Free speech is the right to shout "Theater!" in a crowded fire.
— Abbie Hoffman
After millenniums of suffering second-class citizenship, Western women can take heart in the fact they're at last on equal footing with men.
You'd think they'd kick back and relax, at least a bit.
But, no.
A lot of Western women are still incensed and, as a result, unable to tolerate a man's literary opinion when it differs from their own.
I ran headlong into that anger yesterday when I (naively) commented on an article posted by the feminist historian Max Dashu on her popular Facebook page, "Suppressed Histories Archives."The article, by a playwright named Sands Hall, described how Wallace Stegner plagiarized the diary of a Victorian woman, Mary Foote, when he wrote his Pulitzer-prize winning novel Angle of Repose.
Hall's contention was that Stegner stole more than a diary; he stole the diarist's life.
The unanimous tone of the steamy comments by Dashu's fans rankled me.
I am, after all, partial to Wallace Stegner and to all novelists' right to fictionalize.
Those comments called Stegner "morally bankrupt" and "corrupt," a "colonizer," "thief" and "oppressor" who enjoyed "destroying a woman's character and reputation."
He was also compared to a rapist.
For good measure, Dashu's fans indicted other loathsome males for plagiarizing women's writings, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Carl Jung, Marcel Duchamp, Albert Einstein and Homer.
Yes, Homer.
"I wish Stegner were still alive to be shamed, sued, and stoned," one fan wrote.
Stegner should go to the "chopping block," said another.
"A curse on the name of Wallace Stegner," added another.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
"Who do we cancel next?" I commented.
Big mistake.
For my five-word comment, I was told I was "petty," "cheeky," "hysterical," "reactionary" and "misogynistic." And I was assaulted for my age—even though Max Dashu is three years older than me.
But wait, there's more. Adding nuance, I commented further:
"Thanks for posting this article. I was not aware before of the accusations against Stegner. There is a good podcast featuring Sands Hall at the link below. She amplifies the article and related play she wrote. Calling for Stegner's posthumous stoning and the retraction of his Pulitzer is a clear-cut form of 'cancellation,' whether the word bothers you or not. Many of the comments sound like those of a frenzied mob clutching to its grievances. Sands Hall calls Stegner's ripoff of Mary Foote's journal an instance of early 'postmodernism.' But the mob wants to exhume his body, like Cromwell's, and desecrate it."
Max Dashu replied, "So according to you, no one should be outraged at him stealing a woman's work and then stomping on her reputation? He in fact canceled her!"
"In the US," I responded to Dashu, "we’re sensitive to mobs after the Salem Witch Trials."
"What 'mob?" Dashu wrote. "A woman tracked down the story of a man who massively appropriated a woman's work while smearing her life story, and you whine about 'cancellation.' He hasn't been canceled. Someone shone a light on his misdeeds."
And at that scolding, Dashu's fans started to pile on.
"Shut up misogynist," one wrote.
"Calm down, Nancy boy," said another.
"Robert is mad that women are pushing back," said another.
"I’m sensitive to slandering a woman since the witch trials," said another. "And I’m a witch, so don’t even fucking go there."
"It’s pathetic that you’re so testerical and worked up over this dead guy who stole women’s work," another said. "He STOLE her work and passed it off as his own. Typical male entitlement and privilege on your part to think you get to define everything around you. SHUT THE FUCK UP."Based on my encounter with Max Dashu and her fans, I could write a play about an fiery mob rushing to judgement.
But it's been done before.
