I am a college student (who should be writing papers right now, haha) and a feminist so I'm always interested to see how this stuff is discussed. Things definitely don't feel that way at my school, though this was
a recent op-ed about a different Canadian school that sort of follows the train of thought. I don't go to a super liberal school, but I'm an Arts student and I took a few women's studies courses in my first year, so I did get exposed to what I think is as close to what she's discussing as you'd get at my uni.
Anyways I have a bunch of random thoughts so I'm just going to sound off on them, haha.
Trigger warnings in general, which they talked about a bit at the beginning of the video mostly - I feel that in general it's much ado about nothing. For example in one of my classes, we watched a film with a pretty brutal rape scene. We watched it in class but the prof told us ahead of time that it was quite brutal and if we wanted/needed to leave, that was fine. It didn't really feel like coddling or "oh no this will give you PTSD!" so much as acknowledging that it's pretty hard to watch (for anyone!) and if you don't want to sit in a classroom hearing rape in surround sound, that's okay. The prof didn't make a big deal about it and neither did the students, it just was a heads up and a few people left. I have seen a lot of people go overboard with asking for trigger warnings (
this one is my favourite), I don't think we should have trigger warnings for every possible thing ever. If someone can't deal with whatever the topic is, let them skip or drop the class. But at least respect your students enough to let them decide that for themselves. I also kind of resent the fact that trigger warnings are a huge joke because I do think they can be useful for a lot of people, and they do come from a serious place of trying to help rape victims and veterans deal with their PTSD in a better way. It sucks that that has turned into such a mess with overusage. But I also don't agree with the notion that all college students are just oversensitive babies who need to be exposed to the real world and all that rabble that comes up with the topic. To me it's fairly straightforward - like adding a note on the syllabus and letting students decide for themselves. I think that puts the onus on the student and lets them choose for themselves.
Catcalling, I definitely don't think there should be laws against it - we have laws against harassment already. She mentioned that there's no distinction in the reaction to someone saying "hey beautiful" and something more sinister. I have seen that a lot online, there is often no room given for error or growth, the response to anything being "problematic" is MAX LEVEL 10. Joss Whedon wrote a Black Widow characterization we don't like, he is garbage, throw him out. It's quite black-and-white thinking. A bit of a tangent from her point but an interesting one. I think this has gotten a little bit better - I hope that the "call out culture" is a growing pain along the way to a more balanced way of thinking. But it's still definitely an issue. Anyways, catcalling sucks and I wish it would stop. That's pretty much the crux of my thoughts on that, haha.
One of my courses this semester was about a stereotypically genedered issue - one of those things like the wage gap or rape stats where you feel you have a pretty good idea of "this is something that happens to women, by men, primarily". My prof (who I fucking love, he is brilliant) presented us solely with data to counter that - showing that it was actually primarily men affected by this. His data, like most data, was chosen to illustrate his point. Someone on RateMyProf (from a previous semester) said his work was very misogynistic. Personally - I found it pretty interesting. It challenged what I thought, inspired me to read more deeply into the research he presented us with, and to read more deeply into previous research that had supported my original opinion. I also talked to my family member who works sort of related to the topic to get more information from his anecdotal "front line" perspective. At the end - I didn't totally agree with all of the info my prof shared. Some of the research tactics were a bit sketchy or SO specific that I think it's unethical to generalize. Other stuff that he shared was pretty interesting, looked legit (after my expert deconstruction, hahah), and helped me to get a better understanding of the issue. Interegating the material that closely helped me to broaden my own views and strengthen my own thoughts. And I now know the info inside and out so I will ace the final
(I should do that for all my classes!)
I think this is what Christina Hoff Sommers is getting at - that she wants students to say "this data you're presenting doesn't sit right with me - I'm going to work with it and figure it out"? I think that's fair. We as students now are incredibly lucky to have access to aaaaaaaaanything we want to learn about. I felt like I got more out of the class than if I'd said "what a sexist, fuck this guy". At the same time I often feel the ~anti-SJW~ or anti-feminist types do exactly that: "this is feminazi bullshit, fuck that" rather than having any kind of respectful engagement (key word: respectful!). I like having discussions and looking at different viewpoints than my own but often times it feels like someone trying to lecture me (...not my prof, who is in fact paid to lecture me
) or condescend me. I don't like having these discussions with someone who's mind is made up that they are trying to Prove Me Wrong rather than talk about an issue. I think this happens a lot to students with people saying "you'll grow up and realize how wrong you are" (like the comments on that first article linked up there, saying all students are Liberals until they grow up into Conservatives). Even
if that were/is true - it's condescending, immediately shows you have no respect or interest in anything but patting your own intelligence on the back. A lot of discussions about students seem to come from the "stupid kids, they think they know everything, they're so dumb" mindset and that is never going to be productive.
I like Christina Hoff Sommers, I don't agree with all of what she says and I think she comes off, at times, a bit condescending. But she is obviously an incredibly smart woman, inspiring, and I think she raises a lot of good points. A lot of her videos, even the parts I disagree with, at the very least get me to think and to consider why I think the way I do/where my information comes from. I
really liked when she said that she's changed her mind a thousand times and will again, I feel the same way and I think that's important when talking about students - young people are coming into their own, shaping their opinions, and while it is problematic to cover your ears and say "lalala take me to the puppy room" at anything you disagree with, I think the best approach is to try and engage positively with them. If she came to my campus I would go see her speak and feel fortunate if I got to have a beer with her after
I would also like the room of puppy videos though because that sounds cute as fuck.
(I have so many feelings about these topics in general, beyond just this video, but alas, I've probably written more in this post than my essay that's due at midnight, so oops...!)
