The Nervous Purvis

…and I’ll stop with the poet gossip. Well, barring Armitage slapping Duffy with a leather glove in front of Foyle’s, of course.

Jezebel has a post on the Padel-Walcott showdown that I think summarises and articulates pretty well what’s been bothering me about the whole thing. A couple sentences that hit the mark:

But it’s also disappointing that any discussion of Walcott’s history of sexual harassment — and he has admitted to propositioning one student — is now tainted by Padel’s appearance of self-interest. Padel’s involvement has sunk the issue into the realm of identity politics, leading Yasmin Alibhai-Brown of The Independent to compare the conflict between the two poets to “the fierce contest between race and gender represented by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.”

Amusingly, I’d almost made the Obama/Clinton parallel in my last post, but thought it was too much of a stretch. But that sense of disappointment–that questions of importance are now hopelessly mired in what nearly everyone at this point is referring to as “playground scandal”–that bit is dead on.

As far as the questions of whether Padel would have gotten the same treatment if she were a male poet…I’m honestly not sure. Possibly, probably…I will say one thing, though; I’ve read a lot of commentary from people, some I know and some I don’t, where I would say the glee they’re taking in either Padel’s resignation or the suggestions of sexism are veering pretty sharply into misogyny. Perhaps I’m over-sensitive, and the guys making endless jokes about how sexist they are, of course they are, silly Padel, ohohoho, are actually doing so with a finely honed sense of irony. But then again, I wouldn’t really know; those particular conversations are ones I, and from appearances most other women, don’t feel comfortable joining–and if these commenters were actually so ironic, you would think they would have noticed it.

Oh, well. Endless news fodder for a position that pays six thousand pounds a year. I’ll yield the final thought, on this and on most academy matters, to a Jezebel commenter: “In academia the politics are so bad because the stakes are so low.”

…said molossus being “Oh shit son.”

Ruth Padel has resigned her poetry professorship at Oxford.

I am very torn about this. Reactions, in no particular order of importance:

This is largely, although not exclusively, a matter of taste, but between the contenders I didn’t think Padel was the strongest poet for the job. Walcott is undoubtedly the bigger name (well, perhaps now they’re on even standing), but I also think he’s the better poet.

However. I think if–and this is all very hypothetical, because I don’t know enough about the back story to draw my own final opinion, much less dictate one to the internet–if the allegations about Walcott’s behaviour are true, then he shouldn’t have gotten the post. It’s a teaching position, for god’s sake; how a professor behaves towards a proportion of his or her students–be that because of race, gender, sexual orientation, level of attractiveness, whatever–is obviously a major issue. And, having been in environments where it was common knowledge that certain professors viewed university policy on professor-student relationships as more of a recommendation than a rule, I can say pretty confidently it’s poisonous, and inescapable, for all students, not just the ones directly involved.

But aside from that potential minefield, I very much dislike how Padel handled her own knowledge of the allegations. Perhaps I’m wrong about this–wouldn’t be the first time reading things on the internet has led me astray–but my impression from what I’ve read so far is that Padel quietly emailed a couple of journalists with the news, and that was about it. (As fantastically cloak-and-dagger as the anonymous mailings are, I’m going to ignore them here.) That, to me, seems entirely the wrong tack. I think questions about a professorial candidate’s past behaviour with students isn’t something that should be muttered about, and it shouldn’t be something people should distance themselves from as if it was a spurious line of inquiry; it’s fucking central. Hold a press conference on the goddamn thing–and that goes for Walcott as much as it does for Padel.

I guess I’m just disturbed because the reticence to openly talk about it seems very…retro, and I mean that in a bad way. It seems like the educational equivalent of the twin beds in a married couple’s bedroom on “The Dick Van Dyke Show”; it’s an issue that everyone knows is there, and yet the main players seem to think talking about it is somehow beneath them, or damaging to even bring up. So instead everyone is getting letters through the mail, and another round of elections. It’s amusing for the part of me that enjoys a good round of Spy versus Spy, but for the rest of me, the part that wants the best professor for the job even if that means talking about issues that will give the kids at the back of the bus a good giggle…well, it’s disappointing.