November 22, 2017

Safe spaces for Leftists only

BRENDAN O’NEILL
 
We are starting to see just how ideological the so-called ‘Safe Space’ is. This is an era in which it’s considered progressive to provide Safe Spaces for 20-year-old students who don’t want to hear certain ideas, but it’s ‘transphobic’, if not demonic, to expect a Safe Space for 13-year-old girls who want to try on clothes in Topshop without some bloke with stubble and chest hair breezing in.

Feminists demand Safe Spaces against controversial speakers, but will laugh at the fact that ‘there’s no hiding place’ for men accused – only accused – of sexual harassment.

Students with the ‘right’ views get a Safe Space, but students who like Israel or Brexit or reading tabloid newspapers can expect their spaces to be invaded and policed.

It’s clear now: the Safe Space is ideological prejudice in action, granting ‘safety’ to those who subscribe to the new illiberal-liberal orthodoxies, and denying it to those who do not. If you dissent from PC, there’s no safety for you. And there might even be violence.

Via email

Brendan might have added that there are no safe spaces for men either. Clubs and bars that excluded women to provide safe spaces for men -- as with the Harvard "Final clubs" have been relentlessly attacked, until there are now very few of them left.

For over a hundred years all Australian towns had a men's space -- the public bar of a local hotel.  Women were not allowed there.  There was a separate "Ladies' lounge" where women drank.  Feminists have completely destroyed that.  Women are now allowed in all bars, sometimes by force of law.

Many universities do however have permanent "safe spaces" for women -- from which men are rigorously excluded. My son reports that when he was recently on the campus of the University of Queensland -- of which he and I are both graduates -- he was approached by some young women who were handing out small gifts to anyone who signed a petition demanding a women's space on that campus.

He agreed to sign their petition, saying, "I think any group should have the right to exclude people they don't like".  This utterance was greeted with horror, his signature was rejected and he did not get his gift.  He was describing plainly what they wanted but they could not admit that

And Christians attract a lot of hostility on campus but where are the safe spaces for them?  Despite their constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion, Christian clubs that try to set up at American High Schools and universities are often denied permission to do so (e.g. here and here).  As Brendan says, safe spaces are only for certain groups -- ones favoured by the Left





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