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

That’s a tweet from a conference of the National Union of Students, in the UK. Question for academics who read this blog: is this insanity general in university culture, or is it just something limited to Anglo-American academia? I find this fascinating, in a train-wreck sort of way. It’s like these women (and their male fellow travelers) are always on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Sooner or later, ordinary sane people are going to get fed up with it, and push back, and these people are going to collapse and retire to the fainting couch, and everybody else can get on with the business of education.

If this kind of thing is not global, only Anglo-American, why would that be? Serious question.