Dr Jordan Peterson

Jesus, I hope you're not a teacher "if you don't understand it, I don't know how to explain it".

In my best JBP mode - how about you try to explain it, and I'll try to understand your explanation and then we can have a discussion ?

That seems more constructive than plonking the quote down there and attacking anyone who doesn't agree with you entirely (without even explaining what it is they're being expected to agree with).

Please don’t play stupid. You know precisely what I mean.

Seeing a group of feminists praising a man worshipped by MRAs and Incels is like bad satire, except it’s real.

As for my other allusions, I think it’s pretty clear what I meant. Initially, two years ago or however long ago it was, I was delighted to find that there were a group of eminently reasonable feminists who could see through the aggressive element of trans activism for the misogyny it clearly is, without also being in agreement with the usual right wing attacks on this topic. It was good to see moderate or left wing people critiquing the blind acceptance of the attempts to redefine women.

When I saw those TRAs writing off these feminists as pawns for right-wing ideology, I thought that was ridiculous.

But I’ve watched as over time more and more posters here have been won over by right wing commentators - it started out as shared ground on this one topic, but seems to be leading to an increasing amount of acceptance of disturbingly misogynistic viewpoints simply because of that common ground. These people may share views on this topic, but it’s for wholly different reasons.

There are many posts in this thread excusing Peterson’s views and referencing his attempts to weasel out of what he said in that NY Times article. Have people actually read the original article?

This man is not on our side. I’m amazed this needs to be said.

If you genuinely don’t understand why that section is problematic I don’t know how to explain it to you.

Fuck me, shawbles and Goosefoot. Thank you for so swiftly proving my point.

I’m out. I was so relieved when I found the community here - a group of women who seemed to understand the growing insanity of what’s been going on. And I’ve watched and watched as it’s gradually slid to a place of disturbing support for right wing fuckwits because they agree with you on this one issue.

What a bloody shame. As you were.

As a post-menopausal woman (sample size 1!) I don't know whether I've grown more disagreeable but I've certainly grown less tolerant of bs generally and more likely to say so more clearly and quickly than I once might have. How much of this is down to hormonal changes and how much is down to having had more power to wield in the workplace and less anxiety about what other people thought I couldn't say. I'm still as kind, nurturing, patient and generous as I ever was - possibly more - but I don't have as much time or inclination to put up with unnecessary drama, synthetic outrage or fabricated nonsense as I might once have had.

I'll jump in feet first before the explanation, for my own amusement.

I suspect Deathgrip is upset that a woman has reported that she "thinks she has been raped. Five times." and JP has not shown anything other than 100% support and reassurance that she is a strong woman who has absolutely, definitely, been raped by men. Mean, misogynous men. Probably mean misogynous white men, but I'm over-reaching there, even by the standards of my already excessive guesswork. But definitely Deathgrip is upset that he has not spent time roundly condemning the men.

who has absolutely, definitely, been raped by men - I initially put "taken advantage" of, but then replaced it by raped as I think she definitely was taken advantage of, but I think the point that JP was making is that she was in a position to be taken advantage of by her total lack of understand of herself and how she was living her life (this may not be correct, I can't remember the context of the paragrapsh), and that this was meant to chime in with his general idea of "pay attention to yourself, take responsibility for yourself, otherwise you greatly increase the riskof awful stuff happening to you".

Deathgrip can you unpack your issue with that passage? I'm reluctant to jump in without being quite sure what you are getting at.

Individuals might wear it for all kinds of individual reasons, but that's it's cultural role.

The reason humans overall are interested in social signals that emphasise their sexed differences is because we are really interested in sex. It's pretty deep-seated because it's so important to our survival as a species. It's very difficult to make people not notice sex, and even so many people, especially when younger, have a real interest in emphasising it.

But if we want a workplace that de-emphasises, as much as possible, sex differences, doesn't that suggest that we should avoid anything that draws attention to our sex?

My feeling is that would be a complicated proposition, but then we'd have to ask to what the implications of that are. Some cultures have thought that men and women - again, at the whole society level - essentially can't work together without sex getting in the way and so it should be avoided in various ways. Interestingly, when #MeToo was big, I saw some suggestions from some women that seemed to parallel that thinking.

Can you like him and be a feminist? You mean, the man who thought and wrote this in his book about one of his own clients who said “I think I’ve been raped”.

How else to understand “I think”? But that wasn’t the end of the story. She added an extra detail: “Five times.” The first sentence was awful enough, but the second produced something unfathomable. Five times? What could that possibly mean? My client told me that she would go to a bar and have a few drinks. Someone would start to talk with her. She would end up at his place or her place with him. The evening would proceed, inevitably, to its sexual climax. The next day she would wake up, uncertain about what happened — uncertain about her motives, uncertain about his motives, and uncertain about the world.

Miss S, we’ll call her, was vague to the point of non-existence. She was a ghost of a person. She dressed, however, like a professional. She knew how to present herself, for first appearances … Miss S knew nothing about herself. She knew nothing about other individuals. She knew nothing about the world. She was a movie played out of focus. And she was desperately waiting for a story about herself to make it all make sense.

I mean, really? No, if you think this man deserves the sort of praise heaped on him on this thread, you should seriously consider whether you are a feminist. The mental gymnastics shown in this thread excusing his bullshit would make a TRA blush.

What the hell is going on here lately?

I think there are some truths in what 096 is saying about over reach, I think it may also have contributed to what has happened to him, I am not sure being seen as a guru is good for anyone.

I'd like to see the evidence that women are less agreeable as they age due to the reduction of 'female' hormones.

I've seen this idea twice over the weekend, from Caitlin Moran and Jenny Éclair.

Both are flogging books about the menopause.

practically everything is academically referenced.

That doesn't mean he's using it in context. A criticism is that he isn't, or doesn't always understand the theory he's quoting because he constantly strays outside his field of expertise. The conclusions and extrapolations he assumes must be the case, based on the rather random nugget of data quoted, are often not self evident (or impartial) at all. He thinks out loud but talks like he's made his mind up, causing others to believe he has more certainty and 'proof' than he does. This is aggravating for real experts in whatever field he's currently dabbling in. No doubt that he's very clever but he over reaches.

Finally caught up. So interesting.

The thing about make up, is the current societal expectation and the underlying purpose.

Women are currently 'supposed' to be sexually attractive- to make no effort makes you somehow sub par. Women are seen as friendlier when wearing red lipstick if I remember correctly.

Wearing makeup helps women be more successful at work.
Wearing makeup mimics arousal.

But at the same time we don't want sexual behaviours at work.

So women are once again caught in the crossfire of conflicting expectations.

Maybe the KPop (?) movement of men and women wearing 'perfecting' makeup may help shift this a bit.

Women's personalities change more than men's as we age. Agreeableness and neuroticism reduce.

There is data to show this (in we are still allowed to use that)

There isn't necessarily an explanation for these changes, but high estrogen in young women may make sense.

Oh no, wait...

Women who do not want children may be less influenced by those hormones, and be seen as less agreeable as a result.

That's not to say it's acceptable.

Fragility