Feminism and Twitter are unhappy bedfellows.

Twitter is not best suited as ‘a space where Feminists can safely explore intersectionality’, a term first coined by the US Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe the differing oppression your average vulnerable female can experience as a result of race, gender, class, or ability. In fact, should you feel yourself vulnerable to mockery, oppression or likely to have your post-traumatic stress triggered on any of those grounds, then you are best advised to stay well away from Twitter.

Twitter is a robust playground, a Lion’s den, for those who enjoy quick fire banter, the dismembering of the occasional Christian, the news reduced to 140 ‘spun’ characters, and the unrestrained meanderings of the nation’s mentally ill.

Victim blaming? Well, to a point. The self-same point that says if you are a Gazelle, then deciding to bed down for the night in a Lion’s cage is foolhardy and inadvisable.

Universities have always been political battlegrounds. It is the place where you are encouraged to think for yourself rather than parrot your parents opinions, to argue your case cogently, and to prepare yourself for the tough real world rather than the cloistered atmosphere of mummy and daddy standing guard to make sure nothing disturbs your equilibrium.

I was quite stunned, not so long ago, to attend a university conference on sexual abuse, widely advertised as being on sexual abuse, equally widely advertised as being attended by experts on sexual abuse, not members of the public – at which a ‘trigger warning’ was given before commencing, followed by the announcement that a counsellor was waiting at the rear of the hall for the benefit and use of anyone for whom a discussion of sexual abuse had ‘triggered’ a stressful reaction…I half expected a warning that a picture of Jimmy Savile might be displayed…

That Universities have taken over the role of mummy and daddy in protecting the innocent half formed adults in their care from anything approaching real life has been in evidence for some time. That their boy and girl-child charges are considered to be ‘in their care’ for one thing – time was when they were considered merely permitted to sit at their feet and absorb a modicum of their knowledge.

Small wonder then, that these innocents at large should consider that they need a protected space to discuss such weighty issues as whether male students should be allowed to don female clothing for fancy dress parties or whether this was disrespectful to the transgendered population of the world; nor that trigger warnings should be given out before ‘sensitive subjects’:

Can all speakers/delegates please remember to use content warnings if they’re going to talk about sensitive issues. Thanks x #nuswomen15

— NUS Women’s Campaign (@nuswomcam) March 24, 2015

the following discussion was on the hoary old chestnut of Vat on some sanitary products. ‘Is this a tax on women, yada, yada, yada’ – only if you consider the tax (at a much higher rate!) on men’s shaving apparatus to be a tax on men…

The Tweet that really excited that well known band of brotherly misogynists, otherwise known as Tweeters (there not, apparently, being any female tweeters with sharp tongues and a sense of humour hiding behind pseudonyms, so anyone heard to be cackling with delight was assumed to be male) was the infamous #Jazzhands Tweet:

Some delegates are requesting that we move to jazz hands rather than clapping, as it’s triggering anxiety. Please be mindful! #nuswomen15

— NUS Women’s Campaign (@nuswomcam) March 24, 2015

Oh dearie Me….look girlies, Oxford girlies as the ‘some delegates’ turned out to be, if you demand, as is your right, to spend the night in that Lion’s cage, knowing all the dangers, then so be it – but did you have to provide the Lion with a knife and fork and a portable cooking stove?

Twitter exploded, to the utter amazement of the lovelies whose anxiety had been triggered. Twitter wanted to know whether ‘Jazz hands’ wasn’t disrespectful to one armed amputees, or blind delegates, or even the black and white Minstrels…

The girlies were appalled, and removed themselves from #nuswomen15 – er, to another hashtag #womcon15 where they continued to record their delight at banning urinals – ‘so divisive, Sister’ – to the delight of the watching Twitter worldwide. They ended up with more retweets than Gordon Brown’s ’50 days to save the world’.

The timid little social warriors of feminism stamped their tiny feet, pursed their lemon sucking lips, and whined piteously as the ‘oppressive patriarchy’ – and every sane woman within a hundred miles – united in uproarious belly laughter.

Equality – you’ll find it where you least expect it. Watching a crowd of feminists living in fear of the clap.

Edited to add: It seems an eminent Professor has produced the definitive article on clapping:

Clapping belongs with the instinctive ejaculations of the body – coughing, sneezing, vomiting, ejaculation of sperm…

Sheesh! Who’da’thunk’it?