Am furious with NUS Women's Campaign

[ArcheryAnnie]

...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?

Jesus.

That'll be a fun set of fancy dress parties, eh?

My mate had a birthday party at university where we did Victorian-style cross dressing. It was awesome.

I dont find loud noise 'triggering' i find competing noise triggering.

Clapping - fine. Ambulance siren on a busy street while someone is talking to me
PMQs on right now is also making me antsy, its all the different voices and sounds

Lets ban ambulance sirens and pmqs!

Yes, my favourite cross dressing for women is Dickensian petty criminal in a stove pipe hat. But I do also like the spiv/ black marketeer look and a kind of Edwardian suit with drawn on moustache look.

God, this is depressing. Jazz hands? Tabloid view of that = women are so fragile they can't stand any noise.

I particularly like the NUS saying that if a fancy dress costume is demonstrably not being worn for humour, it will be deemed acceptable
So if I dress like a bloke for practical reasons e.g. digging allotment, that's okay, but if I dress like a bloke e.g. done up as Oliver Cromwell for fancy dress, that's not okay?

This sort of discourse also takes the debate so far from most people's daily concerns as to make it irrelevant to 90% of the population.

Seemingly so.

Because women don't need humour, do they? That is a luxury. Satire has no place here.

You are allowed to engage in cross play - dressing as an individual man like Oliver Cromwell. You are not allowed to dress up as a random Male Roundhead unless you do it in a way that demonstrably has no humour to it.

Oh, good. I was worried for a moment there that we might be shutting down one of the few ways to represent really important men from history.

Sorry, I misread the rules, you are not allowed to dress as Oliver Cromwell. You are allowed to cross play Oliver Cromwell and turn up as Olivia Cromwell if you are a woman.

It's ridiculous.

"Shall we organise a demonstration against the cuts in funding to women's refuges?"

"Hang on, before we get to that, we need to go through the wardrobe rules..."

What a load of rubbish.

I can't copy the rules, but they are half way down the article:

www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2015/03/nus-bans-drag-fancy-dress-except-it-doesnt

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

What if you dress up as someone who is not funny, but who is themselves a crossdresser? Am thinking Anne Bonny.

Or maybe someone who is funny and is crossdressing, but where the crossdressing isn't linked to how funny they are? Is Eddie Izzard verboten or not?

NUS, I think we need detailed instructions. With footnotes and illustration plates. That's how we will know you are REALLY, REALLY SERIOUS about tackling the scourge of amusing crossdressers on campus.

I've just got to the bit in that article, almond, where they discourage using 'sisters' because it's binary.

Ok. How does a group of students - some of whom presumably did GCSE English and know what metaphor is - conclude that 'sisters' in this context is being used literally?

My 'sisters' in a feminist context are not the daughters of my mum and dad.

I look forward to everyone using 'comrade!' instead. It'll sound inclusive and not at all Stalinist.

Aw! I quite like comrade! But you are right, it isn't very inclusive of those who don't like to be reminded of the gulags.

I can't even begin to work out the sisters thing. I'm still stuck on Anne Bonny.

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.

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 ...

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.

"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

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.

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.

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

I don't see this as modern feminism.

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.

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