Everyday Cancellation in Publishing - new report from SEEN publishing and Sex Matters

https://archive.ph/bBJsM

Short Bookseller article. Neutral.

Gosling's tweets for those who can't access X:

'It talks about the “trans cult”,'

1. It doesn’t. An endorsement from the great

'its glossary dismisses the term “gender” as having “multiple definitions [that] limit its usefulness as a concept”'

1. It does do this. Gender can be used as a synonym for ‘sex’, to mean ‘gender identity’ or to describe the social roles that people ascribe to men and women. Words are only useful if people understand what they mean.

'it leads with its conclusions.'

1. This is usually what happens when a piece of writing contains an executive summary.

'... it is based on a tiny sample – 10 authors, 10 publishers or former publishers, two agents, a funder, a festival director and a representative of SEEN in Publishing'

1. It is a piece of qualitative research, not a survey. 25 interviews is actually pretty high: https://sciencedirect.com/science/articl

Good thread here from Mathilda Gosling, author of the report, responding to several of the points made by the Bookseller chap:

x.com/matildagosling/status/1941131285247988114

That's not a bad piece, overall.

'The language and approach is not promising. It talks about the “trans cult”, its glossary dismisses the term “gender” as having “multiple definitions [that] limit its usefulness as a concept”, and it leads with its conclusions. Worrying, too, is that it is based on a tiny sample – 10 authors, 10 publishers or former publishers, two agents, a funder, a festival director and a representative of SEEN in Publishing. We all know a small number of voices can represent a larger cohort – the author of this report argues that it was hampered by not being able to publicise its research – but on this issue, that is not my experience.'

Well, it's unlikely to be his experience, given that the problems are mainly experienced by women.

He reckons that academic voices seem far more silenced than those in publishing based on the number of people who contributed to the report in academia. It's a bit naive/disengenuous to try and directly compare two utterly different spheres like that, with so many different factors and mechanisms to consider. For a start, authors, who are self employed and dependent on every new project being accepted by publishers, are generally in a more precarious situation than academics, on salaries and with employment contracts.

That's without considering whether the number of people willing to speak out being fewer for one industry might actually be illustrative of the very issue they're focussed on - the silencing of their voices/dissent/views.

And this is key:

'The corporates promise to publish for everyone but, in this regard, they do not, and have not. They know it too, because privately they admit it. They have followed internal consensus rather than commercial instinct, or to put it another way, care for the majority of staff and authors over the contrary views of others.'

Majority of staff and authors? He sure about that?

The proposal in this argument, I think, is that it's a tiny few number of troublemakers in the industry who have any issue with 'gender', and that the vast majority of authors and staff are fully onboard. Yet readers are clearly more interested in reading the books written by those contrary 'gc' voices, as he acknowledges and as evidenced by book sales. Seems a bit odd.

Either publishing and authors are run by a very out of touch elite, in that case, or the 'gender positive' (for want of a better phrase) views are being artificially inflated, while 'gc' views are silenced.

Any surveys done of authors and book publishing workers? That would be interesting to see.

Although there are of course the 'chilling effect' victims - those who have left the industry, or been pushed out, without much fanfare.

Anyway. Boils down to a criticism of the tone, while acknowledging freely that the substantive issue raised is correct. Which we're quite used to hearing.

'Yes, women are accurate when they say that they're being oppressed, but do they have to be so bloody angry about it?'

Short enough to copy and past here:

'A few weeks ago, freelance publishing professional Jamilah Ahmed wrote that the book business should face up to difficult conversations. She argued: “Publishing should be a hub of debate: a literal host of dynamic and ever-evolving perspectives and one that has apparently been striving to become more inclusive and outward-looking.”

Last week an email arrived in my inbox – as in many others – from SEEN in Publishing, an organisation that advocates for those whose gender-critical views have put them outside mainstream publishing conversations. The email highlighted a new report titled Everyday Cancellation in Publishing. In its introduction the children’s writer Onjali Q Raúf writes: “The publishing industry’s reputation as one of the last precious havens of thought, speech, debate and critique has been all but demolished this past decade, thanks to an ideological status quo which has thrived on a collective silencing of women’s legally protected sex-based rights and realities… It’s time for everyone to sit down now, and listen.”

Unlike some, I actually read the report. The language and approach is not promising. It talks about the “trans cult”, its glossary dismisses the term “gender” as having “multiple definitions [that] limit its usefulness as a concept”, and it leads with its conclusions. Worrying, too, is that it is based on a tiny sample – 10 authors, 10 publishers or former publishers, two agents, a funder, a festival director and a representative of SEEN in Publishing. We all know a small number of voices can represent a larger cohort – the author of this report argues that it was hampered by not being able to publicise its research – but on this issue, that is not my experience. By contrast, a recent review into whether UK universities have protected gender-critical academics garnered 120 completed responses.

None of that invalidates the report, the points it raises, nor its central argument – that such perspectives have been shunted to the sidelines, and deliberately so. That bit is relatively simple to prove – the better-selling books in this area have largely been written from the gender-critical perspective, and yet generally eschewed by the big publishers. The corporates promise to publish for everyone but, in this regard, they do not, and have not. They know it too, because privately they admit it. They have followed internal consensus rather than commercial instinct, or to put it another way, care for the majority of staff and authors over the contrary views of others.

However, the report’s misgendering, the email bombing, the tagging of individuals in social-media posts, is unhelpful. Indeed, it repeats the errors of those it tries to reproach. Raúf’s call to “listen” – rather than converse – is just one example. Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ charity, is often criticised for treating the law as it wants it to be, rather than how it is. But this report falls down similarly: it dismisses opposing views as adhering to a “belief system” that inverts “reality”, in a way that feels dangerously close to erasure. It is particularly critical of children’s publishing, saying the sector “is arguably indoctrinating children into this belief system”. Here the word “arguably” speaks to a larger problem with the report – many of the accusations it wants to make are outside its scope, but it makes them anyway.

The report calls for a course-correction and, given the recent Supreme Court ruling, it could get one, alongside a more considered approach to these issues from the sector. But to Jamilah’s earlier point, there is a way of being inclusive and plural. This document is not it.'

Thanks for the BookBrunch article, StrawberryLetter32.

'... literary agent Alice Sutherland Hawes said: "For a group constantly whinging about being silenced they are incredibly loud. I haven’t read the full report because I have a life'

Bwhahaha!

'Another literary agent, who preferred to remain anonymous, said: "Like JKR’s original essay, this report takes a research-based approach to a harmful world view and makes it sound reasonable — and this is dangerous. "'

Ooh, dangerous! Excellent.

'BookBrunch is interested to hear your experience and views – please get in touch if you’d like to share them'

Sounds like they are happy to keep names anonymous. And the more voices who speak up the better.

If anyone who works in publishing would like to do so, here's the email:

[email protected]