A British student feminism conference is tackling an important issue: clapping.

The National Union of Students Women’s Campaign took to Twitter on March 24 to announce a “ban” on clapping for its upcoming conference.

The announcement came shortly after the Oxford University Women’s Campaign made an interesting request via Twitter.

An Oxford representative tweeted “@nuswomcam please can we ask people to stop clapping but do feminist jazz hands? it’s triggering some peoples’ anxiety. thank you!”

NUS took the request seriously, tweeting: “Some delegates are requesting that we move to jazz hands rather than clapping, as it’s triggering anxiety. Please be mindful! #nuswomen15.”

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The request was met with both criticism and mockery, with some folks claiming political correctness has reached unprecedented levels of absurdity.

Still, delegates stuck to their guns.

“Jazz hands are used throughout NUS in place of clapping as a way to show appreciation of someone’s point without interrupting or causing a disturbance, as it can create anxiety,” Nona Buckley-Irvine, general secretary at the London School of Economics Student’s Union, told BBC’s Newsbeat. “I’m relatively new to this and it did feel odd at first, but once you’ve used jazz hands a couple of times it becomes a genuinely nice way to show solidarity with a point and it does add to creating a more inclusive atmosphere.”

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NUS also asked attendees to not “whoop!”

“Whooping is fun for some, but can be super inaccessible for others, so please try not to whoop! Jazz hands work just as well #nuswomen15,” it tweeted.

Source: The Washington Times

Photo Credit: Flickr

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