Trigger warnings - not feminist?

I like some sort of warning on stuff that can upset survivors. Maybe short description of the content or whatever so you know what you're going to read about.

I had to stop reading the supposedly pro-woman site Jezebel because they posted some provocative violence against women/bdsm things with no warning. It was like a big fuck you to survivors of violence.

I used to post on a rape survivor forum and it was usual to put trigger warnings on potentially triggering posts ie. Descriptions of what happened etc. Messages of support, factual info, poems etc didn't have trigger warnings. There was a specific section of the forum for posting stories which was flagged as triggering but stories were posted throughout the forum or alluded to in conversations and it was seen as supportive and kind to put a warning up before posting something triggering.

Hence I have no problem with trigger warnings. I don't see it as silencing or censorship at all. More a way of supportively helping people take care of themselves. Everyone has days when they find reading some things harder to deal with.

Sorry - wasn't aimed at you specifically, uncharted rather the general 'you' plural who might see such warnings as problematic.

For there is both the context specific issue - are they right here - and the broader one of 'are they ever right', from which flows the question of whether different subject matter requires different handling (and that is where I would see a feminist angle coming in). I happen to think they are right for any subject which might cause avoidable upset (or seeing spoilers) as what is read cannot be unread, and it would be worse to drive away those who could benefit from using a site or forum as a whole.

I can understand how someone who is writing a heartfelt, painful account of something that's happened to them, might find it galling to have to say "this is my story and it might be unpalatable". I wonder if they might think "this HAPPENED to me, all you've got to do is read about it"

I guess it all comes down to empathy.

Do you think that 'sensitive content' warnings on MN (sometimes added by MNHQ) are also wrong? Or 'spoiler alert'?

I think they are a way of keeping maximum participation, whilst allowing individuals to decide how they want to navigate.

I suppose. I don't think that's how it works though. I think that most people who would actively choose not to read something would be someone who would be triggered by it.

If they're the kind of person to not be triggered but merely say "Oh no, that's too nasty for me, I couldn't possibly read it/I want to pretend it doesn't exist" then they'd probably just stop reading anyway once they realised the content of the article or whatever. A lack of trigger warnings doesn't stop someone clicking away, and in the meantime any victims reading have already been triggered and upset by it before they were able to click away.

I suppose it could be upsetting, if you want to post about something and 'get it all out', and someone else tells you you should have put a warning on it. Or if you feel that, by putting a warning on it, you're somehow ashamed of what happened? I mean, you shouldn't be, but it's an issue.

How is it censorship? Surely it's the very opposite. If we didn't have trigger warnings then it would be kinder to victims not to post potentially triggering things at all. Adding a trigger warning means that viewers/readers can decide for themselves if they're feeling up to reading something.

Oh, I'd never thought of it like that. I suppose I can see why people might feel like that, actually. But I think the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Oh I believe her. It's a hard story to read, I haven't finished it yet.

I think the trigger warning is just polite IYKWIM? Also, anyone likely to be triggered and therefore not read the stuff probably doesn't particularly need educating about the horror of rape.

I don't see a trigger warning as censorship at all.

Are you reading that occupy movement thing?

God that's awful.