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Should Ruth Padel have quit Oxford poetry chair?
Ruth Padel, the first woman ever to be elected Oxford University’s Professor of Poetry, has stepped down after admitting she tipped off journalists about allegations that her main rival for the job, Derek Walcott, had sexually harassed students.
Walcott, a West Indian-born poet, withdrew after the allegations made by a student he taught at Harvard University more than 25 years ago were made public. In a statement issued earlier this month he described it as a “low and degrading attempt at character assassination.”
Padel says in her resignation statement: “I naively — and with hindsight unwisely — passed on to two journalists, whom I believed to be covering the whole election responsibly, information that was already in the public domain.”
Padel, Charles Darwin’s great-great-granddaughter, quit after just a week in the 300-year-old post.
When Walcott bowed out of the race, newspaper commentators were quick to note the irony of hounding a distinguished literary figure on the basis of long-ago sexual transgressions when many of Britain’s greatest poets were social or political reprobates by the standards of modern-day Britain.
But in The Guardian on Tuesday, several female writers backed Padel, saying she would never have had to step down if she’d been a man.
Novelist Jeanette Winterson said: “It’s a pity she has been backed into a corner. What she has done is so much more trivial than her contribution to poetry. This feels malicious and nasty. We ought to be able to look beyond the woman to the poetry. This is a way of reducing women; it wouldn’t have happened to a man. But then Oxford is a sexist little dump.”
The poet Jackie Kay said: “This was the first time that we had a woman as Oxford Professor of poetry – and she has had to resign over two emails. The old boys have closed in on her. It would not have happened to a man, and I am very sad.”
What do you think? Was this resignation poetic justice or was she pushed out? Should she have quit?
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i forgot to say -lets not forget these are allegations !!but it is easy to smear a man this way
For “It would not have happened to a man …..”, read:”She’s a woman so should have been allowed to get away with it”.A familiar story in the twisted values of NuLab Britain.
Peter is so right, although NuLab is just a peg on which this loathsome group of liberal fascists, with its ineradicable sense of entitlement, has recently hung its hat. NuLab may get kicked out but places like universities will still be stuffed with these people, purveying their poison at our expense. Getting rid of Padel is a tiny ray of sunshine in the gloom caused by our trashy ‘new establishment’.
She had to go. The same would have been demanded of any man in the same situation. Amazing how little criticism the newspapers have contained of her bizarre and awful behaviour. I suppose she knows all the correspondents and they know her, and they are reluctant to criticise. Imagine if an MP, preferably conservative, had indulged in the same dirty tricks. It also shows lack of character that she has not apologised.
Hang on a minute she sent out two email pointing out something that had happened 25 years ago regarding one of the other candidate and that’s ok? Even though no one picked up on it? Sounds all very desperate to me!
Jeanette Winterson’s comments about Oxford say more about her than they do about the University. She was educated at Oxford so where was the sexism when she was admitted. Presumably she gained her place by virtue of her ability. How sexist of them to admit someone solely based on their ability!!! Sexism works both ways, Miss Winterson and I have no doubt that if the gender roles in this controversy were reversed you would be cheering that the successful male candidate had been forced to withdraw. I suggest that Miss Winterson grows up, gets the anti-male chip off her shoulder and does something about the bitterness which is turning her into such a sour human being.
This is most unedifying – on par with the scurrility of an average JCR election … You’d expect something better from those applying to professorships.
I am glad that ‘poetic justice’ has prevailed. So many times in life people, men or women, get away with this kind of destructive behaviour. She has lost the thing that was most precious to her and that is the result of a natural law. It is a very public message to everyone who has done this and got away with it or who might think of ruining another persons career in this way. Her destructive plan back fired on her and in her press interview she is clearly humiliated and exposed. I will not forget her face or her actions for a long time.