Guardian article about Kate Clanchy "The book that tore publishing apart: ‘Harm has been done, and now everyone’s afraid’"

[miri1985]

www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/18/the-book-that-tore-publishing-apart-harm-has-been-done-and-now-everyones-afraid

Interesting article but Sarah Ditum said it on twitter better than I could "I think it's a major flaw that this article broadly assumes good faith on the part of cancel-culture agitators. A lot of them are perfectly self-interested and borderline sociopathic" twitter.com/sarahditum/status/1538144622643494912?cxt=HHwWgIC-3dCYy9gqAAAA

I hadn’t read any reviews of the book before I read it and I was appalled at the derogatory way she described some of her pupils. I even checked if it was some kind of satire. I did expect a certain amount of middle-class gloss but not the prurient distaste she exhibited.
I stand up for her right to publish any old toss she likes but I also stand up for the right of readers and reviewers to criticise it.

Free speech is more important than your feelings and I can't believe I have to say that to the 'sex and gender' forum of all places.

If you don't like the content then just don't read it! I know I won't be.

I wonder what posters would be saying if a trans author was coming under fire for writing a book that sexualised children and referred to white working class children as feral fatties. Somehow I doubt there'd be this vociferous defence of "free speech."

You put free speech in quotes like you don't believe it's really a thing that people care about. The truth is that when writers write things that offend me (often happens), I feel upset. On occasion I might even be angry. I might share those things with other people, and say, look at this fucking wanker, look at how wrong they are. However, I would never argue for them to be cancelled or have their rights removed.

The price I pay for my freedom of speech is everyone else's freedom of speech. Which means an attack on anyone's freedom of speech is an attack on mine.

I am aware this book is non fiction and I will read it because I don't want to be controlled by what the social media mob decide is unacceptable for me to read. In fact after reading this thread and the background it's the first book I have looked forward to

You'll need to get a second hand print copy of the original first edition then or this debate will make no sense.

I've only read the tidied up version which has the most egregious passages edited out.

I am by MN standards , a right wing, Times and Spectator, no time whatsoever with woke ideas person and even the cleaned up version had me thinking wtf. It's full of classism, racism and sexism.

the prurient distaste she exhibited

That comes through even in the edited version.
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@beastlyslumber I couldn't agree more with your posts. I am fascinated and apprehensive of what is to come, when free speech and removal of people's right to self moderate is being argued against so firmly.

I'm not "cool" with sexualising children or shaming rape victims, but that's not what this discussion is about.

It is ABSOLUTELY what the discussion is about. Clanchy's sexualisation of children was one of the main points of the original GoodReads review which started the entire thing, and has been one of the main points of the Twitter critiques since day one.

Posters with an "anti-woke" ideology (who have insisted that Clanchy was "cancelled" when she wasn't, and that she was "censored" when she was doing the one censoring) have consistently ignored and tried to censor debate about the actual content of Clanchy's book and acted like the objections were over a couple of "skin like chocolate" and "almond shaped eyes" comments. Which is simply not true and feels very agenda-pushing.

You cannot simply cherry pick one or two comments that you personally find non-offensive, and ignore all the rest.

Kate Clanchy is the only person attacking free speech. Period.

As an Ashkenazi Jew I didn't feel offended by KC's description of Jonathan the boy with the 'Ashkenazi nose'. It's a visual description. I know what she means. Some of my family members have that nose. Not many Aryan people do. And it was in the context of a passage about communities that are rooted, conscious of their past vs new towns and displacements, areas where that sense of connection has been broken. So Jonathan might well have been of Jewish ancestry - there were clues to that effect - but he didn't, to use modern parlance, identify that way.

I also felt that KC was being honest when she briefly said that she found the company of two pupils with autism 'jarring'. I feel 'jarred' by a family member who is neurodivergent. People who are neurodiverse will also write at length - on Mumsnet and elsewhere - about how jarred they feel by neurotypical environments, socialising etc.

I am also the daughter of a refugee. I can easily imagine how when my mother arrived in England shortly before her 11th birthday, she would have benefited from having a teacher like KC.

I think the book, its editing and the aftemath of its publication does highlight issues about race in education and in the publishing industry. But attacking the author of a memoir does not seem to me to be the way to address thse issues.

The hypocrisy on here is quite something.

Clanchy brought this on herself by attacking the non professional GR reviewer ; by instigating a Twitter pile on on that reviewer ; by claiming the reviewer was lying and threatening the reviewer by trying to get her employer involved. So much for upholding free speech.

Posters on here are ignoring the sexualisation of Clanchy's female pupils- if a male writer had written about girls in that way he would be vilified.

Rod Liddell wrote an article once with a line which was clearly meant to be a joke about how he'd never have been suitable as a teacher as he'd have ended up having an affair with one. His article was very clearly a joke about and against himself, but he was hauled over the coals for it . Clanchy's "Bambi lashes, fresh mouth, etc aren't jokes.

You cannot simply cherry pick one or two comments that you personally find non-offensive, and ignore all the rest.

I'm not. I don't know what she wrote. I'm saying I don't care if what she wrote offends you (or me) or not. Everything offends someone. There's no right not to be offended.

I'm not. I don't know what she wrote. I'm saying I don't care if what she wrote offends you (or me) or not. Everything offends someone. There's no right not to be offended.

So I assume you were active in the threads about "The Family Sex Show" fighting the posters insisting that show be cancelled because they were offended by it?

Well it's a pity Clanchy didn't adopt that viewpoint then when she read the bad review.

I think what is expected of a teacher and what is expected of a poet are very different things. I understand why people found this book offensive but the fact is it’s not “free speech”, it’s free speech. I’m against censoring what adults are allowed to read. If it breaks the law, apply the law, otherwise she can publish what she likes. I’m not planning on reading it but that goes for loads of things I find offensive.

Rod Liddell wrote an article once with a line which was clearly meant to be a joke about how he'd never have been suitable as a teacher as he'd have ended up having an affair with a pupil. His article was very clearly a joke about and against himself, but he was hauled over the coals for it. Clanchy's "Bambi lashes, fresh mouth, etc aren't jokes.

For clarity.

Why do you think they are comparable? That suggests a lack of discernment on your part. There were serious and urgent safeguarding issues with the family sex show. Freedom of speech is not the same as sexual misconduct - why try to equate them?

The whole "ugh some people are offended by EVERYTHING" is so hypocritical and dangerous. This has nothing to do with being "offended" it has to do with the active dangers created when a culture of sexualising young girls is normalised.

"The Family Sex Show" was extremely and actively dangerous and could have been directly used as a grooming tool by pedophiles (and I put my own career on the line and lost jobs from speaking out against it irl).

Kate Clanchy's book obviously is not on a par with TFSS but it does still normalise sexualisation of young girls.

The difference in how posters in Feminist Chat have treated the two proves that it's nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with ideology. Kate Clanchy has weaponised "anti-wokeness" and pretended that she's a victim of cancel culture, so people who are ideologically opposed to "wokeness" feel honour bound to support her.

I simply don't believe for a second that if a black author wrote the same things Kate wrote about white people, or a trans author wrote the same comments Kate did about young girls' bodies, that Mumsnet would be full of posters defending them and defending their right to free speech and sneering about people being offended by everything.

It was Kate Clanchy's decision to profit from a scandal she herself created. No one forced her to sign a new deal with a new publisher, or re-release her book. She hasn't been cancelled or censored. No one forced her to try to get ordinary readers cancelled. If you don't like negative reviews, just don't read them!

While I’m no fan of Clanchy’s, saying she wasn’t cancelled is akin to saying we only took her career and reputation to the brink of death, she’s still just about alive, fully shamed and found another publisher at the last minute so she wasn’t cancelled.

The other argument I see is how she can’t be cancelled as she had articles published about her shaming. I’m not sure being able to publically write about your total and complete public shaming is the sign of living well her detractors think it is. I imagine it’s the only thing she would have found a public home for.

So yes, her behaviour that caused all this was bad, but the moral backlash left her nowhere to go, it wasn’t just a backlash against her writing, it took her down as a person, personally and professionally - made it so she could have no possible redemption. Honestly I’ve seen murderers with better press.

Well she has published it and it's been read. Her right to publish what she wants must surely be set beside the GR reviewer's right to comment adversely without being subjected to an online pile on instigated by Kate Clanchy and having Clanchy threaten to report the reviewer to her employer.

Clanchy's use of language which sexualises and objectifies young girls is fair game to be called out.

Oh sorry, you think they're comparable because in both cases, people were offended. Right, that's true, and I was offended by the fss. But offence is not the reason why the fss was defunded and taken down - it was because it was breaking child safeguarding rules, and potentially breaking the law.

There's no right not to be offended. There are, of course, other rights which should be upheld, such as the right of children to be safe from sexual predation.

And the people who came after her so viciously were almost all women, and the moment the subject comes up each time, would jump into the fray while yelling how they were being abused. The ‘victims’ seemed to become her detractors vs the children they were apparently in such outrage for. I hadn’t heard of the couple of people that were in the middle of this before though and now I have, so there’s that I guess.

‘Well she has published it and it's been read. Her right to publish what she wants must surely be set beside the GR reviewer's right to comment adversely without being subjected to an online pile on instigated by Kate Clanchy and having Clanchy threaten to report the reviewer to her employer.’

It was read, and then it was recalled by the same publisher that released it for ‘editing’ after the fact. That’s censorship. Now it has been released again, but only because she got someone else to buy the rights. And I completely agree nobody should have reported the review. I don’t agree Clanchy was responsible for a “pile on” - the people who are responsible for any threats or unpleasant comments are the people who made them.

“Clanchy’s use of language which sexualises and objectifies young girls is fair game to be called out.”

I didn’t like the language and I don’t have any concerns about it being criticised. That’s different to keeping up a campaign of criticism until the point that the person you are “holding accountable” says they want to die, and carrying on.

I don’t like bullies and I don’t like censorship.

There's no right not to be offended. There are, of course, other rights which should be upheld, such as the right of children to be safe from sexual predation

Clanchy's description's of girls as young as 12/13 are not helpful to that.

Finally, I originally followed Clanchy because I (like many I assumed) liked the poetry of the children she posted. I hadn’t read the book (and yes, the comments referred to would have raised an eyebrow). But after this I unfollowed her, it was too much, the onslaught on her character almost meant even following her was some kind of statement.

So yeah, no reading the poetry of the children her account was about in the first place. I doubt I’m the only one. I expect there are a lot of other authors that wouldn’t dare follow her due to this. Due to it looking like support for an official persona non grata.

The whole "ugh some people are offended by EVERYTHING" is so hypocritical and dangerous

But most people aren't saying that. I'm offended by loads of things and I think that's normal. I'm just saying we can't make laws on the basis of 'offence'. What offends you may be different to what offends someone else. Who gets to decide what's okay and what's not? It's way too subjective. And it's mad to assume that the offence laws are going to favour your individual tastes.