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?

This is not an important point but I think clapping is an innate human behaviour. I remember with a leap in my heart the first time my son clapped - at 9 months. We were on a boat and the wind and speed were so exciting he spontaneously clapped for joy.

I could understand if this was about the jeering and roaring at PMQs which is dreadful but clapping in approval approval/enjoyment? No.

That's not to say some people don't find it uncomfortable to hear but all human behaviour has the potential to be uncomfortable on some level to some people. Let's not pathologise something so ordinary. And please let's not make feminism look foolish.

BTW, jazz hands would be triggering for me as I'd be worried I'd accidentally wondered onto the stage set of a musical and we were all just about to launch into a Liza Minelli number.

I have not noticed the women's movement being dominated by this issue. I don't think you can say 'issues like this' as though there are a whole load of issues relevant to people with ASD/SEN/similar issues that are constantly at the forefront of debate in women's groups. IME this couldn't be further from the truth. Your experience may be different but that doesn't make it more valid. You clearly seem disinclined to regard these issues as worthy of your attention - which is a shame. Although not entirely surprising. Your apparent views reflect those of the wider society.

I know, and I have said all along that it is my perception.

I don't think my experience is more valid. I just don't think it is less valid, either, which seems to be your view here.

As I said (perhaps you missed it, I have posted a lot, and probably more than is sensible), I do actually spend a lot of time on these issues too. I have SEN. I teach people with SEN. These are important issues.

I think, btw, you are still not grasping what we're trying to get across.

This isn't about 'do women's movements spend too long thinking about clapping' or even 'do they spend too long thinking about accommodating members with different and incompatible needs'. It's 'do they feel, and encourage other members to feel, that women are responsible for all the accommodations to be made, and does this perpetuate a situation where women are likely to withdraw into silence?'

Waving hands in the air or at head height (jazz hands) is the usual way of doing applause for Deaf people and adopted in many communities as an effective way of communicating agreement without interrupting the speakers and enabling deaf/hard-of-hearing people to still follow (background noise is a major problem for hearing aids as well as for many people with autism and other conditions).

It's been adopted by Quakers, bisexuals, various co-operatives, just to give examples I know of.

The explanation they gave is poor (I hate the word 'triggering' being used inappropriately, but the idea isn't.

Your claim, which I believe to be inaccurate, was that the effort being put into these issues by women is not matched by men. I don't think that is necessarily the case. Many of the more useful advances in recognising these issues have at least involved men.

It seems like you want to designate it as an SEP.

Quangle - I don't believe listening to requests from people with genuine issues (which is apparently what happened in this specific case) makes feminism or the NUS look foolish. But even if it did, personally I'd rather look foolish than ignorant or nasty.

Jeanne - no, it's you who is not grasping what I am saying. Wilfully so.

As someone who is, essentially, a student of the practice of sociological warfare I would be fascinated to see where this memetic attack structure originated.

From the outside it certainly looks like a trojan-horse vector for a fragmentation attack, delivered via the principle of intersectionality itself.

NotCitrus Exactly. I wasn't aware that Quakers had opted to do this (I did of course know that its usual for deaf people). But I'm not surprised.

YY about the misuse and misappropriate of the word triggering. Although in this context - the phrase 'trigger anxiety' - it was used entirely correctly.

I'm sorry, I don't know what an SEP is.

I have seen that you have disagreed about effort being put in by men. All I'm pointing out there is that the logic doesn't follow (which doesn't mean you're wrong, just that, as you are saying it here, you're not supporting your own point).

Take the total number of useful advances. Say 80% of them involved men.

Take the total number of people in the world who could contribute.

Take the total number of people involved in the NUS women's campaign.

The last number is going to be tiny compared to the middle one, which is why pointing out that men have done a lot of work making advances for SEN doesn't mean that the NUS campaign isn't spending a disproportionate amount of time on this too.

I have also said upthread that I think, all thing being equal, men should put more time in. As they should with many other issues. I am aware this is difficult, because it requires men to recognize inequality and act, but some men do do that.

gently - no, definitely not wilfully so.

I'm sorry if I am not grasping it, but I think I am just disagreeing.

Mephistopholes - it could well be if only groups comprising solely of women were taking this stand. But they aren't (Occupy was/is not predominantly female, neither are the groups mention by NotCtirus). So it's probably not.

I think meph is right, but it's all happening at the level of social conditioning, not at the level of actual competing interests from groups of people.

Women are increasingly being conditioned to think that they have ample time and energy to be accommodating. That's what it is. Doesn't matter if what they are trying to accommodate is something that should be accommodated or not - the problem is that they've internalized the idea they're naturally privileged and exclusionary and should be working all the hours god sends to change this. Even if they're not actually in a position to make useful changes (as is the case here, where there are mutually incompatible needs, neither of which can be perfectly served by the changes suggested).

(Sorry, meph, aware you are probably implying that, and implying nothing so crude as competing group interests!)

Buffy neither was it fair of her to imply I didn't grasp exactly what she is saying, when I certainly have grasped not only what she is saying but what she is carefully not saying. But apparently that was OK? She has claimed more than once that it's only women who are either being asked, or asking themselves, to make efforts to be considerate, and that is clearly not true. When I pointed that out, she initially ignored (or didn't grasp) this. She has now changed her claim slightly to say that the NUS women's movement is a tiny proportion of the world's population and has better things to do (things she personally values more highly than inclusion for people with sensory issues) so it should be an SEP (someone else's problem). I agree with her that the NUS women's movement is a tiny proportion of the world's population - I even agree with her that there are other issues to be considered, but I disagree with her that this means they are more important to the NUS women's movement since the problem of people with these issues accessing the environment where they could even consider belonging to the NUS women's movement is a real one and the ability to participate should they find themselves in a position to potentially be able to should be encouraged not closed off. She has also indulged in some classic 'whatabouttery' to try and deflect the argument.

Well, I didn't think you did grasp it.

I don't imply there was anything malicious or wilful about that.

I haven't anywhere claimed it's only women being asked, have I?

Nor is it a change in my argument to point out the size of the women's movement.

Buffy - yes people are attacking the women's movement because of this, which is a pity, especially when many of the attackers are in fact women. Who should really be praising the people involved for being more considerate and perceptive than the idiots who are laughing at them.

Actually, when I read upthread, you've already claimed I said it was only women being required to care, and I've already explained I didn't mean or say that, so I don't see why you're repeating it.

I think it is fair to say you didn't grasp my meaning, if you repeatedly attribute points of view to me that I've already explicitly denied holding.

I read that a woman was asked to leave the conference for clapping.

ds loves watching fireworks but hates the loud bangs and noise so he wears ear defenders to displays. He also hates the sound of hand dryers so he has learnt to put up with them and control his anxiety when he hears one.
I haven't read VIZ for a while but the ramblings of the NUS are a great substitute. Agree NUS has always been NUTS

These are women at University preparing for life. If you have anxiety about other women clapping, you need to find a way to manage that.