Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[Orang Utan]

Woah, this thread has moved on 10 pages since I looked this afternoon. This had better be good.

 

[bluestreak]

Tbh I believe her about the anorexia stuff and I don't think it's right for us to go there - even if she is making a thing of it herself, that is her right and it's not our business.

Unlike all the shit she has come out with about everything else.

fair play.

 

[tufty79]

randomish aside:

email to new statesman:

Hi Helen,

Please accept my apologies if I am emailing the wrong person about this; it wasn't very clear from New Statesman's website contacts whether there was a general email enquiries address.

I am writing to ask whether the New Statesman has any kind of adult safeguarding policy in place? I read the recent article by Laurie Penny, responding to a suicidal reader, with some concern. Having read her initial reaction (posted on twitter) to receiving the reader's email: "Got an email from a reader saying he plans to kill himself when his disability benefits are cut and can I write about it? No idea what to do",
I am very concerned that her immediate reaction was to ask Twitter what she should do, and presume that this means that there is no guidance in place for if any adult safeguarding concerns are raised with your staff.


As Ms Penny has often interviewed/written about vulnerable people in the past, I am quite surprised that this might be the case. I would have hoped that she would have been made aware of how to respond to someone in a crisis situation - who to raise the issue with at work, how to escalate any concerns - rather than having to resort to trying to get answers from social media.

Additionally, she has personally clarified that the Samaritans were consulted when editing the article. Not when she was contacted by the reader; not when she started to compose her response, but after the piece had been written. I do not feel that this is appropriate, and that they should have been involved far sooner than the editorial stage. I also would like clarification as to whether Ms Penny consulted them (or any other professional mental health organisations; not just disability campaigners' Tweets) before responding personally to the reader.

I hope that you will be able to answer my questions, or direct my email to the relevant department. I look forward to hearing from New Statesman soon.


Thanks and best wishes,

Tufty79

response:

Dear Tufty79,

Thanks for the email. I’ll get a proper response to you as soon as I can. May I ask if you’re writing as a reader, or for publication?

Helen

can anyone please explain why the last part of Helen's sentence would make any difference to the response i'm going to get?

 

[Ronnie Rubashov]

Tbh I believe her about the anorexia stuff and I don't think it's right for us to go there - even if she is making a thing of it herself, that is her right and it's not our business.

Unlike all the shit she has come out with about everything else.

Maybe...but it's hard to believe the treatment consisted in making her put on a dress and make up to reacquaint her with her inner fifties housewife. That's just plain bullshit inserted to support a convoluted rant on applied hyper-counter-poly-victimologised-coerced-identify-larceny-rectificationism.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

randomish aside:

email to new statesman:



response:


can anyone please explain why the last part of Helen's sentence would make any difference to the response i'm going to get?

It wouldn't - but she's asking if you would like the letter published on the letter page to just responded to privately - I would ask for publication myself

 

[Dan U]

i case they want to know how honest to be maybe. i don't think it is unreasonable for them to want to know if you are going to publish the response or not. in the same way you would want to be asked before being quoted on something (not that you necc might be of course!)

eta - just seen @Spanky Longhorns response. I may have got wrong end of the stick?

 

[sihhi]

Tbh I believe her about the anorexia stuff and I don't think it's right for us to go there - even if she is making a thing of it herself, that is her right and it's not our business.

I agree and she has written about it, presumably for readers to discuss, and the forced to have a boyfriend, forced to wear dresses instead of trousers is shocking.

 

[tufty79]

It wouldn't - but she's asking if you would like the letter published on the letter page to just responded to privately - I would ask for publication myself

ah, yep. that makes sense.

i case they want to know how honest to be maybe. i don't think it is unreasonable for them to want to know if you are going to publish the response or not. in the same way you would want to be asked before being quoted on something (not that you necc might be of course!)

as does that.

cheers

i responded that i was asking primarily as a reader...

i do occasionally contribute to a mental health publication.
i also work for a mental health organisation, have mental health issues, and am a mental health service user.
imo being suicidal is a mental health issue, irrespective of the motivations. i know that there are underlying factors behind it, but..
i think i initially emailed with concerns under all of the above umbrellas except for the writing - it didn't occur to me that i might be doing a piece on it /

 

[Balbi]

Right, I know tufty's intentions are good, but i'm inspired to attempt to get a letter in with some subtle PD references.

 

[Plumdaff]

I am actually shocked that a patient was nudged or cornered to pair up with someone - to my mind it seems massively counter-intuitive to suggest anything like that to someone facing anorexia.

My understanding of eating disorder treatment - never worked in it, but know people who have, and know people who've been punters - is that, rather like in addiction treatment, rushing into a relationship would be actively and strongly discouraged. Also, given anorexia is an illness disproportionately suffered by middle and upper class young women in high pressure, high expectation environments she might actually be channelling the pressure she felt internally at the time/was getting from family and peers rather than from staff, as it sounds entirely the opposite to what I would expect them to say. Or she's writing nonsense. Could be that. Think it's more likely to be some good old fashioned transference.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

i case they want to know how honest to be maybe. i don't think it is unreasonable for them to want to know if you are going to publish the response or not. in the same way you would want to be asked before being quoted on something (not that you necc might be of course!)

eta - just seen @Spanky Longhorns response. I may have got wrong end of the stick?

I may have got the wrong end of the stick myself??

If it's as you say I agree.

 

[Dan U]

I may have got the wrong end of the stick myself??

If it's as you say I agree.

pesky stick!

*shakes fist*

 

[tufty79]

one of my friends has just raised the very valid point that surely they could have started their reply by confirming whether or not they do have a policy..

 

[equationgirl]

With reference to LP's anorexia, I want to make it clear that I have absolutely no doubt that she suffered from this condition. I have the utmost sympathy for her and her recovery from it. It was her writing in the quote that sihhi posted that jarred with several other articles she has written on her hospitalisation.

Having read the article in full (here, it's an essay in The New Enquiry: http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/model-behavior/), it is clear that she does not seek to present this passage as treatment for anorexia, in the full context of the essay:

When I was a teenager, for various reasons unimportant to this essay I spent time in an eating-disorders ward. I turned up looking like a 12-year-old boy, with a shaved head, wearing ties, and the draggest drag I could manage with a waist too small for the children’s section, and the first assumption of nearly everyone on the ward was that I must be gay, and that my gayness was clearly the root of all my problems. There was only one thing for it: I would have to be taught to accept my womanhood. And that meant dressing up straight, acting straight, being a proper girl, getting rid of everything about me that was queer and contentious and questioning. If I did this, I would be allowed to go home.

The markers of psychological health among young women at that time were long hair, pretty dresses, shopping, and makeup. The middle-aged, ponderously paunched male psychiatrists who ran the ward were absolutely in agreement on this point. The latest right-on theories about eating disorders posit the diseases as a method that young women use to escape the stresses of modern femininity. Anorexia nervosa, the logic goes, suspends the traumatic process of becoming a woman, because when you stop eating, when you cut down from 600 to 400 to 200 calories per day, your periods stop, your tits and hips and wobbly bits disappear, and you return to an artificial prepubescent state, complete with mood swings, weird musical obsessions, and, the overpowering impulse to shoplift scrunchies from Woolworth’s. The reason young women and increasing numbers of young men behave like this, the logic goes, is because they’re scared and angry about the gender roles that they are being forced into. The notion that they might have damn good reasons for being scared and angry has not yet occurred to the psychiatric profession.

I needed to get out of that place, and if you wanted to go out the front door and not in a box, you had to play by their rules. You had to smile and eat your meals. You had to be a good girl. That meant no more trousers, no more going out with short hair and no makeup, a boyfriend as soon as possible, and learning to style your hair and do your eye-liner. It meant buying different dresses for different occasions, fitting yourself out to have men look at you with lust, learning manners, learning to dip your head and say “Please” and “Thank you” and “Gosh, I don’t know what to think about the war” and “No, one piece of chocolate cake will be more than enough for me.”

@sihhi : I think you quoted out the passage out of context. The complete essay makes it clear she is talking about gender constructs and gender/sexual identity politics, and the perspectives of others on how the root cause of her anorexia was assumed.

I don't necessarily agree with everything LP writes about gender/sexual identity politics & anorexia but she raised some interesting points at least - is anorexia a capitalist disease, for example?

 

[sihhi]

Having read the article in full (here, it's an essay in The New Enquiry: http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/model-behavior/), it is clear that she does not seek to present this passage as treatment for anorexia, in the full context of the essay:

@sihhi : I think you quoted out the passage out of context. The complete essay makes it clear she is talking about gender constructs and gender/sexual identity politics, and the perspectives of others on how the root cause of her anorexia was assumed.

I'm sorry, how is that clear at all?

As I read it, psychiatrists in the early 2000s (when she was a teenager) imposed a course of feminine behaviour and clothing for a teenager against her will in some kind of in-patient facility.

There was only one thing for it: I would have to be taught to accept my womanhood. And that meant dressing up straight, acting straight, being a proper girl, getting rid of everything about me that was queer and contentious and questioning. If I did this, I would be allowed to go home.

The markers of psychological health among young women at that time were long hair, pretty dresses, shopping, and makeup. The middle-aged, ponderously paunched male psychiatrists who ran the ward were absolutely in agreement on this point.

 

[sihhi]

This sentence is still confusing. I understand it as saying her anorexia wouldn't be treated unless she submitted to those commands for 'feminine' behaviour/clothing:

"I needed to get out of that place, and if you wanted to go out the front door and not in a box, you had to play by their rules."

 

[Ronnie Rubashov]

This sentence is still confusing. I understand it as saying her anorexia wouldn't be treated unless she submitted to those commands for 'feminine' behaviour/clothing:

"I needed to get out of that place, and if you wanted to go out the front door and not in a box, you had to play by their rules."

Well, it's more than not getting treatment...."and not in a box".....fem up, or you'll only get out in a box.

 

[Blagsta]

This sentence is still confusing. I understand it as saying her anorexia wouldn't be treated unless she submitted to those commands for 'feminine' behaviour/clothing:

"I needed to get out of that place, and if you wanted to go out the front door and not in a box, you had to play by their rules."

If you're on a section, this is pretty much how it is. You do what the consultant says if you want to be discharged.

 

[stethoscope]

Yeah, I'm not going to comment at all on her account/experiences, all I can add is that working with consultant psychiatrists as I do and have done (though within gender/sexual health) I can believe it and as Blagsta says, if your sectioned, its very much do what the consultant says to get the treatment/help you need and get discharged - its better than it was but thats still very much the raw deal.

 

[Firky]

This sentence is still confusing. I understand it as saying her anorexia wouldn't be treated unless she submitted to those commands for 'feminine' behaviour/clothing:

"I needed to get out of that place, and if you wanted to go out the front door and not in a box, you had to play by their rules."

She's talking about within a mental health context.

 

[sihhi]

These are different things.

You do what the consultant says if you want to be discharged.

its very much do what the consultant says to get the treatment/help you need, or get discharged

 

[TruXta]

oh god, polyamorous too. fucking hell, it's like pseud-bingo. i was polyamorous for a while. i didn;t know i was. i was just putting it about. imagine the shock i had when someone pointed it out. identity nonsense. polyamorous just means you can't keep it in your pants and you want a word that gives you an identity for it, so that when your boy or girlfriend gets upset you can point out that you're polyamorous and they're oppressing you for it.

Actually, this is a bit of a bull shite. While I have no doubts people claim to be polyamorous to justify sleeping around, I do happen to know people for whom polyamory is a functional, stable relationship pattern. I get that you probably have seen the term abused one too many times, but no need to try and undermine the whole thing. It works fine for some, probably no worse than regular monogamy.

 

[Ronnie Rubashov]

If you're on a section, this is pretty much how it is. You do what the consultant says if you want to be discharged.

But, 10 years ago, were consultants really saying sufferers had to smile and act girlie to show compliance and get their passports stamped?

 

[stethoscope]

I'm typing on a phone @sihhi, ive corrected to what I meant in regards you when you're sectioned. Still amounts to the same thing though, the consultant pulls the strings.

 

[equationgirl]

They were assuming that the root cause of her anorexia was a failure to accept her gay/bi/queer/whatever-label-you-like sexual identity, and that by embracing a more feminine lifestyle (dress, make-up, hair) and (more disturbingly) demure/submissive 1950s housewife mannerisms, she would be 'cured'. I felt it wasn't strictly accurate for that passage to be presented as you did - that the treatment for her was being LP forced into being traditionally ultra-feminine.

That alone would not deal with the anorexia, especially if the assumption about the root cause was wrong.

 

[sihhi]

She's talking about within a mental health context.

Is the context 'treat and discharge as quickly as possible (there's lots of people who need the beds)' or is it 'my professionalism means i will do it my way however long it takes' (given that wearing trousers isn't linked to anorexia as Laurie Penny points out)?

 

[Blagsta]

These are different things.

Are they? The consultant will be certain that they are correct in the treatment/help needed. The patient might not agree. The consultant usually wins that one.

 

[Orang Utan]

Isn't it rather distasteful to speculate on a stranger's health problems?

 

[TruXta]

If you're on a section, this is pretty much how it is. You do what the consultant says if you want to be discharged.

Off-topic: I can't say how angry that made me, and still makes me. It makes a mockery of the entire purpose of a psychiatric hospital IMO.

 

[tufty79]

.