Hey Chief, it's not about music videos, it's about culture
Toxic masculinity and entitlement are huge factors in why men sexually assault women. And both of those can be pretty prevalent in hockey in Canada
About the time the London Police Services chief said, “I don’t know nothin’ about hockey” – yes, a senior public servant in the 15th biggest city in Canada actually said that – Thai Truong offered up this expert observation in a news conference to formally announce that five members of Canada’s 2018 World Junior team are being charged with sexual assault:
“The sexualization of young women and girls in today’s society is contributing to the violence against women,” Truong said. “I’m not blaming the media, but I do want to highlight that how we portray young women and girls on TV, in music videos, how we write about that, magazine shoots, all that contributes to sexualization and the normalization of what we’re seeing.”
Gee, I would have had doing an Andy of Mayberry investigation into the alleged sexual assault and closing the case, only to open it three years later after the work of a journalist uncovered a secret payout and it and taking six years to lay charges on my bingo card, but hey, that’s just me.
This is right up there with the gun lobby blaming video games every time a teenager shoots up a school. It’s so misleading, so inaccurate, with a side order of victim-blaming, and leaves the core issue ignored, again. And that is that rape is a power maneuver where one side, usually men, views the other side, usually women, as less than. There are many, many ways men get this perception, but when it happens and hockey players are involved, to ignore the toxic masculinity in the sport and the culture of entitlement that young star players can get caught up in is doing everyone a disservice.
We have to point out that none of the allegations from 2018 has been proven in a criminal court. Just because Hockey Canada bungled this thing from the start and paid the alleged victim $3.55 million to make this go away does not remove the presumption of innocence from Michael McLeod, Alex Formenton, Carter Hart, Dillon Dube and Cal Foote. All are presumed innocent until proven guilty. A lot of people in the social media don’t seem to like that, but those are the rules.
We do not know exactly what happened in that hotel room that summer night in 2018, but we do know something transpired that involved a young woman and five hockey players who were all bound for the NHL and were being feted for winning a gold medal in the World Junior Championship five months prior. We know they are products of a minor and junior hockey system in Canada that gives them an enormous sense of self-importance. There’s a good chance they’ve had people telling them how special they are since they were four years old. There’s a better chance their parents sacrificed an enormous amount to give their children the best opportunity to be elite players.
And that is far more a problem than music videos and the Sports Illustrated bathing suit issue. “This might be valid if only young, attractive women wearing scanty clothing got raped,” said Dr. Gail Robinson, director of the women’s mental health program at the University of Toronto. “But women of all ages, women in all kinds of dress, women in countries all over the world, get sexually assaulted. It’s part of the whole victim-blaming. Just don’t rape women, because that’s really what it’s all about.”
As these allegations make their way through the courts, five young men will be on trial. But in some ways, so will the game and its culture. Hockey is not the only sport, or for that matter the only profession, that has faced these situations. But, goodness, there needs to be an examination at some point of how we put these talented young people on a pedestal and make excuses for bad behaviour. Music videos and photo shoots? Seriously? Being sexy or sexualized is not a crime. Rape is. And it is alleged in this case to have been done by a group of young men who are the product of a culture that makes them, in the words of Dr. Robinson, “kings of the world.”
Dr. Noam Shpancer, a psychology professor at Otterbein University in Ohio, wrote a piece for Psychology Today in 2019 titled, Why Men Attack: Why (and Which) Men Sexually Assault Women. Shpancer said there are elements to the hockey culture that can lend themselves to an uneven power dynamic. “Even in a culture that sexualizes young women, most men don’t rape,” Dr. Shpancer said in an email to Hockey Unfiltered. “For those who do, other, more powerful variables must be in play, including, for example, a sense of entitlement and invincibility, a penchant for violence, a lack of supervision, peer group pressure, and, often, alcohol.”
And it’s not even always overt. The car company Hyundai, which is the official vehicle of the NHL, has a television spot where the background music is a song called I Will Give You Everything by Skydiggers. The primary verse in the song goes, “I will give you everything that you’ve ever wanted.” Throughout the ad, parents are seen doing their day jobs in hotel rooms while kids play mini-sticks in the hallway, driving around looking for a spot in a crowded arena parking lot and loading kids’ hockey bags into the back of a car. It also shows footage of a young Connor Bedard stickhandling on his parents’ hardwood floors, then flashes to him being drafted first overall.
The underlying message is that if you’re willing to give your young hockey player everything that they’ve ever wanted, maybe, just maybe, they will be as good as Bedard. And if that happens, sometime in his teenage years, Hockey Canada is probably going to make a superstar out of him and fans will fill 18,000-seat arenas and pay NHL prices – and millions more will tune in on television - to watch them play for a gold medal in the World Juniors. If they win, Hockey Canada will bask with them in their glory. If they don’t, Hockey Canada will remind us that they’re just teenagers.
When a young person is treated like that, how can he not feel special? How can he not feel entitled? How can he not feel as though he can do pretty much anything he wants? And that is much more dangerous than risqué music videos and revealing pictures.
Excellent perspective Ken. Better than most psychologists would write. Our sons and daughters are special but they should be taught the values of all fellow humans. The meaning somehow gets lost with some of us.
The author is notbonoy an idiot, that likely haa never played any sports, but also highly ignorant.
Abuse of women is significantly prevalent throughtout the world... in Somalia women are subjected to vagina mutilation upon turning 14 !
In other parts of the world women wear veils and are treated as objects and second class citizens. What world does this author live in.
The issue is not the NHL, NFL or any other professional sport... the issue is men that feel empowered by stepping on, and inflicting their will upon others.
This has been on-going since the dawn of mankind. And while we claim to be "civilized", clearly, we are closer to Neanderthals than elevated life forms.
And now, to add even more fuel, women in North America.and parts of Europe are more aggressively promiscuous. I am NOT saying anyone deserves or even entices abuse, but men today are bombarded with sexual images never before encountered in mankind. And so, incidents such as these happen across all social levels.
Read, reflect, get educated... North America is not the world and tragic events such as these fortunately happen less often than in other areas.