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?

"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.

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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..............

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.

So cross dressing is being lumped in with blacking up?

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

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?

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

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

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.

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

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).

DS has sensory issues. The world won't adapt to him, so, in order to enable him to cope with them, we've taught him strategies to cope. One of which is ear buds.

Clapping is a social norm in the UK.

I'd have watched Barrowman as Charming! And props to the producer, as I am sick of gay actors always being cast in panto as Dandini and not the lead.

I haven't seen the John Barrowman/ Krankies' pantos but I assume Janette Krankie will have been dressed as a boy as she usually is.

Must admit I had a pair of principal boy over the knee boots in the late 70s. Very unfeminist of me but I loved turning heads when I wore them.

Re drag it honestly never occurred to me (and still doesn't ) that the 6 foot ungainly rugger type in a godawful frock and badly applied make-up was mocking women. The joke seems firmly on them.

If you're furious about jazz hands, are you apoplectic at this afternoon's decision to support the decriminalisation of prostitution?

Yes, because jokes about the oppression of women are seriously amusing.

Hirples, I will froth on demand, if the occasion warrants it, but I will need details first. What was the wording?

I saw a panto this year with two dames and a female principal boy. Come to Yorkshire!

What are "jazz hands" ? Seriously. Never heard of them.

Well Puffins we will have to disagree that it's a joke about the oppression of women. That's how you see it . I don't.