So here's my take, for what it's worth.
In and of itself, if we decouple it from the author, watson's piece is, although poorly written, not a bad piece. A lot of what she says makes sense, like this part:
I’ve been triggered once before and it was extremely unpleasant, to the point that I laid in bed in the fetal position crying for a few hours. A person who is triggered by words like “stupid†and “idiot†must quite seriously live a horrific life dominated by fear and pain, and I sincerely hope they get therapeutic help.
I have no doubt that there are such people, just as there are probably people who are triggered by other insults. I could certainly imagine a person with a newly installed colostomy bag being triggered by words like “shitty.†Perhaps someone who was orally raped is triggered when someone says that something “sucks.†Maybe someone with a cleft palate is triggered when the word “ugly†is used to describe everything from faces to personalities to carpets.
And if I was friends with any of those people and I used one of those words in their presence and they took me aside and told me about their pain, I would absolutely avoid saying those words in their presence.
I would not, though, avoid saying those words elsewhere, because those words are not slurs. Compare any of them to the word “kike,†for instance. “Kike†is a word that has no other usage besides dehumanizing and marginalizing Jewish people. Yes, it has been thrown at me, a gentile through and through, but even then it was meant to insult some perceived Jewishness in my person. The word “retard†has been thrown at me, a person with no developmental disabilities, but it is quite obviously always meant to shame me by aligning me with people with disabilities. The word “cunt†is thrown at men, but every time it is meant to unambiguously connect them with the disgusting, lesser vagina.
She goes off the rails a bit by the end, but for the most part, that's actually a pretty reasonable stance to take. It's like "leprosy". That's a word I won't use around my son's grandfather, nor its variants, because for him, there's an astounding amount of pain associated with it. (He has a son he hasn't seen since that kid was seven, something like half a century ago. He'll never find that kid, most likely, and all because of ignorance about Hansen's.) So, out of simple human kindness, I don't use that word around him.
Doesn't mean I ban it from my vocabulary, just means around him, I don't use it. I think, at least I hope this is not that radical of a concept.
The problem isn't the essay as much as the author. Watson has spent, essentially since "elevatorgate", every waking moment being the queen of social justice, and all of a sudden, the tumblr lot is attacking her. Watching her flail about shows just how clueless she is about the viciousness she's been ramping up, and encouraging and enabling. But now it's bad because now it's causing her problems. Oh, and the rest of the skepchicks. The twitter idiocy between hensley and the other two dips shows just how inverted things have gotten.
Watson raised her flag on MY PAIN IS EVERYONE'S PROBLEM, and not once, not fucking once did she stop for a second and think about just how fucking stupid it could get, and SHE LIVES ON THE INTERNET. She *knows* how out of proportion things get, especially with the SJW lot. (HUGGATE) She planted this, she cared for this, she coo'd over this, she protected this when it was weak, and what she thought was a happy flower turned out to be a fuckin' Audrey II, and she's now backed into the corner with the giant mutant plant screaming FEED ME REBECCA! FEED ME ALL NIGHT LONG.
Only it ain't gettin' her a cadillac car, or a date with hedley lamar. All feeding it does is ensure it doesn't eat her.
Most of me is laughing at this, because fuck yeah, she did earn it. But there is a small part of me that feels genuinely bad for her, because I'm still human, and even when sorely deserved, watching someone get attacked like that still kind of sucks.
I don't think she will, but it would be nice if she thought about this and thought about things like Stef McGraw, and maybe, just maybe realized that along the way, she kind of fucked a lot of things up and maybe needs to start trying to make things better.
Don't think she will, but it would be nice.
