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Original poster

Am furious with NUS Women's Campaign

190 replies

ArcheryAnnie · 25/03/2015 11:32

...for their "Some delegates are requesting that we move to jazz hands rather than clapping, as it's triggering anxiety. Please be mindful!" tweet.

Safe spaces are important. Making accommodation for students with different needs is important. Performative bullshit like this is not important.

I understand accessibility. I have accessibility needs myself. This is not offering accessibility (even if you discount the needs of visually-impaired students), it's reinforcing that political activity should never, ever make you feel uncomfortable. Which is bullshit.

I just saw in Another Forum (not that one) someone positing the idea of a series of interviews with historical figures like the Pankhursts, Phoolan Devi and Mary Seacole, asking them about their safe spaces and their self-care practices and I thought: yes, exactly.

Do we want to change the world, or just do we want to make ourselves feel better?

OP posts:
LadyIsabellaWrotham · 25/03/2015 15:36

Quite agree on the pantos. I've seen at least one Panto every year for the last decade and in that time I think I've only seen one female Principal Boy. Very sad making (except when John Barrowman was Prince Charming, because that could never be a bad thing).

Pagwatch · 25/03/2015 15:17

I am a huge fan of jazz hands and ds1 has sensory issues but it is, in all fairness , a properly daft idea.

JeanneDeMontbaston · 25/03/2015 15:17

hak, I think you're missing the point.

How do you propose to accommodate everyone?

If you ban clapping, you exclude some groups of people; if you allow clapping, you exclude others.

It's unfortunate, but the answer is not to start playing oppression olympics.

Original poster
ArcheryAnnie · 25/03/2015 15:17

Because it is majorly, majorly problematic to reinforce the "nice girls are quiet" trope.

Do you have a problem with ear-defenders, then?

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Hakluyt · 25/03/2015 15:15

Not sure why people with sensory issues should be expected to sit in another room- clapping isn't a basic human right,it it? What's wrong with more wring your behaviour in a way doesn't disadvantage you in any way to accommodate other people?

BitOfFun · 25/03/2015 15:13

It's mostly the kids, tbf. I think there's still room for the old warhorses to tell them when they're being twits.

BreakingDad77 · 25/03/2015 15:13

So cross dressing is being lumped in with blacking up?

Original poster
ArcheryAnnie · 25/03/2015 15:12

Hakluyt would you have a problem with the provision being a webcast in another room, or ear defenders?

I wasn't saying that it was because women need protecting from noise (though it is because some women need protecting from noise), but an unintended consequence is that women are being told not to make noise. And I do see that as a problem.

OP posts:
Hakluyt · 25/03/2015 15:09

I thought the jazzhands suggestion was because there were people present who found noise difficult because ofparticular issues not because women need protecting from applause..............

EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 25/03/2015 15:03

Given how far down the postmodern rabbit hole lib fems have gone recently ridiculous stunts like this don't surprise me
scary isn't it. I'm only 34 but I feel so alienated from modern liberal feminism. It wasn't like this in my day!

ChopperGordino · 25/03/2015 14:58

i can remember my mum playing prince charming in a primary school panto put on by the parents

BertieBotts · 25/03/2015 14:51

Can I just channel Catherine Tate's Gran (the portrayal of course of whom is both sexist and ageist Wink) here and say that my reaction is, pretty much, "Worralotta old SHIT!"

Confused
Original poster
ArcheryAnnie · 25/03/2015 14:46

Do you know what's wrong with pantos? It's the increasing lack of cross-dressing!

When I were a lass, proper pantos had the dame (or the ugly sisters) played by a man/men, as they are now, but they also had Prince Charming and Dandini played by women! Now there are no crossdressing women in buckled shoes, and that makes me saaaaaad.

And Peter Pan always traditionally used to be a woman! Mark Rylance and Miles Anderson put paid to that.

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StillLostAtTheStation · 25/03/2015 14:37

Comedic cross dressing banned - so basically they want to ban pantos? Except possibly pantos which are not funny.

Good luck with getting the great British public on board with that.

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed · 25/03/2015 14:36

"It's like watching hedgehogs crossing a motorway and discussing how many minutes of silence to accord to each fallen comrade."

Love this, waving jazz hands!

PS: I still like comrade, we should reclaim it from Wolfie Smith and Stalin.

JeanneDeMontbaston · 25/03/2015 13:24

Oh, no, it's fine. We're chatting.

almondcakes · 25/03/2015 13:23

Jeanne, yes, sorry. I kind of realised there was no need for me to say it the moment I pressed send.

I would rather have Mexican waves than Jazz hands.

JeanneDeMontbaston · 25/03/2015 13:21

I don't see this as modern feminism.

whattheseithakasmean · 25/03/2015 13:20

Jazz hands instead of clapping? Comedy gold.

I think it sums up my problem with modern feminism - women are delicate flowers who need protected from nasty noises. I am more from the 'I am women, hear me roar' school of feminism, that wanted to get out there in the world, taking it on, not quivering in a 'safe space'.

I am sure many of these women will get older and bolder and look back and blush at their 'jazz hands' antics. In the meantime, please can someone record an auditorium doing jazz hands in response to a rousing speech Grin

JeanneDeMontbaston · 25/03/2015 13:19

I know, almond, I was just saying.

Thanks, chopper.

archery - I think I'm with you. Can be misogynistic; can be funny and affectionate. Or exploratory.

I just don't quite buy her neatly separating out the misogynistic kind of drag as antisocial behaviour of another kind.

Original poster
ArcheryAnnie · 25/03/2015 13:11

I am agnostic on drag. It can be horribly misogynist, but it can also be funny and affectionate. IDK.

How you you feel about Drag Kings? That's a whole different barrel of baggage there.

There is a gay trans man - Adrian Dalton - who also has a female drag persona, Lola Lypsinka, which I think is really interesting, especially as a lot of trans men seem under a lot of pressure to go the "manly-man" route of gender presentation, for understandable reasons.

OP posts:
ChopperGordino · 25/03/2015 13:10

"It's like watching hedgehogs crossing a motorway and discussing how many minutes of silence to accord to each fallen comrade."

my favourite comment on this thread

almondcakes · 25/03/2015 13:07

Drag isn't being banned though. Drag as an expression of queer identity is being encouraged. So gay men dressing up as women and doing misogynistic comedy routines is still fine, as long as they are prepared to refer to themselves as 'queer' presumably.

JeanneDeMontbaston · 25/03/2015 13:03

I will say, re the Helen Lewis piece, that I do think drag is like blackface and therefore A Bit Crap.

But I also think it's lots of other things as well, so ...

JeanneDeMontbaston · 25/03/2015 13:02
Grin

I'm sorry. I shouldn't find that funny, but I really, really do. There is no hope for me.

If I hadn't been so lazy during my marriage, I could have got Russian citizenship and could be professionally offended. Damn my laziness.