“That has to come out”. “Why?”. “It might offend women in the audience”. “But this example is totally in context with what I am saying”. And so it went on. This was my first bruising encounter with cancel culture. Living in Japan this third time since 1992, I have been outside the cancel culture debates sweeping America. Until now. The speech I was going to give would be videoed and go global, including to America. Perplexed, confused, insulted – these were the emotions I was confronting upon hearing I had to make that specific change to my speech. It got me wondering about our ability as presenters to present our thoughts in public. What does this mean for the future of public speaking?
Living in Japan, I had vaguely heard of cancel culture. I understood it to be mainly centered on Universities where students were confronting their Professor’s ideas and comments they disagreed with. I had read in the media about youthful tweets and social media postings coming back to haunt the authors many years later. I cannot say I ever expected to be cancelled.
The offending item was an image objectifying women in Japan. A photo of a maid café young lady done up in a frilly miniskirt in fact. At her request, I took my anime besotted teenage daughter to visit a maid café in Akihabara when she was visiting from Australia a number of years ago. The image in the photo corresponded with the outfits I saw being worn by the staff, so the image in question was congruent with the maid café experience. That is to say it reflected a reality, a truth, we can see any day of the week in Akihabara. Apparently, such a confronting picture would be too much for women located outside Japan and in particular those living in the USA.
The speech topic was on Diversity and Inclusion in Japan. The main issue here is gender inequality, although sexual orientation has become more prominent lately. The context of this speech was that the comment by ex- Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori about women on boards talking too much, can be traced back to the Confucian idea of a woman’s place in society being there to serve men, throughout all stages of their lives. The maid café photograph was an example of how these women are being objectified to serve male fantasies in the modern era and therefore, there is still a long way to go for women in business to achieve gender equity here in Japan. The photograph was totally in context with the text and was not supporting the objectification of women, in fact the precise opposite.
So, being told it had to be removed was incomprehensible to me. I argued about the photograph being in the context of the text and that the central argument I was making made it all congruent. This next pushback was the snapper for me: “Women seeing the photo alone would be offended. There was the danger they would not pick up on what you were saying in the video and may misinterpret your meaning”.
“Wait a moment. You are saying they are not smart enough, intelligent enough to discern the context of what I am saying and therefore the photograph and that paragraph have to be cut?”. That struck me as being totally chauvinistic and condescending to women. By now you will have worked out I was having this conversation with another man. He reported back to me that he had discussed it with some female leaders in that organisation and the consensus was that I couldn’t include it.
Here is the dilemma we are going to face – do we agree with this cancel culture putsch or do we stand our ground. I felt this was a matter of free speech, free expression and I really struggled with whether I should buckle under this request for removal pressure or should I fight.
If I remove it unintelligent people win. If I refuse to go ahead and recuse myself on the basis of the principle of free speech, unintelligent people win. If I fight, then I create powerful enemies and get bogged down in the cancel culture wars. Where is the line regarding what is acceptable and what is not? Who is the arbiter of the line location? How do we deal with committees making these decisions? Are they representative of the masses or are they wannabe oligarchs calling the shots?
I removed it. But I have been feeling very uneasy about that decision ever since. I have so many thoughts flying around in my brain about this cancel culture issue and I cannot get them to fly in formation as yet. This was an eye opener for me. I often make the point that we speakers and presenters live in the Age of Distraction and the Era of Cynicism. It would appear we are also living in the Epoch of Cancel Culture. What do we do? Pick our fights? Assemble the barricades on principle on every occasion? Fight or fold? I folded, but I regretted it.
What about you? When the cancel culture brown shirts turn up, what is your plan? “What is that you say, no plan”. Time for all of us who speak and present to make a plan, I would suggest. If you have any bright ideas on resolving this enigma, please let me know!