You can't make this up.
Student at $80Gs college left 'scared and confused' by cisgender construction workers (https://canoe.com/news/world/woke-watch-student-at-80gs-college-left-scared-and-confused-by-cisgender-construction-workers/wcm/6fe5cd4d-05d8-4be3-8766-5e14ed6f405d)
Quote
The student at US$80,000-per-year woke nirvana Oberlin College in Ohio penned an op-ed in the student newspaper declaring his outrage and that he was "angry, scared and confused."
The reason? "Cisgender men" installed a radiator in his dormitory that is labelled a "safe space." In fact, he asked if he could be exempt and felt "mildly violated" when the contractors showed up.
And here's the op-ed he wrote (https://oberlinreview.org/25000/opinions/male-workers-allowed-into-baldwin-unsettling-residents/):
Quote
In general, I am very averse to people entering my personal space. This anxiety was compounded by the fact that the crew would be strangers, and they were more than likely to be cisgender men.
This seems like some clinical level anxiety disorder.
Ah, yes, the Oberlin College of Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College.
From Wikipedia: In 2016, Oberlin faculty and students staged large demonstrations urging a boycott of the Gibson's Bakery and Market, a downtown Oberlin business, following a shoplifting incident involving an African-American student, on the grounds that the store was racist. In June 2019, the college was found liable for libel and tortious interference in a lawsuit initiated by the store; the bakery was awarded damages of $44 million by the jury, but the judge reduced the value of the award to $31.5 million. In October 2019, the college appealed the case to the Ninth District Court of Appeals in Akron, Ohio.
I am glad some of that tuition or endowment money is going to deserving people.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 19, 2021, 12:55:12 PM
You can't make this up.
Student at $80Gs college left 'scared and confused' by cisgender construction workers (https://canoe.com/news/world/woke-watch-student-at-80gs-college-left-scared-and-confused-by-cisgender-construction-workers/wcm/6fe5cd4d-05d8-4be3-8766-5e14ed6f405d)
Quote
The student at US$80,000-per-year woke nirvana Oberlin College in Ohio penned an op-ed in the student newspaper declaring his outrage and that he was "angry, scared and confused."
The reason? "Cisgender men" installed a radiator in his dormitory that is labelled a "safe space." In fact, he asked if he could be exempt and felt "mildly violated" when the contractors showed up.
And here's the op-ed he wrote (https://oberlinreview.org/25000/opinions/male-workers-allowed-into-baldwin-unsettling-residents/):
Quote
In general, I am very averse to people entering my personal space. This anxiety was compounded by the fact that the crew would be strangers, and they were more than likely to be cisgender men.
This seems like some clinical level anxiety disorder.
1. It is an op-ed in a college newspaper. Anybody can write an op-ed. I would bet a lot of money that if one were to ask the other people living in the building about this person, you would probably get a lot of eye rolls.
2. Obviously, this is silly. But mostly it strikes me as silly in the sense that this is a person who hasn't figured out that something can make you uncomfortable without anybody doing anything wrong. I don't like hanging around while people do work in a space I'm in either, but the pretty obvious solution is to just go take a walk, or run an errand, when you don't need to be there.
3. All that said, you're misrepresenting what the author is saying. They aren't saying they are are terrified of cis men. They are just saying that it added to their anxiety. Easy for you to think that's silly, but transgender people are subject to horrific levels of violence. There's nothing absurd about the ideas that it would make someone anxious to have a bunch of men come in their room.
4. That brings us back to point two. Is there some silly stuff going on here about what it means to have a safe space? Sure. 19 year olds are often silly and have a hard time figuring out when they have a reasonable complaint. Is this actually important? Does it represent some larger movement? Is it worth getting outraged because some student at Oberlin is having a hard time figuring out boundaries between themself and the rest of the world? Is this actually more important than the hundreds of editorials students write complaining about bad food at the dining hall?
Well said, Caracal.
I don't know why the student assumed they were cisgender men. I am gender non-binary, but you might not know it to look at me.
Quote from: Caracal on October 19, 2021, 01:46:02 PM
2. Obviously, this is silly. But mostly it strikes me as silly in the sense that this is a person who hasn't figured out that something can make you uncomfortable without anybody doing anything wrong. I don't like hanging around while people do work in a space I'm in either, but the pretty obvious solution is to just go take a walk, or run an errand, when you don't need to be there.
3. All that said, you're misrepresenting what the author is saying. They aren't saying they are are terrified of cis men. They are just saying that it added to their anxiety. Easy for you to think that's silly, but transgender people are subject to horrific levels of violence. There's nothing absurd about the ideas that it would make someone anxious to have a bunch of men come in their room.
Are you seriously suggesting that
any group of people are in danger whenever they interact with service people in ordinary situations? Plumbers, electricians, meter readers, appliance repair people- the list is endless. The incidence of any of these people assaulting anyone is extremely rare; if it were common it would be all over the news.
As you said, what most sane people do, especially when they're in rented accommodation (so someone else can give access to their space), is to vacate the space (go for a walk, to the library, etc.) until they're done. The fact that someone has gotten to "adulthood" and can't handle this kind of relatively common situation suggests
pretty extreme social anxiety.
Quote from: mahagonny on October 19, 2021, 03:02:00 PM
I don't know why the student assumed they were cisgender men. I am gender non-binary, but you might not know it to look at me.
One of these days you will try out We as your pronoun. Capitalized. If you do, please report back on how it changes your interactions!
I was going to say that We in non-binary, but some linguist will find the obvious flaw in that argument.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 19, 2021, 05:03:52 PM
Quote from: Caracal on October 19, 2021, 01:46:02 PM
2. Obviously, this is silly. But mostly it strikes me as silly in the sense that this is a person who hasn't figured out that something can make you uncomfortable without anybody doing anything wrong. I don't like hanging around while people do work in a space I'm in either, but the pretty obvious solution is to just go take a walk, or run an errand, when you don't need to be there.
3. All that said, you're misrepresenting what the author is saying. They aren't saying they are are terrified of cis men. They are just saying that it added to their anxiety. Easy for you to think that's silly, but transgender people are subject to horrific levels of violence. There's nothing absurd about the ideas that it would make someone anxious to have a bunch of men come in their room.
Are you seriously suggesting that any group of people are in danger whenever they interact with service people in ordinary situations? Plumbers, electricians, meter readers, appliance repair people- the list is endless. The incidence of any of these people assaulting anyone is extremely rare; if it were common it would be all over the news.
No, obviously I wasn't suggesting that at all. I was saying that it might be more than just social anxiety and that for someone who has had traumatic experiences, it could be an understandable anxiety, which is not the same as a reasonable one.
Quote from: Hibush on October 19, 2021, 05:28:53 PM
Quote from: mahagonny on October 19, 2021, 03:02:00 PM
I don't know why the student assumed they were cisgender men. I am gender non-binary, but you might not know it to look at me.
One of these days you will try out We as your pronoun. Capitalized. If you do, please report back on how it changes your interactions!
I was going to say that We in non-binary, but some linguist will find the obvious flaw in that argument.
As soon as I am enrolled in your course you can give me homework assignments.
I think the problem here is that the student put his (?) objections in an op-ed, as if they were a norm or a template.
People do have all kinds of objections to things, some silly, some less so. I once worked in a place where a co-worker went ballistic because the maintenance people had opened the package of toilet paper and left some sitting in the bag while waiting to be put on the roll. My co-worker thought that this would pollute the toilet paper and make it unsafe (but not when it got put on the roll — don't ask me, I'm just reporting).
If people have anxiety on this level, we can't stop them; but generalizing it and reporting it as if it were the norm is a serious lack of awareness. Of course college-age students are just coming into larger awareness generally. I think the sense of entitlement expressed by the student is misplaced — as someone on the twitterverse said, "This student is paying $80,000 a year for an education, and is saying that he is oppressed in relation to the workmen?" And I do think that people in this particular climate are quick to see themselves as oppressed. No question. And the fact that the student feels such overwhelming anxiety is a matter of concern, even if the immediate solution seems quite simple ("Go for a walk"). I imagine that there are professionals involved somewhere in this student's life.
But in the long run, as far as the bigger picture, the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. "College student expresses immaturity." Headline news?
This sounds like mental illness to me.
How is this fella going to function in the world?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 19, 2021, 08:34:34 PM
This sounds like mental illness to me.
How is this fella going to function in the world?
Easy: Politicize everything!
The personal becomes the political by writing an op-ed instead of taking a walk.
That's the problem, and that's why it's better to look at institutions rather than individual, sad, people.
Quote
But in the long run, as far as the bigger picture, the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. "College student expresses immaturity." Headline news?
[/quote]
Agree with this, thing is though, while you can't blame the students that much, there are certain academics who are contributing to the insanity of certain people being encouraged to go around being hyper-sensitive through identity and then pontificating at length like it's a general concern.
Reserving the right to be crazy sensitive through group identity is a status symbol. Not having that right is a negative status symbol, reserved for the heterosexual, the white, the 'cisgender' and the male (if you combine all the loser traits into one person). 'Some of us are more equal than others.'
If a person were this sensitive and vocal about it based on individual identity, for example, being a movie star, we'd simply say he's a primma donna.
Example: there was a thread on the old forum where a heterosexual person was going on a group academic conference trip or some such. When Professor X found out he would be rooming at the hotel with a homosexual person he tried to say, politely, that he would not be comfortable doing this, and could he please be relocated to the company of another hetero male. Well you can imagine the disapproval. Homophobic.
So intelligent people can disagree. And some did.
Quote from: Caracal on October 19, 2021, 06:15:14 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 19, 2021, 05:03:52 PM
Quote from: Caracal on October 19, 2021, 01:46:02 PM
2. Obviously, this is silly. But mostly it strikes me as silly in the sense that this is a person who hasn't figured out that something can make you uncomfortable without anybody doing anything wrong. I don't like hanging around while people do work in a space I'm in either, but the pretty obvious solution is to just go take a walk, or run an errand, when you don't need to be there.
3. All that said, you're misrepresenting what the author is saying. They aren't saying they are are terrified of cis men. They are just saying that it added to their anxiety. Easy for you to think that's silly, but transgender people are subject to horrific levels of violence. There's nothing absurd about the ideas that it would make someone anxious to have a bunch of men come in their room.
Are you seriously suggesting that any group of people are in danger whenever they interact with service people in ordinary situations? Plumbers, electricians, meter readers, appliance repair people- the list is endless. The incidence of any of these people assaulting anyone is extremely rare; if it were common it would be all over the news.
No, obviously I wasn't suggesting that at all. I was saying that it might be more than just social anxiety and that for someone who has had traumatic experiences, it could be an understandable anxiety, which is not the same as a reasonable one.
I'm curious. If a student or someone they know had been attacked by a black gang member, and
expressed in print anxiety about being around all black men, or if the student or someone that they knew had suffered or died due to Islamic extremists, and the student
expressed in print their anxiety around all Muslim men, would you be so supportive?
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 19, 2021, 08:34:34 PM
This sounds like mental illness to me.
How is this fella going to function in the world?
Indeed. Greg Lukianoff, one of the authors of "The Coddling of the American Mind", points out that as he himself suffered from mental health issues, what he learned during Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) was basically the
exact opposite of what students like this are being told as part of "victimhood culture". By encouraging, or at least not trying to challenge, their irrational fears, they become
more anxious and stressed.
If someone wrote a letter to the student newspaper that was schizophrenic word-salad, shouldn't
they decline to publish it?
Quote from: Hegemony on October 19, 2021, 06:55:26 PM
I think the problem here is that the student put his (?) objections in an op-ed, as if they were a norm or a template.
People do have all kinds of objections to things, some silly, some less so. I once worked in a place where a co-worker went ballistic because the maintenance people had opened the package of toilet paper and left some sitting in the bag while waiting to be put on the roll. My co-worker thought that this would pollute the toilet paper and make it unsafe (but not when it got put on the roll — don't ask me, I'm just reporting).
But in the long run, as far as the bigger picture, the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. "College student expresses immaturity." Headline news?
Exactly. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to be mildly to moderately annoyed about. It is irritating and stressful to know that some people are going to need to come into your living space at an unspecified time during the day. If you come back from class, can you take a nap? If you go take a shower are you going to come back in your towel and open your door to find 4 people putting in the radiator?
There are also ways in which dorm living gives students fewer rights in their space than renters. You have to allow your landlord to make repairs, but unless those repairs are urgent, they can't just tell you they are going to come fix something at some random time. You get to tell them "actually, Wednesday isn't good for me."
Is any of this important and consequential? Of course not. Is it worth writing an editorial about? No. You actually get a pretty good window into how everyone else because the student reports asking people if they were also outraged and angry. The response is basically, "yeah, that was kind of annoying, oh well."
I don't think the student feels this way because of the rhetoric of safe spaces and victimhood. Rather, they were grumpy and anxious about this, and they are reaching for this available rhetoric to try to elevate this above the mundane and the personal into some larger and more important problem. I try to do this all the time with my petty annoyances. I just have enough self awareness to realize that this isn't a great subject for an op-ed. That said, go to a faculty meeting and you'll hear from a lot of people who try to turn trivial annoyances into matters of great import...
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 05:44:56 AM
I'm curious. If a student or someone they know had been attacked by a black gang member, and expressed in print anxiety about being around all black men, or if the student or someone that they knew had suffered or died due to Islamic extremists, and the student expressed in print their anxiety around all Muslim men, would you be so supportive?
It depends on what the person's solution was.
If it was, "These people in front of me have nothing to do with what happened to me, and I need to accept people for who they are, not for whom they remind me of..." then, that's a pretty healthy realization as part of maturing.
If it is, "Therefore all people of this ethnicity need to hide away in society and apologize for their existence so I can be more comfortable living my daily life and not bother to check my assumptions," then, that's a problem.
Quote from: ciao_yall on October 20, 2021, 08:19:36 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 05:44:56 AM
I'm curious. If a student or someone they know had been attacked by a black gang member, and expressed in print anxiety about being around all black men, or if the student or someone that they knew had suffered or died due to Islamic extremists, and the student expressed in print their anxiety around all Muslim men, would you be so supportive?
It depends on what the person's solution was.
If it was, "These people in front of me have nothing to do with what happened to me, and I need to accept people for who they are, not for whom they remind me of..." then, that's a pretty healthy realization as part of maturing.
If it is, "Therefore all people of this ethnicity need to hide away in society and apologize for their existence so I can be more comfortable living my daily life and not bother to check my assumptions," then, that's a problem.
How about if the victim were themselves black, and decided as a consequence 'I'm going to move out of downtown Baltimore MD into a white neighborhood where my family can be safer.' Assumptions about race at work?
ETA: BTW, no one ever says anything like that (italic). Many years ago some did. You might like to have a look at Bill Maher's 'progressophobia' speech.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 05:44:56 AM
I'm curious. If a student or someone they know had been attacked by a black gang member, and expressed in print anxiety about being around all black men, or if the student or someone that they knew had suffered or died due to Islamic extremists, and the student expressed in print their anxiety around all Muslim men, would you be so supportive?
I'm pretty comfortable with my beliefs that men, as a group, are more dangerous than women...
Quote from: Caracal on October 20, 2021, 11:07:40 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 05:44:56 AM
I'm curious. If a student or someone they know had been attacked by a black gang member, and expressed in print anxiety about being around all black men, or if the student or someone that they knew had suffered or died due to Islamic extremists, and the student expressed in print their anxiety around all Muslim men, would you be so supportive?
I'm pretty comfortable with my beliefs that men, as a group, are more dangerous than women...
Are you comfortable with
everyone stating in print what groups they believe more dangerous than other groups?
This a lot of posting about, as Caracal said, an op-ed in a student newspaper. I've seen a ton of stuff in student newspapers located at Midwest publics that made little sense, and I'm sure the writers felt the same with the passage of time. Pre interwebz, no one would notice.
I'd also like to gently remind folks that I'm sure the student does have severe anxiety. It is really tough for a trans person to get comfortable in life. I'm going to guess from my experiences that the student has been struggling for years.
Quote from: jimbogumbo on October 20, 2021, 12:36:52 PM
This a lot of posting about, as Caracal said, an op-ed in a student newspaper. I've seen a ton of stuff in student newspapers located at Midwest publics that made little sense, and I'm sure the writers felt the same with the passage of time. Pre interwebz, no one would notice.
I'd also like to gently remind folks that I'm sure the student does have severe anxiety. It is really tough for a trans person to get comfortable in life. I'm going to guess from my experiences that the student has been struggling for years.
And where are the adults in this student's life to calmly explain that this a very normal life situation, and there is no reason for alarm, etc.? Or are they sympathizing with all of this anxiety as though it is well-founded?
Someone this overcome by having to interact with "strangers" is likely to wind up an isolated *agoraphobe. Is anyone the student listens to actually willing to say that this hypersensitivity is unwarranted?
(*Even more than now....)
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 12:53:11 PM
Quote from: jimbogumbo on October 20, 2021, 12:36:52 PM
This a lot of posting about, as Caracal said, an op-ed in a student newspaper. I've seen a ton of stuff in student newspapers located at Midwest publics that made little sense, and I'm sure the writers felt the same with the passage of time. Pre interwebz, no one would notice.
I'd also like to gently remind folks that I'm sure the student does have severe anxiety. It is really tough for a trans person to get comfortable in life. I'm going to guess from my experiences that the student has been struggling for years.
And where are the adults in this student's life to calmly explain that this a very normal life situation, and there is no reason for alarm, etc.? Or are they sympathizing with all of this anxiety as though it is well-founded?
Someone this overcome by having to interact with "strangers" is likely to wind up an isolated *agoraphobe. Is anyone the student listens to actually willing to say that this hypersensitivity is unwarranted?
(*Even more than now....)
Would that do any good, especially in the short term? To me that is like someone saying "jimbo, you don't have anything to be depressed about"; probably true, but it wouldn't work in my case. SSRIs do, but good advice, not so much. Mental health is complicated.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 11:16:06 AM
Quote from: Caracal on October 20, 2021, 11:07:40 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 05:44:56 AM
I'm curious. If a student or someone they know had been attacked by a black gang member, and expressed in print anxiety about being around all black men, or if the student or someone that they knew had suffered or died due to Islamic extremists, and the student expressed in print their anxiety around all Muslim men, would you be so supportive?
I'm pretty comfortable with my beliefs that men, as a group, are more dangerous than women...
Are you comfortable with everyone stating in print what groups they believe more dangerous than other groups?
You can look this up, you know.
Statistically men ARE more dangerous than women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/emotions/men-more-violent.htm
I wonder if the author of the op-ed is a victim of some violence in his past.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 20, 2021, 01:21:25 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 11:16:06 AM
Quote from: Caracal on October 20, 2021, 11:07:40 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 05:44:56 AM
I'm curious. If a student or someone they know had been attacked by a black gang member, and expressed in print anxiety about being around all black men, or if the student or someone that they knew had suffered or died due to Islamic extremists, and the student expressed in print their anxiety around all Muslim men, would you be so supportive?
I'm pretty comfortable with my beliefs that men, as a group, are more dangerous than women...
Are you comfortable with everyone stating in print what groups they believe more dangerous than other groups?
You can look this up, you know.
Statistically men ARE more dangerous than women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/emotions/men-more-violent.htm
But when they're safe, they're
really safe. Like, for example ex-marines and firemen. Lucas McCain.
ETA: Statistics about violence are extremely racist, too.
The white man has lost his entitlement to basic human dignity, his positive identity, in our society, and there are people in our midst who obviously intend for that to happen. Richard Spencer is not wrong about that, although I am not a fan of his methods or rhetoric generally.
For me, with the exception of my youth as a much smaller than average boy, women have appeared more dangerous, and have caused much more anxiety, because they can accuse you of things, things that tend to stick. This has been the experience of friends of mine. But now that I have discovered that my true self is gender non-binary...
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 20, 2021, 01:27:25 PM
I wonder if the author of the op-ed is a victim of some violence in his past.
Most boys have been both victims and perpetrators of violence. As Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist explains, males lash out physically and females lash out verbally. Though neither does so exclusively.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 20, 2021, 01:21:25 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 11:16:06 AM
Quote from: Caracal on October 20, 2021, 11:07:40 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 05:44:56 AM
I'm curious. If a student or someone they know had been attacked by a black gang member, and expressed in print anxiety about being around all black men, or if the student or someone that they knew had suffered or died due to Islamic extremists, and the student expressed in print their anxiety around all Muslim men, would you be so supportive?
I'm pretty comfortable with my beliefs that men, as a group, are more dangerous than women...
Are you comfortable with everyone stating in print what groups they believe more dangerous than other groups?
You can look this up, you know.
Statistically men ARE more dangerous than women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/emotions/men-more-violent.htm
And statistically, "fish" are probably more dangerous than "birds". If you're snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, this may be relevant, but if you're deciding whether to have a budgie or a goldfish for a pet, it isn't.
Similarly, if you're walking on a dark, empty street at night, you
may be in more danger from a man than from a woman, but when the
college has employees (or contractors) working in
several rooms (and possibly several buildings)
during daylight and where the students probably
don't even have to be there, it's like the budgie or goldfish situation.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 03:53:13 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 20, 2021, 01:21:25 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 11:16:06 AM
Quote from: Caracal on October 20, 2021, 11:07:40 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 05:44:56 AM
I'm curious. If a student or someone they know had been attacked by a black gang member, and expressed in print anxiety about being around all black men, or if the student or someone that they knew had suffered or died due to Islamic extremists, and the student expressed in print their anxiety around all Muslim men, would you be so supportive?
I'm pretty comfortable with my beliefs that men, as a group, are more dangerous than women...
Are you comfortable with everyone stating in print what groups they believe more dangerous than other groups?
You can look this up, you know.
Statistically men ARE more dangerous than women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/emotions/men-more-violent.htm
And statistically, "fish" are probably more dangerous than "birds". If you're snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, this may be relevant, but if you're deciding whether to have a budgie or a goldfish for a pet, it isn't.
Similarly, if you're walking on a dark, empty street at night, you may be in more danger from a man than from a woman, but when the college has employees (or contractors) working in several rooms (and possibly several buildings) during daylight and where the students probably don't even have to be there, it's like the budgie or goldfish situation.
None of us are arguing this is a reasonable fear in this situation...
Quote from: Caracal on October 20, 2021, 06:42:28 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 03:53:13 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 20, 2021, 01:21:25 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 11:16:06 AM
Quote from: Caracal on October 20, 2021, 11:07:40 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 05:44:56 AM
I'm curious. If a student or someone they know had been attacked by a black gang member, and expressed in print anxiety about being around all black men, or if the student or someone that they knew had suffered or died due to Islamic extremists, and the student expressed in print their anxiety around all Muslim men, would you be so supportive?
I'm pretty comfortable with my beliefs that men, as a group, are more dangerous than women...
Are you comfortable with everyone stating in print what groups they believe more dangerous than other groups?
You can look this up, you know.
Statistically men ARE more dangerous than women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/emotions/men-more-violent.htm
And statistically, "fish" are probably more dangerous than "birds". If you're snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, this may be relevant, but if you're deciding whether to have a budgie or a goldfish for a pet, it isn't.
Similarly, if you're walking on a dark, empty street at night, you may be in more danger from a man than from a woman, but when the college has employees (or contractors) working in several rooms (and possibly several buildings) during daylight and where the students probably don't even have to be there, it's like the budgie or goldfish situation.
None of us are arguing this is a reasonable fear in this situation...
Perhaps not, but none of the people expressing sympathy for the student seem willing to do so on the grounds that this is a mental health issue serious enough that treatment is required. In other words, one can claim to be an "ally" of this student by essentially supporting this distorted view of reality, (or at least not directly challenging it), rather than trying to help the student correct it. "Lived *experience" is a force field that must not be penetrated. Anyone attempting to do so is evil.
(*"Experience" essentially means "emotional response and fallible memory"; i.e. how one
felt about , and what one
remembers of, their experience, rather than the objective facts.)
If someone said, "We shouldn't make fun of this student because this is clearly someone with serious mental health problems which need to be addressed", then I could completely agree with that.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 21, 2021, 06:13:31 AM
Quote from: Caracal on October 20, 2021, 06:42:28 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 03:53:13 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on October 20, 2021, 01:21:25 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 11:16:06 AM
Quote from: Caracal on October 20, 2021, 11:07:40 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 20, 2021, 05:44:56 AM
I'm curious. If a student or someone they know had been attacked by a black gang member, and expressed in print anxiety about being around all black men, or if the student or someone that they knew had suffered or died due to Islamic extremists, and the student expressed in print their anxiety around all Muslim men, would you be so supportive?
I'm pretty comfortable with my beliefs that men, as a group, are more dangerous than women...
Are you comfortable with everyone stating in print what groups they believe more dangerous than other groups?
You can look this up, you know.
Statistically men ARE more dangerous than women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/emotions/men-more-violent.htm
And statistically, "fish" are probably more dangerous than "birds". If you're snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, this may be relevant, but if you're deciding whether to have a budgie or a goldfish for a pet, it isn't.
Similarly, if you're walking on a dark, empty street at night, you may be in more danger from a man than from a woman, but when the college has employees (or contractors) working in several rooms (and possibly several buildings) during daylight and where the students probably don't even have to be there, it's like the budgie or goldfish situation.
None of us are arguing this is a reasonable fear in this situation...
Perhaps not, but none of the people expressing sympathy for the student seem willing to do so on the grounds that this is a mental health issue serious enough that treatment is required. In other words, one can claim to be an "ally" of this student by essentially supporting this distorted view of reality, (or at least not directly challenging it), rather than trying to help the student correct it. "Lived *experience" is a force field that must not be penetrated. Anyone attempting to do so is evil.
(*"Experience" essentially means "emotional response and fallible memory"; i.e. how one felt about , and what one remembers of, their experience, rather than the objective facts.)
If someone said, "We shouldn't make fun of this student because this is clearly someone with serious mental health problems which need to be addressed", then I could completely agree with that.
I believe I did
exactly the bolded portion, so "none" hurts my feelings a little.
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 21, 2021, 06:13:31 AM
Perhaps not, but none of the people expressing sympathy for the student seem willing to do so on the grounds that this is a mental health issue serious enough that treatment is required. In other words, one can claim to be an "ally" of this student by essentially supporting this distorted view of reality, (or at least not directly challenging it), rather than trying to help the student correct it. "Lived *experience" is a force field that must not be penetrated. Anyone attempting to do so is evil.
I really am not all that sympathetic. The student might have mental health issues, but you can't really tell that from reading an editorial. They also might just be a pain. Regardless, there is obviously a lot of immaturity and entitlement going on here. I just don't think any of this reveals anything very interesting or important.
Quote from: Caracal on October 21, 2021, 01:17:36 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on October 21, 2021, 06:13:31 AM
Perhaps not, but none of the people expressing sympathy for the student seem willing to do so on the grounds that this is a mental health issue serious enough that treatment is required. In other words, one can claim to be an "ally" of this student by essentially supporting this distorted view of reality, (or at least not directly challenging it), rather than trying to help the student correct it. "Lived *experience" is a force field that must not be penetrated. Anyone attempting to do so is evil.
I really am not all that sympathetic.
I am. I consider him a victim of rampant far left victimology culture.
QuoteThe student might have mental health issues, but you can't really tell that from reading an editorial. They also might just be a pain. Regardless, there is obviously a lot of immaturity and entitlement going on here. I just don't think any of this reveals anything very interesting or important.
The student thinks that he is showing how sophisticated he is, and he needs to be told to knock it off. Of course, the real problems are not these young impressionable students dealing with common post-pubescent stresses and strains, but the miscreants of academia who spawned the radical left mania, the social climbers of Hollywood and the power-hungry tycoons who currently fund 'antiracism' movements, and such, throughout the USA. And the media outlets they own.
ETA: There are people who are getting mobilized to oppose the unfortunate direction society has taken. Expect to hear more. Once things get into the courts it's a little different.
Quote from: Caracal on October 20, 2021, 08:00:39 AM
Quote from: Hegemony on October 19, 2021, 06:55:26 PM
I think the problem here is that the student put his (?) objections in an op-ed, as if they were a norm or a template.
People do have all kinds of objections to things, some silly, some less so. I once worked in a place where a co-worker went ballistic because the maintenance people had opened the package of toilet paper and left some sitting in the bag while waiting to be put on the roll. My co-worker thought that this would pollute the toilet paper and make it unsafe (but not when it got put on the roll — don't ask me, I'm just reporting).
But in the long run, as far as the bigger picture, the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. "College student expresses immaturity." Headline news?
Exactly. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to be mildly to moderately annoyed about. It is irritating and stressful to know that some people are going to need to come into your living space at an unspecified time during the day. If you come back from class, can you take a nap? If you go take a shower are you going to come back in your towel and open your door to find 4 people putting in the radiator?
There are also ways in which dorm living gives students fewer rights in their space than renters. You have to allow your landlord to make repairs, but unless those repairs are urgent, they can't just tell you they are going to come fix something at some random time. You get to tell them "actually, Wednesday isn't good for me."
Is any of this important and consequential? Of course not. Is it worth writing an editorial about? No. You actually get a pretty good window into how everyone else because the student reports asking people if they were also outraged and angry. The response is basically, "yeah, that was kind of annoying, oh well."
I don't think the student feels this way because of the rhetoric of safe spaces and victimhood. Rather, they were grumpy and anxious about this, and they are reaching for this available rhetoric to try to elevate this above the mundane and the personal into some larger and more important problem. I try to do this all the time with my petty annoyances. I just have enough self awareness to realize that this isn't a great subject for an op-ed. That said, go to a faculty meeting and you'll hear from a lot of people who try to turn trivial annoyances into matters of great import...
Wow, Caracal, this is marvelously insightful. Or at least it totally agrees with my viewpoint.
Another way of characterizing the op-ed, this thread, and much of everyday expression, would be "Human blows trivial annoyance out of proportion."
Quote from: Hegemony on November 03, 2021, 10:55:34 PM
Another way of characterizing the op-ed, this thread, and much of everyday expression, would be "Human blows trivial annoyance out of proportion."
Apparently, that's a feature rather than a bug for some people.
Quote from: no1capybara on November 03, 2021, 01:35:27 PM
Quote from: Caracal on October 20, 2021, 08:00:39 AM
I don't think the student feels this way because of the rhetoric of safe spaces and victimhood. Rather, they were grumpy and anxious about this, and they are reaching for this available rhetoric to try to elevate this above the mundane and the personal into some larger and more important problem. I try to do this all the time with my petty annoyances. I just have enough self awareness to realize that this isn't a great subject for an op-ed. That said, go to a faculty meeting and you'll hear from a lot of people who try to turn trivial annoyances into matters of great import...
Wow, Caracal, this is marvelously insightful. Or at least it totally agrees with my viewpoint.
I'm guessing that, fifteen years ago, this student would have written in a journal, confided in friends, or talked to a counselor. In the current tell-all social media climate, in which we're saturated with accounts of individuals' personal problems - ranging from devastating to trivial - it's no surprise that this student should go the tell-all route.
I see this sort of thing frequently even in professional journalism these days. The CBC regularly posts "news" articles based entirely on one individual's complaint about mistreatment of one kind or another, with no independent verification. I first noticed this in a story about some woman's claim to have had a bad experience with a Cuban hospital when her kid got sick during their vacation; it seemed utterly banal, and she was the only source of information. I understand the value of human interest, but human-interest stories typically involve actual reporting, and these just don't; in fact, they easily could be op-eds by the aggrieved party.
Anyway, this student's airing of personal angst seems to fit right in with the current zeitgeist.
Is anyone who's willing to come out as trans male-to-female here willing to say there is no reason, ever, for such an individual to fear cis males, plural or singular, in any situation, ever?
There are in fact cases of rednecks (to be blunt) attacking non-binary individuals simply on the basis of their gender preference/identity, and some of those attacks were lethal.
I know one M-to-F member of a seminary chapel I attend who is very careful where they go and who they are even walking with across campus for personal safety reasons.
Maintenance workers, as a general type, can be, maybe even are, often (but not always) hurly-burly cis/anti-alt guys with a tool belt and a chip on their shoulder about their own sexual ID.
Not all, of course, and usually they've all by now had to do training on appropriate behavioral limits with students (interthreadual references, anyone?).
But it's still not irrational to be afraid in those circumstances.
How one addresses those fears and seeks redress for undue consideration when it's been requested is a different question.
But unless you, yourself, personally, have been endangered by others in some similar setting, you have no empathic judgment seat from which to pontificate.
Charity, or mercy, might be more appropriate.
M.
ETA, I have mostly ignored this thread because I could guess (correctly, as it turns out), where it was going. I'll go back to ignoring it until the defensive cis-white-male rectangular firing squad get done sqwaking over picayune irrelivancies so as to try to drown out the actual urgency of the issues involved.
See you in six weeks, which is the length of time it takes people to process a crisis...
M.
Mamselle, I appreciate what you have said and want to note that I posted my comment before reading the student's column. I have read it since and, while I found it overwrought, certainly understand the concern. I found it ironic that this student made gendered assumptions about who would be doing the work. And I also wonder about past trauma, because I think there is a strong possibility that this student is trans female-to-male.
Quote from: history_grrrl on November 06, 2021, 11:42:27 AM
Mamselle, I appreciate what you have said and want to note that I posted my comment before reading the student's column. I have read it since and, while I found it overwrought, certainly understand the concern. I found it ironic that this student made gendered assumptions about who would be doing the work. And I also wonder about past trauma, because I think there is a strong possibility that this student is trans female-to-male.
Yes, and thanks.
I have worked with three young adolescents who were music students of mine in the past five years; each is also either contemplating or undergoing various forms of F-to-M transitions, as well, and there are reasons for them to be afraid, too (one went to a very secluded beach so as not to be mocked for his top covering, for example).
It's also true that while they may still be in the minority, there are also some female maintenance workers in some settings (whether in this one or not is as yet unknown); maybe the simplest solution would have been to find out if anyone was less likely to present a threat to the student, and work out an option that way.
Taking people at their best, and on their own terms where personal safety concerns are involved, would seem to be the usual best first step.
M.
QuoteThere are reasons for them to be afraid...
I believe you.