Confidence tricks: Confide Here!

We made several trips to the equity office ourselves and at first we were received with genuine sympathy, concern, and even anger at the hostile and adversarial responses of the EMTF. Evidence of support from the office includes statements in the local paper confirming that harassment issues were widespread at the University of Victoria: The President and Vice President were friendly, too. With considerable equity sloganeering, they assured us that the EMTF's action were "just a tactic of intimidation" and "it sounds like you're being harassed." We were given assurances that our report would not be "buried" by the "male reactionary stance." These confidences and "supportive" joking by reactionary male administrators about pesky reactionary male professors was both dazzling and unbelievable, but at the centre of these meetings was a confidence trick in the process of setting up an equity franchise: "Tell the customers you agree with them so they will buy your product." The administration assured us we could invest in the equity office with complete confidence.

Circling

Meanwhile, the Director of Equity Issues was assessing what amount of administrative support she had, what campus and national support and credibility we had, and evaluating the political and campus climate before the "bungy jump":

"I compare my job to being a bungee jumper. ... You're up there. You're continually worrying if the rope will hold, or if your support will hold up. Some days you get a cold dunking in the water. A lot of times you ask yourself before you're ready to jump, Why am I doing this? Then, just when things are going really well, you suddenly get snapped up by your ankles."⁸

Equity officers are mindful of several locations of power and do not want to jeopardize invitations to speak to government, corporations and organizations where they represent the university. But if the stages of the equity office process always involve an evaluation of who and what will be heard safely, then anti-feminist outcomes are guaranteed. If we are speaking from the margins how could we have the most back-up? Wasn't the equity office supposed to be our back-up? Why is it now backing up over us?

Stressing the need to maintain confidentiality, the equity office strove to gain our confidence and the Director insisted that we trust her and the process if she was to agree to proceed. We were encouraged to go away and consider our (co )options, specifically the option of entering into mediation with those who were threatening us.

Reconciliation Co-option

The CCC had been trying to lodge a formal complaint against the EMTF through the equity office, but we were told that a formal complaint, rather than mediation, would deflect attention away from the recommendations in our report and lead to a presidentially commissioned investigation of ourselves and those who met with us. There was also the possibility of a countersuit of harassment by the EMTF for the report. It was also indicated that when the men went ahead with their suit, we could be held in contempt of court if we refused to name those who had spoken with us about the climate of the department. And we were still being encouraged to enter into an internal mediative solution, even while facing threats of a civil suit and deadlines for retraction and apology.