National Library of Scotland censors The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht

[OhBuggerandArse]

Took it out of their centenary exhibition because the staff LGBT+ network kicked up a fuss. Craven. This really needs massive public challenge and push back - if the National Library isn't able to fend off the censors we are utterly lost. https://x.com/EthelWrites/status/1955390550494023958

Sales still good

Lucy Hunter Blackburn

The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht is Number 1 Kindle best seller in Gender Studies. 🤣

Butler's latest, published around the same time? 29th in that category, since you ask.

They’re using the complaints process as a barrier to having to engage. Conveniently the outcome will be after the event has finished so they’re not forced to put the book on display and harm (🙄) their TRA staff. Accountability for thee TWWWW but not for me…

I got the same. So I raised mine to stage 2. The Dear Library exhibition runs until April 2026 so we have time to keep prodding them.

Or they could give the book its own special display in the main lobby. That would be nice too.

It's like the shower of small pebbles at the start of an avalanche.

Exactly. When this first starting getting media attention, they should have apologised, said they got it wrong, put the book on display and everyone would have moved on by now. I'm sure there would have been some tantrums amongst their staff, but they should have done what Amina Shah herself mentioned and carried out some training on intellectual freedom. And everyone should have given their heads a wobble and reminded themselves that the role of librarians isn't to censor and hide books they don't agree with.

By doubling down, all they have done is increase scrutiny and criticism of their actions. Women might not be violently protesting, having die-ins and throwing bottles of piss around, but we are determined and we won't let this go.

Yes I thought as much - use the procedures in place to stonewall if you forgive the expression.

Would love a special display ❤️

The event runs til April. Parliament is back next week. I've no doubt plenty of people are ready to bring the issue further.

I agree that they've handled this very badly, but in a way that's not a bad thing. It's not about one book, it's about the culture within our National Library. This is shedding sunlight on what look like very serious issues.

A special display would be a good opportunity for reflection. They could have a whole case of books positing different aspects of the 'gender' issue. Are there any Scottish books from the 'genderist' point of view? There's some poetry, I'm not sure of any non-fiction books from Scottish authors that support genderism, but surely there is at least one. And 'Hounded' would be an excellent choice to discuss freedom of speech and the 'chilling' effect. Scottish author.

Better still, by way of apology, they could do a special women’s rights exhibition and include all the ‘dangerous’ titles recently produced by women.

I’m sure there’s enough for a good display. I’d be fascinated to see the mass fit of vapours it generates.

1984 would definitely feature.

I'm sure we could curate them a whole mini-display for within their 'Dear Library' exhibition.

But then, allowing mere proles to inform their collection and display would not go down well, would it.

Actually I'm not sure whether 'Dear Library' books are to be by Scottish authors or written in Scotland, does anyone know? There's not masses of info on the exhibition for some reason

Yes, good point. This (and other recent events) is providing very helpful evidence to raise awareness among a far wider audience. The more they display their increasing level of batshittery, the more leverage we gain to push back.

Hounded would be particularly good, because it is a very compassionate book. Jenny Lindsay puts a coherent reasoned case for women's rights in this context, and describes the awful way she was (and still is!) treated without nastiness in return. The best sex/gender book I have read.

Absolutely 💯

There was a really scathing piece about this in the Private Eye. And it also commented on the Polari Prize and the fact that GC authors were excluded from the Edinburgh Book Festival for not being able to progress the conversation on this issue in a respectful way 🙄, but Munro Bergdof, who once claimed that the suffragettes were 'white supremacists' was included.

So i think there is beginning to be a wider recognition of the current problem with the arts scene. Not everyone is that bothered about women's rights, but many people abhor cancel culture and the suppression of lawful free speech

There are books from all over. There are two rooms, in the second there are shelves of books selected by well-known native Scots like Val McDermid around the walls, plus a case of different library cards and some historic images and recordings of/from libraries, and places to to write and out up cards, and in the middle of the room there's a display of 100 of the books proposed by the (presumably mostly Scottish!) public. TWWWW got enough suggestions for automatic inclusion but it was JKR / Harry Potter that got the most votes. As you'd expect really.

It's a nice exhibition and I enjoy browsing every time I go in. Just lacks one thing really.

Is Harry Potter on display?

Postcard sized reproductions of the cover of the WWW...? <one, two, three!>, W slipped inside the covers of the other books.

Dh and I got exactly the same bog standard response. We’ve just raised it to a stage 2 complaint on the basis it answers nothing

On MN thread ‘Has anyone else had a reply for the NLS’ mumsnetter @AmaryllisNightAndDay noted that there’s no way to raise a Stage 2 complaint. So like them we are replying to the message they sent back

While you are deciding you need to wrap your copy up in at least a double layer of brown paper, strong string and sealing wax just in case its dangerous thoughts start leaking out, and sneaking into the wider world through open windows or on the soles of your shoes. Before you know it there could be thousands, literally thousands, of innocent people lying on the ground around your house having been traumatised and injured emotionally - and probably physically - by your careless actions. We all have a responsibility to look out for the marginalised demographs because heaven knows they don’t have anyone else giving them a platform on social media or broadcast outlets so we can listen to them whinging.

To be fair I imagine that the staff were all too busy dusting down the shelves and deciding which biscuits to include in the celebration tea ( hope they went with Tunnocks) to have been paying much attention to other local news, from Fife for example, to consider how best to deal with situations that are easily dealt with if you look at them calmly and don’t let them get hijacked by silly people who don’t understand simple science.

The misuse of language is terribly annoying:

Your refusal to blindly accept our mantras are violent. Or misgendering is violence. Your academic arguments create environments as harmful as physical attacks.

Don’t forget that using only biological sex categories is genocide.

I read some research about all these so called murders of trans people, and seems it was more connected to living a trashy or wildly dangerous lifestyle than actually being trans.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if owners of Wheesht went and sat outside the venue with their copies and read them , quietly. I would not want them to risk being verbally abused by reading out loud , but surely no one in their right mind could object to someone sitting in the sun at lunchtime eating a sarnie and reading a book ?

I apologise. I bought Butler as well, it wasn't available in my local library and I wanted to understand both "sides".

I would recommend WWWS. So far Butler has straw men leaping around, ironic fear mongering about fear mongering and conflates sentences with paragraphs...

...nevertheless, I persist... although I'm tempted to ask ChatGPT for a summary...

Butler does have quite lot to say on freedom of speech and reading opponents books.😅