Strong opinions on both sides
It turned out that an embroiderer was ranting online about the fact that I had work in the Royal Academy. She had attacked me twice before. This time, she basically encouraged her followers to contact all the places that stock my work, including the Royal Academy, and tell them that they shouldn’t work with a transphobe. That afternoon, the Academy emailed me, saying that it had received eight complaints about ‘transphobic’ views I had voiced online.
In other words one opportunistic rivalrous shit (whose work is crap) told people to go after DeWahls and the RA took this coordinated campaign seriously.
Transphobic views like ‘women have vaginas’ and ‘there are two sexes’, presumably. It said it would have to investigate. I replied saying that I was not transphobic and that eight people is hardly representative of the general public. I heard nothing back until the Academy posted on its Instragram story to say that it had dropped me.
Bad manners on top of credulity and incompetence and scorn for women.
At first, I just felt horrible. When you voice views like I do, you get a lot of private support, but people don’t feel they can support you in public.
Unless they’ve already been there themselves, and not only can’t be canceled a second time, but also have better friends and allies.
That changed on Thursday morning, when I woke up to an inbox full of emails from journalists who wanted to speak to me. I spoke to The Times that day, and then the Academy was suddenly really keen to talk to me. An incredibly flustered woman rang me, but didn’t know what to say or do other than tell me that the Academy was just going to sit and let people express themselves, because there are obviously strong opinions on both sides.
As if this were just normal. As if the RA always did what 8 complainers told them to do.
After I wrote my blog, organisations that I was collaborating with immediately dropped me. I helped to raise funds for companies like the Vagina Museum and Bloody Good Period. They dropped me straight away, disassociating themselves with me publicly. I knew my blog would cause a stir. But the reaction was much more horrible than anything I could have anticipated. There isn’t anything comparable in real life to being hounded online and having strangers sending emails saying that they hope you kill yourself.
Ultimately, though, she doesn’t give a fuck.
People like JK Rowling are not cancellable, and that makes the people who hate them so angry. In a way, I’m not cancellable either, because I don’t give a fuck. What the fuck are they going to do? They keep putting rocks in my way and I’m making a fucking statue out of them. I don’t care. I’m not going to have arseholes make my life miserable just because they are miserable.
Living well is the best revenge.
I remain convinced that the main issue with “cancel culture” (aside from the problems with defining it) is that organizations need to get better at dealing with outside pressure.
Eight complaints? Really? That’s enough to trigger action?
Obviously, if someone brings to light facts that affect Person X’s ability or qualifications to perform the role that your organization hired them to do, or X’s deservedness of an award or honor you gave them, then the one complaint is sufficient. But it seems unlikely that was the case here: there was no careful assessment of DeWahls’s comments, no implementation or revision of a general policy regarding how to handle artists with “problematic” views or actions, just a knee-jerk, oh-shit-we’re-getting-complaints panic.
if you’re being influenced by the number of the complaints rather than their merit, you really need to set that bar higher than eight. Especially in a world of instant global communication: there is so little effort needed to fire off a tweet or even an email, and so easy to drum up raw numbers of people from around the world for even the fringeist of views.
If the Academy had simply ignored these 8 complaints, or responded with a generic “thank you for your feedback. It is our policy to screen works based on their own merits rather than the personal views of the artist,” most likely this would have petered out quickly. Worst-case scenario is that the agitators would have gotten some media coverage for their campaign and the RA would have found itself in some controversy — but that’s exactly what they got by acting the way they did.
While I’m here, might as well note that some people might ask why the number of complaints, as opposed to their merits, would ever be relevant. Aside from the fact that at a certain point, the number of complaints might cause one to reassess the merits, I’m allowing for the fact that most organizations have to serve some constituency — their customers, members, etc. — and if it looks like a major boycott or defection is in the works, you have to be responsive.
The Royal Academy is failing to serve any constituency except itself. I note Jess’s comment that “the Academy was just going to sit and let people express themselves”. Well they’ve been doing that for nearly a week now and it’s not enough. I’d hoped they’d have the grace and good sense to realise they’d perpetrated a dreadful mistake, and I’ve held off from requesting a refund to give them time to get their act together. But it doesn’t look as if they’re going to do that. Time enough has now passed to reveal a complete absence of leadership, which shows contempt for the people who fund them. Aside from the appalling way Jess de Wahls has been treated, I’m reluctant to support an organisation that is so arrogant and run so badly. So I’ll be asking for the remaining nine months of my sub to be refunded – £98.25.
And, do these orchestrated poison-pen campaigns differ in any way from the dogpiling of ‘Gamergate?’ Doxxing, death threats, rabid woman-hatred. How come they weren’t ‘Cancel Culture’ until the vitriol seeped into the supposed Left?