This story is already almost a week old and it didn't have the staying power that other issues of sexual violence being perpetrated by athletes usually has; I'm thinking of Steubenville, Ray Rice, and so on. I am not at all surprised by this, however, as Canada is still trying to navigate systemic normalized violence and doing this when the perpetrator is of a certain kind of fame. Moreover, when the offenders happen to be involved in hockey that falls within the stream that sends players to the NHL, people are even less likely to stick with the situations or take a stance that doesn't involve victim blaming.
I found this particular article to be interesting and indicative of how much of society still isn't ready to have greater conversations about sexualized violence and really grasp the fact that the source for this violence is much more complex than they might think. This article is a perfect example of how the social minds in Canada are trying to reconcile the idea that sexualized violence is bad with the idea that offenders don't fit a "typical" mold.
When I employ the term "typical" here in reference to perceptions of who an offender might be I am referring to the notion of offenders who commit instances of sexualized violence being: older, mentally ill, unkempt or otherwise visually unappealing, preferring to jump from the shadows or bushes, attacking random women, and so on. The list here is not comprehensive and it is not all of these specific things all at once, more a combination of a few of these traits that comprises what people expect an offender to hold. Part of the desire to do this falls into a "keeping myself safe" mentality wherein if I can convince myself that offenders are easily identifiable then I can be on the lookout for them and, as a result, avoid experiencing sexualized violence.
The reality, unfortunately, is much less pleasant.
While there are certainly instances of sexualized violence occurring in situations where the offender is not known to the victim/survivor, the numbers coming from reported instances tell us that offenders are much more likely to be people we know and the sexualized violence is more likely to occur in spaces where we might feel safe (homes, schools, dorms, etc). Considering how unpleasant it is to sit with this fact I can hardly fault people for turning to methods or mindsets that help them feel safer without actually making them safer.
The young men that committed the acts of sexualized violence covered in this article are everything put the "monster" society has taught us to expect in situations like this. Hockey is a celebrated sport and past-time within Canadian culture to the point where many families build lives around the sport; playing professionally, raising their children in the sport, and so on. Fandom around professional teams also plays a significant role in Canadian culture as it plays out from things like defining friendships to being the justification for riots after a major loss.
The players themselves, often coming from places of social or financial privilege, gain a special social status within our culture for their abilities and this is not to say that the players don't sacrifice when it comes to pursuing the dream of a professional career. However, one cannot ignore the red flags of creating a special social status within Canadian Culture for people that are already accustomed to higher levels of privilege. Male privilege sets up men to develop a strong, harmful sense of entitlement when it comes to how they view other people. It is also important to point out that while they hold many different privileges, people who are not part of the "hockey community" fall outside of their scope in terms of who is valuable. Once again, this makes a lot of sense as they devote a major portion of their lives to the sport which does reduce one's scope anyway.
When you consider a few of these facts: (1) That people are not willing to accept that offenders who commit sexualized violence can be people we know and trust, (2) Society creates special privileges for Hockey players, (3) Male hockey players get a double helping of privilege and entitlement, and that (4) women are seen as sex objects that bestow sex on men, you can begin to see some red flags popping up.
For this article, we can see a few things playing out.
First, there's the hesitancy to want to get to the real issue for these players and so the subject matter experts turn to a familiar theme: young boys growing up away from their family. While this certainly plays a part in why these young men decided to commit sexualized violence it would be naive to think this was the be-all reason for their behavior. Many offenders grow up in stable families, which, again, goes against the myth that sexualized violence offenders can be easily identified in that offenders had some kind of troubled family life. In fact, rigid adherence to the gender binary and the subsequent gender roles that come from the binary are more likely to be a factor when it comes to people gaining a sense of entitlement around sex. Even in cases where one or more of the parents are not present or involved I would look to this being even more relevant; again, if I don't have a parent around me as I grow up I'm going to learn about that absent parent from other sources or I'm going to learn about my gender roles from society.
Another aspect emerging from this article is the cognitive dissonance between a league that "has policies in place" and the fact that this kind of thing keeps coming up. A major flaw in how we view sexualized violence revolves around a lack of knowledge when it comes to understanding the connection to, what we see as, every day behaviors and the legal definition of sexual assault. Most people, when asked directly, would say that sexual harassment and sexual assault is wrong; however, the same people probably couldn't identify incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault beyond very obvious, often sensationalized, incidents; I'm thinking specifically of the stranger assaults mass media usually runs with or the way in which sexualized violence is portrayed in popular media (Crime Dramas, Movies, etc). So, on one hand, people understand and agree that sexualized violence is wrong but, on the other, there is a lack of understanding when it comes to recognizing it in their daily lives. Moreover, many behaviors that would fall under the umbrella of sexualized violence have become so normalized we no longer really identify them; behavior that gets people to bring the "boys will be boys" sentiment into discussion is the kind of behavior I'm talking about.
And, finally, the way in which the Hockey Community "keeps things in the family," so-to-speak, is also very apparent in this article; the subject matter expert clearly states that when she did attempt a study, she was blocked from getting relevant data by the teams. It's hard to trust that a league is actually doing something to combat the issue of entitlement and sexualized violence when they don't allow for proper studies/investigations to be conducted that could identify ways to change the culture. There is a problem, but until the community itself is willing to recognize that they're not going to be able to solve it themselves we're not going to see a change. More importantly, until they realize that they are partially to blame for this kind of behavior we're not going to be able to implement policies and programs to make a difference.
To be clear, I'm not saying that people within the Hockey Community are of ill intent, maliciously resisting a culture change; however, by not being willing to ask the tough questions they are allowing sexualized violence to continue within their own community. One need only look at how many people we're involved in covering up Sandusky's child sexual abuse or the sexual assault that was committed by the two football players in Steubenville. In both cases, sexualized violence was allowed to continue, covered up, and a culture of victim blaming was encouraged; all to protect people that the community thought "couldn't do such a horrible thing because they were good people" and didn't fit the stereotype of a sexualized violence offender.
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