Cathy Newman and Jordan Petersen on C4 News

[AssignedPuuurfectAtBirth]

Just on. He was saying that people are different due to ' agreeableness, women being more likely to be so; men less so, hence the gender gap

It's the first time I have ever seen Cathy Newman angry. And he was spluttering a bit, first time for him too, for me, I think.

Watch it on + 1

I agree with some of Petersen's views but he didn't come off at all well here

It's a shame about him because he gets feminism so very wrong, he really has no understanding of ideas about gender or feminism at all and regularly makes himself look ignorant or foolish and yet he says some insightful things about the way leftist activists behave and believe in gender. I've heard him say things about traits agreeableness and conscientiousness before in terms of being on the political left or right and agreeableness leading to the kind of people who buy in to gendered ideology around pronouns. I think what he says about conservative and liberal personalities is interesting and useful but the rest of his ideas are deeply off-putting.

Peterson is a good example of a conservative christian type who I can agree with on certain principles - including his motivation, which I don't think is a hatred of trans or gay people but a genuine concern about a move towards blind acceptance of an ideology that makes no sense. However, it really grates when he talks about gender because he hasn't a clue.

When will we get some allies that we can work with?

No I agree and he was introduced as a right wing usurper, which really isn't fair. He is conservative but many of his views are classically liberal.

The problem is that everyone has to has a a bloody label

She didnt seem happy...at all

I suppose the issue is that he sees this as the natural order of things. I’ve heard him say things like ‘women and men, you like different things, I’m telling you’ just oversimplifying it. Also doesn’t understand equality thinks feminists want everything to be the same rather than understanding difference. Mind you a lot of people make that mistake. It’s just annoying because he’s a professor and ought to know at least something about feminist theory but he doesn’t seem to.

To be fair, the feminists he has to deal with in Canada and especially at his own institution do seem to be the queer theory fem types so he’s probably just got the wrong idea about gender theory from them.

I thought Cathy Newman did a bad job with him...kept putting words in his mouth and repeating "is gender equality a myth?" which is an odd question.

She might have asked why it was that women are supposedly more agreeable - because men punish them if they are not? She could have asked who is responsible for hiring decisions that result in less agreeable people getting the best jobs...men who are employing in their own likeness.?

Disappointing. I don't like how the news sets up right wingers as bogeymen and doesn't engage with their arguments properly. She could have ripped him to bits with better prerparation.

I watched a short clip and heard him on the radio with a different interviewer.

'Patriarchy is inevitable due to nature, says privileged white man...' seems a fairly familiar opinion, dressed up in fancy language and bluster.

There is the full interview on YouTube. He comes across better when he describes working with women to push for salary rises.

That'll get lost in the wind as all the usual anti-feminist types leap on the lobster hierarchy stuff and the "proper" science that he references.

This is what the sacked google guy was on about, that women are innately more "agreeable" and so any disparity in pay is because of that and not any active or unconscious discrimination.

As an utterly disagreeable woman, who has been sanctioned at work in the past for behaving as men typically do, this gets right up my nose.

I thought the lobster bit was brought up to discredit him.

Imo these animal based theories are always batshit and will change over time. He's the type who likes a story - probably makes him good for dealing with people building their life.

The focus on the gender pay gap irritates me tbh. Except that noone will pay much for "caring" jobs which a lot of women end up in.

The Carrie Gracie end of things I'll leave to Cathy Newman to get aerated about. In engineering I found it's equal pay and it's taking time out for work life balance aka family commitments that cause divergence. Where I've known sahds they have taken the low pay fitting round the kids route.

He was interviewed at length on radio 5 on Monday afternoon and came across very well, I thought

I once saw JP argue that men got higher salaries because they were prepared to work harder than women were. I haven't bothered with him since, tbh.

men got higher salaries because they were prepared to work harder than women were.

Not in the companies I'very worked for.

I've heard him before. He does not understand feminism, at all. Just thinks that men and women behave differently due to an innate essence.

What he does believe in, however, is freedom of speech. Passionately.

Is on record utterley defying his university's (and country's) policy of preferred pronouns. Saying he is prepared to be imprisoned for his beliefs.

He has no problem with people calling themselves what they want, but he has a massive problem being forced do so himself, by a government mandate.

He has come in for an awful lot of abuse, as a result. Which is why I started to watch him. But I was massively put off by his lack of understanding over the reasons for women's disadvantage.

It's incredibly frustrating seeing someone so clever get it so wrong.

His argument is that for women to get top jobs and top salaries were going to have to compete against men. As he said, men aren't just going to roll over. To compete you have to be combative and dedicated and disagreeable. I agree with him on that.

I also agree with him on the free speech and pronoun stuff. I personally believe that trans people are mostly genuine and trans women are women etc but I don't think it should be law to force people to speak in a certain way.

Happy to support him on free speech issues, about which he is correct, but he's sexist to the bone and doesn't acknowledge that socialization is a thing that exists and has an impact on people's behavior.

For my part, I personally belief that trans people are mostly genuine but that transwomen are, and remain, biologically male (and that's fine - but women's rights are about protecting us against the discrimination society imposes on us because of our biological difference).

But like you, I don't think law should force us to speak a certain way, or censor us expressing opinions.

Yes, Peterson is one of those "shit, I find myself on the same side as a complete twonk" moments. He is totally and utterly right on free speech, right about trans issues, and totally and utterly wrong about feminism. But also (turning from the message to the medium) also comes across as one of those privileged white male types with a penchant for letting you know exactly why he is right who you wouldn't want to be stuck next to at a dinner party.

He said something about 'equal outcomes aren't desirable' and neglected to add 'for men, naturally, who rather enjoy being paid a penis bonus.'

He spoke like an MRA.

Strenge - I thought it was Newman was spluttering and lost. He handled it much better and if it was a competition - would have bern the winner. Really interesting interview.

I’d like to heat her views on it once she’s sat and rewatched it.

PricklyBall, he's a clinical psychologist, he isn't just some privillaged white man. Maybe his views on feminism are mostly on point. He's classic libertarian. Equal opportunities is desired but not equal outcomes. I agree.

He said something about 'equal outcomes aren't desirable' and neglected to add 'for men, naturally, who rather enjoy being paid a penis bonus.'

I think his take was that women competing for the top jobs, the top money - wasn’t necessarily that great - as men who have those jobs are usually fucked up, with crap relationships and crap family bonding time - in that aiming for that, might not make you happy.

I think his take on things is really interesting. I stopped following him on twitter because he draws a lot of arsehole men.

I suppose the point I was trying to make was simply that the establishment (which includes university academics, who may have admirable qualifications - but it was easier for them to go through the system to get those qualifications) still expects people worthy of advancement to look like them - white, middle class, male.

And the problem with the "equal opportunities, not equal outcomes" line is though it sounds admirably fair from the perspective of he towers of academe, the real world doesn't work that way. I think liberals (and philosophically I am very drawn to classical liberalism) start some Rawlsian thought experiment where we all sit around in a room, magically gifted with perfect rationality but no actual life experience, and decide what sort of society would be fair in ignorance of our eventual position in it (I'm a big fan of Rawls, incidentally, and I think the thought experiment is an interesting one - but it's flawed). If you start from there equality of opportunity sounds fine - anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps in principle. But in practice, it's like the quote about "anyone can eat at the Savoy grill, millionaire and pauper alike..." - the point of course being that although there's no law stopping the pauper from going there, they couldn't afford it.

A focus on equality of opportunity often ignores all the things, overt or hidden, making it harder for people at the bottom of the heap - whether due to sex, ethnicity, social class - to access these fabulous opportunities. And saying that equality of outcome doesn't matter because humans are naturally subject to variation, and you wouldn't expect everyone either to be capable of becoming or of wanting to be a top surgeon fails to address the fact that you can't tell whether a particular person lacks the interest, or has been told it's not a job for "their type" at an early age, or genuinely hasn't got the capability, or has been through a school system which has prevented them from finding that they do have that capability.

I suspect the Petersons of this world look at say, the preponderance of women in "caring" professions like nursing, and the dearth of women in STEM subjects, and say "well, we have an education system which allows women to go into STEM (equality of opportunity), so this just shows they don't want to (no equality of outcome, but for perfectly acceptable reasons)." Whereas I want to know how many of those girls were given dolls rather than lego technics, laughed at at school for showing an interest in maths, couldn't stand the sexism and sexual harrassment as the only girl in their GCSE computer coding classes... And also (coming back to the "white middle class men at the top is the state of nature") thing, why it isn't the same across all cultures (in some countries, parents and teachers encouraging children in careers choices see computing, for example, as a route out of poverty for both sexes).

Well said.

And in light of the context, which was about the two female bbc employees being paid significantly less than the two men for exactly the same role, suggesting equality of outcomes is not desirable is very revealing.

I thought Cathy Newman was totally outclassed and out of her depth.

Do you think it was an issue of not doing enough prep, or that she is not capable of asking relevant questions to a man with the intellect of Jordan Petersen?