Keep pushing back: A response to #ubcaccountable

Last week, as I was writing about the many ways Métis women of 19th Century Red River were abused, dismissed, and denigrated, the CanLit world blew up. Social media in Canada became a minefield of blame, high dudgeon, hurt feelings, belligerence, and bitterness.

And right on cue, Margaret Wente piped up—women, again, are throwing themselves on their feminist fainting couches, laid low by the vapours.

As we women do.

But the Coast editors’ invitation to weigh into the CanLit mess got me off that couch and gave me a chance to use my voice.

I repeat: voice. Which, as I see it, is at the heart of the CanLit brouhaha.

For those who haven’t been following, Steven Galloway, celebrated author of The Cellist of Sarajevo, among other books, was dismissed from his position in the UBC Creative Writing Department in June of this year. Privacy policies prevent our knowing specifics of what happened between Galloway and his students that prompted the dismissal, but a quick search online for #ubcaccountable will give you a sense of the saga.

A few dozen CanLit luminaries including Joseph Boyden, Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje published an open letter to UBC titled “Fairness for Writer Steven Galloway.” Given how badly UBC botched its handling of the case, they had good cause.

But critics quickly pointed out the letter’s failure to recognize the toll the events have taken on female complainants and faculty in the crossfire—not to mention the message the letter sends to anyone affected by abuse: when these situations crop up, which they do with alarming frequency across university campuses, know that the most powerful and influential will support their own.

On Twitter, writer Jen Sookfong Lee writes: “Oh I see. Women feeling hurt at a legally inaccurate, one-sided, power-heavy letter are doing it to themselves. Your privilege is showing.”

Such criticism prompted several people who signed the #ubcaccountable letter to remove their names. One, Camilla Gibb, says she is “guilty of being insecure and susceptible to flattery and the desire for inclusion when a man in a position of power asks. Despite being almost 50. Despite being established. Because I am still a woman.”

By this time a counter letter, written in support of the complainants, quickly gathered more than 400 signatures.

And this week, counter-counter letters—have I lost you yet?—from many of the original signatories have been posted on #ubcaccountable site, all of which insist they meant no harm to the complainants or anyone affected by the letter. Some have called for current students in the UBC Creative Writing Program to receive tuition refunds.

Atwood, with the assistance of UBC student Elaine Corden, writes:

“We’re sorry we hurt any survivor people out there by seeming lacking in empathy for your experiences. Our letter was not intended to wound you, but it seems to have done, and for that we apologize… To survivors of abuse we were, are and will be your allies.”

Through his lawyer, Galloway himself has apologized for the harm his conduct has caused, saying he’d like to see an end to “the scurrilous assertions and accusations that have proliferated.”

We all would. What a mess.

And there’s more.

Dorothy Palmer, a disability activist and writer, claims—and I’m paraphrasing—the initial letter was procedurally questionable, motivated by loyalty to Galloway, and may have been designed to influence the internal grievance process currently underway.

Or, as literary agent Denise Bukowski, says: “Boy, have we all been played.”

And more:

A few UBC students and observers question the timing of Galloway’s first public statement since the ruckus began. It’s a bald-faced PR move, they argue. And despite the mea culpas from the CanLit heavies, the whole sordid mess still does not serve “survivor people.”

Does any of this sound familiar?

Right now, I’m steeped in 19th century history, writing about the machinations in fur trade society that kept women like my Cree great-grandmother subservient and silent. Uppity brown women were shunned, derided, and shut down. No one had their backs. They had no voice.

Have we made any progress at all?

Think Ghomeshi, Cosby, Val-D’Or, MMIWG, Drumpf, Dal Dentistry (which Wente dismisses as a couple of Facebook posts), and countless of UBC-like eruptions on Canadian and American campuses. The climate for those without a voice and without agency continues to be toxic.

Particularly on campuses. Campuses are hierarchies shot through with issues of power, ambition, subservience, and sometimes questionable celebrity. For those who don’t have power, universities can be the sites of heart-breaking political gaming that runs roughshod over the most vulnerable.

Yet I see a shard of hope.

Women are speaking up. I’ve never seen this level of pushback before, and I’m old. When I was a target of harassment, inappropriate behavior, or violence—sexual or otherwise—I was rendered speechless.

And the pushback is insistent, persistent, and necessary.

Stories—like passwords, as Emma Healy wrote—are how we engage with one another at times like these. They are how we “survivor people” find each other, and how we have each other’s backs.

The stories women tell are messy, complicated, and sometimes contradictory. They’re intersectional, they cross age, gender, sexuality, racial lines, and they need to be heard and acknowledged—more so, I would argue, than the stories propping up the status quo.

But now more stories are going public. I don’t see anyone on a fainting couch and I certainly don’t see whiners or hot house feminists nursing emotional boo-boos. I see young women—especially—refusing to be silent, calling out inequities, often alone, and certainly not with a phalanx of notable writers rising to their cause. They’re tired of the soul-crushing climate they face on campuses every. Single. Day.

I salute you. Keep pushing back. The cultural juggernaut of misused power and privilege needs your voice, and you need much more support in raising it. You’re teaching what really matters.

There’s much to learn.

Lorri Neilsen Glenn is a Nova Scotia writer, researcher, and teacher. @neilsenglenn

Editor’s note: Joseph Boyden is in town tonight (November 24, 7:30pm) delivering the Alex Fountain Memorial Lecture at the University of King’s College. Boyden will deliver a lecture entitled “This Writer’s Life: Embracing the Voices.”

This article appears in Nov 24-30, 2016.