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?

Archery - I think it's outrageous, since you ask. How would you feel about a separate room for women or black people, or a separate costume for them (preferably one that made them look a bit daft)? How would you feel about taking all the ramps etc away so a wheelchair user can't participate? Because most people can walk, right? So why on earth 'be nice' to the minority who can't? Oh, that's right. Because it's a decent thing to do. This is actually no different.

I really hadn't thought about it much before even though all my kids have minor sensory issues and I have a specific issue myself that means I sometimes avoid things like rowdy Shouty meetings (but not always, there are so many variables in play). I personally would never ask for this sort of adjustment, I don't need it, but now I've read about it I completely support those that do. If people with genuine issues request it then, honestly, why the fuck not??

I think anything to do with hands, clapping, jazz hands and so on should be banned - it's discriminatory against amputees and reinforces the patriarchal concept of 'correct' body image.

People, if the majority feel the need express themselves as a group (which in itself is a form of discrimination against the minority who don't ) should restrain themselves to blinking rapidly. This of course could be construed as a silencing tactic against the speaker, who may be representing an oppressed minority, when they are met with a wall of intimidating stony silence to everything they say.

Sigh. Victims. Victims everywhere.

What is there to do?

Gently I have a physical disability. I recently fought for, and won, an accommodation with [institute] that meant I could participate in their meetings. It means that sometimes I use facilities that are different from the facilities which people without this particular disability use. And that's fine, because it gives me the tools to participate.

Your comparison with apartheid is really fucking offensive, btw.

No, it fucking isn't, BTW. It's the same thing. It's also the same as the 'no dogs no gypsies' signs that used to be prevalent (I have gypsy heritage, my family (especially my mother and grandmother) knew all about exclusion and othering based on race). The people who requested consideration were doing exactly the same thing as you presumably did when fighting for your accommodation. But you don't want them to get what you got, you want them out in other room out of the way, or wearing funny headgear (but that's nice and inclusionary isn't it) just so you can clap. As Hak said - since when was clapping a basic human right? Your attitude speaks volumes (much more loudly than your clapping ever would). Luckily for the people who wanted to be included not excluded it seems as though the people running the NUS event are more considerate and empathetic than you are.

This thread has made me properly annoyed.

BuffyEpistemiwhatsit
"Yeah Dotheyfloat it's PC Gorn MAAAAAAAAD, right? hmm"

No, it's a Merry-Go-Round where the ride never ends.

Buffy why aren't people in other debate-like situations concerned about those with sensory issues? PMQs, political party conferences, other public debates? Are these women shooting themselves in the foot in their (laudable) desire to accommodate those who might otherwise be excluded?

Those are VERY good questions. Someone has to start though (as has been pointed out above, Occupy actually started it - unless anyone has an earlier example). People complain about PMQs all the time, nothing ever changes. As I mentioned above, the arts world is trying to tackle these issues (primarily relating to kids but not exclusively) in a small, pigeon steps sort of way.

gently, I don't think it is fair to call it 'trauma'.

I have a condition that means if I spend too long under fluro lights, especially flickering ones, I faint. It's quite dramatic. And it's fairly unpleasant for me in the time before I faint.

A blind person who cannot see what's going on it a meeting could, you know, feel excluded. They may feel they cannot attend, because the social cues aren't there to allow them to participate. Or, they may come but have a diminished experience. A student with ASD may feel they can't come if there is clapping. Or, they may come (and, eg, use ear defenders if that works), and have a diminished experience.

The point is that it is not as easy to prioritise needs as the people justifying this idea have implied.

That matters, because the bigger problem is not 'shall we do jazz hands, or shall we clap'? The bigger problem is the amount of time and energy women and feminist groups are increasingly putting into these questions, which is not matched by energy put in by men, and which, which it might be praiseworthy, ultimately works to give them a smaller amount of time and energy for other things.

I have said before: if we are talking about triggers, in the PTSD sense, why is there not constant, shocked, widespread discussion about why so many women have PTSD? Why are we not talking about that? Why, at the very least, are we not saying that the problems women with PTSD are facing need to be accommodated in areas outside the NUS conferences, by male students and by teachers?

I don't think it's a hedgehog motorway thing at all. There is no way that the NUS womens' movement can cure sensory issues, so they can't do anything other than (a) ignore the problem or (b) be considerate.

I think some people have misunderstood the problem and viewed it through the prism of DV or similar. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think it's about DV at all. I think its about disability. If it was a DV issue then yes, tackle the root not the results - but if its about disability then all you can do is make adjustments so people aren't excluded. Some people seem mighty put out that they should be asked to consider doing this.

Oh, that's annoying, I've missed out a whole paragraph, and now look like an irrelevant whinger. I should be used to it. Sorry.

The reason for me pointing out the fainting thing is: it's physically unpleasant and socially awkward, but it's not traumatic. There is a big difference, and an important one.

The bigger problem is the amount of time and energy women and feminist groups are increasingly putting into these questions, which is not matched by energy put in by men

I don't actually think that is necessarily true. Certainly in the arts world the performances suitable for people with sensory issues are neither run exclusively by or for females. They may not even have been the brainchild of females. Similarly with Occupy. Many people with sensory issues are, in fact, men. In this specific case it's women talking about the issue because it arose in connection with a women's event. And I'll say again - I don't think the request was necessarily in connection with PTSD (although it wouldn't surprise me because let's face it, not many people get exercised over the issues of people with ASD or similar). Why does everyone feel the need to twist this and make it about PTSD or DV? Sensory issues are A Thing for many people.

gently, yes, I know the NS women's movement can't cure sensory issues. But that's not what my rather silly comparison is about.

What it is about, is that I am sad and gobsmacked that the women's campaign is no longer really about women any more.

Yes, it is a very good thing for all movements to be aware of the difficulties members with double oppressions face. I'm a woman with sensory issues, and I'm interested in inclusion issues with disability in HE. It is something I spend a lot of time on. But, I feel sad when the implicit message seems to be 'women should care more about issues that are not exclusive to women'. This is bad for two reasons. One, it'd be good to think that people other than women are compassionate enough to push forward on these necessary causes, and two, if the women's campaign is spending its time on disability inclusion to the extent it works against itself, then it is no longer really for women, is it?

Jeanne you may not be traumatised by your condition. That does not mean that people with ASD or other issues aren't traumatised by their conditions, in fact it is often the feeling of trauma that makes them avoid the situations that trigger their issue.

Cross post.

Ok, to be fair, then, your experience and mine are wildly divergent. My experience is that these issues constantly dominate the attention of women's groups and of a certain strand of feminism.

Obviously, many people with sensory issues are men. What's the point there?

I'm not wanting to 'twist' anything. I'm just pointing out that the rhetoric of trauma isn't appropriate to sensory issues. It's inappropriate in both directions.

gently - yes, but if someone has additional trauma on top of a sensory condition, then that is trauma. It's not the sensory condition.

The distinction matters, because we would need to deal with them differently.

I don't believe that not clapping is in any way detrimental to the women's campaign.

I agree with you that being arsed about these issues shouldn't be the sole preserve of women and AIUI it isn't. I do not agree that women shouldn't care at all because there are men with these disabilities too. Because by that token men shouldn't care because there are women who have these disabilities, not just men. So, nobody will care (which is pretty much the status quo right now). Which works out just fine for those not affected and nobody has to think about it or adjust their behaviour.

As I said, despite having some issues myself and my kids having some issues, and actually knowing about the Occupy and arts world initiatives - I hadn't really thought about it in the context of political meetings etc. I have now, and I am quite annoyed that people seem to be completely fine with the status quo.

Well, I think it is.

People have pointed out both the disability implications (blind people, people with physical disabilities that means they can't do it), and the implications for social conditioning.

I'm not saying women shouldn't care. I am simply saying that, from where I'm standing, I am really worried at how much time and energy feminists and women are expected to put in to demonstrating they're not excluding anyone. It's not the same sort of energy expected of many other groups, and it's very rarely expected of the 'normative' mixed-gender groups who form the student and faculty bodies of universities. I have never heard of anyone requesting jazz hands at the end of a lecture.

I don't at all follow what you mean by 'by that token men shouldn't care'. Of course men should care. All things being equal, men have more time and energy for this than women. The onus is on them.

Jeanne - my point is that to my certain knowledge men can and have been occupied with these issues. So it is not just women who are being expected or asked to address them and it's not clear that the energy that has been expended by women, to this point, isn't matched by the energy that has been expended by men, when you consider that at least some (and maybe the majority) of the pioneering attempts to include people with sensory issues have actually taken place outside what we could broadly describe as 'the women's movement'. I would have thought this was fairly obvious.

If you are saying that women should only care about issues that exclusively effect women, then the corollary is that men should only care about issues that exclusively effect men. It would certainly be open to them to argue that way.

Btw, if someone did come up to me and ask, can we do something that isn't clapping during a lecture, because clapping exacerbates my sensory issues/sets off my PTSD, I would try very hard to make that happen. I'd figure out whether I had other students who might be excluded or upset by alternatives, and we'd go from there.

But, I would still face the problem that, if I do lectures to 100 students, 50/50 men and women, at the end of term I will have answered questions from perhaps three or four women. And the other people who'll put their hands up will be men. This is not because men are innately more bold at speaking or more interested, or better. It's because men are socialized to make more noise in public than women.

If the women go off and attend the NUS conference on the weekend, they'll come back feeling vaguely bad about clapping. Maybe they should be quiet? Does this lecturer know what she's asking when she asks them to clap? Maybe they had best clap very quietly. It feels awkward. They do not feel especially like asking questions today.

That's how these things transfer from one situation to another.

If you are saying that women should only care about issues that exclusively effect women, then the corollary is that men should only care about issues that exclusively effect men.

Well, fortunately, I am not saying that, and I don't accept the corollary anyway. That assumes we live in a world where men are not obliged to recognize that misogyny exists, and fortunately, I do think many men do recognize it.

And no, to me, it's not at all obvious.

You have your logic back to front. Yes, many things that help people with sensory issues happen outside the women's movement. That does not prove that the women's movement is not dominated by worrying about issues like this.

The women's movement is considerably smaller than the world in general.