Cancel culture: I was uninvited from speaking at a feminist rally
I got canceled last Saturday. I was on my way to give an invited speech at a feminist rally on sexual assault prevention in Sydney’s Hyde Park. However, I was left uninvited before I had a chance to speak.
Clearly, my “values” are “not aligned” with the organization’s values, I learned via text. As a feminist activist, researcher, and educator for forty years, I was a little surprised to learn this. I’m left guessing why I was deplatformed.
I sat on the Australian Rape and Domestic Violence Services Board for many years, and I recognize that there are differing views on how we prevent sexual assault, how we educate people about it, and how we lobby for change.
So what was I going to say at the rally? Here is a short excerpt from my speech that is incompatible with values.
When I was a TV reporter in the early ’90s, I arrived at work one morning to find that a young woman had been raped and murdered on her way home from a nightclub the night before. His body was found dumped on the roadside. Abandoned. Like a bag of garbage.
Police placed a mannequin dressed in the clothes he was wearing at the train station to gain additional information about his movements on the night of his murder. It was meant to jog people’s memories in case they had seen the killer.
A producer told me he wanted me to do a story about women. Quite a unique perspective? What was he wearing? “Get a life,” I told him. He quickly placed a different reporter on the same story.
Diversity has always been a strength in the feminist community. We can agree to disagree while working toward the same collective goal.
Of course, there have always been hard-liners within the women’s movement. Some on the radical feminist left advocate separatism. I? I love having male allies on our team. But I don’t want radical feminists to be canceled. I want to discuss them and listen to their opinions with real respect and curiosity.
This brings me back to the current obsession with “cancelling” people instead of listening to them. Anyone who reads a newspaper knows that academic Randa Abdel Fattah was not invited to this year’s Adelaide Writers’ Week. This caused the entire festival to collapse, leaving many South Australian wineries without a few thirsty customers.
My opinion? I disagree with most of what Abdülfettah said. I specifically object to it. reported claim “There should be no cultural safe spaces for Zionists.” I am a Zionist. I believe in Israel’s right to exist. I also believe in the right of the Palestinian people to be free from oppression. I pray for a peaceful two-state solution in a region where Arabs and Jews have lived together for millennia.
The current wars in the Middle East will not be solved by simple, binary thinking. This is what brought us here in the first place. However, I would be happy to discuss this issue with Abdülfettah. It deserves to be respectfully questioned.
I have a strong hunch that I was canceled at the last minute because two years ago I wrote a column for this imprint in which I advocated for better dialogue at my university about the Israel/Hamas war. I advocated less chanting and more discussion of slogans such as “You are on the wrong side of history.”
I expressed my concern about open antisemitism. By this I do not mean to oppose the actions of the state of Israel in Gaza or the West Bank. I mean real examples where Jewish staff and students felt intimidated and psychologically and physically unsafe.
The response I received to that column shocked even me. And I’m pretty impact resistant these days. I lost my friendships. I received more hate mail than ever before. And in response to that, I just finished writing a book about why we need to talk more and shout less. This is titled Cancel This: How Social Media Is Polarizing Us.
The political left has become obsessed with identity politics. The Israel-Hamas war is just one example. Progressive politics is stronger when we remain pragmatic, celebrate our differences, and avoid elevating extraneous issues in favor of a common cause.
Catharine Lumby is professor of media at the University of Sydney.
Catharine Lumby is professor of media at the University of Sydney. His latest book is Frank Moorhouse: A Life.
