GC Ultra / GC Lite?

I doubt it, they have their own schisms too. Twitter isn't real life, thank goodness.
I think this is what happens once political movements reach a certain size you get factions splitting off. Humans are tribal, that's what we do.

And I am not defending Edie Wyatt as I don’t know much about her but the use of the term scab is, of course, about crossing picket lines. It is an emotive term, as is traitor. In the past, I did think she had a point about Janice Turners new phrase ‘ultra’ because Edie pointed out what she perceives as a power differential between Janice and those she labelled.

So the term scab seems to fit that scenario. Not that I would use it personally. And it is obviously divisive.

I think the Australian and New Zealand women who have been fighting very hard there to raise the alarm may feel even more alienated than people in the UK and USA. I know that my friend considers the women fighting in Australia to be hugely problematic because they are using language she didn’t like. Like saying ‘no child is born in the wrong body’ as an example. She mostly agrees, it seems, but doesn’t ever want to be associated with listening to them or discussing their points.

Hells - I think that the ones who will remain unscathed may be those who just went on with business.

Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon has a passage near the end of the book, that retells an encounter in which West is listening to her husband having an intense political argument with a Yugoslavian.

Just then my eye was caught by two large, loosely formed spheres in neutral colours, one blackish grey, the other brownish black. These were the behinds of two peasant women who were employed by the municipalities to weed the flower-beds at the corners of the square. They were being idiots, private persons in the same sense as the nurse in my London nursing-home, who was unable to imagine why the assassination of King Alexander should perturb anybody but his personal friends. They were paid to pull up weeds, and they wanted the money, so they continued to pull them up, even when the students raised a shout and brought some gendarmes down on them not fifteen yards away. As I looked at those devoted behinds, bobbing up and down over their exemplary task, and the smug face of the automatic rebel, I thanked God for the idiocy of women, which must in many parts of the world have been the sole defender of life against the lunacy of men.

From there it seems to have spread that radfems are misandrist. But how much of that is from actual feminists and how much of that is trolls

I agree. Nobody knows. On the scale of election rigging or COVID misinformation or similar, I doubt it would attract the attention of Marianna Springs or a comparable body. (There's an academic who is outstanding on the topic and influence of social media bots but I blush to admit that I don't recall the name right now.)

those that have supported them are going to be very wary of the 'radfems' now

See above, without validation, that feels understandable but unwise.

And the TRAs continue to chuckle with glee.

Yes I certainly think that one result of all of this is that the those with high profiles who've been attacked such as SOM, AD, JT and those that have supported them are going to be very wary of the 'radfems' now.

That might have positive outcomes for the 'radfems' in that the 'GC elite' know now they'll be kept in check and wiill try to avoid rousing them. But also negative in that they'll be outsted from the inner circles.

Julie Bindel supported AD though didn't she? Did she support JT?
Is JB now a GC Lite?? 😂

Thanks Prion. I have watched parts of this yesterday and it is highly charged. I am however now quite concerned about the false defining of the rad fem position by Buttons. It explains perhaps though some of Colin’s reaction that I found confusing.

I have seen that there seems to be a couple of accounts who have used very emotive words that look like misandry. I thought they were trolling. It was when Andrew Doyle was feeling attacked. And I know Alessandra Asteri claims she was being wrongly blamed with the alleged trolls work and forced teamed. I had not seen all Alessandra posted but she seemed not to be making misandrist comments. Maybe she was.

From there it seems to have spread that radfems are misandrist. But how much of that is from actual feminists and how much of that is trolls I haven’t worked out. But that long tweet from Christina buttons seems to be misunderstanding the ‘message’ generally and, then making some pretty wild accusations, in my opinion.

It is now a worldwide schism it seems. I think that the ones who will remain unscathed may be those who just went on with business. A little like Helen Joyce has continued to do whenever someone has tried to pull her into denouncing others. Ie. She acts professionally and keeps on focus.

Anyway, thanks for the screen shots.

I absolutely agree that Twitter tends to propagate unpleasantness and yes, Edie was also perhaps rude. That was just the Tweet that led me to look at Christina Buttons.

You're plainly finding it a source of distress and it's not adding to clarity of the topic of "ultra," "lite" beyond demonstrating that the terms are unhelpful. I can only speak for what I'm taking away from this.

I find it remarkable however that even when we're constantly warned to be on our guards against misinformation and disinformation, false flags etc., we still have the power to have our perspectives of a topic skewed by a high noise, high disruptor, tiny minority.

I don't know what tiny percentage of posters are using objectionable terms to squabble with others, but it seems to be leading to the creation of disproportionately large outgroups and no golden bridges. In general, it's a good idea keep talking to each other and encourage exchanges of ideas on a platform that is largely free of that heat and light. And to keep golden bridges in mind.

I've only seen a few snapshots and the thing that struck me was how genuinely painful people are finding this.

The mudslinging is easy but some people are feeling almost bereft at being sidelined from something which it seems to have given them such meaning.

Twitter almost reduces people to the most basic emotions. Rage and pain.

'With respect to the current discussion, I found a tweet from Mattie Watkins that made me think that this division is heavily related to Hayton being considered as part of a social circle by many public GC campaigners.'
I think this is very plausible, particularly regarding GC journalists and, if they said this was the case then I wouldn't have an issue - I'm not interested in how people address their friends. But I do think they need to be clear about it, in fact I thought it was considered good journalistic practice to always declare when you have an interest?

I absolutely agree that Twitter tends to propagate unpleasantness and yes, Edie was also perhaps rude. That was just the Tweet that led me to look at Christina Buttons.

It was mostly the response to Wildfire whispers’ post that shocked me. Calling a woman crazy for expressing a perfectly reasonable view in a rational manner is unecessary, under any circumstances. Even in anger, I would not respond that way. It’s simply arrogant and nasty. The words “we’ll have to agree to disagree” were made for this situation and Christina Buttons instead decided to call a woman crazy, without any attempt to address what she said

But abandoning empathy in efforts to strive towards greater equity sounds like a dystopian nightmare.

Doesn't it just? And it's an interesting provocation to consideration about the plausible reality that we survived because of families and friendship groups. There's a substantial literature about friendship groups in animals and pro-social behaviour.

We are presented with many examples, however, about why people in public life with decision-making duties or influence, might need to be aware of the impact of empathy bias. (COVID-19 PPE contracts, MPs influenced by moving stories who forget about the impact for others, Yogyakarta that forgot about women who weren't in the room).

I guess now we know that pronouns are going to be a tricky topic and will respond accordingly.

Courtesy pronoun usage has and will continue to be a point of controversy because of

• the different spheres in which they're used (private and public)
• the consequences for public understanding of health information, new stories, and, increasingly, basic science
• crossovers with compelled speech and thought
• the legal Gordian knots it has created.

I may be wrong but I think I wouldn't recognise most of the people embroiled in the brouhaha on TwiX. I'd be startled if a resolution evolves there although people have quoted thoughtful snippets here (as Utopia above and others have). Maybe useful ideas and perspectives are helpful to glean from TwiX and the remainder set aside as it's distressing to some and doesn't seem to lead to a useful evolution of thinking or discussion?

However, mounting evidence has shown that people's empathy is often biased toward (i.e., felt more strongly for) others that they are close or similar to, igniting a debate over whether empathy is inherently morally flawed and should be abandoned in efforts to strive toward greater equity.

Bloody hell that's a grim suggestion.

Overcome your instinct to love and protect those close to you? How? By enforcement obviously would be the only way.
**
I get the idea empathy isn't necessarily linked to morality like we assume and we should remember that and our biases.

But abandoning empathy in efforts to strive towards greater equity sounds like a dystopian nightmare.

I think loyalty from empathy towards friends functions a bit like scientific results that show your favourite theory to be wrong.

No scientist just drops the theory after one problem is found, they modify the theory to account for the new information.

They keep doing this until there's a tipping point and a better simpler theory is proposed.

This makes perfect sense otherwise they'd be flipping around all the time.

Same with loyalty towards friends, instinctively we support them until the evidence becomes overwhelming.

I've been slightly following that debacle.

It is Edie who called them scabs though.

She's also been arguing with then blocked by Denis.

She's also obviously suffering hugely from a disbelief that she's now been frozen out. You can imagine the psychological impact is devastating.

Everyone needs to take a step back. Spend some time in RL and remember that people on twitter are people.

Utopia - Thoughtful points.

Hayton is recognised by an in-group as a friend and it feels like there is a concordance of minds and an alignment of desired outcomes. There are friendship ties that lead to the use of courtesy pronouns despite the polite social fiction that DH claims to be receptive to sex-based pronouns. The in-group have high profile media access and platforms. There tends to be an informal crossover of their use of courtesy pronouns in their private exchanges with public use.

Social psychologists such as Cialdini explain these phenomena well. And Solzhenitsyn offers a relevant perspective in Live not by lies. I would also wonder if empathy bias towards friends can lead us not only to resist those who we perceive to be criticising a friend (shades of acting as flying monkeys for narcissists or rescuers in TA persecution triangles) but overlooking the valid concerns of people outside that friendship or empathy circle. It's playing out more widely here because of the crossover of the personal and public sphere. It's unfortunate that the sphere has consequences in that it frames discussions and outcomes for others in a wide range of areas and services like healthcare, education, prisons. Helen Joyce has frequently observed that most captured workplaces have a person with a family member who has trans status. How many MPs have spoken of a constituent whose story moved them to overlook the consequences for others?

However, mounting evidence has shown that people's empathy is often biased toward (i.e., felt more strongly for) others that they are close or similar to, igniting a debate over whether empathy is inherently morally flawed and should be abandoned in efforts to strive toward greater equity.

Fowler Z, Law KF, Gaesser B. Against Empathy Bias: The Moral Value of Equitable Empathy. Psychol Sci. 2021 May;32(5):766-779. doi: 10.1177/0956797620979965. Epub 2021 Apr 28. PMID: 33909983.

Cameron CD, Conway P, Scheffer JA. Empathy regulation, prosociality, and moral judgment. Curr Opin Psychol. 2022 Apr;44:188-195. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.09.011. Epub 2021 Sep 21. PMID: 34695643.

https://twitter.com/buttonslives/status/1757208414478827815

https://twitter.com/buttonslives/status/1756463008002277809

Twitter links for those who have access and want to see the posts/threads.

The unnecessary unpleasantness seems to be continuing.

Christina Buttons is Colin Wright’s girlfriend, according to various posts. I’ve always had a lot of respect for Colin, but Christina Buttons seems to be unable to argue her point or listen to what other women are explaining.

Three images here, one from Edie Wyatt when Colin has blocked her, from a thread where she explains how distressing she finds it.

The second, though I couldn’t fit the name on screen with the entire post, is Christina’s (I think reasonable) explanation of why they are pursuing the path they are.

The third is a post responding to Christine’s post above (again, reasonable, certainly not in any way unpleasant) from a woman explaining where radical feminists are coming from and why they are approaching things from a different angle. Christina’s response is, again, deeply unpleasant. There’s no reason for it and no excuse, I don’t think.

It really is unpleasant and fracturing on twitter.

I've seen some call 'the GC elite' scabs.
They crossed the picket lane.
The elite need smacking down by the base.

Others saying some Ultras are authoritarian trying to control language like the Nazis.

The blocking going on is wild.

Some people are obviously taking it very hard. Both those high profiles being attacked and those now being blocked by them.

It does seem like a fracturing of the movement. Hopefully it will be restored once it reverts back to clear issues we all agree on. And I guess now we know that pronouns are going to be a tricky topic and will respond accordingly.

It's a horrible time for a lot of people. People are feeling very shut out after been blocked. I hope it blows over soon.

With respect to the current discussion, I found a tweet from Mattie Watkins that made me think that this division is heavily related to Hayton being considered as part of a social circle by many public GC campaigners.

It’s possible that, in this social-slash-campaigning group, members are not making a distinction between what Hayton is actually campaigning for and what they themselves are ostensibly campaigning for because they view him as an ally, on account of Hayton being friendly towards them and claiming to also be gender critical. So, for them, every conversation about issues that involve Hayton ticks 'talking about my friend' rather than ‘discussing proposals from someone with a different outcome in mind than me' in their brains.

Unless of course they do agree with Hayton’s preferred outcome, in which case they’ve got less conflict between reality and ideology than other campaigners who don’t believe there’s much chance of a realistic middle way that will somehow keep women and children safe while also allowing men to deny biology/have access to women’s rights and spaces.

https://x.com/thepeaklady/status/1757201613977194602?s=20

'I think people are struggling to recognise the difference between what is being demanded in your personal, private speech and demands of you as an activist for a specific cause.'

Just realised that the Terven Academicals Summer School (upthread) must include some dance training and a final performance for our graduation ceremony.

I really hope this does settle down soon. It's upsetting and depressing watching people I've followed for ages and assumed were all on the same team fall out with each other so viciously.

@Catsanfan Don’t be worried, there is problems in any such loose affiliation that contains left and right views in it its just best to debate and put across whatever point of view in good faith.