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

So roughly equal numbers of physicians (doctors of any type, presumably) in the UK and EU as a whole, on average. Is there any point looking at what roles those physicians take, e.g. surgeons, consultants, GPs? Presumably it's roughly equal at all levels and in all areas these days?

China has close to gender parity in engineering, former Soviet states have much higher rates of women engineers (a hangover from the USSR when women were the majority of engineers). In the US, 50% or just under of all chemistry and maths degrees are awarded to women.

The UK has one of the most appallingly low rates of engineering degrees awarded to women in the world, but that's our failing, not a Fundamental Truth of Womanhood.

All this focus on "people oriented" jobs is just like the silly pseudoscientific justifications that used to be trotted out for girls liking pink and boys liking blue. If women just love people (and hate money!) so much, why are there so many more women chemists than women engineers?

Well, I think that any comment on it will not be given much validity given that it can only be opinion, not based on many decades of scientific research backed up by impressive publication statistics.

It's no surprise to me that women have flooded into medicine. Still a job centered on people = meets gender expectations, whereas tech is still seen as a boy's job. Factor in the belief of 'innate' sex bias (girls are crap at maths - see Cordelia Fine) and you go a long way towards explaining why we see what we see. Even if sex differences in abilities truly exist, it is still worth getting more women in tech (and other professions) for many reasons other than waffley notions of 'gender equity'.

I'm pretty sure that doctors have to be good at maths. It was traditionally seen as a male role until quite recently. It's not exactly a family friendly career. It must be incredibly physically and mentally draining. There must be more to it than just the pink / blue job argument

I really think there are interesting questions from feminists raised by JP, and don't understand the reluctance to take them on here. C4 and CN felt it was worth challenging, but did a really bad job unfortunately.

Reasons why, IMO:

• Peterson has an online army of flying monkeys who flock to defend him even when they aren't part of a community. This discourages "normal" people from wanting to talk about him.

• Peterson uses gish-gallop style "debating" tactics which are designed to shut down discussion

• Peterson isn't by any means an expert (not like, for example, Pinker or Baron-Cohen could fairly be said to be) on gender inequality. This is totally outside his wheelhouse (his wheelhouse is bloody narrow, to be frank). He's written a pop psychology book of pseudoscience, not a real academic work, and so "taking him down" ala Cordelia Fine isn't very appealing, in the same way that "taking down" any self-help guru isn't.

• When academics in the mainstream do criticise him (many people in his field signed a letter to the U of T asking them to revoke his tenure when he started the pop psychology carry on) he does not take the opportunity to debate but rather hides behind an insistence that criticism is an attack on freedom of speech

What has seriously annoyed me about this whole thing is that CN has pulled the "victim card" re alleged verbal abuse thus effectively distracting from the very valid points that Jordan made. She was totally out of her depth and totally outclassed by an academic who has more talent in his little finger than she could ever hope to acquire in a lifetime

"Is there any point looking at what roles those physicians take, e.g. surgeons, consultants, GPs? Presumably it's roughly equal at all levels and in all areas these days?"

Yes, certainly worth looking into, though I'm much too lazy to do so. But I vaguely recall reading that different medical disciplines have different sex ratios. In particular I believe surgery is still very male dominated.

And of course you can spin that both ways. Maybe it's the National Union of Misogynistic Knifemen protecting their guild from the frilly ones. Or maybe surgery attracts the sort of people who don't like to engage with people. You don't need to stop and chat to a spleen you're removing.

And they would all be men, of course.

How has CN pulled the victim card? D'oh by having "security" called in because some people called her a stupid biatch?

'Victim card' 'alleged verbal abuse'

Well aren't you lovely

His plan to build a database of all university academics with "bad" politics (ie, politics he disagrees with) isn't very liberal.

Linking to the FB profiles of undergraduate students who disagree with him and encouraging his hundreds of thousands of followers to harass sorry "contact" them isn't very liberal either.

Anyone can quote pablum about freedom of speech. When their actions support harassment and terrorising of people who exercise their freedom of speech by disagreeing, I prefer to judge the actions, not the words.

I haven't seen a single FWR poster suggesting he should be in prison for his beliefs (that's what opposing his "freedom of speech" actually means by the way - expressing the view that he's a moron is not).

he does not take the opportunity to debate but rather hides behind an insistence that criticism is an attack on freedom of speech

Actually pretty much ALL HE DOES is debate and invite criticism and free speech. None of the points raised by your links have been answered so how is anyone supposed to take you seriously?

One final point before I go - the nature of JP's online following is such that the flying monkeys don't go away. They'll be here, spamming this thread, desperate for the last word, for days and days. They won't be contributing to MN, they don't have any interest in FWR (beyond dismantling Cultural Marxism, obvs!). They'll be dogs with a bone, forever.

I know the last time I said debate wasn't worthwhile I gave some people an allergic reaction - but debate with these sorts of followers (and I've been doing it with Red Pillers, YE creationists, the Breitbart alt right, you name it) really isn't worthwhile. Because you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

Ultimately, Peterson's overwhelmingly young middle class white male audience is getting something emotional, not rational, from this movement. And while JP might be happy to ally himself with someone who says "gas the kikes" with one breath and "the mainstream media is conspiring against JP!" with the next - I think that we, as feminists, can do better than this. He might have got trans issues right. That doesn't excuse the fact that literally everything else he comes out with is garbage.

Making him a prominent anti-trans figure will do the movement more harm than good in the long run.

HoldMe, your posts are so wrong they almost hurt to read. It's bordering on pathetic at this point. You sound like someone who has had their worldview rocked and doesn't know how to react.

Instead of trying to personally attack him or his 'flying monkeys', tell us what you specifically disagree with and why.

Have you watched a single lecture or podcast of his?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3093545-Left-wing-student-censured-by-university-and-told-she-is-a-Nazi-for-broadcasting-debate-between-opposing-viewpoints-on-transgender-in-communications-class

Another thread posted on here last year. Where does that descend into

They'll be here, spamming this thread, desperate for the last word, for days and days. They won't be contributing to MN, they don't have any interest in FWR (beyond dismantling Cultural Marxism, obvs!). They'll be dogs with a bone, forever.

It's also weird that the OP of that thread was on this one earlier telling us pretty much to shut up about it

*I can't really bf to read all the posts here, but one thing I'm curious about is how many people here are regular posters in this forum.

It doesn't seem particularly interesting if most are not, as there must be a million other places to read about JP on the internet*

The same poster who wrote this earlier. WTF is that about?

I'm guessing but I suspect Peterson has a rather particular view about online abuse.He has obviously had his share of it, made more threatening by the ad hominems from academia which pose a threat both to his clinical license and to his university job. I don't think he expected the furore when he first stuck his head above the parapet on pronouns, but he's had to deal with it for more than a year now, so he's grown a protective carapace and recognised that lots of people are happy to hurl abuse and there's nothing that can be done about it. Nor, since he's a free speech fanatic, is there anything that should be done about it short of actual threats of violence.

And I doubt very much that he thinks it's his place to step in and "protect" CN. That might be the old fashioned chivalrous thing to do, but that's not the way the world is now. And moreover him doing so now would be implying that the poor little woman can't handle the sort of thing that he's had to handle. All that "agency" stuff.

The reason I suspect this is his attitude is that it mirrors his attitude in the Lindsay Shepherd affair - the student who was hauled over the coals at Wilfrid Laurier for showing her class a TV discussion in which JP had participated. Clearly he was on Lindsay Shepherd's side in the argument, and he praised her intelligence and fortitude. But I remember being rather shocked that he didn't act outraged at the abuse she got or try to put any kind of metaphorical protective arm round her. I thought - here's this 23 year old girl being abused and slammed from everywhere, on precisely the issues that he's championing, and he's not even getting up on his hind legs and saying "Stop ! She's barely out of school and you're ripping into her like she was an experienced leatherskinned politician."

But then I thought - nah, he's smarter than me. She's chosen her battle, she may be young and inexperienced, but she's fighting it with courage. If Daddy steps in to protect her, he diminishes her.