Trigger warning: Feminism

avoiceformen · 2012-02-19T03:41:50+00:00

As condescending and smug as the tone of this article is, I'd really like to address a key point.

I really doubt this man has been raped. I really doubt he's spent years struggling with, say, bulemia. I'm absolutely confident that he has no idea of the kind of lasting scars those things can leave on one's psyche. I am a little disturbed at the lack of empathy he displays towards those who have experienced these things.

I confess to being a little baffled as to how something not only harmless but actively designed to prevent people with emotional trauma from being reminded of those trauma could inspire such anger in someone.

But then I reached this part:

Is it any wonder that feminists manage to traipse through life unopposed by people with brains? Again, I say no. No one wants to argue with a retarded kid, especially one with a vagina.

And realized he had no interest in doing any kind of a reasoned examination of the topic, he was just looking for an easy slam at feminists.

Look, someone you know has been raped. A family member, an ex, a friend. Most likely, you don't know about it. Almost certainly, you have no idea of the kind of damage it does, the kind of damage it continues to do for the rest of your life. And unlike that wonderful Doug Stanhope image that popped up in /r/atheism the other day, a year or two of therapy doesn't make it go away. Reading a first-hand account of rape reminds of you what it was like, brings those memories back with shocking physical realism (similarly, reading an account of someone's battle with an eating disorder might make you wonder how many calories were in your lunch, or if you really did enough crunches last night, even if you thought you finally beat the anorexia a year or so ago).

For that reason, articles or posts which contain graphic representations of rape, descriptions of its effects or any lengthy treatment of the subject just throws a "heads up" at the start. The columnist calls this a "Catch-22," but it's really not. A disclaimer saying "hey, this has rape in it" does not reawaken trauma (for most) like, say, a lengthy recount of an actual rape.

This is a dumb thing to be upset about.

2012-02-19T16:39:11+00:00

have some compassion. some people don't want to stumble on an article that could cause an emotional meltdown at a bad time (like on a break at work), and empathetic authors and posters realize this and provide warnings accordingly. posting a 'trigger warning' in an article's title is not an offense to you, nor is it when people want to protect their emotional state from spiraling out of control. there are trigger warnings put in place out of awareness of combat PTSD sufferers as well, but i don't believe you mentioned outrage at that.

adumbidiotlord · 2012-02-19T10:58:30+00:00

TRIGGER WARNING: Hey just a heads up I have been raped and I don't really experience a lot of problems when reading about rape but it's pretty nice to do it because not every person is me or handles it like me.

Also being raped as a man, I would imagine it's much more common to hide behind the idea of "get over it", or whatever because "manning up" and dealing with things is a very masculine gender trait and so even if men are suffering because of it, the gender roles that influence are lives basically say "it's only rape, walk it off".

If you were raped, maybe you might realize hey that sucks. You know what else sucks? Other people experiencing the negative feelings from it again! But since you don't feel them, it's totally okay to just throw things that might TRIGGER said experience around all willy-nilly.

crookers · 2012-02-19T05:24:13+00:00

i'm sure trigger warnings really affect you mr. avfm

ENTP · 2012-02-19T18:28:28+00:00

Emotionally stifling speech is a classic tool of those that are just flat out wrong.

Baadasssss · 2012-02-19T09:06:35+00:00

So we are supposed to be all super-coddling of someone who might have been hurt by something in the past?

Not if it's a guy though, right? No trigger warnings for men who might have been raped, none for brutal divorces, none for cuckolding/deceptions/cheating/financial-rape/parental-alientation/etc.

No, sorry.. but "trigger warning" is just another bullshit thing used to silence dissent. It isn't really concerned with people or their feelings. It is concerned with women and another weapon to try and use to silence men.

Erebus77 · 2012-02-19T16:23:36+00:00

The "trigger warning" culture in some circles has never sat quite right with me, because I think it is mis-used by people.

"Trigger warnings" are something that Critical Incident Stress councillors in the emergency response world talk about. Y'know, firemen, cops, EMTs, Coast Guard, Ground Search and Rescue, etc. Lets say that a fireman attends a horrible car crash. It's a pile of twisted steel, with shattered glass all around, and a beautiful blonde little girl, twisted and ruined and dead in a car-seat. A terrible thing to deal with, even if you have training. Flash forward a few weeks, and that same fireman is in the grocery store shopping for soup, and he rounds the corner to the soup aisle and runs into a little girl who is the spitting image of the one from the car wreck. It all comes flooding back to him, and the next thing you know he's sobbing on the floor by the cans of Campbells. It's an involuntary, overwhelming, and uncontrollable emotional response.

THAT is a trigger. NOT the feminist version of "Oooh, he said something mean about child-support that I disagree with! RRRR!! I'm so TRIGGERED!!"

ENTP · 2012-02-19T19:29:05+00:00

It would be easier to take feminst "trigger warnings" more seriously if so many of them didn't use intentionally triggering phrases and terminology when making fun of male genital mutilation.

DevinV · 2012-02-22T04:46:48+00:00

"Trigger warnings" are for the most part yet another deflectionary tactic to avoid addressing a presented argument.

JeremiahMRA · 2012-02-19T05:29:43+00:00

Trigger warnings serve to perpetuate the victim narrative necessary for feminism and all other Leftist ideologies. All women are victims of all men and all men are oppressors who must answer for their crimes (AKA patriarchy), all blacks are victims of all whites and all whites are oppressors who must answer for their crimes, the middle class are all victims of the 1% and the 1% must pay, etc.

Title	Trigger warning: Feminism
Author	avoiceformen
Upvotes	9
Comments	66
Date	February 19, 2012 1:34 AM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/pvx5h/trigger_warning_feminism/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/trigger-warning-feminism.1027415 https://theredarchive.com/post/1027415

Comments