Explanation of the removal of a guest article
(Andy’s note: I removed a guest post from the site this morning, and didn’t have the opportunity to offer an explanation for this, until now.)
The author of a guest post contacted me to express concern about some of the discourse around their article online (much of which they consider to be an unfair misrepresentation of their ideas), and felt that they no longer wanted their name to be tied to the piece, not because they no longer believed what they had written, but for fear that their name being tied to said content, and by necessity the discourse surrounding it, might have an impact on their future opportunities.
It was suggested by the author that the article might be edited so that they were anonymised, or that a pen name might be used, but I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of posting anonymised work.
As such, the closest thing to a satisfactory resolution to this issue was the removal of the article. However, this course of action is not without it’s problems. The author has contacted me since to express concern about responses to their piece which do not, in their view, accurately represent the content or intent of the original article, and defending against said criticisms without being able to refer critics back to the original work is obviously problematic.
As the owner of this blog/webzine I can tell you that the article in question, taken in and of itself, was not, to my mind, an attack on feminism, or on feminist discourse, but rather was a critique of certain assumptions about the history and nature of punk (in this case, as a broadly progressive/egalitarian movement), and moral obligations derived thereof, that the author felt were present in some of the other guest articles in this series, including a piece by myself.
The author has asked me to provide a link to a copy of the article posted elsewhere, with their name removed, but I can’t see a practical difference between my posting anonymous work here, or linking to it elsewhere, and as such, I have declined.
In closing, while I cannot take responsibility for any of the discourse around the article posted by others, as the curator of this series, I feel a certain duty of care to contributors, and I sincerely hope that this clarification of the reasoning behind the article’s removal, as well as the clarification of it’s content, will go some way to addressing the concerns of the author.
Andy
Uh, so this is about that last post.
I’m about to RANT, so I want to preface this by saying that Andy, I’m not attacking you for taking the piece down. I appreciate that you’re being considerate of others and I think you’re a stand-up dude all around. But this just ticks me off.
I guess what bothers me about this whole situation is the article was a huge, long, derailing rant. It was incredibly frustrating because even though he wasn’t directly supporting sexism, it still felt like that was his point. I know it wasn’t. I knew that from the beginning. But considering how he wrote an ENTIRE article nitpicking how we have no obligation to end sexism as punks, it seemed to miss the point that we know we don’t. We’re aware that we have an obligation to end sexism AS COMPASSIONATE HUMAN BEINGS, and it’s just that we expect more from our fellow punks by association to the genre because many, though admittedly not all of us, got into punk due to the progressive politics. I mean seriously, when Blink 182 is many of my peers’ “gateway punk band,” I recognize that not everyone got into it through ANY kind of politics, but a lot of my friends did, or their reactionary thoughts turned into progressive thoughts. I can’t forget that, but I feel the presence of GG Allin in the annals of punk speaks to the fact that the genre has always been troubled and why women are so frustrated- because people who HAVE claimed to stand for progressive politics have, in fact, supported sexism and racism and homophobia in other ways. And he also missed the point that some of us are focusing on fixing sexism within our local scenes because it’s easier to start social change and raise awareness with your friends and in your own community first, before reaching outside of your circle. So it felt to me like his article was misrepresenting a lot of the people he was quoting as well. Let’s be honest here.
But instead, he complains because his argument was “misrepresented” by less than a handful of people, even when he was the one pulling small quotes out of larger pieces, that he didn’t link to, when all the reblogs made his article accessible in full. And there WEREN’T many posts actually tearing down what he said, especially not compared to all the comments I’ve seen around the web that tore down many of those earlier articles for the same reasons. Then he whines and gets to walk away and thinks he gets to (or should) have his name left untarnished? How can you expect that, and how can you expect people not to be pissed off after saying something clearly designed to be inflammatory? Come on.
Ya know who doesn’t get to just walk away from this conversation most of the time, because we’re actually living it every single day? Women. And in the context of these specific articles, women in the punk scene and women who go to shows. And guess what? We have our arguments taken out of context and misrepresented constantly as well and his article was hardly a new take on the issue; just look at the PunkNews comments on the posts he was attacking and you’ll find much of the same kind of derailing and nit-picking. As much as it sucks, it comes with the territory of putting your opinion out there. I just don’t get the point. If you want to talk about how we have an obligation to end sexism as people, not punks, then please, by all means, DO THAT. But there are much more effective ways to do so than nitpicking the issue and only once or twice pointing out that sexism is a problem regardless of what communities you are or aren’t a part of.
Fuck’s sake.
Though I’ve gotta say, I’m highly amused by the fact that he made wordpress JUST to post this essay anonymously. If you’re gonna talk shit, stand behind it.
Reblogged, obviously, for Lost Grrrls’ fantastic commentary. I’m sick of seeing so many bands who identify as “punk” continue to shout misogynist, homophobic shit from the stage and spew it via their blog and/or Twitter.
