Understanding DH - Jordan Peterson and feminism

[whovillewho]

DH has been listening to Jordan Peterson for a while and has developed/started to express views that I would generally describe as ‘anti-feminist’. I have tried briefly to discuss this but his (DH’s) points don’t make any sense to me. I should point out that I have always considered myself to be a feminist but I have never really felt the need to justify it, as it simply makes sense to me.

DH has said to me “You can’t be a feminist as you’re not a bricklayer and you couldn’t do a bricklayer’s work” and “What do you do that proves you’re a feminist”. I don’t argue/discuss this as to me he’s not making any sense… He’s also a bit of a wind-up (joker) but generally a reasonable guy (this aside).

I have tried reading some of what Jordan Peterson has written but found it to be very muddled. I have listened to some of his interviews, and found them to be okay. I have tried to google his views on feminism but so far haven’t been able to find anything that explains DH’s (to me) bizarre stance. Does anyone have any pointers that could help me understand (and subsequently counter) DH’s views?

A matriarchy is not even slightly on the cards given current changes towards women participating in society, interesting that Peterson thinks that's worth worrying about! Would many feminists think that a matriarchy is an end goal, rather than just a more equal society?

Jordan fucking Peterson. Feminism my ass.

@Mishmaj I agree. I'm a feminist too and I enjoy listening to JP's podcast and find it thought-provoking. Of course, I don't agree with everything he says - he has a male, Canadian point of view! - but I have never felt he was anti-women. I also listened to his audio book which he narrated and I felt his haranguing style did him no favours tbh, but what he was saying was interesting.

I'm a feminist and I really like Jordan Peterson and his daughter.

Do I agree with everything he says? Of course not but he's very thoughtful and insightful and I enjoy listening to his viewpoint.

And I don't think he's antiwoman at all!

I am beginning to agree with @Mishmaj @Nothingeverything and others that JP is interesting and I'm less convinced that he's anti women the more I read and hear from him.

But.... I do find that he is popular with men who are anti women. The OP's DH is a case in point. They seem to hear an anti women message from him. Is that because they are misinterpreting him or are there dog whistles there?

Unfortunately your DH is an idiot, it turns out.

Thanks for this, while I think Peterson is right about the generalisations, I think he is too biased towards nature vs nurture. They’ve done studies that show baby boys are treated differently than baby girls so all the differences he has observed - it is impossible to untangle what is biology and what is social.

DH has said to me “You can’t be a feminist as you’re not a bricklayer and you couldn’t do a bricklayer’s work” and “What do you do that proves you’re a feminist”.

Maybe your DH is alluding to the common view that you can’t be a feminist if you don’t make feminist choices? ie if you are a SAHM and your job is traditionally women’s work then you may be talking feminist, but not living feminist.

He's misunderstood the gender paradox completely.
He does that a lot.

It's widely known that countries with a higher standard of living, thus more choices available, show greater sex related differences. It's not restricted to Scandinavian countries.
In less wealthy countries, women are more apt to go into higher paying fields (typically male dominated) to escape poverty. In wealthier countries, choices such as to be a SAHM, to work part time and to enter traditionally lower paid jobs like teaching can be made without as great an economic sacrifice. Therefore more women choose to go that route.
The generous welfare state in Scandinavian countries makes this even more likely. These are economic motives, not "influenced by biology."
Peterson is an idiot. Full stop.

Oh boy. Are there ever, except not even dog whistles, flat out women-bashing.

About Alek Minassian, the incel man accused of killing six people after running them over with a van in Toronto: “He was angry at God because women were rejecting him. The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges."

"I read Betty Friedan’s book [The Feminine Mystique] because I was very curious about it, and it’s so whiny, it’s just enough to drive a modern person mad to listen to these suburban housewives from the late ’50s ensconced in their comfortable secure lives complaining about the fact that they’re bored because they don’t have enough opportunity. It’s like, Jesus get a hobby. For Christ’s sake."

"The people who hold that our culture is an oppressive patriarchy, they don’t want to admit that the current hierarchy might be predicated on competence."

"28 obviously fascist members of the Harvard Law Faculty oppose Harvard's new Sexual Harassment Policy and Procedures."

"The Putative Epidemic of Campus Rape Is Pushing Colleges to Adopt Policies Unfair to Men."

"It is very likely that this is a direct consequence of the biologically-based higher levels of trait negative emotion (neuroticism) that are characteristic of women, as a group, in contrast to men."

This is only a very partial list. There are reams of these kind of comments on his X account.

The generous welfare state in Scandinavian countries makes this even more likely. These are economic motives, not "influenced by biology."
I think both can be true.

Bricklaying is used as a rhetorical device by Jordan Peterson when debating feminists about the reasons why men usually occupy positions of power and influence. He says it's because men are statistically more likely to start and stick with careers that result in better jobs, pay and influence and that it isn't structural. His viewpoint is classical liberal, so he says if you are female, you just have to work as hard as men and rationally you will then get to the top too. But women, he says, tend not to do that in equal numbers to men. The inference he wants you to draw is that it's women holding themselves back that is the problem (not men). Having made this point, he pivots to change the subject and prevent any counter argument on his position by asking the feminist why she isn't advocating for more female brick layers. Because 99% of them are men, and if the feminist wants parity in the workplace, they should want 50% female bricklayers too. This stumps the feminist momentarily (long enough for a YouTube clip anyway saying he has schooled a woman) because the feminist doesn't care about bricklaying or female representation in that trade (because it isn't a powered or high status job), so it allows a further inference that the feminist hasn't really thought it through and/or is a hypocrite because she too thinks some jobs are best left to men.

Same. Because if it were purely economics, then you’d see roughly equal numbers of men and women choosing the SAHP and PT low stress/low paid work. As there is a difference along the lines of tradition, then there is likely to be social pressure pushing women to and men away as well. It’s not like tradition was based on any science of biology.

I think Peterson's position is that he supports "equality of opportunity" (any woman who wants to be a bricklayer has the opportunity to do so), but he's against "equality of outcome" (which would strive to ensure that 50% of bricklayers are women).

One point he makes is that, even in societies where equality of opportuny is high (Scandinavian countries) the two sexes still tend to seek employment with "traditional" gender associations (women in caring professions, men in construction, etc).

I think that's what he means about gender being "innate", that there is something about biology (and millions of years of evolution) that means women and men gravitate towards "gendered" roles (whereas feminists would, as I understand it, believe that "socialisation" is the cause?). I don't think his idea of "innate gender" is the same as that espoused by trans ideologists, but I could easily be wrong.

@XChrome As I said I don't agree with him on everything but I do think that taking quotes out of context is misleading. I often find that quotes that seem shocking are far from it in the original context. He has an old-fashioned rhetorical style where he makes statements and then argues around them - often he is not in agreement with the original statement or he uses it as a launchpad for further discussion. He is an old-school psychologist so terms such as neurotic have a particular medical meaning, not just a throwaway insult. Of course, sometimes he's just plain wrong. 😆

I must of watched the same video. What he says is that the feminists want equality, for women to have the same opportunities and outcomes as men, so the feminists want gender equality in the top board room jobs as they complain there are too many men. The feminists argue for the top board room jobs but never ask for equality in jobs such as brick laying, where there are a disproportionate number of men.

I watched that too, I thought he was arguing that many feminists are really pushing for matriarchy not equality because they are happy to leave low paid, low status and/or high risk jobs that are male dominated to stay that way - bricklayers, bin men, armed forces combat roles, etc.

And sort of also arguing that social engineering- forcing 50/50 in every role would make many men and women deeply unhappy as it runs counter to what he sees as innate biological imperatives.

This. I listened to a few talks by him and assumed the reason he was speaking so fast was so that people who weren't educated in the subject (political philosophy, mainly wrt Marx, Nietzsche and postmodernism) wouldn't realise he was talking gibberish, or, rather, wilfully misrepresenting philosophers in order to create his own vision.

He also seems to be a gender essentialist and to lie about the evidence on that (surely there isn't actually evidence that gendered traits are biologically innate?).

In his book I read (think it was 12 Rules for Living) he states emphatically that it's necessary to hit children.

Not my kind of person, really.

I think you should simply tell your husband that you are a feminist. A feminist is one who doesn't let a man decide what she believes or supports.
Its not equality but equity in opportunities. A woman should have the ability choose her profession just like a man. It should not depend on some women are/men are theory.

@XChrome well argued as always. Those quotes are startling indeed. But I do find him intriguing nonetheless.

I still think the OP's DH is reading JP stuff and making weird leaps though. He doesn't seem to be trying to discuss ideas but rather putting the OP down. Which suggests there's something more going on that just some kind of intellectual awakening. @whovillewho do you think your DH could be unhappy more generally and is struggling to articulate that?

I think what he calls "boys score lower on agreeableness" is what other people might call "a lot of boys are complete and utter arseholes".

Imagine if our species had evolved a little bit differently... and the males were a bit smaller and a bit weaker than they are. The physical equals of the females let's say.

Do we really think that we'd have no houses, bridges, aeroplanes?

Of course we would. But the bricks would be a little bit smaller, so they'd fit our hands nicely. The bags of cement would be 10kg instead of 20kg. The machines that extract the oil from the ground would be a little easier to operate. And crucially, both men and women would be able to operate them.

I'm an armchair feminist but this is what patriarchy means to me - a world where the bags of cement are just a bit too heavy for me to pick up, and I need a man to extract the oil because I'm a bit too small to operate the machinery.

Also we carry the children and feed them from our breasts for several months. There's that too.

(FYI I've had a few wines, there's a point in here somewhere!)

I find it hard to disagree with a lot of what JP says, on the odd occasion that I've watched him. whenever YouTube has led me down that particular rabbit hole.

I've been veering to the opinion that it's all biological too. Why is it so hard to get men to change? They re just wired that way. If it was all down to social aspects we would see change alot more quickly and abruptly. Instead it's like a wall unmoving through the ages. I think it highlights the importance of who you produce children with, which genes get passed on.

Indeed. Surely economic security makes people more likely to do what they really want to do.