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This post contains discussions about sexual harassment, assault, trauma, and other related topics related to the Auston Matthews incident.
A few days ago, the news was announced that the Leafs Center Auston Matthews, with a group of men, had tried to get in the car of a single woman all night, because they thought it would be funny to "see how she would react".
This blow so close to an incident that happened to me has plunged into a spiral of reliving that night, as well as a year and a half of investigations, of dates of hearing and terror that followed, again and again. To say that the last days were difficult would be a euphemism.
Many will see what Matthews has done as negligible: a young man, drunk during the off season, does things that young men often do. It was just a joke, after all. It did not hurt. But in reality, they were testing the limits of what was feasible. From there, it grows.
Matthews' intention to trap this woman was perhaps simply to scare him without committing other offenses or crimes. But it is important to note that causing fear was considered fun in the first place, and that much of the reaction was to dispel the concerns about what happened as if nothing had happened.
If someone manages to take a woman by the elbow and scare her, then, how to "mess her up", what will prevent her from starting over? Many consider it a harmless amusement that has become uncontrollable. The harsh reality is that for me and for many other women, what Matthews has done is representative of a culture that allowed this harmful behavior to infect and degenerate.
When I got home on a train one night from London, the other passengers filtered until it was just me and another man on board. He took advantage of the fact that I was stuck with nowhere to go and started jerking while looking at me. The only way to escape him was to go past him. The train was not supposed to stop before 30 minutes.
Imagine spending the next 30 minutes trying to figure out what might happen next. Imagine being alone at night and trapped during these 30 minutes. The fear that I felt between these stops is nothing like what I've ever felt before. This fear was the typing line that they were looking for.
I had no guarantee that I could be safe by this man or off the train. After that, I had to go to my parked car, a few minutes walk. It was late. I was alone. My phone was almost completely flat. The scenarios I played over and over in my head made me feel like I was choking on it.
Aside from the man who stopped me while I was trying to move on, to make me look at him, as he said, "okay, darling," that's n & rsquo; Not degenerate. But in my head, I had already played the scenarios of what could have been. Could easily has been. It was not extravagant nightmares, it was terribly commonplace.
"You do not approach a woman at 2 am thinking that it's funny to see how she would react to get in her car," said Fayola Dozithee, the woman involved, as the ### 39, reported Katie Strang to The Athletic. "You are three, you have one. You could do everything for me and I was at a disadvantage because of that. "
Because we like it or not, no matter who the woman was, Matthews and his friends had the power in this situation. You can have all the self-defense training in the world, but fear can make that knowledge leave you relentless.
The details and reports from Strang's article on The Athletic also revealed that it was not the first time Matthews was trying to scare a woman that night. But, according to a friend who had been with Matthews at the time, he "has nothing to do" with possible consequences.
What are these consequences, remains to be seen. Until now, Matthews and the Maple Leafs have responded by apologizing primarily for the distraction caused by this incident for the team.
Whether it's considered a distraction, instead of being an incident that has been a distress for the woman involved, but also for hockey fans and the media who have suffered from similar situations and worse, is to minimize it.
Because Matthews is the face of a franchise. He is a model. He is a source of inspiration for young hockey players.
If Auston Matthews can do it, and if this is perceived by many as not being a big problem, there will be a ripple effect. It's part of a culture that excludes people from other walks of life, insults used on the ice, in the stands and the way people involved in and around hockey behave with others. .
Matthews is not the first, and certainly will not be the last, to take advantage of his position in the sport to try to hide and ignore such an incident. My hope, more than anything else, is for Matthews and the Maple Leafs to take steps to educate not only themselves, but also the NHL, juniors and beyond, to the very real dangers of this behavior.
That hockey needs a culture change is an issue that has been discussed ad nauseam for years.
Because it starts with a joke. And it can become so much worse.
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