I apologize if I misread.

    You also wrote that you were miffed by the insinuation that people criticizing Hugo didn’t have any experience with addicts or mental illness:

    I more or less said that directly to Megaladon, and I apologize. What you’d said (or what I thought you were saying) about lucidity was so out of synch with my experience that I asked out of seriousness not snark, but I shouldn’t have.

  48. 146
    Mandolin says:

    So, I apologize if I’m summing things up incorrectly, but it seems to me that at this point in the conversation, most people participating aren’t in sympathy with comments like “once you attempt to kill a woman, that’s it, game over.” Am I right about that?

    Mythago and Megalodon, if I’m reading them correctly, are saying that it’s not just Hugo’s behavior during his addiction that they oppose, but also his other behaviors post-addiction, and the way he’s positioned himself within the feminist movement.

    I also expect most of us agree that addicts, like people with other mental illnesses, display the full range of personalities, so people can be both addicts and assholes.

    What I’m trying to get to here, is that I *think* that everyone agrees that addiction is an illness and a mitigating factor and we shouldn’t just throw addicts and former addicts out of “polite discourse” without paying attention to context.

    Where we disagree is how we’re reading the context in this specific case.

    This may seem like a minor point in terms of discussion about Hugo specifically, but I think it’s a major point to bring up in a discussion where people are trying to ask broader questions about addiction and the stigma on addicts.

    Do people feel I’m summarizing correctly?

  49. 147
    Megalodon says:

    So, I apologize if I’m summing things up incorrectly, but it seems to me that at this point in the conversation, most people participating aren’t in sympathy with comments like “once you attempt to kill a woman, that’s it, game over.” Am I right about that?

    I’m not necessarily unsympathetic to that kind of comment. Lots of the Feministe commenters shared that opinion, and attempting to kill a woman may be “beyond the pale” and “game over” for some feminist blogs. Personally, I think that’s a generous “game over” bar to set.

    Thankfully, I have never been the target of an attempted murder. And to my knowledge, I have never known or associated with an attempted murderer. I am not sure how I would react, whether I would continue to associate with that person or avoid that person entirely.

  50. 148
    Mandolin says:

    OK, again I may have been unclear here. The comment in specific seemed to say not only that one was using “attempt to kill someone? Game over” as a PERSONAL metric for how or whether someone decided to interact with someone, but that this metric should be imposed on everyone. Is that something you agree with?

  51. 149
    Susan says:

    Thankfully, I have never been the target of an attempted murder. And to my knowledge, I have never known or associated with an attempted murderer. I am not sure how I would react, whether I would continue to associate with that person or avoid that person entirely.

    If I were the target of attempted murder, I would immediately cease all unmediated (that is, outside a court of law or a police station) contact with that person, on the ground that “attempted” murder could very well be “successful” murder next time around, and that I wouldn’t want to give them another shot at me.

    Perhaps the person might later undergo real or alleged reform. That’s nice. I would hope perhaps that that person had a nice life associating with other people, and that those other people might be a tad wary of him or her. (On the other hand, I might not be gracious enough to hope that.)

    There is a hopefully powerful taboo in this (and in most) cultures against killing people or seriously trying to do so. Someone who for whatever reason, be it mental illness, addiction, or whatever (short of self defense), showed himself or herself capable of ignoring this taboo is a dangerous person by definition. I might be willing to associate with such a person (unless I had been the target last time) but like tigers in the zoo or cobras in the bush, I think it might be wise to keep, you know, a little distance.

    This is just me. Your mileage may vary, and if it does, that does not make you a bad person or an inadequate feminist or whatever pejorative is under discussion. I may and do think you a little foolhardy, but that’s your right I guess.

  52. 150
    Mandolin says:

    I might be willing to associate with such a person (unless I had been the target last time) but like tigers in the zoo or cobras in the bush, I think it might be wise to keep, you know, a little distance.

    Relatedly, I think there’s a difference between whether or not one’s willing to associate with such a person as, you know, like, a friend in their personal life, versus interactions in the public sphere.

    There are lots of people who I personally have no interest in being friends with, who I do not perceive to be an immediate threat, and who I therefore would associate with in other ways.

  53. 151
    Lyanna says:

    Do I think they have a right to demand blood or complete exile from society? No. We have to balance somewhere.

    Oh, good grief. No one is demanding blood or complete exile from society for Hugo. At most–at the MOST EXTREME end of the spectrum–people are demanding a few years in prison. And why not?

    And most people aren’t even asking for that. They’re asking for Hugo to not be a leader in the feminist community. Some are asking for popular feminist blogs not to accept his presence. Neither is tantamount to a complete exile from society, let alone blood–they’re just a little less professional success (on the back of his victim) and a smaller online presence. Big deal.

    And by the way, your manipulative “oh, but if you’re a big meanie who judges addicts for what they do in addiction, then I’m going to be tempted to START DRINKING AGAIN” nonsense is noted and scorned. It’s contemptible. And it proves that you haven’t changed and you’re not sorry.

    If an ex-addict is genuinely sorry, they’ll understand the magnitude of the harm they caused to themselves and their victim, and that will be sufficient reason for them to change. They won’t need cookies or promises never to judge them. They’ll understand why people would judge them, because they’ll understand the harm they did.

    Only if you do not understand what you did, or do not care about it, do you need some sort of free pass from society as a reward for ceasing your bad acts.

    Is this mean of me? Oh well. Maybe I’ll say my addiction makes me judgmental, and YOU CAN’T COMPLAIN.

    And by the way? Yes, if you try on purpose to kill someone, game over.

  54. 152
    Maia says:

    Omar Hamed – who I mentioned in the OP and who you can find more about in the link above – drinks in a way that seems excessive and compulsive. I’m not close enough to him to know whether he is an alcoholic, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was.

    I think this is irrelevant to the way he has acted as a sexual predator. Partly this is because I know his behaviour when he was sober. A friend who talked to him about the nature of consent came to the conclusion that he believed and extolled so many rape myths he was in active danger of raping someone. He has routinely

    Omar Hamed sexually assaults women, and ignores their consent, because of his beliefs about women and sexuality (among other things). He may also be an alcoholic. He could change his views about women and sexuality, while still drinking. He could stop drinking and not change his views about women and sexuality.

    I think I disagree with this:

    What I’m trying to get to here, is that I *think* that everyone agrees that addiction is an illness and a mitigating factor and we shouldn’t just throw addicts and former addicts out of “polite discourse” without paying attention to context.

    I don’t think that addiction is a mitigating factor in abuse. I think it’s important to treat abuse as the problem when dealing with men who have been abusive. And that means not using narratives of recovery to evaluate change. I don’t think the question is whether Omar has stopped drinking, but whether he is prepared to respect women’s boundaries. And a fairly good indicator of that is how he responds to people who object to his past behaviour (I mean as it happens I have no reason to think he’s still not trying to sexually assault people – but he has stopped drinking or at least had last I heard).

    Siobhan – I think your model is very narrow. You appear to think the only people who can draw boundaries around abusive men who were addicts are their direct victims. This ignores the way each act of abuse upholds a culture that allows abuse to happen.

    You are demanding that the rest of us separate a recovered addict from what they did when they are addicted. Recovery is not at the centre of my analysis. If Omar genuinely changed the way he acted towards women, I wouldn’t care if he was drinking or not.

    Relatedly, I think there’s a difference between whether or not one’s willing to associate with such a person as, you know, like, a friend in their personal life, versus interactions in the public sphere.

    See I think there are important further divisions in here. ‘the public sphere’ is quite wide. One of the key categories I would mention is ‘comrade’ – someone who you are actively involved in the same struggle as. It’s different from person whose work you enjoy, or someone who you work with professionally. It’s a political relationship – and abuse is a political action – and so it’s incredibly relevant. I don’t care that Hugo Schwyzer is on Jezebel – to me Jezebel is not a feminist site. Even if I worked for Jezebel it wouldn’t bother me in the same way. I think that’s a very different relationship than the political relationship (although obviously problematic in its own way).

    And part of the problem is that, in my experience, people who have boundaries around violent men, find themselves excluded from events again, and again, and again. One of the things that not centring perpetrators means, is thinking about who perpetrators are excluding by their presense – and treating that exclusion as important.

  55. 153
    aestas says:

    I know I’m late to the party, but there are so many things I’d like to say in response to the comment thread here. As a domestic violence advocate, I’d like to address some myths and/or misunderstandings about abuse that seem to be floating around. Intimate partner violence is not a single act of aggression, but rather a pattern of behavior in which one partner seeks to assert power and control over the other. Hugo’s story of how he tried to kill his former partner and himself does, on its own, raise more than enough red flags for me to indicate an abusive personality (the fact that he did it at all; the fact that he had sex with her immediately after she had apparently been sexually assaulted; the language he uses in the story itself, which is self-focused and tends to minimize and justify his actions, as well as seeming designed to elicit pity for him; the fact that he admits to later seeking/gaining information from mutual acquaintances regarding his victim, despite her wish to have nothing more to do with him; the fact that he tells this story publicly and apparently without her permission, and seemingly without consideration of how it may affect her). But obviously, his continuing behavior also raises many red flags (there are many examples, but let it suffice for now that half of what I outlined above relates not to his original act of attempted murder, but to his current behavior around that situation). So this is not a matter of making a recovering addict into a pariah because of bad behavior while he was using.

    What’s also key here is that addiction, mental illness, and domestic violence are separate issues. What we know in my field is that neither addiction nor mental illness cause abuse, which, as I said, is defined as a pattern of power and control. We have consistently seen that getting sober, or getting appropriate medication and/or therapy which effectively treats one’s mental illness, does not, by itself, have any affect on one’s abusiveness toward his (or her) partner. Further, both addiction and mental illness, as others have pointed out, are common excuses used by abusers to justify their behavior and/or excuse themselves from culpability.

    Some here have raised several important questions about how we, as a society, ought to address partner violence with regard to perpetrators. In the United States, there are Batterer Intervention and Prevention Programs (BIPPs), which are generally what one is court-ordered to attend if charged with domestic violence. These programs consist of groups run by trained, certified counselors whose primary focus is accountability, and which seek to address the underlying values and belief systems which engender abuse. They have been shown to be more effective than other proposed solutions, such as individual therapy (which can actually make the problem worse), but there is still a woefully low (read: statistically insignificant) rate of demonstrated, lasting change among abusers who participate in these programs.

    Maia, you raised the question of whether or not abusers can change. Since abusers are humans like the rest of us, I believe that the answer is yes, they can, but the problem is that they are rarely motivated to really try. Why? Because abuse is not like addiction: an addict who eventually gets sober will generally “hit bottom” at some point, when the consequences of their addiction become so terrible for them that the agonizing and difficult process of recovery begins to look like a better option. But abusers are not the ones who suffer the consequences of their actions; their victims are. Abusers can lead successful lives, have many friends, enjoying satisfying careers, etc., because their abuse mostly goes on behind closed doors and because the culture supports myths about abuse that make it easy for their abuse to be condoned, overlooked, excused, or simply ignored.

    And here is the crux of this thing with Hugo Schwyzer: this is exactly how this happens. When you are a survivor of abuse, few things are more shattering or silencing that watching your abuser be supported, even lauded, publicly, despite the harm he’s done to you. This can look like anything from the minimizing or victim-blaming of a mutual friend to situations like this, in which some feminists seem to be publicly suggesting that it’s unfair for others to want to remove a self-styled male feminist from feminist spaces on account of both his personal history and his continued behavior.

    Some commenters have suggested that Hugo’s victims themselves ought to be speaking up, or that theirs are the only voices which might carry weight in such a discussion. But if they are even aware of what’s happening, I can imagine that this whole thing might be incredibly triggering for them (as it has been for other survivors), and I can understand why they might not wish to position themselves to be re-victimized in public spaces by speaking out.

    The problem here is that Hugo’s redemption narrative and the support it garners are silencing to victims. Enabling his desire to occupy public spaces with his discussions on feminism is to elevate and glorify his voice above the voices of those he’s hurt and others who have been similarly victimized. Abuse precludes a level playing field, so even if we were, say, to offer equal space to survivors, we can’t mitigate the silencing effect of allowing his voice to be heard (and often supported and admired) in those spaces in the first place.

    What’s more, Lundy Bancroft (who helped to create the first BIPP and whose wonderful book Why Does He Do That? is an excellent place to start for those interested in better understanding the dynamics of intimate partner violence) illustrates the dangers of giving a public platform to abusers who are trying to change. He describes how he decided to bring some of the men from his groups who appeared to have made great changes onto some talk shows to speak about their experiences and reports how, to his dismay, every single time, the partners of these men reported a major incident of abuse within one week of these speaking engagements. Abuse stems from a place of entitlement, and the public attention and praise these men received for their efforts inadvertently fed into that selfish focus and helped to revive their former abusive behavior.

    I don’t know what the answer is in terms of finding an appropriate method of dealing with perpetrators of abuse, beyond this: it must start with accountability. And that accountability must take into account the work that has already been done regarding what helps and what hurts. We know that giving an abuser (or proclaimed former abuser) a public platform from which to discuss these issues does more harm than good, and we know that when anyone enables or participates in any sort of justification, minimization, or deflection of full accountability (including acceptance of the fact that some people will never be okay with the abuser, no matter how sorry he is, and will be upset to see him featured in feminist spaces), it supports abuse, even when that is not the intention.

    I realize that my comment has grown ridiculously long, for which I apologize. There are a couple of other things I wanted to address, but I’ll post those separately.

  56. 154
    aestas says:

    I also wanted to address a comment Clarisse posted which quoted one survivor’s response to her post. The survivor was grappling with painful and difficult questions about accountability and the enabling of abuse by survivors themselves.

    Her comment was heartbreaking because it’s something I hear so often from survivors who are struggling to understand what role they may have played in the abuse. I can answer that question definitely: NONE. Abuse is a choice made by abusers, over which their victims have no control. There is a myth in our culture which states that the victims of abuse are co-dependent and that they enable the abuse by staying/not calling the police/making excuses for his behavior/etc. It’s true that most incidents of abuse are not reported, and on average, a woman will leave an abusive relationship 7-8 times before she stays away for good. But it’s absolutely not true that victims enable the abuse. There are many reasons why it’s hard to get help and get out of an abusive relationship for good. Here are a few:

    1. Traumatic bonding (a.k.a. Stockholm Syndrome) is something that happens in many abusive relationships, in which the abuser will manipulate his victim to feel as if they are “in it together,” that the abuse is evidence of a fiery passion that others can’t understand, and that he is the only one who can make her feel better. Abusers tend to be unusually charming and manipulative and can often behave with incredible affection, sensitivity, and caring when it suits them. A victim may come to believe that no one else understands her, would want her, could put up with her, could love her as much as he does. The result of this manipulation is a deep, unhealthy, and incredibly strong bond which can prove very hard to break, especially as most abusers will not simply let their partners go should they choose to try to leave (they may manipulate, cajole, threaten, stalk, get friends/family/counselors involved in convincing her to give it another try, etc.).

    (A quick note about gendered language here: I refer to the abuser as “he” and the victim as “she” because that reflects the reality of the overwhelming majority of partner violence, but men can also be victims, and DV happens in same-sex relationships at the same rate as hetero ones.)

    2. Economic abuse is very common, and a woman, especially one with children, may find it very hard to survive on her own. Her abuser may legally worm his way out of child support, he may get her fired from jobs by harassing her at her workplace or by dragging her back to court so much she misses too much work, keep her embroiled in financially draining custody and divorce litigation, he may have ruined her credit, prevented her from getting an education, forced her to stay home (thus giving her no work experience), and so on.

    3. Our family court system (I’m talking about the U.S. here, but I understand this to be true of many other countries as well) does not protect victims of abuse in the way you might think if you’ve never had dealings with it in this capacity. It’s a very common experience for a woman to be told by CPS that she must take her kids and leave her abuser or face having the children removed and being charged with “failure to protect” or “neglectful endangerment.” And yet, when she does what they ask, she finds herself told by the family court that she now must send her children on unsupervised visits with the abuser, despite a protective order and hard evidence of the abuse (google “Holly Collins” for a salient example; although her case is particularly egregious, her situation is depressingly common). A woman may feel she has a better chance of protecting her children by staying than by leaving.

    The list goes on, but the point is that there are many factors at work in an abusive relationship and that, while a survivor is responsible for picking up the pieces once she is safe and working on her own healing as she is able (and hopefully with lots of support), victims are never, in any way, responsible for any abuse committed against them. If there were behavior on her part which could enable or cause her partner to abuse her, then there would also be behavior on her part which could stop it, and ironically enough, the idea that victims “enable” abuse is one of the things that keep them in these relationships. If a victim believes that she is somehow causing or enabling the abuse, then she must also logically believe that if only she could figure out how and stop doing those things, the abuse would stop and the relationship could be saved.

  57. Don’t know if anyone here has seen this post by Hugo, but he’s responded again to the ongoing discussion.

  58. 156
    Megalodon says:

    Don’t know if anyone here has seen this post by Hugo, but he’s responded again to the ongoing discussion.

    Nothing much said, except that he will probably be departing from “explicitly” feminist spaces. Hurrah.

    Meanwhile his page’s comment section seems to vindicate aestas’ warning about such a person having a platform and pedestal.

  59. 157
    John Spragge says:

    We belong to a voluble culture. Silence frightens us, and it has for a long time: Shakespeare showed accurate psychological judgment when he made silence the most terrifying quality of the ghost in Hamlet, the quality that finally breaks Hamlet’s resolve to follow and instead has him call “speak, I’ll go no further”.

    Silence has power. Death, transgression, joy all have their own shapes, which we cannot mend or mar with words. Silence forces us to accept the reality we share: the blow, that the perpetrator cannot undo, the absence of death, that we cannot fill. I believe every one of us has a right to the power of silence if we choose it. I believe that survivors, more than most, have a right and a reason to choose silence, because to survive means to pass through experiences most of us have not shared. Finding the language to make these experiences comprehensible to others may take a lifetime, and a survivor has no obligation to make that journey.

    To make silence nothing more than another form of victimization takes that choice away from survivors. It invites others to speak, explicitly or implicitly, for the survivor, thus assuring survivors that they need not speak, and worse, that not everyone will welcome their voices if they do.

    The woman who, according to Hugo’s report, survived his attempt at murder suicide has not spoken to us. As much as some people might like to center this survivor in any recovery process for Hugo, she has, as far as we can discern, chosen not to participate. Her silence should not drown out the voices of those like bfp, whom Hugo has offended. She and other racialized women bloggers have spoken out. The community can, if its members choose to, center these survivors of harms done by and through Hugo and his writing. Rather than regret the impossibility of a restorative justice process for the murder suicide Hugo reported, it makes sense to me to focus on the survivors who have at least spoken. If nothing else, offering to engage in a restorative justice with survivors who agree to participate will help us discern whether Hugo has any real interest in such a process.

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  63. 159
    wkh says:

    I’m not going to speak to issues concerning Hugo, recovery, addiction, or even abuse really because I think those have been covered.

    But I personally am kind of horrified by the witch hunt mentality seemingly promoted in this piece. I personally do not feel comfortable banning people from events, working groups, etc, because some people might not feel safe. There are a lot of assholes in leftist and progressive circles. Not just misogynists, some are just control freaking dicks who do stupid things like try to encourage teenagers to go to jail because that’s honourable to go to jail for your cause. Some are abusive with their definition of communism and expect people to work for free. Hey we should all help one another but people should not be guilted for not donating their time. Yet some leftist spokespersons are incredibly abusive about this.

    I feel extremely uncomfortable shutting people out of societies and groups without clear and strong evidence, based on say-so. I absolutely support someone’s right to not be around someone. But I think it’s inappropriate to be asking organizers of events to ban one person for another’s comfort. This reminds me too much of divorced parents who say they’ll throw a fit and not come to your wedding if you invite the other parent.

    Rather, I’d like to see women who have been abused to show up ANYWAY and not allow his presence to deter their activities. Yes, it makes sense to not want to put oneself in that space, and some people will choose to do that rather than go anyway. But I’m really not liking the attitude I’m getting here of group hate ons for someone who may well be a complete piece of shit misogynist abuser, but for whom there’s no evidence but say so. Now I realize that may be my legal training coming up, but I can’t help it. I don’t like it. It smacks of McCarthyism and is too open to abuse.

  64. 160
    ginmar says:

    FYI, use of the word ‘witchhunt’ is very popular with Hugo’s defenders, as are thinly-veiled advice to just get over it, but—but—but—it’s so unfair to ban a guy who tried to kill his ex, rape another girlfriend, and has spent years exploiting women and feminists. What would it take? More and more the people defending him begin to seem as if nothing will satisfy demands for proof, though they’re quick to demand things of abused or exploited women. You’re really uncomfortable banning someone? It’s like a parent freaking out over the other parent? Do you suppose that perhaps, maybe just perhaps, there might be good reason to do so?

    The minimizing Hugo’s fans do speaks for itself. It should bother him. It should bother them if he’s such a huge, great, redeemed, wonderful feminist. Instead, it’s all witchhunts and mobs and ‘but it’s so unfair to ban him.’ Apparently the one thing they all agree on is that it’s perfectly okay to demand that women have to tolerate his presence and that of other abusers for no good reason that I can see.

    There’s more to redemption than saying, “It’s okay. I’m all better now. What? You don’t believe me?”

  65. 161
    Susan says:

    I personally do not feel comfortable banning people from events, working groups, etc, because some people might not feel safe.

    Wouldn’t that turn very much on how many people might not feel safe, and on their reasons for feeling unsafe? If one anxiety-ridden neurotic fears everyone with red hair, I agree that the red-headed should not be banned from a working group on this account.

    On the other hand, apparently a lot of women feel unsafe in the presence of a man who tried to kill his ex, and who raped another girlfriend, however long ago it was, however often he tells you that it’s really OK. Particularly women who have been victims of this kind of behavior in their own lives. Stating it like this, it doesn’t seem that these women are being so unreasonable as all that. Wouldn’t a reasonable person wonder, maybe just a little, is he going to do it or something like it again?

    You’d still feel “uncomfortable” excluding him? But you’re willing to make the women I’ve mentioned very very uncomfortable, right? Or force them to stay home?

  66. 162
    mythago says:

    “Witch hunt” is particularly telling. A “witch hunt” is an idiom referring to looking for, and punishing, innocent people for nonexistent sins. It doesn’t refer to forcefully criticizing a wrongdoer who has actually done something bad. But by calling criticism of Hugo a “witch hunt”, his defenders are really trying to imply that he is totally innocent and those who think otherwise are just out for blood, facts be damned.

  67. 163
    ginmar says:

    It’s especially offensive because most witches were women who were doubly or triply disenfranchised by society, and their critics—and judges, jailers, and executioners—-often seized their possessions. It was sexism writ large and yet now, it’s almost never used with women as the victims of men, but only when men are justifiably criticized by women. As Hugo is being criticized.

  68. 164
    Robert says:

    I think there is a big difference between barring someone from participation, and deciding not to invite them to be a featured part of the program. I doubt many outside the radicalmost fringe (hi Gin) would want to make Hugo stay home from the Feminist Conspiracy To Undermine The Family And Promote Witchcraft Conference of 2012; for one thing, nobody is vetting the other 10,000 attendees and so it would smack of a special persecution to single him out.

    On the other hand, you don’t gotta make him the keynote speaker; “I’m sorry, but quasi-repentant rapists and attempted murderers are not exactly OKOP” is a perfectly reasonable position, and I would definitely agree that the comfort of umpteen other participants is more important than the comfort of one, unless that one is being deprived of some fundamental right. Ginmar doesn’t get to strangle Hugo because his continued existence is threatening to her, but she sure as heck gets to say “I don’t want him to be a leader in my movement” and, assuming a sufficient quantity of people who feel the same way, make it stick.

  69. 165
    ginmar says:

    We used to bar known shoplifters from the store after they got busted. Too much of a risk to the profit margin.

    He’s not worth strangling; the whining right now by his fans and enablers is at jet engine pitch now, and I simply cannot imagine how awful it would sound if it went super sonic.

  70. 166
    mythago says:

    Robert, this year we shortened it to FemCon, just FYI.

  71. 167
    KellyK says:

    I think there is a big difference between barring someone from participation, and deciding not to invite them to be a featured part of the program. I doubt many outside the radicalmost fringe (hi Gin) would want to make Hugo stay home from the Feminist Conspiracy To Undermine The Family And Promote Witchcraft Conference of 2012; for one thing, nobody is vetting the other 10,000 attendees and so it would smack of a special persecution to single him out.

    So where’s that being held this year? I want to go.

  72. 168
    ginmar says:

    Yeah, if it’s personal persecution to be barred from a large gathering of potential victims, with such a whiny, self-pitying manipulator like Hugo, sign me up. The troubles white guys have, I swear, it’s so tragic.

  73. 169
    Susan says:

    Yeah, if it’s personal persecution to be barred from a large gathering of potential victims, with such a whiny, self-pitying manipulator like Hugo, sign me up. The troubles white guys have, I swear, it’s so tragic.

    Whatever does his color have to do with it? If he were a black man with the same record we should maybe all invite him to our parties and hug him every one of us?

    An abuser is an abuser. The reference to his color is unnecessary, and a red herring.

  74. 170
    ginmar says:

    No, as a white guy he was damned near untouchable for so long. Add in rich and loud and the way he evidently treated useful women differently, and that’s a key factor in how he got away with it so long.

  75. 171
    mythago says:

    Actually, I think part of the support came from how hated he was by MRA nutwingers. Clearly if those guys were calling him a mangina, enabler, gay feminazi blah blah blah, he must be doing something right, right?

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  77. 172
    arrogantworm says:

    “Actually, I think part of the support came from how hated he was by MRA nutwingers. Clearly if those guys were calling him a mangina, enabler, gay feminazi blah blah blah, he must be doing something right, right?”

    Yeah but, stopped clocks n’all that.

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