‘There is nothing exclusionary - in itself - about reiterating these masculine perspectives. As you yourself have implied, even iterating these masculine interpretations of stories is now viewed as continuation of patriarchal values - so you shouldn't be surprised therefore that in many circles these perspectives have been lost. In my estimation, and experience Peterson would welcome critiques and reinterpretations of these stories to take into account the perspectives of which you talk. The point is, that for many people trying to lead productive lives but failing, the omission and denigration of the masculine aspect of their psyche does actually hold them back and cause them pain.’
Blogaloo, I don’t mean the following as a criticism of Peterson. Culture is vast and he has selectively chosen elements of it that create a masculine slant on cultural meaning which is clearly useful to many people.
I am not expecting him to be all things to all people. It isn’t a critique of his work to say that if someone were to talk specifically about typical experiences of women, they would pull together a different set of myths, not just reinterpret the ones he has highlighted.
What is perhaps useful about him is that he’s providing a way of building connections between different areas of life. He is saying you can take x common life experience and see it in a wider context of y psychological principle and apply z cultural myth to it.
But if you’re a woman, the putting together of the xyz is not done for you by Peterson. But it’s got me thinking about the depth of cultural meaning much more, which is probably a good thing in a world where we’re encouraged to do little more than critique everything.