JEAN VANIER’S BLINDNESS
His vision of justice simply did not include women, says Donna F. Johnson.
The news about Jean Vanier sexually abusing at least six women was delivered to me Saturday morning in an email containing two words: “Aw sh--.”
It’s devastating news for women. We all knew instantly that this one was different. This is not some arrogant Harvey Weinstein we can enjoy being taken down. This one forces us to wrestle with the problem at a much deeper level. I spent the day on the phone with friends.
For women, living in a patriarchy requires constant vigilance. We try to steer clear of the obvious misogynists. We try to avoid being beaten or murdered by the Jekyll and Hydes who reveal their true selves only after marriage and children. We dodge harassment in the workplace and on the street; fend off unwanted sex in our dating lives. We try to pretend the world is not awash in violent pornography that dehumanizes and degrades us as a class; try not to know that some of the men we love are turned on by our subordination.
We have our guard up all the time. So when a great humanitarian, champion of the marginalized and dispossessed, friend of the poorest of the poor, is revealed to have sexually abused women, it feels completely hopeless. Like there is no safe place for us anywhere on the planet. How do we reconcile Vanier’s magnificent humanity and vision of the common good with his abuse of women? Put very simply, his vision of justice did not include women.
I go to the basement and rummage through boxes until I find the two letters I received from Jean Vanier. I wrote to Vanier in 1999 after hearing a broadcast of his Massey Lecture, On Being Human. He spoke inspiringly about forgiveness as the path to peace. About how we are all wounded, hurting, trapped behind walls and needing to reach out for each other. It made me want to go out and forgive the whole world.
But I was bothered by something. At that time, I had been working for more than a decade in a shelter for abused women. I was skeptical about moving too quickly to forgiveness. For me, forgiveness was part of a process of reconciliation; a two-way street involving responsibility-taking and reparation for harms done; the active making of amends. Rarely had I seen a man take responsibility for hurting a woman. What I’d seen was justification — and more abuse.
Here’s an excerpt from my letter:
“Dear M. Vanier, I have a question for you. How are we to be with people who not only deny responsibility for harm done but seem actively engaged in becoming less human, more oppressive towards the victim? I am thinking about the relations between men and women. I have worked for 13 years with battered women, women who are controlled, beaten and sexually abused by their intimate partners. There is no official war declared on women but our world is dominated by patriarchal thought and ways and women are considered less than human in this system. How are women to be in the presence of men who take no responsibility for their abusive, violent, degrading and oppressive behaviour? Men who not only act reprehensibly but turn the tables on their victims, making them out to be the abusive ones, the crazy ones in court? I’d be interested in your thoughts.”
Vanier wrote back from Trosly-breuil in his microscopic handwriting.
“Dear Donna, Love to you. Thank you for your letter. Not easy to answer … It is the same question as for these men killing people in Kosovo. They are convinced they are right, the other, evil. The Nazis in the concentration camps. These people are closed up behind cement walls — protecting their vulnerability, unable to admit their guilt. How can we work with these walls, help break them down. It is easier if they fall sick, have a serious accident. Sometimes the child in them rises up. If they commit a recognized crime and are put in jail where they can find a good therapist. If I were you, I would work out this question with prison psychologists — they might have some answers. The difficulty is that we are all frightened of being seen as bad, guilty so we accuse the other. It is their fault. This is what we call “projection.” Sorry not to be clear, not to have clear answers. Your question is a vital one but I suppose I must begin by accepting that in some ways, in some situations I am guilty … I need to admit it. To seek forgiveness. Tell me your ideas … Peace to you. Love Jean”
It was a thoughtful answer, but it sidestepped the fundamental issue I’d raised of men’s violence against women. Vanier’s lens was psycho-spiritual. He seemed to have no notion of power or systems of oppression.
A few years later, I heard him in person at Notre-dame Cathedral in Ottawa. Again he spoke eloquently to the deepest longings of the human heart. Vanier’s work on the inclusion of outsiders, people marginalized by virtue of disability or difference, is outstanding. But like most thoughtful men, he neglects to consider women. I wrote to him again, asking him why he does not talk about the oppression of women and why he does not use his considerable power and influence to call out men’s abuse of women. Vanier responded.
“My dear Donna,
You are quite right. I should talk more of the oppression of women, I have been wondering why I do not mention it more. I have no easy explanation except in my community here in Trosly there is a beautiful harmony amongst us all. There can also be some masculine blindness in me. Thank you for this. Thank you for asking the question. I liked your reflection about masculine sexuality and feminine sexuality … I have still work to do. Peace, love to you. Jean”
Masculine blindness is killing women. … Let us not move too quickly to forgiveness.
Spiritual leaders, most of whom are men, talk endlessly about peace and love. The more progressive among them may even speak about social justice and human rights. The problem is that their thinking and practice does not include women in any meaningful way. Their human rights do not extend to women.
Is there a religious leader on Earth calling out men’s abuse of women’s bodies for their own pleasure and power? It is no accident that they are silent on this. Like 19th-century slaveholders, some men are safeguarding a way of life. They want power over women. They need women to hate ourselves in order to ensure our silence and co-operation.
A great moral leader like Jean Vanier could have made a massive difference for the world’s women through the simple act of calling out men on their misogyny. Alas, he too was invested in the power structure. Vanier colluded with other men through his silence, his actions and his denial.
This weekend, the last vestige of hope that good men will stand up for women was shattered. Masculine blindness is killing women. It is a reality that must be confronted. Let us not move too quickly to forgiveness.