Woke staff revolt over Jordan Peterson book

I think that the oppression of women is social rather than natural. But I think the differences between men's and women's behaviour are largely biological in nature - things like nurturing vs aggression, for example. Of course, those are generalisations, and you get aggressive women and nurturing men, but by and large I think there's good evidence that many of the differences between the sexes are not socialised into us but are inherent to our different natures. We are animals after all; it would be very strange if we were the only mammals born with an entirely blank slate in terms of personalities and behaviours.

Well then I guess you would agree with Jordan Peterson because that’s essentially what he says.
However it’s untrue that in the animal world every species behaves the same in that females are the nurturers and males the aggressive hunters. Humans also have the capacity for rational thought and self-control that most species of animals don’t have. The entire world that we have created for ourselves is socially constructed and bears no resemblance to the animal world. The attempt to equate going to work with ‘hunting’ for instance is ludicrous. Therefore, comparisons to the ‘animal kingdom’ as evidence of why men and women are treated so extremely differently in the world are bound to be weak.

120 years ago, it was considered absolutely unsuitable for a woman to enter the legal profession for instance. Similar arguments about natural temperament and inclinations were used to support it - it’s just a fact that men and women are different and think and behave differently. Seems that was somewhat incorrect in hindsight. It’s also the case in the countries that have a comprehensive system of state-funded childcare and a less sexist society that women do better. When Peterson talks about Scandinavia, he is very selective with the facts and it doesn’t represent the reality, which is that there is a smaller pay gap and more representation of women in higher status professions.

Eradicating the pay gap could work against women’s true interests, he says, by interfering with their preferred choices, such as less demanding careers.

So for instance in the film industry, male leads being paid twice that of their female co-stars is because the female actress’ career is less demanding? And professions that were traditionally seen as male-dominated losing social status and salary-level when more women enter them?

It also ignores the fact that men and women are paid different amounts when they are literally doing the exact same job and performing to the same standard. And that often the ‘choice’ Peterson talks about is one dictated to them because childcare costs are so high and because their male partners often prove themselves to be a bit half-arsed in their parenting abilities, meaning many women are forced to do all of it or at least take responsibility for all of it. We laugh at the hapless dad who forgets the kids’ PE kit and burns the dinner but the reality is that if you are in a relationship like that, you have no option but to take over responsibility there, for the good of the kids. It’s amazing how we think what often amounts to neglect is funny when it’s done by men ‘babysitting’ their children but women would be judged as bad mothers. In research on lesbian mothers, there’s a much more equal division of work between partners, which suggests that maybe women aren’t naturally hardwired to want to do all of it to the detriment of their career.

@hamstersarse but many women will not feel the same as you about family meals and nurturing. It’s not something that is necessarily inbuilt in women because of their sex. Many women loathe domesticity and being a SAHM but they are guilted for feeling that way. A lot of it is also taught because girls are told from infancy that they must be kind, gentle and caring. Boys are not. How can we separate out what is biological and what is socialised? Men and women are biologically different but we get into dangerous territory (lady-brain etc) if we say that our psychology is inherently different, rather than as a result of socialisation, because then we will get males claiming to be women because they love tidying the house. We’ve all seen the stories from FTMs claiming that they noticed that the floor needed hoovering after starting HRT, when they hadn’t before. It’s also interesting that the things that women are so good at and come naturally to them (cooking meals etc) are the ones that directly benefit men (now they don’t have to tidy or cook as much).

You may feel differently if you did stay at home and sacrificed your career because of it. I know several women who did just that and then got divorced in their 50s. From them, I hear largely bitterness and regret about it because they are now, in their late 60s, seeing the effects that it has had. They are intent that their daughters won’t do what they did. So I wonder whether it’s a ‘grass is always greener’ effect. If you didn’t have your earning capacity and were counting the pennies to be able to afford to have the heating on after your husband had left you high and dry, would you feel that you had still made the right choice?

I also like cooking for others and caring for them. I also like the mental stimulation of my career and I don’t like that it’s still presented as a choice between the two for women whereas it’s presumed men can do both. I also know that, even if work can sometimes be boring and dull and I may prefer to be at home or work part-time, paying into my pension every month means I will be comfortable when I am older and that the actions i take when younger will directly impact me later in life.

RealityNotEssentialism

you write that JP believes in strict gender-roles. I see no evidence from him to suggest that is true. What you got to support this assertion of yours?

None I suspect, but let's see.

if you give up your job, or don’t pay into your pension, you fuck yourself royally and there are many who don’t understand or realise that and are in for a nasty shock later in life. Why shouldn’t childcare beyond breastfeeding be split equally between partners? Why should you have this inner turmoil about whether to cook dinner or go to work when your male partner most probably doesn’t have this? The answer is that women are told by society that they are selfish if they work and aren’t a good mum whereas men are told no such thing. People like Jordan Peterson reinforce this stuff by pretending it’s inherent and it’s scary that some women seem to think he’s some sort of feminist hero.

I totally understand why you find it chilling what I have written. I do too to some extent!

But where I am with it, I think, (I’m not totally sure and there is no solution that covers everything) is that I did have biological urges that were ‘feminine’. I did. I hate that I did for exactly the reasons you point out. But there is no doubt my instincts to child rearing were different to almost all men that I’ve ever come across and more similar to most women.

I wanted to nurture, it was the thing that gave me greatest pleasure. I love a family meal, the joy of doing things for others that I love. These minutiae of family life are not what I see most men (I know I know) actually enjoy. I know this goes against a lot of feminist writing, but I still think it to be true. The trans debate which has overlayed all of this, is based on the fact that men and women are different, so in that sense we can’t have it both ways. We are different, for good reason and one is not better than the other.

BUT it doesn’t get away from the economic aspect. As I said, I had to ‘do it all’ anyway because I made a bad partner choice, so in many ways that’s worked out well, I am ok economically. But I absolutely appreciate, know, see, how it can all go very wrong for women economically.

But then we need better men, men who take on responsibility, including in the family, and so JP does cover that. He is extremely scathing about irresponsible men.

So, I get you. I really do.
I don’t know the answer for women, JP doesn’t either, but where I am with it is that women do generally have different life satisfaction instincts to men, and that should be fine. The equality paradox shows this....the more equality there is, the more people conform to ‘gender roles’ and that speaks to me - given a good responsible man, one who I could trust with my economic survival, I would have been more ‘female’ in my life. That would have been the choice that would have given me most satisfaction.

How we achieve that is beyond me, I just know that to be true.

I tend to agree that much of gender is not a social construct

Really? So you think it’s inherent? Just to clarify, you are talking about gender here (as in the behaviour, norms and roles of femininity) rather than sex (as in the biological reality of being female)? I know Jordan Peterson thinks gender isn’t socially constructed but I just wanted to check whether that’s what you also meant.

FWR is interesting these days...

Ooh thanks to everyone who managed to condense some of Peterson's work into more digestible summaries. I think there is something of the preacher about him, especially in his self help stuff, and maybe that's part of the appeal he has for some. I guess he can be pompous at times but he can also be humble and will admit to being wrong and flawed, which I find a good quality in a public intellectual. I like his work on personality and his Jungian stuff - I'm a reader and writer so no stranger to that kind of analysis but I think he often offers insights there. I think he does a bit of what Clarissa Pinkola Estes does, in celebrating both the vision and the mystery of old stories. He speaks to people about their souls/spiritual lives. I don't see him as anti-women at all, although probably fair to say he's anti feminist (but so are most of the posters here, depending on the version of feminism we're talking about). He is way more conservative and more traditional than I am but I tend to agree that much of gender is not a social construct, although unfairness and discrimination towards women should be overcome. It was interesting to me in the Cathy Newman interview that he was so much more positive and supportive of women than she was. Although as a pp pointed out, that whole interview just makes you cringe for Cathy N. Anyone would have looked more feminist than she did in that moment!

I don’t think you’re unique in wanting a work life balance and many would work less or not work at all, regardless of parental status or sex. I don’t think everyone who works a corporate job loves the long hours. It’s not just about doing ‘what makes you happy’. Almost half of marriages break down and divorce courts have pretty much stopped making long term maintenance orders. You’re expected to stand on your own two feet even if you gave up your job to care for your children. Women over 60 are the fastest growing group of homeless people and pension poverty is soon going to be off the scale as the younger cohort of the boomer generation retires (if they can afford to). If you give up your job, or don’t pay into your pension, you fuck yourself royally and there are many who don’t understand or realise that and are in for a nasty shock later in life. Why shouldn’t childcare beyond breastfeeding be split equally between partners? Why should you have this inner turmoil about whether to cook dinner or go to work when your male partner most probably doesn’t have this? The answer is that women are told by society that they are selfish if they work and aren’t a good mum whereas men are told no such thing. People like Jordan Peterson reinforce this stuff by pretending it’s inherent and it’s scary that some women seem to think he’s some sort of feminist hero.

Also, feminism is not ‘doing what I want’ and people validating it because you’re a woman, as it seems to have been interpreted in modern times. It’s about working to free women from oppression, and doing most of the domestic work when men are perfectly able to pull their weight is a way that oppression still occurs.

Fair play to him. Decent.

He has tweeted for people to leave the staff at Penguin alone.

Maybe the story has been exaggerated

My understanding is that Peterson's key message is that humans are flawed and therefore we can never reach any kind of utopia. Therefore any sort of ideology can never achieve the perfection it seeks, and seeking to implement them will cause suffering.
It's a very old message, Biblical really, the idea of the Fallen nature. We tend to view it now from an evolutionary perspective. Our old non rational ways still lurk, things like tribal thinking,pattern recognition/stereotypical thinking, sexual and reproductive instincts, deep drivers such as disgust and rage and fear. He doesn't think you can root out instincts entirely, merely minimise them or at least train the briers in helpful ways, like in a garden. And that our ancestors have dealt with these for millennia, and have built constructs which work well enough within the bounds of our limitations.

Society is so thoroughly secularised that it just seems like a new idea, to many.

But it is most definitely anti "woke", if we take woke as meaning that all is a social construct and that tearing down constructs is how we achieve a fair society.

I'm reminded of old sermons and tracts on the Perfectability of Man.

I’ve no particular skin in the Peterson game as I agree with him on some stuff and disagree on other stuff on the basis of having listened to him on a couple of podcasts. I find his pompous style off putting so have no urge to delve further in (JP thread always end up with recs of 3 hour you tube videos that you must watch in order to fully understand the man and I’ve never arsed myself to do so).

I’m still agape at the spectacle of another round of overly woke drama llamas destroying their future careers in an already precarious industry as the world enters a recession. I mean, talk about luxury beliefs.

... it seems like he uses 200 words where 2 would do, and I've seen a lot of appallingly sexist quotes from him.

Could we have one such quote?

I'd love to be able to discuss on this board an actual JP quote rather than just assertions that he is sexist etc.

"Context is everything" is one of the first lessons I learned on these boards for which I am thankful. (Waves to ROwantrees.)

There does seem to be a general aversion towards him among left / liberal circles, and I'm not sure why especially when many also admit that they haven't read any of his works.

It appears he's very anti-Woke, in that he believes you can actually do things that improve your life. (And conversely do things that make it worse).

The Woke/CRT position is that it's all someone else's fault, and that you should never have to take responsibility. (Only if you're Woke/Black, of course - if you're not anyone in that group's problems are your fault).

To some extent that Woke view is a pushback against the equally ridiculous rightwing view that everything is down to the individual and if you're not a millionaire it must be because you're just lazy, and clearly there's nothing wrong with society because some people managed it.

Obviously the answer's in the middle. Society can be unfair, and systematic things like progressive taxation (or even UBI?) are needed to counter that. But you can't just be Kevin the teenager and scream "It's so unfair" and expect that this will help you as an individual.

You can both "do the work" Woke-style, and also tidy your room and go to work...

His comments on the pieta and how mothers give their children up to the suffering of the world gets to the heart and tragedy of motherhood, in my experience.

I find the accusations that he hates women really curious. I have found more validation of my experience of motherhood from JP than any feminist. His approach of acknowledging the biological aspect to nurturing really made sense to me as I approached the ‘end’ of motherhood. I had actually spent many years being frustrated (not daily frustration but a simpering frustration) at my seeming incapacity to be an ‘all things’ mother. I’m a single parent raising two boys so maybe this was more pronounced, but I had been trying for years and years to overcome most of my natural responses to motherhood. Late meeting vs. Get home to the kids. Cook (nurture) an amazing meal vs be resentful about being in the kitchen. I had been doing the late meetings and feeling discombobulated by it, for years. It never felt right. But I carried on because apparently I was a blank slate and only told by society that I couldn’t do that corporate high flying job, it was the glass ceiling etc.

I think it’s much more grey than that. If I’m totally 100% honest with myself, I would have preferred to have had the opportunity to raise my children away from the pressures of my corporate job. And he helped validate me that that was perfectly natural, that many women feel that. I know feminists say that too, but honestly I never really believed them. I felt I was letting the side down if I didn’t want to smash the glass ceiling.

As it turns out I married a terrible man and had to just crack on anyway and it’s no bad thing I’ve a decent job, but as I say the actual truth is is that I would have sacrificed all of that in a heart beat if I could have and would have spent my life feeling much more congruent and satisfied.

I find it ironic that JP, the one accused of being anti-feminist, is the person who helped me find peace with motherhood and sacrifice.

I wonder how many of them have actually read the book 🤷🏻‍♀️

I’m open minded about Peterson (haven’t yet read the books) and think the staff at his publishers need to get a grip. I did see a good thread of video clips where he was rendered speechless himself. Eg, on Joe Rogan, when Joe pointed out that men not getting any sex was the same as the natural success that Peterson celebrates in other areas, Peterson couldn’t answer.

I haven't read or watched much by Jordon Peterson. There does seem to be a general aversion towards him among left / liberal circles, and I'm not sure why especially when many also admit that they haven't read any of his works.

I think most people don't really make informed decisions. They follow whatever is considered 'good' or 'bad' among their peers and align themselves with the appropriate 'right think' and distance themselves from arbitrary 'wrong think'.

Almost three years ago when I was first getting my head around the trans debate, I came across Peterson and his argument for opposing the Canadian government effectively compelling its citizens to comply with people's pronouns. And I completely agreed with him! I could not understand why people were against him. The state must never frame non-compliance on issues like pronouns as the equivalent of hate speech because it is deeply illiberal and will end up causing deep divisions in society in the long-term.
It was also one of the first issues that started to get me worried about the direction in which so called 'progressive' politics was taking - illiberal, reactionary, authoritative, unwillingness to debate and disagree etc.

I read the Louise Perry article a while ago and agreed with what was said as it came across as well-balanced in its compliments as well as its criticisms. Peterson does seem to resonate with many people, especially young men. I think whatever it is he taps into does a much better job of enabling men to take personal responsibility and work towards becoming better partners than any kind of feminist solution that has been marketed over the years. Maybe that explains some of the hostility and deliberate misinterpretation of the things he says? A sense of envy and anger that someone who isn't a feminist is getting much better traction among men (and in turn facilitating tangible improvement in women's lives in the long-term if many men follow his advice)?

The Cathy Newman interview made me cringe so much. I was soooo embarrassed on behalf on Newman and ashamed that her approach seemed to be a trademark of contemporary feminism. It was such an awful way to conduct oneself and Peterson really gained the upper ground by not rising to her very obvious provocations.

I will read the other links posted, thanks. Andrew Doyle article is good.

I find him most interesting when he talks about his academic areas - things related to personality, things related to his clinical experience. His Jungian stuff can also be interesting though I agree it tends to be out of place somewhat when he looks at ancient texts.

But I am not really the right audience for that. I think why it appeals to many is they have never had any real exposure to any kind of serious use of literature to elucidate meaning. And a lot of them are starved for meaning in general. Even the idea of meaning, that there could be something available in art or literature that can't be found in science or the news is a revelation for some. There's been a kind of intellectual and also what you might call spiritual lack of content in their education and experience, and Peterson is the first time they see that.

I think that's why they respond to what he says about taking responsibility. Because if it's meaningless, just about getting laid, maybe, that's not very motivating. WHat's the point? The way he talks about being honourable is really important to those young guys.

I find him not so great on political theory - kind of all over the place. He has some insights but his thinking is much sloppier.

I do agree that people tend to be appalled at some of the things he said without actually looking into them. The stuff in that article above about forced monogamy was really terrible reporting and I'd say almost an outright falsification.

Kantastic, different people like him for different reasons.

Although there are some people who are very taken with him, most people presumably just find something of use in his writing.

So I find his writing useful, but I also found books by Helen Pluckrose, Richard Dawkins and Tom Holland useful. Yet if I say I enjoyed Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, that is taken by some as meaning that I am deeply invested in Peterson as part of a culture war. It’s just another book.

I would say he covers general life advice, Jungian archetypes and psychology.

The general life advice is good because it combines the small and everyday with some bigger statements. The ones I particularly remember are - your life should have meaning, life is fundamentally about suffering, the more responsibility you take on the more meaning your life will have, and that you should not underestimate your own capacity for evil.

The Jungian archetypes as applied to fairy tales and the bible - some of this I don’t find particularly engaging. I think he moves the bible out of its cultural context, but I can see why it is appealing to people who are very unfamiliar with the stories. There are bits of his Jungian stuff I love. His comments on the pieta and how mothers give their children up to the suffering of the world gets to the heart and tragedy of motherhood, in my experience.

The psychology - talking about different personality types and the dangers of them - that is important for a public audience because we are fed a diet of CBT and mindfulness which give us no insight into who we are.

I am sure there are many academics who could tell us similar things, but for whatever reason we are not hearing from them.

For me life is about both meaning and the material world. Peterson engages with both. The rise of identity politics means that many academics are no longer addressing either of those things.

queenofknives you didn't seem to me to be one of the offended ones , sorry for overgeneralising!

I am genuinely curious to know what people are getting out of his stuff. I instinctively bristle at pompous sexists, and Peterson seems to fall into that category to me - it seems like he uses 200 words where 2 would do, and I've seen a lot of appallingly sexist quotes from him. So there is probably no chance of me ever "getting it" unless someone can somehow paraphrase the insights to me.

But I get the impression he's a good orator, and I definitely believe there is a HUGE power in working with mythic archetypes, I've been doing that myself with some writing exercises lately and it was far more powerful than I could ever have anticipated. So maybe Peterson's thing isn't so much what he says (none of which seems new) as the way that he says it? So you can't paraphrase the insights because there's something experiential there that can't be consciously articulated? I honestly get the impression that some people are having quasi-spiritual experiences listening to him. And I don't mean it in a derogatory way, I can totally see how a good orator working with powerful myths could achieve that effect. Maybe he's more of a preacher than a public intellectual as we usually understand it?

Sorry I can't provide summaries of JP's work, Kantastic. For a start, there's so many different areas he teaches on, and the ideas are pretty complex (at least for me they are) . A lot of what he does is to dig deep into various world mythologies and relate those stories and archetypes to our personal psychology. He also does a huge series of lectures on the bible. This is in addition to his self help stuff, which is in addition to the political science stuff. And I think there are other areas too. I definitely couldn't convey the deep truths he gets at in a short post on social media, or even a long post - they don't lend themselves to soundbites and I just don't have the skills or knowledge to do that. But I and others have dropped links to interviews and speeches which I think are quite accessible.

I'm not remotely offended that people don't like him but some of the criticisms read to me like people haven't engaged with his work really and are just going off what they've heard about him. Maybe that's not fair but that's how it comes across. But honestly I think JP is maybe one of those people who some connect with and learn from but who leaves others cold. Having said that, I truly believed I didn't like JP until I actually listened to and read some of his work, at which point I discovered I'd been missing out. So I suppose it's worth defending him in case others have the same experience. Also we know by now that anyone who gets so thoroughly trashed usually has something to say that's worth listening to! But I'm sorry if anyone has the impression that I'm offended by their dislike of JP as I am not at all! Man can take care of himself :)

[quote Summerstorms]@queenofknives

oh god, flashback to the blowjob wars and Hugo whatshisface, and the bees and the wasps. Feels like whole other lifetimes ago[/quote]
Hahaha omg yes, feels like another lifetime! Hail to you from the old days, fellow survivor of the blowjob wars!