"triggering," but apparently not.
A realistic-looking statue of a sleepwalking schlub in his underpants has caused an outrage at Wellesley, a women's college in Massachusetts near Boston. The students are so disturbed that they want him—I mean, it—gone.
Grab the smelling salts, ladies. This is not a prowler, it's a piece of art.
That distinction doesn't seem to matter to the 700 angry and aggrieved students, alumni and others who in recent days have signed a petition demanding the removal of artist Tony Matelli's "Sleepwalker." They say that, while inanimate, the male image is nonetheless a "trigger"—a catalyst capable of stirring up anything from memories of sexual assault to fear of strangers.
"Wellesley should be a safe place for their students, not a triggering one," wrote one petition-signer, as if the statue actually made the campus dangerous. That's a brand-new way of looking at—and trying to legislate—the world. So I checked in with Robert Shibley, senior vice president at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, about the Wellesley panic. "It's the idea that any kind of discomfort is a form of assault," he noted.Once we equate making people feel bad with actually attacking them, free expression is basically obsolete, since anything a person does, makes or says could be interpreted as abuse.Lisa Fischman, director of the art museum on campus, wrote an open letter to students explaining that, to her, the Matelli statue depicts a vulnerable, pathetic stranger. (He's sleepwalking in his skivvies in the snow, after all.) But to the petition-signers, her point of view is apparently not worthy. One wrote that Ms. Fischman's letter, like the sculpture itself, "should occupy a less intrusive place."Yet another wrote: "A school endorsing the decision to expose its female students to this . . . violates civil rights laws." I'll stop quoting these petition-signers now—their words are triggering some of my own fears.
The third example of thought-control tactics in two days. (See yesterday's posts on the catering-service worker for suing her former employer over not addressing her in a gender-neutral way, and the Media Matters writer who curried the wrath of his fellow Lefties for not knowing about, much less using, the term "cisgendered." ) Anyone sensing a pattern?
Every company I work for is wild about explaining what sexual harassment is and isn't and making you sign forms indicating that you have read what it is and understand what it is. The problem there is that the descriptions are quite nebulous. I suppose it is if some broad (or stud, good luck there, Charlie) says it is. These ladies these days can live without us. Legalize prostitution everywhere then so we can live without them.
ReplyDeleteOne could make the case that that is a jaded viewpoint, but one could also argue its sensible-ness.
ReplyDeleteDr. Laura had no truck for bitching wives. She said men are simple creatures who want to work hard for their families and in return be bed and fed. By the way, my wife, no feminist, says this sculpture is extremely creepy.
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