Kate Clanchy - poet - is 'cancelled' by her publisher

[ArabellaScott]

Picador are unpublishing - ceasing to distribute - all of Clanchy's books. The article says 'by mutual consent', but it's not a good thing to hear a poet/author being 'cancelled'.

Literature/poetry is not in a healthy state right now.

unherd.com/thepost/picador-cancels-poet-kate-clanchys-books/

In case you missed the brouhaha - Article from last year:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-58151144

@ArabellaScott I definitely see where you're coming from! The thing is, also, I'm not someone who routinely picks up on every teeny-tiny thing that could be construed as homophobic ... But I really hate the hypocrisy of people who are so ready to criticise and call out, but refuse to reflect or consider that they might be wrong even for a moment. That's why I took issue in such a persistent way with what @KimikosNightmare said. In general, I don't actually think it's a productive way to argue, or a helpful approach, but I think how that unfolded reveals how negatively someone reacts when 'called out' (and I do think it was valid point I made, I didn't 'invent' my POV - I just wouldn't always share the thought). Yet @KimikosNightmare hasn't drawn any insight from her own reaction, as far as I can see.

Sorry about fucking up the bold!

No worries, Innocenta, I think your point was fair. It demonstrates very well how at least part of the value loaded onto a term comes from the reader.

I'm saying it is completely unacceptable for a teacher to comment about a female pupil having a moustache. Or that a female pupil isn't pretty.

In class, to the student - sure.

In writing where the student is named or could be identified? Arguably.

Under any circumstances, in a book, where the student cannot be identified? Um - why? Why would that be unacceptable?

We all know how people actually look, there is no moral high ground in pretending we don't.

@SantaClawsServiette

I'm saying it is completely unacceptable for a teacher to comment about a female pupil having a moustache. Or that a female pupil isn't pretty.

In class, to the student - sure.

In writing where the student is named or could be identified? Arguably.

Under any circumstances, in a book, where the student cannot be identified? Um - why? Why would that be unacceptable?

We all know how people actually look, there is no moral high ground in pretending we don't.

The levels of hypocrisy in that post are awesome.

Do you serioulsy think that there won't be girls wondering if they were meant?

All the posturing on here usually about women having to meet standards of beauty/ the "male gaze"/ how unacceptable it is to comment on appearances.

[quote Innocenta]**@ArabellaScott* I definitely see where you're coming from! The thing is, also, I'm not someone who routinely picks up on every teeny-tiny thing that could be construed as homophobic ... But I really hate the hypocrisy of people who are so ready to criticise and call out, but refuse to reflect or consider that they might be wrong even for a moment. That's why I took issue in such a persistent way with what @KimikosNightmare said. In general, I don't actually think it's a productive way to argue, or a helpful approach, but I think how that unfolded reveals how negatively someone reacts when 'called out' (and I do think it was valid point I made, I didn't 'invent' my POV - I just wouldn't always share the thought). Yet @KimikosNightmare* hasn't drawn any insight from her own reaction, as far as I can see. [/quote]
And you think you have "gained insight"

You think it's fine for a teacher to talk publicly about a pupil in that way.

She has a new publisher...
wwww.theguardian.com/books/2022/feb/01/kate-clanchy-independent-publisher-some-kids-i-taught

@KimikosNightmare Again, I've said multiple times that I don't favour teachers talking about their pupils' appearance. So please stop claiming I support something that clearly, I have pretty major doubts about.

That has nothing to do with what I'm questioning in you and your posts. You are only focusing on that (and accusing me of having a position i patently don't hold) because it gives you an excuse to avoid engaging with (1) the fact that you said something homophobic; (2) your persistent refusal to apologise, despite being told by an actual, real lesbian that your attitude is offensive and upsetting; (3) the hypocrisy of being so eager to call out and condemn KC while being 100% unwilling to hear criticism of what you have said.

It goes all ways. If you want to dole it out, you'd better be willing to hear it. Your reaction unveils, in a very clear and disturbing way, how un-genuine your commitment to bettering society and discourse is. You won't live out those principles at all in your own life.

I am more butch than femme. You could describe me as such and I would agree - throw a comment about a moustache in there, though, and it is clear that I, like the child, do not seemingly fit with Clancy's perceived norms. Kimiko isn't the one being homophobic there.

@NickiMinajerie You have every right to take issue with KC (and there are plenty of things she said in her book that I would never say, and that I think are antiquated, offensive expressions, etc.). That's not the point I am making, though. KC might or might not be homophobic; I have no idea. But KimikosNightmare is being, in this thread, and that's what I am responding to.

@KimikosNightmare Why do you think looking butch is a bad thing? You need to do some unpacking yourself, in making that assumption, because as a lesbian I find it pretty damn offensive.

Innocenta I think you've definitely made 2 and 2 make 5 here.

Clanchy described a girl as butch and having a moustache - neither of those things are in themselves bad, but nor is having brown skin, a particular shape of head, a Jewish nose, a curvy body shape, lots of the other things she said.

Kimiko pointing out it does not mean Kimiko thinks butch is bad. It's just a very inappropriately personal description that comes over as if Clanchy thinks it's an unfortunate look, or at least something she's entitled to raise. Much like the rest of her physical comments.

It would be different if this was a self-avowedly butch teenager and her butchness was part of what she wanted to talk about and how she wanted to express herself. This is pretty clearly not that. It's about using butch as a way of saying "unfeminine" - but, of course, that's from KC's POV.

[quote Innocenta]**@NickiMinajerie* You have every right to take issue with KC (and there are plenty of things she said in her book that I would never say, and that I think are antiquated, offensive expressions, etc.). That's not the point I am making, though. KC might or might not be homophobic; I have no idea. But KimikosNightmare is* being, in this thread, and that's what I am responding to. [/quote]
The term "butch" isn't a term I even connect with lesbian. I read it as not being sufficiently feminine which it clearly was meant that way when used in connection with talking about a moustache.

But carry on deflecting. I am not going to apologise to you.

The term "butch" isn't a term I even connect with lesbian.

Really?

butch (n.)

"tough youth," 1902, first attested in nickname of U.S. outlaw George Cassidy (1866-?), probably an abbreviation of butcher (n.). Sense of "aggressive lesbian" is by 1940s. As an adjective by 1941.

(and just because I find etymology fascinating:

Entries linking to butch
butcher (n.)
c. 1300, "one who slaughters animals for market," from Anglo-French boucher, from Old French bochier "butcher, executioner" (12c., Modern French boucher), probably literally "slaughterer of goats," from bouc "male goat," from Frankish bukk or some other Germanic source (see buck (n.1)) or Celtic bukkos "he-goat." Figurative sense of "brutal murderer, one who kills indiscriminately or cruelly" is attested from 1520s. Related: Butcherly. Old English had flæscmangere "butcher" ('flesh-monger').)

www.etymonline.com/word/butch

Sorry, I messed the formatting right up.

'(and just because I find etymology fascinating:' is my interjected sentence.

[quote SunnyDelite]She has a new publisher...
wwww.theguardian.com/books/2022/feb/01/kate-clanchy-independent-publisher-some-kids-i-taught[/quote]
'she “still think[s] that my beleaguered, faulty text is worth reading”.' (Quoting Clanchy)

“Partly because she writes with an often self-lacerating honesty, and in a way that explicitly shows her moving from positions of ignorance – or even prejudice – to ones of understanding, reasonable people have disagreed as to whether she was able successfully to capture the potential tensions between difference and sameness without exacerbating them,” said the publisher. “But it is our fundamental view as a publisher that readers should be able to make up their own minds.’

I'll be interested to see if some of this tendency to smooth out all the rough bits and chop out controversy pushes some texts in the direction of smaller independent publishers. The market has become so dominated by the big 4 over the past decades & the smaller indie presses subsumed so often, it would be interesting to see it change shape again.

The term "butch" isn't a term I even connect with lesbian

That's risible given it's a uniquely lesbian identity. You're actually doubling down and being even more gross with this. @KimikosNightmare

Thanks for adding that, @ArabellaScott . Frankly, I know it's silly to be exercised or upset by some random on MN denying that butchness belongs to lesbians... whatever Kimiko says, doesn't change the truth. And realistically I shouldn't expect FWR to be free of homophobia (lesbophobia).

But still, like, wow.

@Innocenta

Thanks for adding that, *@ArabellaScott* . Frankly, I know it's silly to be exercised or upset by some random on MN denying that butchness belongs to lesbians... whatever Kimiko says, doesn't change the truth. And realistically I shouldn't expect FWR to be free of homophobia (lesbophobia).

But still, like, wow.

Still deflecting and creating straw men. I didn't say what you have just made up in your last 2 posts.

I read butch in the context of what Clanchy wrote as "not being sufficiently feminine"

In this thread generally, and this is not directed specifically at you , I'm really surprised at the level of hypocrisy involved in defending Clanchy.

There are posters at best ignoring and at worst, defending comments about girls being fat, not pretty, having a moustache, having a "Cypriot bosom", wearing a "flirty hijab", analysis of skull types, a boy described as "African Jonathan"

What on earth was that last one meant to mean? There are defenders on here alleging that she just wanted to consider the children's cultural heritage. That's been used to excuse the ignorant approaches to the Somali / Kenyan ethicity and the boy with the Ashkenazi nose.

That defence looks a bit thin if she can then attribute the culture of an entire continent to one boy.

“Partly because she writes with an often self-lacerating honesty, and in a way that explicitly shows her moving from positions of ignorance – or even prejudice – to ones of understanding, reasonable people have disagreed as to whether she was able successfully to capture the potential tensions between difference and sameness without exacerbating them,” said the publisher. “But it is our fundamental view as a publisher that readers should be able to make up their own minds.’*

But she didn't move from a position of ignorance. The book was published with all those awful sections and judgemental comments.

She has been forced to remove the worst of them. The version now available has been cleansed of almost all the content to which objection was taken.

But she didn't move from a position of ignorance. The book was published with all those awful sections and judgemental comments.

Well, I've not finished it yet. I am guessing latter parts will involve her moving from - or examining - these positions.

Innocenta butch is beautiful.

it's a uniquely lesbian identity

No it isn't! Butch can just mean masculine, it can mean a type of masculine gay man too. You can't just take a word and say it only belongs to lesbians. Well you can I guess, but you're wrong and it; snot how language works.

This argument is silly because I think it's clear that KC was not suggesting the girl was a butch lesbian specifically. So KC also apparently isn't in agreement with you that this is a word just for lesbians. She was using it as a not very sensitive (at best) way to talk about a girl's appearance, unnecessarily.

You're having a massive go at Kimoko on a basis that makes no logical sense.

Several people on this thread have talked about KC's various descriptions of many physical attributes. ONLY with "butch" have you said that this means the person talking about it thinks it's a bad thing to be.

@QueenPeony I'm commenting on 'butch' because I can speak from an authoritative position. It would be pretty weird for me to try to comment (beyond saying as I have many times that teachers commenting on appearance = not good) in detail on most of the others.

And you are both offensive and incorrect. Butch is a lesbian identity; you denying that doesn't change reality.

The hypocritical one in this thread is you, @KimikosNightmare. You seem to feel it's acceptable to critique others on anything you may find offensive... Very well, I'm not necessarily oppposed to calling things out. I think shining a light on problematic language is okay, though I don't support cancellation or sexist punishment aimed at women.

However, when you yourself engage in homophobic behaviour (and bear in mind, I have literally directly quoted you...!), you think you should be immune from challenge. Indeed, you attack someone in the marginalised group harmed by your behaviours.