What do snowflakes and millennials have in common?
Delicacy, according to Claire Fox, head of the Institute of Ideas, a think tank that encourages free speech and public debate. Fox wrote I Find That Offensive, a critique of “Generation Snowflake,” the name given to a growing group of young people who believe it is their right to be protected from anything they find offensive or controversial.
This attitude is displayed in recent issues such as “safe spaces” on college campuses and “trigger warnings” which are slapped onto books, articles, and speeches if they contain inflammatory or “troublesome” material.
“There is a strand of self-absorption and fragility running through this generation; all too ready to cry ‘victim’ at the first hint of a situation they don’t like,” Fox wrote for the Daily Mail.
She described a scene at an event in which her mostly female audience dissolved into tears when she “dared suggest (as eminent feminists have before me) that rape wasn’t necessarily the worst thing a woman could experience.”
Fox, who expected some discussion to arise from her comment, expressed shocked at the dramatic reaction.
“It illustrated this generation’s almost belligerent sense of entitlement,” she said. “They assume their emotional suffering takes precedence. Express a view they disagree with and you must immediately recant and apologize.”
The tendency among millennials to take offense and believe a dissenting opinion poses a serious threat is in direct opposition to one of the values promoted by feminism. Sixty-three percent of women aged 18-34 identify as either feminist or as a strong feminist, according to a poll conducted by Feminism Today.
Everyday Feminism lists “listening” as one of the defining characteristics of the movement.
“One of the most important and underrated goals of feminism is to listen to the cultural messages bombarding us,” Kelsey Lueptow wrote. “You can’t fight a battle until you know what it is.”
However, because more than half of millennial women identify themselves as holding feminist beliefs, a general unwillingness to listen to any opinions that may differ from their own seems contradictory.
“We need a younger generation that’s prepared to grow a backbone, go out into the world, take risks and make difficult decisions,” Fox said. “Otherwise the future doesn’t bode well for any of us.”
