With all the attention being paid to college-aged social justice warriors and microagressions, one has to ask: What happens when all these delicate snowflakes enter the workforce?
The most recent incident of hurt feelings comes from the National Union of Students Women’s conference in England. It was illustrative of the kind of accommodations being demanded by young people who probably won’t be able to operate in such a cruel world. On Tuesday, the NUS Twitter account tweeted that some at the conference “are requesting that we move to jazz hands rather than clapping, as it’s triggering anxiety. Please be mindful!”
At long last — someone is speaking out against the menacing, sexist, patriarchal gesture of putting one’s palms together as a sign of approval.
You may recall “jazz hands” from the Occupy Wall Street movement’s leech-ins. Except there, the gesture was called “up twinkles” if you approved of something and “down twinkles” if you did not. I give the NUS conference some serious down twinkles (and a frowny emoji) for their stunt.
The reason for the jazz-hand substitution was because shaking your hands is a “way to show appreciation of someone’s point without interrupting or causing disturbance, as it can create anxiety,” according to the general secretary of the London School of Economics Students’ Union, Nona Buckley-Irvine.
Added LSESU’s women’s officer Gee Linford-Grayson: “As someone who is new to the NUS conference culture, it surprised me at first, but actually within a few rounds of jazz hands applause it began to make a lot of sense, as loud clapping and whooping can be intimidating and distracting when you’re speaking on stage. Plus who doesn’t like jazz hands?!”
Someone, probably. I’m sure there is someone out there who finds it triggering, just as the world learned on Tuesday that clapping is intimidating.
In another recent example, New York Times opinion writer Judith Shulevitz described a special “safe space” at Brown University, a room with “cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.”
Why is such infantilization of grown college students necessary? Because the students couldn’t handle hearing the opinions of writer Wendy McElroy, who was speaking on campus and criticizing the concept of “rape culture.” (McElroy’s views are not that far off from those of feminist former judge Nancy Gertner, I might add.)
The problem here is that these students are so unable to handle other views or adversity that they must be babied, whether that means mandatory hand-shaking or drawing with crayons.
Granted, this is (I sincerely hope) a minority of college students. And it seems mostly limited to women, especially those involved in campus sexual assault advocacy.
But this far-too-vocal minority is turning colleges into pre-schools. And they have succeeded in creating an atmosphere where schools that fail to hold someone (anyone!) accountable every time there is an accusation of sexual misconduct in order to show that they are in compliance with federal law and deserving of ongoing federal funding.
At some point these students — who are all survivors of something, whether it be an actual crime, a regretted sexual encounter or crude YouTube video or something uttered in a law class — are going to enter the real world.
If college is supposed to prepare students for the real world, what world are these students being prepared for?
This Survivor Class will be bringing their special brand of anxiety and demands into the workplace. One might joke that those likely outraged by things reasonable people would find mundane are also those most likely to major in Women’s Studies, but one cannot assume.
One can imagine a situation where one of these survivors of a non-threatening grievance demands they be provided a safe space or other special accommodations at work. Upon being fired for their continuously destructive behavior, feminist lawyer Gloria Allred files a wrongful termination suit, saying: “How dare you fire this survivor over her trauma!”
Are employers going to start using precious resources to create safe spaces for people who are so unable to handle their anxiety they force the rest of the world to handle it for them?
The future looks grim.
