Students at Sarah Lawrence College in New York are demanding that fellow students pay feminist activists on campus for their “emotional labor.”
The ridiculous claim came in the comments on a long Facebook post in the student group “Sarah Lawrence College Class of 2020,” which started with rumors that a python was loose on campus.
“If there is really a python on campus [please] keep me updated as to when it’s gone,” said the first poster. “I am so afraid of snakes…”
Students began to discuss whether or not a python was, in fact, loose on campus—until the former owner of the python came clean, explaining that campus security demanded the student get rid of the pet python within one hour. When the student was unable to find the snake a new home, the snake was set free in the woods near campus, where it soon died.
Some feminists in the group were, however, unhappy that students were discussing something as trivial as campus safety—demanding that, instead, all conversations be about “literal wars and genocides,” or about “systemic racism, poor treatment of laborers, sexual assaults, [and] anti-Muslim hate crimes.”
One student lamented, “The discussion of the snake was far bigger than the discussion of hate crimes on this campus,” before blaming white people for “not having a single community-wide conversation about racism.”
The conversation continued—with another student complaining that “the issue is that people talked [about] the snake… but completely ignored the hate crimes against black [and] Muslim students earlier this year.”
The student then dropped the bomb—demanding that the less politically-charged students should underwrite her expenses, since she’s doing so much activism in the Facebook group.
“Also since W&FoC [women and ‘feminists of color’] are still using our emotional labor to discuss this as nobody gives a sh*t about the systemic problems at this school, give your $$$,” and included a link.
Another student added, “Please pay… for their labor, preferably over $30.”
One student realized how ridiculous that notion was: “I cannot believe people are asking for money because of ‘emotional labor.’” She added: “I can’t think of a more disgusting use of capitalism than the concept of paying for someone to care about a problem.”
Reactions to even a slight voice of reason were hostile, with another student claiming that the previous student was racist for insisting minorities should not be “compensated for their labor,” despite the fact that their “labor” was Facebook activism that no one wanted.
Another student accused her of a “lack of sensitivity in your rhetoric.”
However, more students hit back upon the ridiculous claim that feminist Facebook activists were entitled to donations.
One wrote: “Ok but like, it’s your decision to care about these issues?”
And another accused them of “extortion” for demanding money for services that no one requested.
Sarah Lawrence College currently costs $67,214 per year for tuition and fees—making it, as of 2014, the most expense college in the country.
For comparison, 2,244 students would have to give every single feminist a $30 “emotional labor” donation, just to cover one full year at Sarah Lawrence.