'I hear what you're saying but remember there are two sides to every story.'

🧵 'Two sides to every story' is a common technique used to dismiss victims.

Actually there are as many sides to a story as there are involved parties.
(1/8)
However, the more important point is: 'How many sides have you listened to?'

Because 'two sides' is used in multiple ways:
1. To refuse to hear other sides.
2. To stop other sides being voiced by implying the person is vexatious, unreliable or has malicious intentions.
(2/8)
3. To make clear that the speaker has decided on which side they favour/believe- they are either not going to listen to the other side or will make no attempt to reconcile the accounts.
4. To imply that you have been mistaken in some way or misunderstood what happened.
(3/8)
5. To imply that if there is blame, then there is blame at least on both sides.
6. To imply that if indeed things had happened as the victim says they did, then there must have been something that they did to have caused/deserved what was done to them .
(4/8)
6. Contd. Here, to resolve the incompatibility between the two accounts the speaker tries to construct a scenario in which they both make sense i.e. the actions of the perpetrator must make some rational sense in terms of the interaction.
(5/8)
6. Contd. This is often done by assuming no intention to harm on either side at the time (thus privileging the perpetrator). This can get very sinister because one may have to come up with a lot that the victim may/must have done to deserve what they received.
(6/8)
In case anyone is thinking of coming in to say that we should hear both sides, the point of this thread is absolutely not that. It is essential to hear all sides if we are to get a fair picture and we need to be very mindful that there are often more than two.
(7/8)
This thread is about the times when someone to whom you have spoken about your abuse says to you 'There are two sides to every story...'

And if they happen to be your aggressor, speak to someone you trust.
(8/8)

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More from @HZiauddeen

25 Sep
🧵Some reflections on the responses to this thread👇

This is about some of the criticisms I received for this thread. This is not meant to be a massive subtweet, apologies if it feels like it. I think that some of the points raised were worth airing and addressing.
(1/30)
1. A fair few people took 'the people in power' to mean the government. I certainly do include the govt in this category but it's not just the government. There are a lot of powerful players who are not part of the govt and we have known about them for a long time.
(2/30)
A COVID example: the Koch Brothers, AIER and GBD (check out @NafeezAhmed's work for @BylineTimes)

Even if we don't consider this, we know that our current UK government has a lot of wealthy people who we know are serving their own interests while in govt.
(3/30)
Read 30 tweets
19 Sep
🧵COVID-19: how do you convince people that the people in power actually want them to die?

This may seem dramatic but it isn't & given that we* have lost the war against COVID to the GBD & Co, we can't cushion this.

*Everyone trying to control the pandemic & save lives.
(1/25)
In fact looking back, I am not sure if ever came close at any point to a temporary draw, let alone a win but now there is no doubt.
The GBDers, the 'herd immunity through natural infection' proponents, the individual freedom fighters, the eugenicists, they've won.
(2/25)
Their misinformation and disinformation campaigns have so muddied the situation that despite the huge amounts of evidence (and deaths and illness), the basic realities of COVID-19 and controlling it remain somehow contentious.
(3/25)
Read 26 tweets
19 Sep
Mini 🧵: Is the idea of women's intuition misogynistic?
(Completely speculative and very likely very badly wrong)

I'm wondering if at the idea of female intuition is a way of dismissing both how women collect and use information, as well as their success in doing so.
(1/n)
'Is it your female intuition telling you we should consider that in our plans?'

'So you were right, must be that women's intuition.'

The implication of both statements is that there is no 'rational' reason why the woman would have suggested that and then got it right.
(2/n)
While this is mainly about women and girls, much of this would apply to anyone whose approaches differ from that of the dominant group in their system. However in patriarchal systems, this would only be one of many interacting (often synergistic) elements of misogyny.
(3/n)
Read 16 tweets
13 Sep
🧵Long COVID, this tweet and these kinds of psychological approaches:

Long COVID is a multi-system condition with microvascular damage, immune dysregulation, clotting abnormalities and neuronal damage being amongst the mechanisms implicated.
(1/12)
Sadly but unsurprisingly, it took too long for it to be taken it seriously and it still isn't being taken seriously enough. And like with everything else in COVID, there are plenty of prominent scientists who dismiss it as just a post-viral syndrome or 'psychosomatic'.
(2/12)
There are clearly neuropsychiatric aspects to Long COVID (neurological, psychiatric and cognitive symptoms) and important psychological aspects (dealing with severe, chronic, disabling, life-altering illness). Both will require psychological research and treatment.
(3/12)
Read 12 tweets
12 Sep
🧵COVID-19 and the corruption of systems and values:
(Mainly UK-centric but aspects relevant to other countries)
This is about various troubling aspects of govt and society that have become more pronounced over the last 18+ months and make me really fear for the future.
(1/30)
Corruption, in its different meanings, seems like a good term to describe these phenomena but I'm open to suggestions.

Let's start with the simple and straightforward stuff: corruption in our political systems, and I'll stick to a few highlights.
(2/30)
-In the immediate background (and increasingly in the foreground) is Brexit and complete hash that is was and is.
-There is the horrendous pandemic response and how it has been shaped by lobby groups (HART, AIER) and other vested interests

(3/30)
Read 30 tweets

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