The J.K. Rowling Controversy, and What We Can Learn From It

 

Yesterday, my friend and I had a heated discussion about the J.K. Rowling transgender controversy. I must admit that at the time, I did not fully know of the controversy. I am not a big Harry Potter fan, and J.K. Rowling’s tweets are not on my feed. So, I had to look up a recap of what happened in order to take a clear stand on the matter. Obviously, as a nobody, my stand on this particular issues is of no consequence. However, I would still like to take this use this as an opportunity to intellectually explore concepts of progressivism, social media activism, and political correctness. Disagreements are welcome, but not disrespectfully.

To start with, J.K. Rowling posted an opinion piece by Marni Sommer, Virginia Kamowa, Therese Mahon (all three women, by the way) titled, “Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate.” The article further goes on to address the challenges faced by people living in overcrowding and poverty in the Covid era, whose needs are not being met due to circumstances. The article clearly specifies what it means be “people who menstruate”—girls, women, and non-binary (specifically trans-women). It is a harmless enough article written so people won’t forget that menstruation makes life harder sometimes but that can be easily overlooked because of how common that difficulty it is; situations like Covid further exacerbate these difficulties, so perhaps now is not the time to overlook them as a “part of life.”

In response to this article, J.K. Rowling wrote: “People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” Later on, after she was accused of ‘transphobia,’ Rowling backtracked by saying she did not want the specific challenges of women to be forgotten in the face of having to include non-binary folks. The controversy that continued is not of my interest, because it took on a life of itself beyond what Rowling initially did. For today, I will only focus on Rowling’s initial tweet. There are two issues with her response:

1.     It is clear Rowling did not actually read the article because of how fixated she is only on the title.

2.     It is again clear that she did not actually read the article because the writers have clearly mentioned who they mean by “people who menstruate.” Rowling’s sarcastic reminder of a word for such people is simply ignorant, not to mention insulting.

If I had written the article (and I say this as a social scientist), I would be particularly offended for the following reasons:

1.     The article is written by people who are clearly feminists, and who do more than just tweet about issues. And yet, J.K. Rowling assumes that she has a right to educate them on ‘feminism.’ I must also mention that these are WOMEN of COLOR, a section of society that Rowling claims to be very supportive of, and yet she did not think twice before invalidating their whole article with a sarcastic tweet. Here, the sarcasm is relevant, even though some may claim it is not. If Rowling had engaged with the article in a respectful way by questioning in plain language why we are so afraid to say “women” these days, there would be a case to be made. However, she insulted the authors with a joke about how they don’t even know the word “women,” and adopted the same tone that progressives use to debunk the ideas of Trump supporters. (I mean, if this is not progressives eating their own group, I don’t know what is.)

2.     There is a clear power differential in this situation. The well-intentioned article is written by women who clearly have less power, influence, and money than Rowling does. Rowling is also probably a better writer (I’ve been published; writers are nothing if not great manipulators of words, and I say that about myself, too). Rowling’s tweet was, I assume, read by millions more people than the article was. In case of a situation like this, there is very little the authors can do in response. Sure, they can defend themselves on social media, but Rowling’s defenses will still be read by many more people, not to mention vehemently supported by her ‘fans.’ In case you don’t know, social scientist and journalists, who touch upon social issues much before celebrities do, don’t have fans to defend us. Do we have to live in fear that celebrities with a) no background in journalism or social sciences, and b) much more social power than us, can always invalidate our written work with their less-than-120-character-tweets. I respect Rowling and her talent, but she needs to respect other experts in their fields and not use her fame against them, especially by typing out belittling sarcastic tones.

I also feel that the whole controversy was not about feminism versus trans-rights at all. I think it was about a rich, famous, influential woman inappropriately responding to an article written by learned individuals who, in all probability, knew what they were talking about. The article will, now, forever be mostly remembered mostly in relation to the Rowling controversy. Its real content—about making menstrual care available to the less fortunate—has been completely lost in controversy it in no shape or form called upon itself (as Rowling would have known had she even bothered to read the article; I mean it’s not just women who get periods but also ‘girls’).

Also, Rowling supporters have called out the social media social-justice warriors who came after her for invalidating all the good Rowling has done for progressive causes due to a single tweet. Here is my response to that—did Rowling does not invalidate all the good three women have done for progressive causes with a single tweet? Did those women deserve it more simply because they did not have the talent to write Harry Potter? I am guessing the answer is ‘no.’ For this, I go back to my personal motto, that in life it is very difficult to be "right," but must still strive to be "fair." I don't know who was right, Rowling or those who created the backlash, but I do think Rowling was a little unfair in her engagement with the authors and her subsequent reaction to the criticisms directed towards her, and to me, that is something even if the whole episode will be forgotten the minute the next controversy comes along. 

Another point my friend made was that such backlash scares celebrities away from their fans. They are not able to engage with the public as freely as they did before.  First of all, celebrities these days already get way too much of a platform to interact with their fans. I mean, they could literally be sitting on their kitchen counter eating breakfast and be interacting with millions of people, not to mention the media. Secondly, as a social scientist in training, I desperately want to introduce more people to the causes I care about and to my ongoing research work. It is my dream to be able to educate people further and to expose them to my "opinions" which, at least in my specific field, could be a lot more constructive than the opinions of an average person who does not as much about the field as I do. I am sure the authors of the article in question had similar motivations. Do you not think that people like me are not scared that we will write and publish something, and some celebrity will just start a controversy around it? Is that fear of people like me less valid, especially since a) we get such few opportunities to interact with the public anyway, and b) we don't have the resources to face up to a controversy (I mean, my response letter will hardly be published by the Guardian and New York Times even if get two PhDs and serve as a dedicated public servant for two decades)?

Finally, I would like to touch upon celebrity involvement in social issues. I agree that celebrities have the right to an opinion in the same way everybody else does. It is also our tendency to fully rally behind celebrities who rally for our causes, and express disappointment in celebrities that we think should but don’t. However, the issue is that even though celebrities have more wealth and power than us, they are not always necessarily more qualified to speak on a subject than an average individual. Therefore, we must respect it when celebrities choose not to speak up on something, we want them to speak on: that may not be a symptom of apathy but an acknowledgment of having the little qualification to speak on a matter. Rowling (or any female celebrity) is not necessarily an expert on all women’s issues. Shah Rukh Khan is not necessarily an expert on all Muslim issues. Kaitlyn Jenner is not necessarily an expert on all trans-issues. Think about it this way—we all have so many facets to ourselves, and how many of those facets are we fully capable of educating other people on? Forcing celebrities to “speak up” when they don’t want to can create more problems than override the benefits of using their platform, and if we want to be smart about the causes we want to progress, we must let certain things go.