http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/?utm_source=SFFB

This article is fascinating and highly recommended. Reading it with a RP perspective, my alarm bells went off with the folllowing statement concerning the rise of these trigger warnings: "Burns defines emotional reasoning as assuming “that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: ‘I feel it, therefore it must be true.’ ” Leahy, Holland, and McGinn define it as letting “your feelings guide your interpretation of reality.” Feelings=Reality; a RP warning regarding the feminine imperative.

The authors give very compelling reasons for the rise of this phenomenon over the last few decades. As I read through it, I became very sensitized to what the genders of the trigger warners were. Not to say all were female, but clearly many were.

The elephant in the room, the one the authors dare not invoke, lest they risk being pilloried on social media and their livelihoods, is the dramatic increase of the female college population over the period of time discussed as an additional reason for the rise in the phenomenon. This from the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2015): "Since 1988, the number of females in postbaccalaureate programs has exceeded the number of males. Between 2002 and 2012, the number of full-time male postbaccalaureate students increased by 28 percent, compared with a 42 percent increase in the number of full-time female postbaccalaureate students."