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Explanation of the removal of a guest article

(Andy’s note: I removed a guest post from the site this morning, and didn’t have the opportunity to offer an explanation for this, until now.)

The author of a guest post contacted me to express concern about some of the discourse around their article online (much of which they consider to be an unfair misrepresentation of their ideas), and felt that they no longer wanted their name to be tied to the piece, not because they no longer believed what they had written, but for fear that their name being tied to said content, and by necessity the discourse surrounding it, might have an impact on their future opportunities.

It was suggested by the author that the article might be edited so that they were anonymised, or that a pen name might be used, but I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of posting anonymised work.

As such, the closest thing to a satisfactory resolution to this issue was the removal of the article. However, this course of action is not without it’s problems. The author has contacted me since to express concern about responses to their piece which do not, in their view, accurately represent the content or intent of the original article, and defending against said criticisms without being able to refer critics back to the original work is obviously problematic.

As the owner of this blog/webzine I can tell you that the article in question, taken in and of itself, was not, to my mind, an attack on feminism, or on feminist discourse, but rather was a critique of certain assumptions about the history and nature of punk (in this case, as a broadly progressive/egalitarian movement), and moral obligations derived thereof, that the author felt were present in some of the other guest articles in this series, including a piece by myself.

The author has asked me to provide a link to a copy of the article posted elsewhere, with their name removed, but I can’t see a practical difference between my posting anonymous work here, or linking to it elsewhere, and as such, I have declined.

In closing, while I cannot take responsibility for any of the discourse around the article posted by others, as the curator of this series, I feel a certain duty of care to contributors, and I sincerely hope that this clarification of the reasoning behind the article’s removal, as well as the clarification of it’s content, will go some way to addressing the concerns of the author.

Andy