Posted by Maria Maltseva on Jan 4, 2013 in Drama, Feminism |

Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

Trigger warnings are a new post-modern feminist online fad. They’re almost exclusively used in feminist blogs to indicate content related to sexual abuse or rape perpetrated against women (e.g, Trigger Warning: Rape), but go as far as to include disappointing marriage proposals. As such, they’re obviously needless, since the same information can easily be conveyed with an accurate title (e.g, Violent Gang Rape And Murder On Delhi Bus). Further, apparently male victims of suffering or abuse are not worthy of such warnings and didn’t need them until women stormed the internet. After all they’re strong, they’re men, they can cope, right? How incredibly sexist. It’s even more interesting that many of those who say they benefit from trigger warnings readily admit to having suffered no sexual abuse or trauma whatsoever. But, you know, apparently some things just sound too disturbing to certain overly-feminine ears. How do such people function in society and serve as professionals, doctors, nurses, attorneys, jurors, judges, victim’s rights advocates, role models, artists, journalists, parents, peers? For these people I’d like to present a trigger warning that should cover everything they’re likely to see online: Trigger Warning — Internet and offline: Trigger Warning — Life.

To make this short, I agree with everything said about trigger warnings here. Further, I don’t understand how anyone laying a claim to rationality can even assert that there is some utility to a generalized warning intended to keep someone from feeling what they do because of a set of unique external and/or internal circumstances. One must be completely unfamiliar with PTSD, anxiety, or panic disorder to imagine that trigger warnings can ever be anything other than advertising. File this one away with Patriarchy “theory,” male privilege, mansplainin’, and a torrent of other logically-untenable, self-serving feminist nonsense that I want no part of. I’d rather join a sewing club. Seriously. At least those girls (and boys?) can teach me something useful.