They screamed and hit the door
Helen Joyce’s talk at Gonville and Caius went ahead yesterday evening; the Telegraph has details:
Naï Zakharia, an attendee of the talk, said: “There were hundreds of protesters. They screamed and hit the door. It was hard to hear the speakers. In the middle of the talk a group of protesters got in to right behind the door of the auditorium.”
All because of a woman who doesn’t believe in magic gender.
On Tuesday night, organisers were expecting 75 masked protesters to assemble at the church.
Students rallied each other via other emails, seen by The Telegraph, to “bring pots and pans to make some noise” along with “banners, flags and signs”. Protest organisers added: “Facemasks are recommended for privacy reasons.”
Make noise in order to disrupt the talk, and wear masks to do it with impunity.
Prof Ahmed said: “Senior figures in the University have expressed regret that this debate is even going ahead. The only response to that is to arrange another, bigger event like it. That is what I intend to do.”
Helen reports:
Even if she didn’t change one mind of the students asking questions, she demonstrated what education is for. The students who came to listen to someone they disagree with now have something to think about, and process. They are getting an education. The rest of them, the pot bangers and the curlers, are just being treated like children throwing a tantrum or fragile children.
And she modeled appropriate behavior to deal with someone who disagrees with you. You engage in polite discourse, answering questions and possibly questioning back when appropriate.
It’s obvious who the adults are.
Also, the pot bangers were simultaneously attacking both the speaker Helen Joyce, and her audience. They neither wanted Joyce to be heard, nor her audience to be able to hear.
And this in one of the world’s most renowned of universities; in Cambridge 2022; not say, Munich or Berlin, circa 1922.
The pot bangers should all be ‘sent down,’ as that quaint expression has it.
When did university students, especially at elite universities, turn into such a bunch of contemptible babies FFS? I would die of shame behaving like that in front of adults (and my peers).
It’s utterly infuriating.
It awakens a feeling of nostalgia for my own undergraduate days (1982..1985) when we all felt the University authorities to be a bit precious in their rhetoric juxtaposing rowdyism with freedom of speech – for then, with the Garden House Riot rapidly fading from cultural memory, the prime rowdyism to target was that which was traditional at the last crystals (crystalline materials) lecture of term.
I’d pay to see Helen answering hostile questions. I bet she wiped the floor with those people. I think the two main reasons she infuriates gender identity enthusiasts more than just about anyone else are her relentlessly thorough and logical approach (her background in maths, possibly) and the fact that she’s just so pleasant and engaging, even when she’s telling people off.
She doesn’t leave any cracks in her logic for people to pry open, so they have to make stuff up and she’s so obviously the adult in the room that they can’t help but look completely unhinged when they do it.
I bet that Q&A session was fun to watch.