Bricker:
Would you mind linking to the post in which someone expressed that the depth of their pain was so great that witnessing repeated hijacks and denialism of their experience had effectively driven them into silence? And then to my response?
I ask because I don’t think that exchange happened. But perhaps I was blind to what was being said.
I cannot say. A lot would depend on whether the assumption had been challenged by other posters and a conversation had developed already. I’d feel less restrained about joining a discussion in progress than starting one.
I am not Spice Weasel, but I am guessing these are the posts in question.
The many ideas that have been introduced into this thread where women share their stories have been similar to how this conversation has gone across social and journalistic media; women say what’s happened to them and then men come in to demand filters and interpretations be placed on the women’s experiences. This diminishes not only the lessons that men can learn but also the comfort women feel to not only continue sharing but pursuing remedies when something happens to them. From the comfort of their physically safe bubble, men say, ‘but but but’ and its intent to chill the effect for whatever reason (usually the men’s feelings are hurt) is clear. Women’s experiences just in this thread have been chipped away at and undermined, (they were juveniles, their attacker was autistic, the attacker was known to them) and it’s an example of how this conversation has always gone and will always go until enough generations of men have learned empathy while at the same time not being taught chauvinism and sexism.
To the extent that a “safe space,” appears to mean an area in which one participant can share a view or interpretation without challenge by other participants. . . yes, you’re absolutely correct: this thread, this board, and this country are not “safe spaces,” and I intend to work diligently to ensure that they never become safe spaces.
Perhaps you don’t discern any pain in the first post, but I certainly do. If women have no space to discuss painful experiences, without having our experiences attacked, then what is the point of sharing them> Why go through painful recounting only to be told “Your experiences doesn’t count,” or “You have no right to feel threatened by that?”
And perhaps you didn’t mean “well,good” in your reply, but it did come across that way to me. You intend to work diligently to continue to ensure that women have no space to discuss painful experiences without being challenged on how legitimate our pain actually is.