How fainting couch feminism threatens freedom | FACTUAL FEMINIST — Transcript

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1. 0:00I have been lecturing on college campuses for more than twenty years. I’ve seen lots
2. 0:04of hijinks, but nothing like what is happening today. Safe-space fainting couch feminists
3. 0:11are taking over. And their own professors find them scary. That’s coming up next on the factual feminist.
4. 0:22Consider what happened to feminist professor Laura Kipnis at Northwestern University.
5. 0:27She wrote an essay making light of trigger warnings and safe spacers. Two
6. 0:31graduate students found her views “terrifying” and filed Title IX harassment charges against
7. 0:36her. Her university, apparently intimidated by the grad students, took their charges seriously.
8. 0:42The University carried out a formal investigation of the professor and her “offending” essay. Title
9. 0:48IX was once a common sense law about gender fairness in education. Today it’s being
10. 0:52weaponized for use by fainting couch feminists who see the world as a battle between fragile
11. 0:58maidens and evil predators. Vox recently published an article by a professor entitled “I’m
12. 1:04a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me.” They terrify him because as
13. 1:08he explains, “Hurting a student's feelings, even in the course of instruction that is
14. 1:14absolutely appropriate and respectful, can now get a teacher into serious trouble.”
15. 1:18I recently encountered these hyper-sensitive fainting couch feminists at Oberlin College and Georgetown University.
16. 1:25I visited both campuses to give talks on the need to reform feminism and correct exaggerated
17. 1:30victim statistics. In the past, activist students who disagreed with me came to my lectures
18. 1:36to spar and debate. Today, they issue trigger warnings and accuse me of giving them PTSD.
19. 1:41At both Oberlin and Georgetown, activists organized safe spaces where students
20. 1:46could flee if they were panicked by my arguments. At Oberlin, 35 students and
21. 1:51a therapy dog sought refuge in a safe room, and I feel badly about triggering a dog. But still, there were
22. 1:59paranoid flyers festooned the walls. The first three rows of the lecture hall were filled with
23. 2:04students who put duct tape, red duct tape, on their mouths, and they sat there as I spoke. At Georgetown,
24. 2:13the editorial board of the school newspaper, The Hoya, denounced my lecture as “harmful” and “not the
25. 2:17conversation that students should be having.” Well who are they to determine what dialogue
26. 2:22what conversation students should have? They said that they thought students should focus on creating a
27. 2:28safe space for survivors. Imagine being an untenured professor at Georgetown.
28. 2:34By the way, officials at both Oberlin and Georgetown
29. 2:36were so alarmed by the frantic facebook postings before my visit to campus they assigned
30. 2:42armed guards to protect me from the safe-spacers. At this moment, the fainting couchers and
31. 2:49safe spacers are everywhere on college campuses, and they are getting their way. University
32. 2:54and college officials, afraid of running afoul of title IX, are quietly amending the U.S.
33. 2:59Constitution. The First Amendment is being replaced by a woman’s right not to be made
34. 3:03uncomfortable. Due process is being treated as a barrier to justice rather than its essence.
35. 3:10Armies of gender apparatchiks are monitoring and policing speech, ideas, humor, and sexuality.
36. 3:16Since the time of Socrates, education has been synonymous with debate, inquiry, challenge.
37. 3:21If universities replace the ideals of free inquiry and critical thinking with
38. 3:25“safety,” they will have lost their reason for being. All of this psychodrama is massively
39. 3:31embarrassing to women and to feminism. Some say these new crusaders are a feisty generation
40. 3:40that we should admire for refusing to put up with gender injustice. Well, I don’t
41. 3:45see the safe spacers as admirable. And I don’t believe they are taking us into some bright
42. 3:50new future where women are secure and respected. This is a reactionary movement that is taking
43. 3:56us back to when women were viewed as delicate flowers. This is fainting couch feminism.
44. 4:02Hysteria over sexual conduct will do little to help genuine victims of sexual violence,
45. 4:08And it's just shutting down dialogue, that's undermining essential principles of our civilization. Let me know
46. 4:14in the comments what you think about the state of freedom on campus. If you feel safe about
47. 4:18doing it, please follow me on Twitter and Facebook and subscribe to this series. I hope
48. 4:24I have not triggered anyone out there—especially one of your pets. Thank you for watching the
49. 4:28Factual Feminist.