i got a response from the CBC

Dear Mr. ****************

Thank you for your email of October 6th addressed to CBC Ombudsman Jack Nagler, drawing our attention to the September 29th edition of CBC Radio’s Out in the Open and what you describe as a guest “advocating genocide and killing of men.”

I appreciate hearing the considered views of a loyal CBC Radio listener. While I regret you are disappointed in us in this instance, I’d like to take this opportunity to respond to your concerns.

I should be clear at the outset that our program is intended to be a forum for frank conversations, a place where we can discuss complicated issues and the sometimes hidden and troubling experiences of people who have lived through them. Often, the subjects we cover are difficult to talk about. They can be challenging and sometimes uncomfortable to hear.

This edition of Out in the Open focussed on Mona Eltahawy, an outspoken Egyptian-American journalist and social commentator whose work has been widely published, including in The New York Times, The Guardian and The Washington Post. The program spoke with her a few days after the publication of her most recent book, The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls, which her publisher describes as “a bold and uncompromising feminist manifesto that shows women and girls how to defy, disrupt and destroy the patriarchy by embracing the qualities they’ve been trained to avoid.”

It's unquestionably a controversial book, one written by a provocative social theorist, but nonetheless one we felt would be of interest to our listeners.

It is CBC’s mandate, part of its obligation under the federal Broadcasting Act, to carry different points of view on controversial matters of public interest and concern such as this one. It’s a mandate we would fail to live up to if, in an effort to upset no one or disturb no institution, we were to limit the range of views we carried or the comprehensiveness of our reporting.

Indeed, allowing the expression of the widest possible range of views is at the heart of the notion of fairness and balance in journalism. While we must be mindful of the weight of opinion that holds a particular view and its significance or potential significance, it is also true that almost any opinion may contain a grain of truth that helps to illuminate the whole truth.

Of course, not everyone will agree with all the views expressed. Clearly, you and I expect others are uncomfortable with some of the views expressed here. I understand that. However, we do our best to present differing views fairly and accurately, affording Canadians the opportunity and the information they need to make up their own minds about the nature or quality of the views expressed.

Of the seven “necessary sins” Ms. Eltahawy wrote about in her book, you found one of them particularly contentious: Violence.

Ms. Eltahawy presented a thought experiment, which we introduced as “highly controversial” and Ms. Eltahawy said was deliberately “shocking” to draw attention to what she feels is “normalized” violence against women.

Ms. Eltahawy explained why she used it in the book, saying, “I understood it was highly controversial and I was intentional … Knowing that this is very disturbing, I ask people to imagine – now I’m using this word ‘imagine’ and I’m underlining it three times – a scenario in which we kill a certain number of men every week. How many men must we kill until patriarchy sits across the table from us and says, ‘OK, stop. What must we do so you can stop this culling?’ Now I’m saying imagine. I’m not saying go out there and kill a hundred men today. I’m saying imagine this very, very disturbing scenario – and I know it’s disturbing.”

She continued, “Several women have said to me, ‘Oh my god. I’m a mother of sons. What are you talking about? How can you be talking about this?’ And I say to them, ‘You are more upset and disturbed at the imaginary scenario of violence against your sons than the actual violence that is committed every day against your daughters or someone else’s daughter. What does that mean about what patriarchy has done to us?’”

Ms. Eltahawy proceeded to explain her motivation behind presenting this thought experiment, saying, “We’ve normalized violence against girls and women and we ignore it. So I want to shock people through this imaginary scenario … I want people to look at the big picture here, to stop focusing on what I’m trying to make them imagine, and to focus on what happens every day, which is even worse … because it’s not imaginary, it’s real.”

Ms. Eltahawy emphasized that she is not advocating for this imagined scenario to actually happen. You wrote that she advocated “genocide and killing of men”. I want to be very clear here: She did not.

Her thought experiment is shocking to hear, as she said. It’s also one that our host Piya Chattopadhyay robustly challenged in multiple ways.

She said, “You have been subject to violence yourself. You described the instances of sexual violence, of physical violence, on your body, and so… I don’t get it.” Ms. Eltahawy went on to describe her experience of punching a man after he placed his hand on her buttocks without her consent and explained what she is actually advocating for: Women practicing what she referred to as “justifiable violence against the unjustifiable violence practiced on them by men” – effectively, retaliatory violence.

Ms. Chattopadhyay continued to challenge that argument, saying, “There are people being violent right now, throwing things at their radio, so I’m going to keep pushing you. You know violence tends to engender more violence,” to which Ms. Eltahawy replied, “It can. But my question is, how long must we wait so that men stop raping us? How long and what will it take so that men stop murdering us, stop beating us up?” She also described her belief that solving such problems via legal avenues alone was not enough, for in her view, legal systems treat women less equitably than men.

It’s a controversial perspective, as I said, and a provocative one. It is also one being discussed in the public forum. But while we offered Ms. Eltahawy an opportunity to explain her views, we also took the time to parse her arguments, propose alternative views and challenge her ideas.

Thank you for taking the time to listen, write and encourage us to think about how we approach our journalism on Out in the Open. I hope my reply has addressed your concerns.

Sincerely,

BRIAN COULTON senior producer | out in the open