Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Laura Misener, Professor & Director, School of Kinesiology, Western University

The verdict is in on the sexual assault trial of five former members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team — all five have been acquitted.

Each player was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel room. Today, Justice Maria Carroccia stated that the Crown did not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

The trial has captured the world’s attention and sparked polarized public debates about consent, hockey culture and the role of sport in socializing young men.

Elite athletes often operate within environments where their talent grants them special status and access to resources — monetary and otherwise — that bolster a sense of entitlement. In some instances, sport organizations exacerbate this sentiment by protecting their star performers instead of addressing misconduct, which was reflected in this case.

For example, an abusive national vaulting coach for New Zealand Athletics was finally banned for 10 years, but only after years of unchecked abuse of his female athletes, including “inappropriate sexual references.” This highlights how misconduct can go on unrestrained for so long.

Read more:
With another case of abuse in elite sport, why are we still waiting to protect NZ’s sportswomen from harm?

The culture of exceptionalism

As researchers with expertise in sport culture and sexual and gender-based violence, we’re reflecting on what the Hockey Canada trial reveals about the institutional and cultural practices within sport.

The formal and informal rules of men’s sport validate misogyny and reinforce systemic patterns of sexual entitlement and inadequate accountability. We offer some perspectives on how these troubling patterns of violence in sport can be reformed.

The Hockey Canada sexual assault trial has become a focal point for questioning how elite sporting environments shield athletes from accountability. This may be especially true in hockey.

In their book about toxic hockey culture, authors Evan Moore and Jashmina Shaw argue that hockey operates within “a bubble composed mostly of boys and men who are white, cis-het, straight and upper-class. And those who play often become coaches and teach the same values to the next generation.”

This closely knit community thrives on conformity and creates conditions that are ripe for the pervasive misogyny against women and systemic silence around issues of consent. The book _Skating on Thin Ice: Professional Hockey, Rape Culture and Violence against Women_, written by criminal justice scholars and sports reporters, demonstrates how endemic sexism, heavy alcohol use, abusive peers and the sexual objectification of women are buttressed by broader social factors. These factor uphold and reproduce toxic hockey culture, including patriarchal beliefs.

Male-dominated sporting cultures also emphasize a particular type of masculinity that focuses on dominance, physical intimidation and winning at all costs. This can blur the boundaries between acceptable competitive behaviour and problematic aggression.

Vulnerability in sports

Within the realm of professional sport, athletes also become commodified and objectified through media coverage, sponsorship deals and public scrutiny. This commodification can contribute to a culture where athletes may internalize the idea that their bodies are public property, further eroding their sense of autonomy and understanding of consent, especially in relation to others beyond the sport context.

Questioning or circumventing institutionally sanctioned behaviours is not easy, and it’s well-documented that many elite athletes struggle with mental health issues including depression, anxiety and substance misuse resulting from the pressure to align with the dominant culture.

But what often gets forgotten is how the hyper-masculine culture of sports creates significant barriers to seeking help. Young male athletes are socialized to comply with peer cultures that equate vulnerability with weakness. Yet they face intense pressures around family expectations, sponsorship deals and team success that demands they maintain appearances of strength and control.

This cycle of suppressed vulnerability and untreated distress enables toxic sporting masculinity to flourish, forcing organizations like Hockey Canada to confront their role in perpetuating these harmful dynamics.

The need for structural, cultural reform

Sports organizations have significant financial and reputational investment in athletes. This can create an inherent conflict when misconducts arise, problematically prompting sports organizations to use their power and resources to prioritize damage control over justice.

We saw this in the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial, where each hockey player had his own legal counsel, a stark illustration of institutional power and the extent to which sports organizations will go to shield their members from accountability. The deeply entrenched networks within sport prioritize self-preservation over addressing misconduct

Effectively responding to these issues requires addressing the systemic factors that perpetuate sexual and gender-based violence in sport. The sport ecosystem in Canada needs radical change, including who trains and mentors young men in hockey and how organizations investigate complaints.

It requires going beyond individual accountability, participating in consent workshops or issuing policy documents. These actions alone are insufficient to shift the cultural needle.

In 2022, Hockey Canada released a comprehensive action plan to address systemic issues in hockey that features discussions of accountability, governance, education and training and independent sport safety structures.

Community organizations like the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres also issued a series of recommendations in 2022 that remain germane:

• Work with athletes and sports organizations to address sexual violence in sports culture;
• Support the development and growth of male allies programs within community-based sexual assault support centres; and
• Support those who have been harmed.

In addition to these excellent suggestions, Hockey Canada and other allied hockey organizations must be willing to restructure the current hierarchical structure of power that governs not just hockey, but also the players and all the other agencies involved, including coaches, sponsors, trainers, legal teams, media and PR representatives.

These organizational changes are possible, as evidenced by the efforts of Bayne Pettinger, an agent who has led efforts to create space for queer hockey players in Hockey Canada and the National Hockey League.

Sport’s moral reckoning

However, the cultural norms of power in sport extend beyond the playing field to shape attitudes toward consent and sexual conduct.

Until sport organizations address the foundational cultural elements that enable misconduct — toxic masculinity, institutional protection and erosion of consent culture — meaningful change will remain elusive.

Within hockey environments, in particular, the objectification of women and the institutional silence surrounding sexual violence have become normalized aspects of the sport’s culture, creating conditions where misconduct can flourish unchecked.

The events examined in this most recent trial are not isolated incidents but symptoms of deeper systemic failures within elite sport.

Only through comprehensive cultural transformation can we ensure that sport environments are spaces of genuine safety, respect and accountability for all participants.

Laura Misener receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

Treena Orchard receives funding from Western University for a Teaching Innovation Grant, however, those funds were not used in the creation of this article.

– ref. Hockey Canada sex assault verdict: Sports culture should have also been on trial – https://theconversation.com/hockey-canada-sex-assault-verdict-sports-culture-should-have-also-been-on-trial-260662

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Lisa Boucher, Assistant Professor, Gender & Social Justice, Trent University

Five former Canada world junior hockey players have been acquitted of sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel room in 2018 after Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia said the Crown failed to prove its case and that the victim’s evidence was neither credible nor reliable.

The shocking outcome highlights the inadequacies and harms of the legal system and formal institutions in responding to sexual assault that advocates, researchers and victim/survivors have long pointed to.

If we truly want to address sexual violence, then challenging rape myths — in the courts, in the media and elsewhere — is an essential part of this work.

Sexual violence — a type of gender-based violence — is a persistent problem in Canada and across the globe, with high rates of sexual assault and other forms of sexual violence. Statistics Canada has found that approximately 4.7 million women in Canada have been sexually assaulted since the age of 15. Reporting remains low, however, and victims/survivors face a multitude of barriers to care and justice.

Barriers to reporting and seeking help include factors like service gaps, not knowing where to go for help, inaccessibility and shame and stigma. Attitudes surrounding sexual violence can also impact survivors’ decisions to disclose. They can also influence the responses survivors receive when they reach out for support.

Supportive vs. unsupportive reactions

The majority of victims/survivors never report or seek help through formal channels. Instead, they’re more likely to disclose to informal support systems, like friends and family.

When a disclosure of violence is met with a supportive reaction, victim/survivors can experience improved well-being. Positive reactions can also lead to additional help-seeking by affirming the victims/survivors’ need for care, and offering information about services and resources.

In contrast, unsupportive responses can hinder a victim/survivor’s recovery. Such responses might involve blaming the victim, taking control of decision-making or priorizing the well-being of the person or entity receiving the information over the victim/survivor’s.

Negative reactions can silence the victim/survivor, encourage self-blame and deter them from seeking help. And when victims/survivors anticipate negative reactions to a disclosure of violence, they are less likely to talk about it, alert authorities or seek help.

Additionally, while most victims/survivors seek help through informal channels, most people are unprepared to hear about it. High levels of misinformation about sexual violence — or rape myths — also increase the likelihood that victims/survivors will receive unsupportive responses.

The persistence of rape myths

Rape myths are pervasive false beliefs about sexual assault. They minimize the seriousness of sexual violence and shift blame from individual perpetrators and root causes onto victims or survivors.

Common rape myths include ideas that rape is rare and committed by strangers, that victims/survivors lie, that certain clothing or behaviour invites sexual assault and that it is only rape if it involves physical force and active resistance.

Despite decades of research refuting rape myths, they persist. And they continue to influence perceptions of sexual violence, victims and perpetrators.

Rape myth acceptance is linked to higher rates of sexual assault and lower reporting and convictionrates. Because rape myths are often internalized, they also decrease the likelihood that victims/survivors will identify their experience as violence.

Read more:
Rape myths can affect jurors’ perceptions of sexual assault, and that needs to change

Rape myths and media

One powerful way that rape myths circulate is through media. This includes traditional forms of media and social media. The pervasiveness of media in our lives makes it difficult to avoid exposure to false and harmful ideas about sexual violence.

High-profile cases in the media — like the Jian Ghomeshi, Harvey Weinstein and Hockey Canada trials — expose the public to details and discourses about sexual violence. The intensity of coverage can have harmful effects on victims/survivors.

For instance, in a study about experiences with seeking help and reporting sexual assault, researchers found interview participants were negatively affected by rape myths circulating during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings for a position on the United States Supreme Court.

Read more:
Trauma 101 in the aftermath of the Ford-Kavanaugh saga

Interviewees reported an increase in victim-blaming reactions from friends, family and professionals. They also described intense feelings like grief and anger, and reflected on barriers to reporting sexual violence.

Sexual assault centres in Ontario have reported spikes in calls to their crisis/support lines in response to the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial.

This is further evidence that coverage of sexual violence can be stressful and retraumatizing for victims/survivors. Service providers have noted that some of the calls include concerns about the hurdles and attitudes sexual assault victims face when they report.

Challenging rape myths, victim-blaming

There are signs of growing awareness of sexual violence, spurred in large part by survivor-led movements like the #MeToo movement. Nonetheless, rape myths continue to influence understandings of, and responses to, this type of violence.

Challenging rape myths is therefore a critical anti-violence strategy. This requires ongoing education, for the public and for professionals.

It also requires commitments from institutions, like the courts and media, to take an active role in stopping the spread of misinformation about sexual violence, and challenging it whenever possible.

Lisa Boucher has previously received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Women and Gender Equality Canada.

– ref. High-profile sex assault cases — and their verdicts — have consequences for survivors seeking help – https://theconversation.com/high-profile-sex-assault-cases-and-their-verdicts-have-consequences-for-survivors-seeking-help-260668

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jason Wang, Postdoctoral Fellow, Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre, Toronto Metropolitan University

The scene at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts on July 16 was steeped in irony.

During Coldplay’s “jumbotron song” — the concert segment where cameras pan over the crowd — the big screen landed on Andy Byron, then-CEO of data firm Astronomer, intimately embracing Kristin Cabot, the company’s chief people officer. Both are married to other people.

The moment, captured on video and widely circulated on social media, shows the pair abruptly recoiling as Coldplay’s lead singer Chris Martin says: “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.”

Martin’s comment — seemingly light-hearted at the time — quickly took on a different tone as online sleuths identified the pair and uncovered their corporate roles and marital statuses. Within days, Byron resigned from his position as CEO while Cabot is on leave.

This spectacle raises a deeper question: why does infidelity, especially among the powerful, provoke such public outcry. Literary tradition offers some insight: intimate betrayal is never truly private. It shatters an implicit social contract, demanding communal scrutiny to restore trust.

When trust crumbles publicly

French philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s notion of “narrative identity” suggests we make sense of our lives as unfolding stories. The promises we make (and break) become chapters of identity and the basis of others’ trust. Betrayal ruptures the framework that stitches private vows to public roles; without that stitch, trust frays.

Byron’s stadium exposure turned a marital vow into a proxy for professional integrity. Public betrayal magnifies public outcry because leaders symbolize stability; their personal failings inevitably reflect on their institutions.

When Astronomer’s board stated the expected standard “was not met,” they were lamenting the collapse of Byron’s narrative integrity — and, by extension, their company’s.

This idea — that private morality underpins public order — is hardly new. In Laws, ancient Greek philosopher Plato described adultery as a disorder undermining family and state. Roman philosopher Seneca called it a betrayal of nature, while statesman Cicero warned that breaking fides (trust) corrodes civic bonds.

The social cost of infidelity in literature

Literature rarely confines infidelity to the bedroom; its shockwaves fracture communities.

French sociologist Émile Durkheim’s idea of the “conscience collective” holds that shared moral norms create “social solidarity.” As literature demonstrates, violations of these norms inevitably undermines communal trust.

Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1875-77) dramatizes the social fracture of betrayal. Anna’s affair with Count Vronsky not only defies moral convention but destabilizes the aristocratic norms that once upheld her status.

As the scandal leads to her ostracization, Anna mourns the social world she has lost, realizing too late that “the position she enjoyed in society… was precious to her… [and] she could not be stronger than she was.”

In Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1857), Emma Bovary’s extramarital affairs unravel the networks of her provincial town, turning private yearning for luxury and romance into public contagion.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) makes this explicit: Hester Prynne’s scarlet “A” turns her sin into civic theatre. Public shaming on the scaffold, the novel suggests, delineates moral boundaries and seeks to restore social order — a process that prefigures today’s “digital pillories,” where viral moments subject individuals to mass online judgment and public condemnation.

Domestic crumbs and digital scaffolds

Contemporary narratives shift the setting but uphold the same principle: betrayal devastates the mundane rituals that build trust.

Nora Ephron’s autobiographical novel Heartburn (1983), based on her own marriage’s collapse to investigative journalist Carl Bernstein, weaponizes domesticity.

Heartburn’s protagonist Rachel Samstat delivers her emotions through recipes — “Vinaigrette” as a marker of intimacy and betrayal, “Lillian Hellman’s Pot Roast” as a bid for domestic stability and “Key Lime Pie,” hurled at her cheating husband — become symbols of a life undone by public infidelity.

Ephron’s satire, later adapted into a film, anticipates our digital age of exposure, where private pain fuels public consumption and judgment.

Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation (2014), which draws from her own life, shows another perspective: betrayal as quiet erosion.

Offill never depicts the affair directly; instead, the husband’s absences, silences and an off-hand reference to “someone else” create a suffocating dread. This indirection shows betrayal’s power lies in its latent potential, slowly dismantling a life built on trust before any overt act.

Both works underscore betrayal’s impact on the collective conscience: a lie fractures a family as fundamentally as a CEO’s indiscretion erodes institutional trust. Power magnifies the fallout by turning private failings into public symbols of fragility. Even hidden betrayal poisons the shared rituals binding any group, making the notion of “private” unsustainable long before any public revelation.

The limits of power

Literature acknowledges power’s protective veneer from consequence — and its limits.

Theodore Dreiser’s Trilogy of Desire (1912–47), modelled on the Gilded Age robber baron Charles Yerkes, follows the rise of financier Frank Cowperwood, whose power shields him — until it doesn’t. Even his vast empire proves vulnerable once his adultery becomes public. The very networks that protected him grow wary.

Though many critics of the elite are themselves morally compromised in the trilogy, Cowperwood’s transgression becomes a weapon to discredit him. His brief exile shows that power may defer, but cannot erase, the costs of betrayal. Once trust fractures, even the powerful become liabilities. They do not fall less often — only more conspicuously.

Gender also plays a role in shaping these narratives. Male protagonists like Cowperwood rebound as tragic anti-heroes, their moral failings recast as flaws of character. By contrast, women — think Flaubert’s Emma Bovary or Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne — are branded cautionary figures, their transgressions stigmatized rather than mythologized.

This imbalance in assigning consequences reveals a deeper societal judgment: while broken trust demands repair, the path to restoration often depends on the transgressor’s gender.

The unblinking eye

From Tolstoy’s salons to TikTok’s scroll, literature offers no refuge from betrayal’s ripple effects. When private trust visibly fractures, communal reflexes kick in.

Scarlet letters, exile or a CEO’s resignation all aim to heal the collective trust. The jumbotron, like Hester’s scaffold, is the latest instrument in this age-old theatre of exposure.

Jumbotrons. Scaffolds. Same operating system. Same shame.

Jason Wang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Caught on the jumbotron: How literature helps us understand modern-day public shaming – https://theconversation.com/caught-on-the-jumbotron-how-literature-helps-us-understand-modern-day-public-shaming-261638