Comments

1
Your silence was fine. Champion may well be as middling millenial as he claims Gould is; in any case, pretending anyone but other authors give a shit about the opinion of literary bloggers is giving Champion et al too much credit.
2
Emily Gould? A very good writer? Really?

Nobody can defend a world class shit pile like Champion - but choosing a controversial PR hound like Gould as your martyr pretty much poisons the well. There probably a lot better examples of women in publishing and women authors you could've chose. Proabably better examples of mistreatment than this particular bush league twitter battle, too.

But Gould? A very good writer? C'mon. She's a god damned insufferable overhyped narcissist second only to Lena Dunham. Who, like Dunham, has gotten way more attention and money than her work merits.

Lordy. If I have to choose sides between lunatic Champion and Gould then I get to choose the side where they both get shot into space and we never hear from either again.
3
@1 True. Authors don't care about Champion. He's an ass.

But unfortunately he has connections in the New York Publishing world - and they DO listen (god knows why) - and that does matter.
4
Well written, Paul. Thanks.
5
Wasn't Gould an editor at Gawker when they were getting slammed by libel suits left and right?
6
TL;DR

Less wordy and we might note tech startups do this too
7
Thank you, Paul Constant, for another well written article.

Unfortunately, I can't think of any industry that HASN'T shamefully mistreated women, and that indeed, has to stop.
8
@2 I just wanted to say your comment might be the most perfect thing I have ever read in my entire life.
9
Writing a slanted piece that doesn't acknowledge Emily Gould's shortcoming undercuts your intended purpose, and comes off as either fear of her or pandering.

NY Magazine didn't mention 'very good writer', "In the weeks before the launch of her second book and debut novel, Friendship, Gould also lost her job, was the subject of two controversial profiles, provoked rage in the women of Girls, and inspired a male book blogger to spill 11,000 words ranting against “middling millennials,” the “largely white women” writers who “confuse the act of literary engagement with coquettish pom-pom flogging.”

NYT, "Ms. Gould, who is nothing if not self-aware, seemed to be working a look meant to deflect unwelcome stares. “Attention,” she said in an interview earlier this month, “is not a commodity I’m interested in.” Come again?"
10
@5 Yes. She made shit up. So she got fired. And when she wasn't blathering about herself was essentially the worst kind of shallow paparazzi imaginable.

I haven't read "Friendship" but it sounds like one of those books people WANT to like more than they really like because she has this ostensible position as a new young feminist. So, I'm deeply puzzled why she's lauded here as a "very good writer."

I could be wrong. I just haven't seen it.
11
@All of the above: Way to completely miss the fucking point. Of course you have to derail the conversation to talk about something meaningless, although you'll argue that there's a good reason for it.
12
@2 "Nobody can defend a world class shit pile like Champion - but choosing a controversial PR hound like Gould as your martyr pretty much poisons the well."

No. It doesn't "pretty much poison the well". Bad behavior doesn't justify bad behavior. You don't have to agree that Gould is a very good writer, but there is no claiming that her behavior in any way justifies his.

You might as well justify the shooting of Michael Brown because "he's no angel". There are no angels. So, it's up to us to manage our own behaviors, regardless of those of others.
13
@9 The same applies to you. Fine. Emily Gould is no angel. Happy now?
14
@2 Interesting that you choose a *second* woman to describe as "a god damned insufferable overhyped narcissist [who] has gotten way more attention and money than her work merits", completely unrelated to the original post. (And, per @11, describing the first that way is at best only barely related.)
15
Another great white knight puff piece that turned truly ridiculous by the last paragraph. What's happening? What are we supposed to do? Shame people and come up with the best labels and allegories and write a blog about it?

That's ___ privilege
That's ___ culture
We need to [vaguely actionable item]
____ is a bunch of misogynists

Does this goofass extreme-left spectrum of social justice have any actual ideas for any of the problems it keeps spending all of its time identifying, describing, and whinging about?
16
@12
"but there is no claiming that her behavior in any way justifies his"


Did I say that? No, in fact I said exactly precisely the opposite. Champion is a scum bag.

But Constants point was supposed to be about historical abuse and mistreatment of women. If you want to pick a poster child for that there are far better examples than Gould.

There are no perfect people but Emily Gould is no victim. She has been a resounding success in spite of her lack of experience and talent. Should she suffer abuse like from Champion. No. Nobody should. But that is one incident.

What has this abuse wrought Gould? Gould gets totally fawning press, fawning reviews, and absurd amount of hype and had a 8000 word cover spread in god damned NYT Magazine before she was thirty years old.

Read that again. A COVER in NYT magazine and she had only co-authored one book. A book that hadn't sold shit.

She was payed a good amount of money for that first book and and a ridiculous amount of money for her second. Based on what? Her incessant status chasing and PR. That's what.

All this with almost no publishing other than on a Blog. Do you how many women have labored and published for decades - amazing authors - who have never had that sort of attention and have been subjected to assholes far worse Champion for decades? Hundreds.

So. Yes. Choosing Gould does poison the well because here we are talking about HER rather than the problem.
17
@14 Oh it's no coincidence. @2 is deeply concerned that using these tainted ladies as martyrs for so noble an effort as the one for which @15 is exemplifying the need.

After all, solutions to these problems don't involve highlighting the issues and rallying the troops. They can only entail convincing misogynist douchebags, such as @15, that these problems are real and can be solved with just one virgin sacrifice a day. And maybe some anti-rape nail polish.

Why aren't you doing that, Paul, instead of just whinging?!
18
@16 No. YOU are talking about HER rather than the problem. Which makes YOU, not HER, the problem.
19
@14
@2 Interesting that you choose a *second* woman


That's because Dunham and Gould, part of the same New York glitterarchy, have had public battles and spats accusing each other of being the bigger narcissist. So Dunham immediately leapt to mind. That and Dunham got an obscene $3.7 million advance on her book which has just come out.
20
@18 Really. That's what you took from what I wrote. That.

Jesus. Okay. Well. Good luck with fighting the man.
21
@20 And good luck actually seeing yourself in the mirror.
22
The industry also shits on material considered the jurisdiction of women - erotica for example. Nobody wants to write erotica or be pegged as a writer of erotica. This was not a point of embarrassment for serious writers 100 years ago. I am trying to start up an online erotic art magazine (featuring short fiction pieces that actually get people off) and it is HARD AS HELL to find self-identified prose writers who will even consider submitting. MouthandMouthMagazine.com.
23
The industry also shits on material considered the jurisdiction of women - erotica for example. Nobody wants to write erotica or be pegged as a writer of erotica. This was not a point of embarrassment for serious writers 100 years ago. I am trying to start up an online erotic art magazine (featuring short fiction pieces that actually get people off) and it is HARD AS HELL to find self-identified prose writers who will even consider submitting. MouthandMouthMagazine.com.
24
@21
And good luck actually seeing yourself in the mirror.


I'll need it! You and Gould spend a lot of time in there getting in my way.

I find comments like this particularly amusing coming from somebody who just compared Gould to Michael Brown and can't think of single female author example better than Emily Gould.
25
@24 Yes. We certainly can't have anyone getting in your way, can we?
26
"Male critics are allowed to publish deeply personal assaults on female novelists."



Well that's enough of that, Paul. Now get back to humping (insert white male author's name) leg.
27
No. Sophia Katz doesn't get to call what happened to her rape. When you, of your own free will, go to someone's house WILLINGLY, knowing he's creepy and knowing he has already expressed his interest in having sex with you as a prerequisite for staying at his place, and you do not IMMEDIATELY LEAVE when it goes where you don't want it to, then no, that's not rape. If you leave and he follows you or forces you to stay in his bed/room/house, then yes, that's rape. But she didn't even try to leave. Clearly he's using her, but she was CLEARLY using him -- for a place to stay to start with, but for an essay and publicity to boot. She claims she had nowhere to go, but she somehow got to New York, so she must have had plans to leave -- she could have just left early. Not all unwanted sex is rape. Sometimes it's just unwanted sex but with enough want to not un.
28
Dear Paul Constant;


It's perfectly obvious that your comment and post is so out of touch with the real world that your not even worth laughing at.


The publishing industry is completely dominated by the female gender and if you could get your head out of Playboy or Hustler and start reading the good stuff you would know that.


My publisher is a woman.


My editor is a woman.


What do I write about? Woman.


How do I get my information? Research.


Where does the research work come from? Women.


What do these women do? Their writers, of course.

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