The technology has changed, but 40 years since the release of Anne Summers’s book Damned Whores and God’s Police, the controversy remains the same.
Facebook has reportedly blocked Summers from “boosting” a post promoting a conference to mark four decades since the release of the provocatively titled text, claiming it contains profanity.
Her book, released in 1975, argued Australian women were still confined to two roles, entrenched early in the country’s colonial life: either the “damned whores” who came as convicts, or the “respectable” women who guarded the colony’s morals.
Summers attempted to boost the post on Monday, but was told by Facebook: “We don’t allow ads that use profanity. Such language can offend viewers and doesn’t reflect the product being advertised.”
Boosting, which increases the number of feeds in which a post will appear, is subject to approval and more stringent standards than an average post on the social media platform.
Summers said she had boosted posts before – including those promoting other events – but had never been knocked back. “I was completely flabbergasted. I’ve been posting about the conference now for a couple of weeks,” she said.
Summers suggested the offending word might lie in a quote she included by the former prime minister, Julia Gillard, reflecting on the “binary stereotypes” that she felt women still faced in public life.
“As a woman wielding power, with all the complexities of modern politics, I was never going to be portrayed as a good woman,” Gillard wrote in her memoir, My Story. “So I must be the bad woman, a scheming shrew, a heartless harridan or a lying bitch.”
An analysis by Slate two years ago found that “bitch” was the fourth most common swear word on the social media platform.
Summers said she hoped to reach about 15,000 people with the original post. The follow-up, about Facebook denying her a boost, had reached 500,000, “and it’s rising by the second”, she said.
Facebook has been contacted for comment.
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