Really disappointed with Peter Boghossian

I think he'd be clearer if thats what he's getting at. He's questioning why women dont do more to protect themselves if attacked.

I think hes just confused why women dont do more to physical protect themselves if attacked anywhere, not just in women only spaces.

Honestly, like AlisonDonut, I’m almost hoping he spouts stuff like this for clicks.

Although, as an internet 'public intellectual' there will be people (men) who take him at his word when he says male violence can’t be as big a problem as feminists say it is or else women would tool up 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️🙄

Is he really saying that learning these skills wouls make the risk go away? Or more that it would reduce risk, so wondering why more don't do it?

If the latter, maybe his real point is that it's not all about risk - that's not the only, or sometimes main, reason for women only spaces. I tend to agree if so. I think it's a mistake to only talk about the risk element.

This has got to be because of the clicks, surely?

Along with that, we have to move through the world as if we trust men, whilst also keeping our guard up.

Do we pepper spray the guy who squeezed past a little too closely in staff kitchen, knowing that that sirt of subtle did they or didn't they creepy infringement is a very hard one to call out and have taken seriously within an organisation.

If this is what PB actually thinks he’s a proper tool. What an utter lack of thinking skills, which is doubly disappointing as he has set himself up as a modern day Sokrates.

As if knowing some self defence move is going to save anyone. I know plenty of girls and women who know some martial arts, but it did fuck all when they were attacked. One girl was killed in a very brutal way.

I hope he reads this thread and has a good long think on what he is saying and what he wants to say ;

No, Pete. No fucking amount of Kung fu skills would let my 4’11 self beat any guy that is my size or bigger. And yes, I know how to shoot a Bow and arrow, and how to wield an axe.

When Helen Joyce was on his podcast she explained the dangers of allowing young people to undergo medical transition when their brains haven’t fully matured either as a result of puberty blockade or as a result of the brain largely not being fully developed until the mid-twenties. Boghossian acknowledged the validity of this information while speaking to her but in following podcasts went straight back to expressing his opinion that once someone turns 18 they should be allowed to do whatever they want to their body because 18 is the legal age society has set to recognise adulthood.

It was very frustrating to watch, as is his current idée fixe about women not really feeling in danger from male violence because they don’t bother to learn martial arts or carry weapons to defend themselves.

Helen Joyce made exactly this point about her 13 year old son and he didn't disagree with it. I'm surprised that following this discussion he's clinging to his stance on pepper spray, martial arts and guns.

I've just listened to his podcast with Julie Bindel. I searched to see if there was a thread specifically about that.

Noting the difference in his approach when speaking with Helen Joyce compared with Carla Dansky I thought he sounded very tentative with Bindel at the beginning of the discussion and it felt really stilted.

When they got on to women defending themselves I listened with frustration as she explained how a majority of women already move about their life daily to avoid threat from men and the ways in which they do this and he stands no chance of getting it. To me, he was more intent on bringing her around to his line of reasoning than in trying to understand where she (women) are coming from.

Are disabled women also expected to defend themselves by learning martial arts, or are they considered to be safe if they can justify using the disabled loos?

He's a big bloke, too, isn't he? He'll not be too worried about being able to defend himself.

If my interpretation is correct, I'm thinking his empathy block comes from confirmation bias.
His bias will make him hear "blah blah.. violence against women.. blah blah". See? All these responses to my questions just show how much these women are stuck in their oppressed narrative"
He remains fixated on his correct view, and thinks (hopes) his clever, reasonable questioning technique will lead the women out of their entrenched position.

Remaining completely blind to his own.

Perhaps pretending to (even aiming to?) want to explore any blindspots he may have ("Help me understand this"), but unable to move past a deep fixation.

Just because someone is aware of, and knowledgeable about, confirmation bias doesn't mean they aren't subject to it themselves.

I think Julie was close to something by asking him a question in return (" What have you done to address male violence?"),
and I think that this would be the way to go with PB.

At the moment, to me, it seems in both interviews, that he held the power of the inquisitor position. Particularly at the end of the Kara interview as JB pointed out.

I would like to see a discussion where the tables are turned, and one of these, or another formidable feminist interview him- using his own approach perhaps.

I don't know- maybe he has done this somewhere?

Again, I am speculating and could be wrong about where he is coming from.

Just my responses and thoughts when watching.

It is similar to the sports debate isn't it? An average women wouldn't stand a chance defending herself against even a weak man. My tall thin DS could pick me up and throw me around (in jest) from age 14, which he used to delight in - look I can pick mum up! I'm a fit, strong, overweight 5ft woman. But male advantage even in teens means I couldn't stop it. Has PB he not listened or understood ANY of the arguments at all?

I wonder how he would respond if every 18 year old woman was walking around with an AR15 strapped over their shoulder? I mean, he would be.cool with that, right? Actually I kind of wish this would happen, I imagine it would shut down men asking What were they wearing? The answer - a fucking gun.

Most martial arts are of zero use in a real world fight and self defence classes teach to first avoid or run from a confrontation, so we should really all be signing up for sprint training.

When he interviewed destiny, he agreed with him that language always goes to extremes - 'rape rather than bad sex'.

But this is something men have manipulated. Everything short of rape is either ridiculed - why are you bothered who is in the stall next to you, or taken as lies - why would men who hate their penis want you to see it? Its the tra who demands stats on tra raping women in female spaces, and close down discussions around how women feel about their presence.

The most common experieces women have with men - feeling of uncomfort, intimation, flashing, voyeurism, are not reduced by women having martial arts training. Women who may beat men up in womens spaces to deter this will be the criminals.

I dont know if its PB not believing women, its more that he cannot envisage womens experiences. His martial art training will protect him when walking down a dark alley, it's not needed when he tries clothes on in a shop changing room. Few women would walk down that alley in the first place.

These porn and gaming addled blokeys think that being a woman is like being the star of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Honest to god I feel like punching them right in the face but I know I'd get floored if they did it back to me and the shame would hurt them more than any punch I could give. I worked that out around age 14.

A friend of mine, many years ago, entered a shop with four males in it. The grabbed her and started passing her between them and pulling at her clothes. They only stopped when her friend opened the shop door to see why she was taking so long.

I don't know what the likes of Boghossian thinks she could have done about that.

Interesting that the first place he went to was counter violence. Women have been explaining to him that we use other methods to avoid or defuse situations, but he doesn't engage with us.

IMO, men don't want to admit how women use so many non violent strategies to manage their behaviour, because they would have to accept that sometimes women have had to manage them.

I'd also say - I like PB's advice for talking to people with differernt views, it's useful. And I think he's been admirable in working to maintain standards of truth and the mission of universities.

But I don't think he's a first rate thinker by any stretch. I'm possibly being unfair, but I'd put him closer to someone like Sam Harris, rather than Kathleen Stock.

Campus feminism is pretty much part and parcel of other identity politics, and gender ideology and other types of id pol have borrowed a fair bit from it.

And it's not always been good for the academy as a whole - Kathleen Stock has talked interestingly about the results of trying to make university departments more friendly to female ways of thinking/doing. Which in many cases seems to have involved importing a sort of toxic femininity which has not improved them at all.

So in many ways I can see why PB would tend to see it as having had a largely negative effect.

The thing about carrying mace is an odd one. It may be that it's just very difficult to understand the kind of physical reality of being almost certainly weaker if you haven't experienced it. Not as a women necessarily, but for example a man who has done physical labour or sports with women a lot would very likely understand.

It's worth keeping in mind that many women don't really understand this themselves - I've met plenty who think that their strength is on par with mens, or at least close. Like that idiot woman who was at the senate hearing in the US who thought that Serena Williams could easily beat a top male tennis player.

ALl that being said - I don't think that the issue of separate toilets etc is so exclusively about risk. I think more than anything it's about dignity - that is still an important element even when risk doesn't enter into it. People find that a more difficult argument to make though. Which is interesting because at one time it would have been accepted without question - it's worth asking why that has changed, and why we find it so difficult to even try to argue it. Though I think most people feel that way intuitively.

And yes I agree it is a massive failure of empathy.

@Wearingmybluejumper Yes but you're probably thinking about the practical implications of those statistics. It isn't about hating men. It also isn't about winning some weird competition about who had it worst. Its just an extremely unfortunate fact we need to take account of (and try to reduce that violence). I can't see inside Peter Boghassian's head. But everything I have seen him say about "feminism" and grievance culture is based on a campus-politics understanding where it does seem to be about winning academic arguments or fitting facts to match an obscure thesis. And he takes that viewpoint and sort of fits the arguments he hears around it. His whole entry point into this is from trying to fight "woke" politics rather than a woman's rights viewpoint. And I actually think he is right to want to tackle that sort of over-politicised anti-critical thinking rot you see in academia. But there is a danger in becoming the thing you are fighting.

I think this is probably accurate. He is very very very against "grievance" politics. Which is reasonable given his background (for example the whole grievance studies debacle). But if, for example, someone stole his wallet he would be a victim of wallet theft. Doesn't need to make it his whole identity, but he would have suffered a crime. In the same way that when women (or men) are raped they are victims of a crime (or survivors if you want to frame it that way). But talking about the ways in which women are victims of male violence or vulnerable to male violence probably feels to close to "grievance politics". Even though it is real. And sometimes for pragmatic reasons you do need to talk about it. But he can't see that on this issue he is being irrational.