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?

Difficult all round.

I did like the hedgehog analysis however.

It is difficult.

And thank you. Though, I should have said that I very often feel as if we're hedgehogs too!

This jazz-hands is bonkers. I suffer from very bad tinnitus, not the kind from damaged hearing in the ear but the rarer kind that goes on in the brain itself. If I am in a room full of clapping people I am in trouble because any loud abrupt dat-dat-dat-dat-dat type sound steam-rolls my ability to not pay attention to the tinnitus, to hear beyond it. If I cant keep playing that mind trick I can become so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it I cant even properly hear someone speaking a foot away from my face in an otherwise quite room. I have left rooms of clapping people because I could not handle it or repositioned myself to a corner of a room so the sound was not hitting me from 360 degrees, or just stuck my fingers in my ears when people clapped.

But the last thing I would expect or even want is for a general group of people to 'jazz-hands', even though it would be better for me if they did, because its not necessary that a majority modify their behaviour in order for me to be accommodated by other means. If I was to be really cynical about it I would say all this 'jazz hands' amounts to, in this particular case, is either a big 'lets slap ourselves on the back for modifying our behaviour to be more inclusive for less able people' from above and/or a push from below by people with a disability who think their problem should not simply be catered for but 'owned' by modifying the behaviour of everyone else around them.

The difficulty of breaking down social and political movements into their constituent parts, and thus embracing a politics of identity, celebrating difference etc, is that the process tends towards a kind of vertical solidarity which undermines effective action against oppression.

To give an example, in a campaign I'm involved in at the moment about the cuts to disabled teenagers' services, some parents at the meetings have expressed bafflement at David Cameron's willingness to go on the offensive, "because he must understand- his son was disabled!"

This fundamentally misunderstands the real power divisions in society. By expecting Cameron to identify with their situation because of the (somewhat) shared experience as a parent of a disabled child, they massively underestimate and misread the ferocity of the attacks that this government is prepared to unleash. And this is a huge mistake.

By straining to be inclusive and 'nice', and arguing amongst themselves about how this is best achieved, oppressed groups risk fragmenting themselves into ineffective obscurity, while the elite preserve their power by acting as a united force and smashing us. We don't have wealth, and we don't have power; all we have is the potential to stand together beyond our differences.

Doing anything else is just fiddling while Rome burns.

FIL?

What does that mean Buffy? I have seen FIL used for Father In Law but that's it, and google does not clear it up for me, unless you are Falling In Love with me or suggesting its something to do with Fatty Infiltration of my Liver.

Has anyone posted this article by the always-excellent Glosswitch yet? (I know exactly what she means, BTW. Been there, barely survived that.)

glosswatch.com/2015/03/25/whose-safe-space/

That's such an excellent article, I think it's worth posting in full so it gets read :

I grew up in a household in which there were a lot of rules. Not just the usual ones – don’t fight, brush your teeth, do your homework. There were others: don’t nudge the furniture “off position.” Don’t touch the newspapers or remote control. Don’t unlock the back door. Don’t do anything that makes me feel unsafe. These rules were subject to change without notice. If you broke them, the consequences were severe. Tantrums, shouting, worse. Sometimes you’d end up barricading yourself in your room, wishing you’d just not bothered to move at all. It was unbearable. But then again, if someone is anxious and says they feel unsafe, what can you do? Especially if their anxiety is presented as unknowable and resistant to change. You have to do what they want, regardless of your own desires.

After all, how hard can it be not to touch a newspaper? Not to nudge an item of furniture? Not to talk at the wrong time or pick up the wrong item of cutlery or shut the door too hard? None of it is that hard, is it? And if it makes someone feel better, why, it’s inconsiderate not to follow the rules. On the other hand, how hard can it be not to make so many demands in the first place? And how hard can it be not to react with violence and aggression when your needs are not met? Turns out it’s impossible. It’s impossible to control your feelings and needs when you’re making demands of others. It’s only those who fear actual violence who are expected to hold themselves in check.

The idea of a ‘safe space’ – an environment where feelings are protected – is highly subjective, all too often bending to the will of the person laying claim to the most “valid” emotions. Some people are allowed anxieties, other people aren’t. Throughout my childhood “I’m scared of you touching my possessions while I’m not looking” always counted for more than “I’m scared of you smashing my face in.” The former was a neurosis, something special, something not everyone felt; the latter was merely mundane.

I find myself thinking of this in response to the NUS Women’s Campaign’s request to move to “jazz hands rather than clapping” at their conference on the basis that clapping is “triggering anxiety.” That’s a safe space for you: somewhere with arbitrary rules that self-styled experts in the ways of anxiety impose at will. It seems to me far more about control and manipulation than comfort or respect. It’s substituting performance for actual humanity. Would there be this much consideration for women who felt that male people in female-only spaces “triggered anxiety”? Or someone who felt “triggered” by the insistence that male people have a right to purchase sex? I doubt it. It’s quick-win compassion, no discussion, no nuance, hence no compassion at all.

Of course, there will now be people who write patronising lists and draw patronising cartoons explaining why clapping is officially bad. People who feel desperate to demonstrate their “I knew clapping was problematic before everyone else did” credentials. People who appoint themselves the Voice of PTSD, speaking over the trauma of everyone else because theirs is the One True Trauma that counts. And there will be far more people who say nothing, worried that they’ve already fucked up by doing something else that is problematic – I must have done something by now! ­– only no one’s bothered to tell them yet. There’s nothing like regularly updating the rules – and having a handy list of insults and acronyms for those who don’t comply – to keep the potentially non-compliant in check.

Meanwhile every single day millions of women and girls live in fear of male violence. So they don’t nudge the furniture. They don’t touch the newspaper. They don’t talk about what maleness is, how it is constructed, how it functions, lest they be declared beyond the pale. Every sacrifice they make is considered insignificant, just something they must do to make life easier for others. After all, these are all such tiny demands. If you don’t want to face the consequences, ladies, just don’t fuck up. How hard can it be?

By Glosswatch

BOF I have only just noticed that you got your name back!

Thanks BOF.

Excellent post by Glosswatch.

Hmmm there have been quite a few people saying on twitter that they think this jazz hands idea is anti-feminist because it demands that women be quieter, and Glosswitch seems to be comparing those people with anxiety disorders who (apparently) demanded jazz hands to abusive patriarchs, which is a bit tenuous. I love Glosswitch (particularly her article on breast milk in the New Statesman today), but I'm not totally convinced by this. I think the NUS students were just being immature and self-aggrandising, trying to make themselves look more-progressive-than-thou.

There's an account by a guy with severe anxiety problems here-

garethsoye.blogspot.ie/2015/03/triggering-dose-of-clap.html

he says that the jazz hands sort of requests enable anxiety, rather than combatting it. The only solution to those sorts of anxiety disorders is careful and supportive exposure to the problematic stimulant, not just avoiding or banning it (since that's hardly a practical solution).

I don't think Glosswatch is saying that at all, rosie.

I think she's saying that the NUS is focussing on being holier than thou around the jazz hands thing, while ignoring the real threats to safe spaces, which come from the patriarchy.