Would you say I was hypersensitive if I advocated the removal of books from bookstores based on their use of gendered pronouns? I appreciate that there is a spectrum of ideas. Expression of some of them would have really bad consequences, so we need to step in. We can do that culturally (by exerting pressure to keep certain ideas from being expressed), and we can do it legally. Sometimes even government censorship is warranted (such as in Germany and Austria in the immediate aftermath of WW2). But I still think that our basic stance should be to live and let live, and only step in if absolutely necessary. I donât think the book under consideration is quite horrific enough to break that rule.
But to repeat myself: I think its fine for the girl to express her opinion and for the bookstore to take it off the shelves. I just donât think we should use our collective cultural force to push this one way or another.
I donât know if youâve taken the trouble to read the entire thread (itâs awfully long), but if you have youâll notice that Sprocket is basically making the same argument I was, although Sprocket seems to be expressing it quite a bit more elegantly than I was.
To belabor the point, sexism is, indeed, a problem. And the girl was perfectly right to be upset about it, and right to complain about it, and the bookstore employee was arguably doing nothing improper by exercising her right to remove the books from the shelves. But âproperâ doesnât always mean ânot regrettable.â The end result, and the lesson imparted by the very title of the blog post, is that an 8-year-oldâs displeasure with these books got them âyanked from the bookstore.â Never mind that sheâs eight, never mind that sheâs female, never mind that the books suck, never mind what theyâre about, never mind that the bookstore can stock what it pleases. What hits the eye first and foremost is that Somebody Didnât Like These Books, And As A Direct Result Of Their Displeasure, These Books Can No Longer Be Found At This Establishment.
One obviously does not have to be a closeted sexist (or dismissive of sexism as a profound problem) to be troubled by this message. We can all hold more than one idea in our heads at the same time; theyâre not all contradictory, you know.
Actually, I think this is probably at the core of WHY the bookstore removed the book: when youâre a small independently-owned bookstore, youâre much more responsive to your customers. An 8-year-old doesnât start crying in public over sexism in a book because sheâs some sort of savant; her parent(s), the bookstoreâs customer(s), are the foundation of her beliefs on the subject. The kind of parent who would be appalled at egregious sexism in a childrenâs book is going to frequent the kind of independent bookstore that would be sympathetic to that concern. The management/staff could very well be appreciative that the book was brought to their attention so they could remove it from the shelves before it caused greater customer dissatisfaction. This is capitalism at its finest.
Consider the alternate scenario: the family brings the book to the attention of the staff and the response is âyeah, thatâs right, whatâs wrong with you?â. What gets removed (voluntarily) from the bookstore in that case would be the potential customer, not the book. Also capitalism at its finest.
Letâs not pretend like this was some independent book store. Yes, itâs family owned, but it has over 100 stores in 15 states and had at one time the motto âWe buy and sell everything printed, except yesterdayâs newspaper.â
This place is FAMOUS for having shitty books all over the place.
removing a product from a the shelf of a store is VERY different from suppressing that Idea. By carrying a product, the store, to some degree, endorses that product. Particularly in the realm of books for children, where there isnât an expectation that some books are on the shelf because they are controversial. In fact, this book is being spoken about A LOT. The idea hasnât been suppressed, the existence of the book hasnât been suppressed. The book and itâs text can still be accessed and read, and, as this thread shows, no one is trying to stop anyone from talking about it. Real censorship tries to wipe out ideas and stop discussion of them. This article had pictures of the book attached, author mentioned, etcâŚall DRAWING ATTENTION to the idea, expressing dislike and inviting discussion. No censorship here.
Removing a book from a shelf is very different from removing an idea from view. The book is still out there, and in fact, the author of the original article drew a lot of attention to the book. The bookstore is simply not endorsing the bookâs ideas anymore. No ideas have been suppressed. The OP has actually expanded the discussion of and exposure to the idea contained within. Hope that helps you sleep a little easier tonight!
An important point, I think, in this âchildren vs adultsâ products is the expectations that exist about the content in a adult-targeted section of a bookstore, and what is contained in a childrenâs section. There is no expectation that books in the childrenâs section of a bookstore are there without their ideas being endorsed by the establishment (though there are limits even to thisâŚ) so a book that is placed on the shelf BECAUSE the ideas are controversial might happen, and because the shoppers are assumed to have a level of maturity, the books can be sold somewhat âas-is.â In a childrenâs section, the relationship between the bookstore buyer and books is much more one of endorsement. Whether this is the most sophisticated way to expose children to literature or not, this is the unspoken arrangement and marketing culture of childrenâs literature. Change that wholesale, where somee books found in the childrenâs section can be assumed to be âcontroversialâ and approached with a critical eye, and you might have an argument.
No, probably not. If you donât see the significance, then I doubt my ability to show it to you. No huge deal. I just think it sets an unfortunate precedent: the implication is that if you think a book shouldnât be read by others, then you have the power to prevent them from doing so, which I think is a dangerous idea to encourage in any mind, particularly a kidâs.
Sure it is, but theyâre not unrelated. Attempts were made in my school district when I was in high school to remove The Color Purple and Huckleberry Finn from the school library shelves. Those in support of the booksâ removal used your very same argument: they werenât out to burn the books or remove them utterly from the culture. They just thought they were âinappropriateâ for a high school library, They said that kids who really wanted them could obtain them through other means, whether public library, purchase from whatever kind of smutty bookstore that would dare market such filth to impressionable youth, or even filching them from the top shelf of wicked Uncle Ernieâs home bookshelf.
If you think that that attempt to remove those books was perfectly A-OK, that people should have some sort of say over what other people should have relatively unfettered access to, then of course you wonât be troubled by what happened in this bookstore. Just so long as youâre comfortable with the company you keep.
But the point Iâve brought up several times is that this isnât really about
the books content - this is a gripe about marketing.
Itâs not a simple case of âI donât agree with this text and so no one else
should read itâ, itâs a case of âthis set of books is inappropriately
marketed, I think it reflects badly on your retail establishment to stock
itâ.
Keeping in mind that your worry could also be applied to tshirts.
Actually, I think the differences are pretty clear between a library for high school students, and a bookstore with material marketed to younger kids. A lot of your arguments have relied on the idea that subtleties in context arenât as important as some fundamental, distilled ideas. I think, though, that some of the context youâre distilling out are essential and fundamental, rather than incidental to the cases. A high school is a place of learning, where texts should be engaged, discussed and questioned, and high school students are more mature, with more advanced powers of complex thinking. A bookstore section for young children is a different context. Not to argue that censorship should be unfettered in the latter, but as Iâve argued, I donât see this as censorship in the first place. However, youâre argument that the one is ârelatedâ to the other, I would counter that their differences are important and apparent than their similarities to allow for a âreasonableâ judgement to apply, rather than an absolute.
I think youâre splitting hairs. The books individually are fairly sexist: âBOYS ONLYâ and âGIRLS ONLY.â Taken as a pair, the sexism is even worse, since they display a mindset that believes ONLY BOYS want to have dangerous outdoor activities and ONLY GIRLS need help navigating the social spheres, and itâs only by comparing the two against each other that we see just how awful this pigeonholing is.
There wouldnât be a way to market these books in an inoffensive fashion without completely restructuring them as one big non-gender-specific text. And it would probably take heavy rewriting as well. Best to just start over from scratch.
