Week 7 Prompt Response (Book Controversies)
Alexia Underwood’s 2018 article, The #MeToo movement hit the literary world hard this week . It’s not the first time made the point that public discourse after accusations of sexual harassment come to light, “tends to revolve around the accused and what’s at stake for them”; a tendency that continues to center men as the protagonists in every story (25th para.). The debate that stems from the reveal of powerful men with a past of abusive, misogynistic, homophobic, and/or racist actions is too often dominated by the question: will we continue to read him, publish him, hear him on the radio, screen his films? When the more meaningful questions are, how are men like Junot Diaz or Sherman Alexie or James Dasher or Jay Asher still being lifted into positions of influence and power? How are these men able to succeed while consistently threatening, silencing, and belittling numerous individuals because of their gender? Why are they allowed to keep those positions of power (the P...