I have been reading about Hugo Schwyzer revealing his past on the internet.
I won’t detail it here, go and read it for yourself.
It’s ugly and it’s typical, in many ways, of how many men dominate women.
His post talks about how he has changed and how he is in recovery. Of the past he says,
“For many years, Ive said that my behavior on and before June 27, 1998 was unconscionable. I was an active alcoholic and addict who caused great pain to a great many people. I was fortunate indeed never to be arrested. [...] I did have consensual sexual relationships with female students in the two years prior to my last drink, something which was profoundly unethical and immoral. Even when I wasnt high, my behavior during those years was compulsive and frequently destructive.”
and that’s it…
Oh, he was asked to write the rules for the college he taught at to prevent anyone else doing what he did. Wow! That taught him didn’t it?
It’s important, and brave, that he stood up and admitted his shame and owned up to what he did. But is that enough? Should he be praised for his honesty and courage and left to get on with his life, doing what he did before?
Lisa Hickey, editor of The Good Man Project, said in ‘In Defense of Storytelling: A Hat Tip to Hugo Schwyzer‘,
“I respect Hugo and all he has done on his path to restorative justice. I hope that others will let him continue that path openly, honestly, with the grace and compassion he deserves.”
How should you deal with shame, how should you make amends, can you just move on with your life?
Lisa Hickey thinks that being able to tell your story without shame is what’s important, she said,
“Abuse plus silence paves a path for more abuse. If were ever going to put a stop to abuse of all kinds we have to let people talk about it. We have to let people tell their stories.”
Yes, we do, but we don’t need to praise someone who was a perpetrator not a victim. We need him to take responsibility for his past as an alcoholic, as a drug addict, as an abuser.
The twelve steps of AA are a good place to find the answers to this dilemma. Step 5 says,
“Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”
So that’s telling your story, but it refers to the exact nature of your wrongs. It means owning up to to what you did, not publicly, but truly and in detail.
Steps 8 and 9 contain, for me, the crux of the matter,
“Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
“Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”
Making amends is where most people trip up. Does it just mean saying sorry, admitting your shame or disgrace and hoping that suffices. For me that is not enough. What’s behind these steps is the concept of taking responsibility for your actions now and in the future.
There may be personal acts that are needed, that’s for a person to decide, but there are public acts as well. One of the first an alcoholic makes is to stop drinking. I think there are times when other equivalent public acts are required.
In the case of HS much of what he did involved the female students he taught about privilege, domination, patriarchy and all the ways men dominate through their gender. But he is still there, still teaching, still dominating. He argues that the sex was consensual, isn’t that what all rapists argue? Isn’t rape about domination by men who are in positions of control over women?
How is he making amends for this, other than by talking about it?
In Britain you cannot work with children in any way until you have been through a Police check to show that you have no history of child abuse. That’s as it should be, children need to be protected. But what about young girls who are no longer children but may still be vulnerable to a powerful, respected man in a position of control over them. Should that man, if he has a history of abuse, even if he claims it was consensual, be allowed to stay in that position.
The simple answer for me is NO.
What do you think making amends means?
