NY Times Sunday Review Article

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KATHERINE BYRON, a senior at Brown University and a member of its Sexual Assault Task Force, considers it her duty to make Brown a safe place for rape victims, free from anything that might prompt memories of trauma.

So when she heard last fall that a student group had organized a debate about campus sexual assault between Jessica Valenti, the founder of feministing.com, and Wendy McElroy, a libertarian, and that Ms. McElroy was likely to criticize the term “rape culture,” Ms. Byron was alarmed. “Bringing in a speaker like that could serve to invalidate people’s experiences,” she told me. It could be “damaging.”

Ms. Byron and some fellow task force members secured a meeting with administrators. Not long after, Brown’s president, Christina H. Paxson, announced that the university would hold a simultaneous, competing talk to provide “research and facts” about “the role of culture in sexual assault.” Meanwhile, student volunteers put up posters advertising that a “safe space” would be available for anyone who found the debate too upsetting.

The safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma. Emma Hall, a junior, rape survivor and “sexual assault peer educator” who helped set up the room and worked in it during the debate, estimates that a couple of dozen people used it. At one point she went to the lecture hall — it was packed — but after a while, she had to return to the safe space. “I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs,” Ms. Hall said.

Safe spaces are an expression of the conviction, increasingly prevalent among college students, that their schools should keep them from being “bombarded” by discomfiting or distressing viewpoints. Think of the safe space as the live-action version of the better-known trigger warning, a notice put on top of a syllabus or an assigned reading to alert students to the presence of potentially disturbing material.

Some people trace safe spaces back to the feminist consciousness-raising groups of the 1960s and 1970s, others to the gay and lesbian movement of the early 1990s. In most cases, safe spaces are innocuous gatherings of like-minded people who agree to refrain from ridicule, criticism or what they term microaggressions — subtle displays of racial or sexual bias — so that everyone can relax enough to explore the nuances of, say, a fluid gender identity. As long as all parties consent to such restrictions, these little islands of self-restraint seem like a perfectly fine idea.

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A junior named Adam Shapiro decided he didn’t want his room to be a safer space. He printed up his own flier calling it a dangerous space and had that, too, published in the Columbia Daily Spectator. “Kindness alone won’t allow us to gain more insight into truth,” he wrote. In an interview, Mr. Shapiro said, “If the point of a safe space is therapy for people who feel victimized by traumatization, that sounds like a great mission.” But a safe-space mentality has begun infiltrating classrooms, he said, making both professors and students loath to say anything that might hurt someone’s feelings. “I don’t see how you can have a therapeutic space that’s also an intellectual space,” he said.

I’m old enough to remember a time when college students objected to providing a platform to certain speakers because they were deemed politically unacceptable. Now students worry whether acts of speech or pieces of writing may put them in emotional peril. Two weeks ago, students at Northwestern University marched to protest an article by Laura Kipnis, a professor in the university’s School of Communication. Professor Kipnis had criticized — O.K., ridiculed — what she called the sexual paranoia pervading campus life.

The protesters carried mattresses and demanded that the administration condemn the essay. One student complained that Professor Kipnis was “erasing the very traumatic experience” of victims who spoke out. An organizer of the demonstration said, “we need to be setting aside spaces to talk” about “victim-blaming.” Last Wednesday, Northwestern’s president, Morton O. Schapiro, wrote an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal affirming his commitment to academic freedom. But plenty of others at universities are willing to dignify students’ fears, citing threats to their stability as reasons to cancel debates, disinvite commencement speakers and apologize for so-called mistakes.

You know something? The people who join and gravitate towards this and similar forums are not perfect. Some of us might go a little bit far with the manosphere ideas/rhetoric.

But at least none of you will EVER need a "safe space" nor will any of you ever shield yourselves from your opponents because of "feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs,"



For that reason I will always be grateful that the men on this forum still have a place to voice their opinions in this ultra-PC dystopia the West has created for itself.

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The safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.

At least it appears we all agree--people who find the comments of others to be "triggering" are mental children.

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At one point she went to the lecture hall — it was packed — but after a while, she had to return to the safe space. “I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs,” Ms. Hall said.

Do geology classes have a 'safe space' for young earth creationists?

Would go for the free cookies... and also to troll people in the 'safe space'.

Quote: (03-23-2015 09:05 PM)Phoenix Wrote:  

Would go for the free cookies... and also to troll people in the 'safe space'.

"I'm here for some free cookies and pussy... and I'm just about finished with the cookies..."

"I'm looking for a safe space... is the one between your legs available?"

Wendy McElroy is usually pretty awesome. Nice to see her give the shakes to some lefty without even having to speak.

This is our safe space. Where we can tell the truth about shit without worrying about sjw backlash that would get us fired.

The mushrooming of institutes of higher education that have forgotten this idea:

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" -Aristotle

Nowadays it's all about those precious

Universities when men were the majority of students:



Universities now that women are the majority of students:

if you find contrarian theories, speech and writings that challenge your own personal views and beliefs to be "troubling", "triggering" or "upsetting", perhaps university isn't the place for you? more to the point, perhaps life outside an institution that is dedicated to your special little snowflakeness isn't for you?

someone should tell these students (read "infantilized adults") that the real world will throw shit at you every day that is "troubling", "triggering" or "upsetting".

not even government employment allows one to access a cookie and puppy room.

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The safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.

What in the fuck is going on anymore? So you're telling me that even talking about this type of shit is so mentally fucking traumatic to people who have never experienced rape that they have to go to a room with coloring books and goddamn puppy videos to deal with it? LOL WTF. This is insanity, plain and simple. I can't believe we've come to the point where this is allowed and supported.

Quote: (03-24-2015 09:40 AM)DannyAlberta Wrote:  

if you find contrarian theories, speech and writings that challenge your own personal views and beliefs to be "troubling", "triggering" or "upsetting", perhaps university isn't the place for you? more to the point, perhaps life outside an institution that is dedicated to your special little snowflakeness isn't for you?

someone should tell these students (read "infantilized adults") that the real world will throw shit at you every day that is "troubling", "triggering" or "upsetting".

I disagree Danny.

If someone has a mental breakdown when they hear opposing viewpoints they do need an "institution"...The kind of institution that has straight-jackets, orderlies, and padded rooms.

Quote: (03-24-2015 11:28 AM)Goldin Boy Wrote:  

I disagree Danny.

If someone has a mental breakdown when they hear opposing viewpoints they do need an "institution"...The kind of institution that has straight-jackets, orderlies, and padded rooms.

while i would have agreed with you in days gone by, things have gone so sideways that the sheer numbers of present day university students who would have to be institutionalized in such an asylum would be prohibitively expensive to the taxpayer, dwarfing the prison populations in both canada and united states.

Quote: (03-23-2015 10:19 PM)spokepoker Wrote:  

This is our safe space. Where we can tell the truth about shit without worrying about sjw backlash that would get us fired.

I prefer to think of this as a dangerous space.

Having the safe space is already ridiculous enough but filling it coloring books and Play Doh? Talk about Petra Pan syndrome.

I need a 'safe space' whenever talk of socialism as a serious political option is nearby, mainly because I like to throw up in private.

Looks like little IRT is hitting on the blonde out of the safe space.

I'm surprised there's not a Daily Show style program dedicated to mocking liberals and feminism. At this point the material would basically write itself.

Quote: (03-23-2015 09:00 PM)Kabal Wrote:  

The safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.

My face:

   

"The safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma."

I work at a school dedicated to SEVERELY special needs students. This is exactly what a room we use to soothe autistic students having meltdowns looks like.

Well, not exactly, the students who occasionally masturbate openly in public, screech wildly, eat their feces on occasion or inhale their fingers after plunging it up their anuses and vaginas like it was their last breath, don't need the coloring books or play-doh, either. These students have better emotional control than these "survivors" of bad pick up lines, bought drinks, and shoulder touches.

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“I don’t see how you can have a therapeutic space that’s also an intellectual space,” he said.

This is the key quote

This is hilarious and true. The guys at MPC have some interesting comments too:

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Anyway, the real triggering thing to these sheltered f****ts is obviously the fact that it's being framed as up for debate at all. Two speakers implies that rape culture is not in fact self-evident and needs to be proven, and you can't prove a paranoid delusion. Heather MacDonald has said some great stuff about how the universities are slowly, quietly reverting back to their older in loco parentis approach and hoping no one notices. http://mpcdot.com/forums/topic/8350-in-c...ntry200103

I find this over-sensitivity to "negativity" and "hate" common even in Millenials who are out of college. I recently had a friend who pretty much had an emotional breakdown because I gave him constructive criticism and refused to enable his self-pity/victim narrative. I'm only a couple years out of this demographic and even I find myself rolling my eyes at their constant need for "yes"s and non-stop agreement. When you finally burst their bubble and let them know the world isn't the way they think it is, expect fireworks.

To be fair, I do have cousins in their 20s and they're totally fine - open minded, willing to debate ideas, not easily offended. Ironically they were raised in the church and come from a strong republican family.

Other Barry, you know what is sad about your humorous comparison? Having actually checked out some My Little Pony, I can tell you that the ponies are mentally tougher than these 'safe room' attendees.

I WISH THAT WERE AN EXAGGERATION!

Quote: (03-26-2015 10:29 AM)RickyGP Wrote:  

Other Barry, you know what is sad about your humorous comparison? Having actually checked out some My Little Pony, I can tell you that the ponies are mentally tougher than these 'safe room' attendees.

I WISH THAT WERE AN EXAGGERATION!