You're Male, So You're Wrong. Of Course.
And -- sorry -- no amount of feministy activity or even wild pandering can change that.
In April, frats at Northwestern University observed Sexual Assault Awareness Month by hanging out banners calling for more awareness -- banners with messages like "This is Everyone's Problem" and "Theta Chi Stand Against Sexual Assault."
They were rewarded with this message in the campus paper from Jessica Schwalb:
"A congratulations is hardly in order, however. Conversations about sexual assault within fraternities must continue beyond a single month of awareness or solitary presentation from Sexual Health and Assault Peer Educators or Men Against Rape and Sexual Assault. Fraternity men must hold friends accountable or else their banners are just cruel reminders that attempts to change sexual culture in fraternities are purely symbolic."
From Inside Higher Ed, the men pussified themselves compliantly in the wake of Schalb's criticism:
On Monday, Northwestern's Interfraternity Council announced that it would discourage chapters from hanging the banners in the future, and that it would create a four-year sexual assault education program for fraternities. "We recognize now how this campaign may have been emotionally triggering for survivors, and we want to make a deep, genuine apology for anyone that may have been affected," the IFC's executive board said in the statement. "This was not our intent, but it is our fault for not being cognizant enough and not considering how it might affect others in our community."
The word "triggering" now triggers me, in that it makes me want to vigorously slap any person using it to deem their mental state too fragile to, say, read The Great Gatsby or hear a barely dirty joke.
There's a terrific post on that by J.M. Dunkelheit at TriggerWarning.us:
It is understandable that someone might have "triggers" following a traumatic event or due to some serious phobia. But what these self-styled social justice activists are doing isn't simply accommodating triggers; they are cultivating them. The whole point of trauma is that it is a problem that needs to be overcome. If you were to suffer a physical injury, you would go to an emergency room and have it fixed. You would have that head wound sutured, or that broken arm put in a cast. In Social Justice Land, however, people are doing the equivalent of sticking a retractor into a wound and keeping it open forever.Do people in general need trigger warnings? Most likely not. Consider evolution. Consider how we got here at all. Our ancestors had to fight off saber-toothed tigers, withstand viciously low temperatures, and run for miles on end hunting large game. How is it that your ancestral mother or father could deal with all of these dangers, but you need a trigger warning because reading a Greek myth might mess with your amygdala?
Many of the "trigger" reactions people want to be protected from are normal human emotions that we should be having. When I was a teenager, studying the Holocaust, I did, yes, feel my skin become cold and my heart beat too fast while reading about the things that the Nazis did. But here is what's important to note: this is a healthy, appropriate reaction that people should be having. People are supposed to feel horror when faced with atrocities. People are supposed to associate certain things, such as violence and mutilation, with a visceral sense of: "Oh my god, what the hell, NO." Without this response, we would all be psychopaths.
There is a place for stress-free, emotionally undemanding activities. If you want to come home from work and sit at the computer and do nothing but discuss pop culture and post pictures of puppies and kittens, go ahead. But when someone desires the whole world to be a "safe space," there is something wrong with their reasoning. The world at large is not a yoga studio, or a sensory room.
In fact, a researcher who studies grief, George A. Bonanno, explains in his book, The Other Side Of Sadness, that humans are, by and large, resilient. We evolved to bounce back.
As Dunkelheit puts it:
Our ancestors didn't fight off sabertooth tigers so we could whine about how the words fat and skinny were oppressive.
Northwestern via Charlotte Allen
J.M. Dunkelheit writes, "But when someone desires the whole world to be a 'safe space,' there is something wrong with their reasoning."
I would go further and say that if someone desires any part of the world to be their "safe space," there's something wrong with their reasoning.
There is no such thing as a "safe space." Even the holiest of holies, such as one's own home, is not immune from invasion, such as burglary or fire.
If a burglar invaded my home, I would retreat and attempt to call the police, not indignantly tell the burglar to leave because this is my "safe space."
Yes, we have a reasonable expectation that we're safe in our homes (unless your co-occupants are dysfunctional, in which case, you need help), but you cannot create "safe spaces" on public property, as the crybullies of Mizzou campus have discovered.
And her condemnation of "trigger-warnings" does not go far enough.
Trigger-warnings are for those with a medical diagnosis (not a "self-diagnosis") of PTSD, and no one else. And more to the point, PTSD patients do not use triggers to try to control or coerce other people.
PTSD patients do not wander about, telling people, "You have to stop talking about that. It's triggering to me."
Or "This has to be taken down; it's triggering me."
A person with PTSD, far from trying to remake their surroundings into a safe space, recognize that triggers are their cue to employ coping skills. They don't try to control others; they work to better control themselves.
Amy writes, "The word "triggering" now triggers me, in that it makes me want to vigorously slap any person using it to deem their mental state too fragile to, say, read The Great Gatsby or hear a barely dirty joke."
Bonita Tindle, the racist bully and cultural appropriation fascist who wanders about the San Francisco State University assaulting white people who wear dreds, claimed she was "triggered" by the sight of Cory Goldstein wearing dreds. (Never mind that Cory Goldstein is Jewish and Orthodox Jews wear dreds and have for centuries. But even if his cultural heritage had nothing to do with dreds, so what?)
As if her despicable conduct was sufficient to provoke otherwise decent people to fantasize about slapping the shit out of her, she has to pretend she was "triggered."
There is something to be said for leaving well enough alone. Or, in her case, leaving bad enough alone. She would have been better served if she had said nothing in response to this incident.
Patrick at May 6, 2016 1:21 AM
School(all levels) have been taken over by Title IX (the 'battle' over restrooms is about locker rooms but it's a mute point because regs were passed a long time ago I guess w/no public comment).
So school organizations HAVE to say the "right" things w/the "right" things being whatever quiets the school administrators (they could shut this stuff down but they love the empowerment it gives them).
Follow the money and obey the 'bankers'.
Bob in Texas at May 6, 2016 5:00 AM
Zathras is used to being beast of burden to other people's needs. Very sad life. Probably have very sad death. But, at least there is symmetry.
Yes, I'm used to being "wrong", that's ok, because I know that Reality is a harsh mistress and will exact her pound of flesh with interest due at some point. And since I'm on a Babylon 5 kick, much like Vir Cotto I want to live just long enough to see Reality take her vengeance.
I R A Darth Aggie at May 6, 2016 6:59 AM
Cannot run out time. There is infinite time. You are finite. Zathras is finite. This is wrong tool!
May we all receive the same gift as Vir Cotto. I fear we'll most likely end up like Leiner.
Kevin Anderson at May 6, 2016 9:08 AM
Just saw this on Slate: There is a PAC dedicated to discouraging straight white men from running for office. http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/05/06/meet_can_you_not_the_pac_dedicated_to_dissuading_straight_white_men_from.html
ahs at May 6, 2016 9:40 AM
As American colleges and universities sink themselves further and further into irrelevancy...
Which, come to think of it, sounds like an appropriate fate.
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at May 6, 2016 11:41 AM
There is a PAC dedicated to discouraging straight white men from running for office.
Will they pay me not to run for office?
I R A Darth Aggie at May 6, 2016 11:59 AM
What concerns me is that these people want to extend it to the world: the "victims" of the "chalkening" want to ban political discourse from campus, asserting a unanimity of view that does not exist. The state AGs want to ban companies from not only having an opinion on climate change but from not being enthusiastic enough about the end of the world. Speakers are being disinvited. Bloomberg was booed when he told a commencement audience that the safe space stuff was dangerous.
Craig Loehle at May 6, 2016 2:24 PM
WTF? Frats try to get with the program and are attacked for getting with the program?
Getting what you want and them complaining that it was given to you by the people you wanted it from - you don't get much crazier than that.
Expel them all now and save the larger campus population from their viral insanity.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at May 7, 2016 11:07 AM
I love it when women condesendingly explain how its the reposnibility of men to police other men, becuase nothing they ever do will ever be good enough.
It provides me the opportunity to do this.
Women commit over 60% of all interpersonal domestic violence
Women commit over half of all child abuse
Women commit over 45% of all sexual assaults.
Conversations on this issues require more than just blaming men.
It requires more than oft repeated entirely discredited 'statistics' like 1 in 4 women, a number derived from shoddy research so thoroughly debunked that the woman in charge of that study grudgingly admitted she faked the numbers.
When it comes to interpersonal violence such as domestic abuse and acquaintance rape WOMEN are the majority of offenders.
Want to hold yourself accountable Jessica(author)? Teach women not to be abusive, teach women not to beat children, teach WOMEN not to rape.
This requires real work, stop blaming men
lujlp at May 8, 2016 6:14 PM
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