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| Women don’t like public speaking? Small wonder | Women don’t like public speaking? Small wonder |
| (about 11 hours later) | |
| The spectacle of Ed Miliband in preposterous, hell yes mode, thrusting forward to assure high-ranking male Jeremy Paxman that he said no, righ’, he stood up to the leader of the free world, righ’, let me tell you, let me tell you righ’, appears to have convinced some waverers, maybe as many as 58%, that he might, after all, be virile enough to be our leader. | The spectacle of Ed Miliband in preposterous, hell yes mode, thrusting forward to assure high-ranking male Jeremy Paxman that he said no, righ’, he stood up to the leader of the free world, righ’, let me tell you, let me tell you righ’, appears to have convinced some waverers, maybe as many as 58%, that he might, after all, be virile enough to be our leader. |
| A Channel 4 studio audience, already warming to Miliband’s transformation from little tailor to snarling Putin aggressor, actually applauded his alpha moment. Encouraging as this is for Miliband and his strategists, it may dismay many of the people who had previously cherished his marked dissimilarity to Jeremy Clarkson, and depress aspiring women politicians for whom male dominance displays – hell yes I’m tough enough, let me tell you righ’, etc – may feel both strained and, in their case, electorally unpromising. | A Channel 4 studio audience, already warming to Miliband’s transformation from little tailor to snarling Putin aggressor, actually applauded his alpha moment. Encouraging as this is for Miliband and his strategists, it may dismay many of the people who had previously cherished his marked dissimilarity to Jeremy Clarkson, and depress aspiring women politicians for whom male dominance displays – hell yes I’m tough enough, let me tell you righ’, etc – may feel both strained and, in their case, electorally unpromising. |
| Indeed, some of the country’s most active feminists have just confirmed what many top primates, from senior Tories to a former editor of Today, have said all along: being a woman, or one of those “who self-define as women”, is incompatible with strenuous debate. On the first day of the NUS women’s conference, Aliya Yule, from Oxford’s student union, asked fellow delegates: “Please can we ask people to stop clapping but do feminist jazz hands? It’s triggering some people’s anxiety. thank you!” | Indeed, some of the country’s most active feminists have just confirmed what many top primates, from senior Tories to a former editor of Today, have said all along: being a woman, or one of those “who self-define as women”, is incompatible with strenuous debate. On the first day of the NUS women’s conference, Aliya Yule, from Oxford’s student union, asked fellow delegates: “Please can we ask people to stop clapping but do feminist jazz hands? It’s triggering some people’s anxiety. thank you!” |
| Maybe that looked too top-down; at any rate, the request was rephrased. “Some delegates are requesting that we move to jazz hands rather than clapping, as it’s triggering anxiety. Please be mindful!” | Maybe that looked too top-down; at any rate, the request was rephrased. “Some delegates are requesting that we move to jazz hands rather than clapping, as it’s triggering anxiety. Please be mindful!” |
| Happily, Ms Yule has felt robust enough to defy the ensuing tide of ridicule. “Conference is charged with heated debate,” she writes,“there is a lot to get through, say and do, and for those with generalised anxiety disorder and other disabilities, this can be a difficult and exhausting space to navigate and participate in.” | Happily, Ms Yule has felt robust enough to defy the ensuing tide of ridicule. “Conference is charged with heated debate,” she writes,“there is a lot to get through, say and do, and for those with generalised anxiety disorder and other disabilities, this can be a difficult and exhausting space to navigate and participate in.” |
| Women are more frightened of only two other things: losing a family member and being buried alive | Women are more frightened of only two other things: losing a family member and being buried alive |
| But it is not only individuals with diagnosable disorders whose wellbeing concerns Ms Yule. Without formally pathologising the fear of public speaking, she could not be clearer that a move to jazz hands has important health benefits for all women (aside, perhaps, from those with impaired sight). “Women’s conference,” she argues, “is a space where people who find speaking – or even appearing – in public difficult can participate in feminist discussions. To ignore or demean this inclusive ethos is to detract from the seriousness of disabilities, including mental illnesses.” | But it is not only individuals with diagnosable disorders whose wellbeing concerns Ms Yule. Without formally pathologising the fear of public speaking, she could not be clearer that a move to jazz hands has important health benefits for all women (aside, perhaps, from those with impaired sight). “Women’s conference,” she argues, “is a space where people who find speaking – or even appearing – in public difficult can participate in feminist discussions. To ignore or demean this inclusive ethos is to detract from the seriousness of disabilities, including mental illnesses.” |
| Supposing we accept that a sparse, or limp – or even absent – show of jazz hands applause is not as painful as the feeble or nonexistent clapping encountered by David Cameron last week, and that the deployment of “trigger” in the context of temporary nerves at a student conference is not itself demeaning to individuals with disabling PTSD, fellow sufferers from stage fright may still wonder if Yule’s is the most effective solution. | Supposing we accept that a sparse, or limp – or even absent – show of jazz hands applause is not as painful as the feeble or nonexistent clapping encountered by David Cameron last week, and that the deployment of “trigger” in the context of temporary nerves at a student conference is not itself demeaning to individuals with disabling PTSD, fellow sufferers from stage fright may still wonder if Yule’s is the most effective solution. |
| Infinitely more soothing to people who have been as glossophobic as this columnist would be a new convention whereby everyone in an audience, the moment a speaker began, promptly shut their eyes or put a coat over their head. This could be removed at the end, prior to a well-choreographed (preferably audible) ovation. Yet more helpful to the NUS delegates, perhaps, given that anxiety around public speaking is so commonplace, and afflicts even the most experienced practitioners – from the prodigiously sweating Tony Blair to the amnesiac Miliband and pinkly rattled Cameron – might be an acceptance that anxiety, as experienced by many women at their conference, is utterly standard. Though, for reasons that may not be mysterious, it’s more acute among women. | Infinitely more soothing to people who have been as glossophobic as this columnist would be a new convention whereby everyone in an audience, the moment a speaker began, promptly shut their eyes or put a coat over their head. This could be removed at the end, prior to a well-choreographed (preferably audible) ovation. Yet more helpful to the NUS delegates, perhaps, given that anxiety around public speaking is so commonplace, and afflicts even the most experienced practitioners – from the prodigiously sweating Tony Blair to the amnesiac Miliband and pinkly rattled Cameron – might be an acceptance that anxiety, as experienced by many women at their conference, is utterly standard. Though, for reasons that may not be mysterious, it’s more acute among women. |
| One survey discovered that women are more frightened of public speaking than only two other things: losing a family member and being buried alive. If the pollsters specified “public speaking at the Glasgow University Union”, the buried alive option might well have looked more attractive. It was there that two women students in a debating final were booed, subjected to sexual taunts and jeers such as “shame woman”, “get that woman out of my chamber”. The Spectator responded with a piece by a revered Glasgow alumnus, entitled “If Cambridge’s debating girls can’t stand the heat they should stay out of Glasgow’s kitchens”. One of those “girls”, Rebecca Meredith, posted an online survey asking about misogyny in debating, which is still male-dominated at competition level . “Responses came from all over the world that women had faced sexual harassment, derogatory comments and abuse.” | One survey discovered that women are more frightened of public speaking than only two other things: losing a family member and being buried alive. If the pollsters specified “public speaking at the Glasgow University Union”, the buried alive option might well have looked more attractive. It was there that two women students in a debating final were booed, subjected to sexual taunts and jeers such as “shame woman”, “get that woman out of my chamber”. The Spectator responded with a piece by a revered Glasgow alumnus, entitled “If Cambridge’s debating girls can’t stand the heat they should stay out of Glasgow’s kitchens”. One of those “girls”, Rebecca Meredith, posted an online survey asking about misogyny in debating, which is still male-dominated at competition level . “Responses came from all over the world that women had faced sexual harassment, derogatory comments and abuse.” |
| The tendency is, with the shadow of Boris looming over us, for ever louder, more fluent, more exhibitionist politicians | The tendency is, with the shadow of Boris looming over us, for ever louder, more fluent, more exhibitionist politicians |
| Reading that, one suddenly warms to “feminist jazz hands”, which for all last week’s ridicule, are no more conspicuously absurd and far less ugly than the bestial responses still favoured in Westminster, as well as in Russell Group debates. On the other hand, a retreat to consensual hand-waggling has to be a brilliant way of stopping shyer student speakers from ever overcoming their nerves and challenging the most rebarbative debating conventions. Indeed the current tendency is, with the shadow of Boris looming over us, for ever louder, more fluent, more exhibitionist politicians. While his own clowns yelled “frit” and made chicken noises at a shifty Cameron, the perter, bring-it-on version of Miliband even vowed to make the staging of leadership debates into a statutory duty, with the proposed punishment rumoured to be, for scaredy-cats, being paraded through the streets in their underwear, while Jeremy Paxman goads, repeatedly: “Are you all right?” | Reading that, one suddenly warms to “feminist jazz hands”, which for all last week’s ridicule, are no more conspicuously absurd and far less ugly than the bestial responses still favoured in Westminster, as well as in Russell Group debates. On the other hand, a retreat to consensual hand-waggling has to be a brilliant way of stopping shyer student speakers from ever overcoming their nerves and challenging the most rebarbative debating conventions. Indeed the current tendency is, with the shadow of Boris looming over us, for ever louder, more fluent, more exhibitionist politicians. While his own clowns yelled “frit” and made chicken noises at a shifty Cameron, the perter, bring-it-on version of Miliband even vowed to make the staging of leadership debates into a statutory duty, with the proposed punishment rumoured to be, for scaredy-cats, being paraded through the streets in their underwear, while Jeremy Paxman goads, repeatedly: “Are you all right?” |
| In the valedictory speeches that closed the last session of parliament, Jack Straw was just one of the departing speakers to go all mindful about boorishness. “PMQs gives a terrible impression,” he said, “and must be changed.” Though not by him, obvs. The issue resurfaced in the Channel 4 event, phonily regretted by a leader who has done nothing to correct behaviour that could have been designed to keep all but fanatics and show-offs out of politics. | In the valedictory speeches that closed the last session of parliament, Jack Straw was just one of the departing speakers to go all mindful about boorishness. “PMQs gives a terrible impression,” he said, “and must be changed.” Though not by him, obvs. The issue resurfaced in the Channel 4 event, phonily regretted by a leader who has done nothing to correct behaviour that could have been designed to keep all but fanatics and show-offs out of politics. |
| Last week Cameron brought his children in to cheer him shouting throughout an event that, according to the speaker, John Bercow, even sickens the regulars. “A number of seasoned parliamentarians, who are not shrinking violets, not delicate creatures at all, are saying: ‘This is so bad I am not going to take part.’” Nor can it hasten their return that Bercow, when he finds a woman minister too prolix, will liken her to “a washing machine”. | Last week Cameron brought his children in to cheer him shouting throughout an event that, according to the speaker, John Bercow, even sickens the regulars. “A number of seasoned parliamentarians, who are not shrinking violets, not delicate creatures at all, are saying: ‘This is so bad I am not going to take part.’” Nor can it hasten their return that Bercow, when he finds a woman minister too prolix, will liken her to “a washing machine”. |
| There may be those who, considering some of the other motions passed by NUS women delegates – including a condemnation of cross-dressing (by men who do not identify as women) and a warning not to use the word “sisters” – will not regret the conference’s association of its feminist speakers with severe rhetorical impairment to the point of requiring total silence. If, on the other hand, there is ever to be an end to its opposite, the identification – with the collusion of the media – of political governance with parody male aggression, to a point that a leader is effectively asked if he could knock Putin down, our more evolved MPs could learn something about civilised communication from the NUS women. Hell yes. | There may be those who, considering some of the other motions passed by NUS women delegates – including a condemnation of cross-dressing (by men who do not identify as women) and a warning not to use the word “sisters” – will not regret the conference’s association of its feminist speakers with severe rhetorical impairment to the point of requiring total silence. If, on the other hand, there is ever to be an end to its opposite, the identification – with the collusion of the media – of political governance with parody male aggression, to a point that a leader is effectively asked if he could knock Putin down, our more evolved MPs could learn something about civilised communication from the NUS women. Hell yes. |
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