“But the system that obsessively propped up Jian Ghomeshi needs to change. He is one disgusting man –…”
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But the system that obsessively propped up Jian Ghomeshi needs to change. He is one disgusting man – but our public broadcaster, demoralized over long-running budget cuts and criticisms that it was out of touch with the public and its younger listeners, latched onto him as their savior and clearly didn’t want to let go. The CBC allowed a two-tier workplace to emerge, in which Ghomeshi didn’t have to comply with either the law or workplace norms as long as he kept pulling in listeners, and workers like me only had job security so long as we accepted his abuses of authority. I was essentially forced to either leave the show or allow my boss to lay his hands on my body at his pleasure. But since then, no manager or executive who was complicit in creating or maintaining a workplace in which Ghomeshi was allowed to operate with impunity has lost his job, let alone apologized.
What made the situation worse for me and, possibly, for his victims, wasn’t only Ghomeshi’s celebrity status, nor simply the unwillingness of people to believe that beloved icons might be terrible people: the maddening part is that his celebrity was a creation of the CBC – Canada’s folksy, sweater-wearing public broadcaster and one of the most family-friendly brands in the nation’s history. Ghomeshi – and, by extension, his sleaze – was endorsed, promoted and held up as an example to all by a beloved institution.
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– Jian Ghomeshi harassed me on the job. Why did our radio station look the other way?
