A column provoked claims of misandry and homophobia, and objections that it joked about rape. Are the complaints justified?
Chris Elliott: A column by Suzanne Moore – listing "10 rules for good penis management"
– attracted 37 complaints. The bulk of the complaints followed themes
within the column to which individuals objected, rather than any simple
matter of taste, which is what I would have expected.
Broadly the complaints fell into three groups: that the column was discriminatory against men (all complaints from men), homophobic and made jokes about rape. Only five of the complaints were from women. One reader wrote: "My first complaint concerns the outrageous rampant misandry in the article. Many of the activities Ms Moore is complaining about in the article could apply equally to women. However, she is deliberately 'trolling' against men in this article. I cannot envisage the Guardian publishing an article '10 Rules for Managing your Vagina' written in a similar vein. Such an article would rightly be seen as contumelious and shameful.
"Secondly, I am shocked at the overt flagitious homophobia in the article. Item 7 on Ms Moore's list is, 'Do not derive pleasure from your penis with other men'.
I understand from the Guardian's Facebook comments on this article that the paper claims the paragraph itself denounces homophobia. However, this is not the case."
Another said: "Point 12 of the Appendices [the PCC code] included in the Guardian's editorial code maintains a strong line on discrimination, though related to the individual, but surely the way in which Suzanne Moore has depicted men as a group is worth addressing? She is, after all, attacking a minority while at the same time implying that we are all identical in makeup, thought process, feelings, emotion, intellect and ambition … Basically it's either discrimination or an utter lack of judgment, but some instruction on how such pieces are commissioned and reviewed before publication would be most welcome from your audience. I suspect, given the comments below the piece, that a reply piece by a male author would also be most welcome."
Ally Fogg, a male blogger for the Guardian, did indeed write a piece in response to the Moore column. As for the commissioning process for such columns, that is relatively simple: it is for the writer to identify a subject, talk it through with her or his commissioning editor, and then write once agreement is reached.
The genesis of this particular column by Moore was in real news events. There were the two recent stories about politicians – one American and one Australian – who had taken pictures of their penises and sent them to women. In addition, there was a recent Guardian feature in which Dave Brown, a senior London fire officer, wrote of some of the stranger calls that his officers were asked to respond to. One of these was a man whose penis became caught in a toaster.
Moore, who – in common with many Guardian women columnists – has been the subject of some quite vicious attacks by commenters below the line claiming a male perspective, says her piece was satire: "What they don't like is that, in the end, a woman should not have made such jokes; though of course men actually make legislation about what we can do with our bodies all the time."
She also doesn't think jokes about rape should be taboo, either. I am not sure I agree with that last view, but I do think the article itself was an effective piece of satire. Read in context it was clearly not homophobic, in my view.
A comment below the line on the Moore piece from Eques to a previous commenter about "rule 7" put it best: "Read the rest of point 7. It is quite clearly not anti-gay. She concludes by saying that Stephen Fry rightly called for Russia to be stripped of the Winter Olympics because it is homophobic. She is lamenting that some countries are still virulently homophobic, that is the whole thrust of (7). The title of (7) means 'it is not safe to be gay', rather than 'it is not good to be gay'."
My Chambers dictionary describes satire as "a criticism of folly or vice, which it holds up to ridicule or scorn". I don't always think that the Guardian handles all aspects of sex well – there are far too many obscenities used in the Guardian's journalism, for instance. However, I think that this column based on those news events fits that dictionary definition well.
Chris Elliott: A column by Suzanne Moore – listing "10 rules for good penis management"
– attracted 37 complaints. The bulk of the complaints followed themes
within the column to which individuals objected, rather than any simple
matter of taste, which is what I would have expected.Broadly the complaints fell into three groups: that the column was discriminatory against men (all complaints from men), homophobic and made jokes about rape. Only five of the complaints were from women. One reader wrote: "My first complaint concerns the outrageous rampant misandry in the article. Many of the activities Ms Moore is complaining about in the article could apply equally to women. However, she is deliberately 'trolling' against men in this article. I cannot envisage the Guardian publishing an article '10 Rules for Managing your Vagina' written in a similar vein. Such an article would rightly be seen as contumelious and shameful.
"Secondly, I am shocked at the overt flagitious homophobia in the article. Item 7 on Ms Moore's list is, 'Do not derive pleasure from your penis with other men'.
I understand from the Guardian's Facebook comments on this article that the paper claims the paragraph itself denounces homophobia. However, this is not the case."
Another said: "Point 12 of the Appendices [the PCC code] included in the Guardian's editorial code maintains a strong line on discrimination, though related to the individual, but surely the way in which Suzanne Moore has depicted men as a group is worth addressing? She is, after all, attacking a minority while at the same time implying that we are all identical in makeup, thought process, feelings, emotion, intellect and ambition … Basically it's either discrimination or an utter lack of judgment, but some instruction on how such pieces are commissioned and reviewed before publication would be most welcome from your audience. I suspect, given the comments below the piece, that a reply piece by a male author would also be most welcome."
Ally Fogg, a male blogger for the Guardian, did indeed write a piece in response to the Moore column. As for the commissioning process for such columns, that is relatively simple: it is for the writer to identify a subject, talk it through with her or his commissioning editor, and then write once agreement is reached.
The genesis of this particular column by Moore was in real news events. There were the two recent stories about politicians – one American and one Australian – who had taken pictures of their penises and sent them to women. In addition, there was a recent Guardian feature in which Dave Brown, a senior London fire officer, wrote of some of the stranger calls that his officers were asked to respond to. One of these was a man whose penis became caught in a toaster.
Moore, who – in common with many Guardian women columnists – has been the subject of some quite vicious attacks by commenters below the line claiming a male perspective, says her piece was satire: "What they don't like is that, in the end, a woman should not have made such jokes; though of course men actually make legislation about what we can do with our bodies all the time."
She also doesn't think jokes about rape should be taboo, either. I am not sure I agree with that last view, but I do think the article itself was an effective piece of satire. Read in context it was clearly not homophobic, in my view.
A comment below the line on the Moore piece from Eques to a previous commenter about "rule 7" put it best: "Read the rest of point 7. It is quite clearly not anti-gay. She concludes by saying that Stephen Fry rightly called for Russia to be stripped of the Winter Olympics because it is homophobic. She is lamenting that some countries are still virulently homophobic, that is the whole thrust of (7). The title of (7) means 'it is not safe to be gay', rather than 'it is not good to be gay'."
My Chambers dictionary describes satire as "a criticism of folly or vice, which it holds up to ridicule or scorn". I don't always think that the Guardian handles all aspects of sex well – there are far too many obscenities used in the Guardian's journalism, for instance. However, I think that this column based on those news events fits that dictionary definition well.
No comments:
Post a Comment