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

My my, this thread, in a part of the forum that often has the same old regulars, has certainly brought out a certain very dogmatic group, hasn't it.

I'm a little depressed at the way this thread has developed. It started with a very constructive tone but seems to have descended. The abuse CN says she is experiencing is sadly all too credible given what we know other public figures, and yes i think women disproportionally, have suffered.

Lee Thank you for continuing to engage, I've found your contributions interesting and informative and plan to watch some more lectures. Thank you mostly though for maintaining a constructive tone throughout and progressing the discussion rather than descending to point scoring.

I suspect that my granny sees the world a great deal more clearly than you do, Lee. I hope yours is at least somewhat shielded from your unpleasant attitude towards older women by more reasonable relatives.

I am just part way through my second JBP podcast on his biblical series and it is fascinating.

I started with the one on Joseph as I am quite familiar with the story and I was gripped through all 2.5 hours of it

Out of the 2.5 hrs - he probably only spent 30 mins on The Joseph story. He went off on tangents discussing all sorts of things. Bringing in myths from other cultures, Freud, Jung, observations from his clinical practice, other scientific disciplines.

It’s been 30 years since I was at University and it really is a amazing that such lectures are out there for the public to enjoy.

I am definitely going to listen to more of his lectures. But would also be interested in whether any other academics produce material that is accessible to the public.

Would love any suggestions if any of you out there know of any.

but what evidence is there of abuse? shouldn't we have evidence? I'm not saying that there might not have had misogynistic abuse, but I saw none on her twitter feed. Just lots of posters saying she wasn't listening, just projecting.

The abuse CN says she is experiencing is sadly all too credible given what we know other public figures, and yes i think women disproportionally, have suffered.

Male public figures receive almost 3 times more abuse on social media. I know of men who share many of Peterson opinions who receive dead animals in the mail on a regular basis. It's just that men are far less likely to complain about it.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cheep-shots-men-get-most-twitter-abuse-bxlk3x50dz5

I think many people are fed up with the type of interview that seems to be the norm these in most mainstream media : left wing, politically correct journalist/s gang up on guest with alternative views and the whole piece is a sort of ''Aha! so you admit you're Hitler!'' drinking game. The fact that such a high pay, high profile job is occupied by such an incompetent woman is great evidence that equality isn't exactly eons away. She is living proof of what Peterson was talking about.

I love how Channel 4's plan to discredit JP and ''expose'' him as an ultra- bigot blew up in their face. The YT video has already passed 2 million views in a matter of days and his book is no2 on Amazon even though it hasn't even come out yet. Instead of exposing his as a right wing monster and slay him as the evil dragon they perceive him to be, they introduced him to a much larger, more mainstream audience. It's amazing how many people I've been hearing lately agree with everything he said, people who'd never heard of him before, both men and women. I'm especially with the number of young, bright women who support him.

This day we rescue a world from mysticism and tyranny, and usher in a future brighter than anything we could imagine!

I don't think CN is obligated to provide evidence to me personally. I'd be surprised if c4 pay for security without some but maybe they're playing deep Machiavellian games.

And I think so much of this debate suffers from the assumption that the battle of the sexes must be a zero sum game.

I did say disproportionately. I have no evidence and I'm not sure I meant in volume. But as a woman, the routine nature of rape threats strikes a particularly visceral response in me.

In the meantime I'll have to make my infinitesimal contribution by trying to discuss contentious things calmly, hopefully learn something and refrain from abuse and ad hominem attack.

I'd never heard of Peterson till seeing a link on FB this morning and watching the (full) Ch4 interview. Ye gods, what a car crash. Cathy Newman seriously had a brain fail at about 22 minutes in, I don't know how the OP can see it otherwise .

I work in the meeja and have rarely seen an interviewee maintain an unruffled facade as well as Peterson did, it's impressive/scary in equal measures. Although I think there's a fair bit of rage seething under the surface... still his ideas are interesting and I'd be quite keen to read the book if it wasn't £16.

And having RTFT, thanks Lee for staying polite and informative, I hate it when these threads descend into a slanging match.

If for sake of argument everything JP said was correct especially about this agreeableness thing (which I'm a little fuzzy on as even hyper ambitious men tend to be able to wind their necks in and be agreeable to their superiors whilst they progress). He seems to be advancing the argument that agreeableness is actually an impediment to women's advancement? In which case I can kind of see how that might be true. After all women who were not agreeable to the advances of Weinstein et al appear to have found their careers stall.

I'm also not surprised that many women agreeable or not may decide that inappropriate behaviour in the workplace grinds them down and I take issue with this 9% figure also as these neatly delineated "reasons" may in fact be comorbid and the sexism that Peterson in no way denies exists and in fact recognises as a factor. A woman may "choose" one thing but the sexism may be the straw that broke the camels back, and provide the final push to say "fuck it I'm not putting myself through this anymore". Until this doesn't exist at all we aren't going to be able to say we have a control group (which if we want to get all fancy and scientific about it).

Science is fantastic but Peterson slipped an awful lot under the radar simply by virtue of being "science" adjacent. He minimised the effect of sexism and misogyny but didn't actually bring any proof. What Northern European countries have shown whilst interesting does not actually establish causation. Correlation sure but correlation does not prove causation.

That 'agreeableness' thing rang quite true to me, actually, working in the aforementioned meeja for 20 years has shown me that the women who rise to the top in on-air roles are FAR more likely to be 'disagreeable', for want of a better word. It takes huge, huge self-confidence to confront the great and the good in interviews, and you simply won't get to the top without a very tough hide. Toughness and ballsiness are traits that we've been historically discouraged from exhibiting so these women do stand out, while the rest of us watch on from the sidelines with a clipboard being agreeable and being sidelined.

Cathy Newman is just the sort of stroppy, quite aggro journo who does well and rises to the top. It's still very sexist how women are negatively perceived for being like this whereas the men are just 'strong' and 'assertive, but that's not always true - viz Paxo cops just as much stick for being stroppy and difficult. However all the 'disagreeable' women I've worked with fortunately don't give a flying fuck if they're seen as disagreeable

@SilkyDrawers in your experience how well does being disagreeable work once the female presenters are past a certain age?

I've lived half of my adult life in Western Europe and the other half in Eastern Europe (roughly). From the countless women I've encountered, anything from shop cashiers to doctors, there is no doubt that eastern women are far more disagreeable on average. In fact, the women are more disagreeable than the men in the east. And this is supposed to be the patriarchal, traditional, religious stronghold of Europe. We're talking about countries where there is virtually no welfare safety net and divorce laws are terrible for the lower income partner. Maybe this is why Bulgaria has 5 times more female directors and execs than Sweden. The best way to create equal outcomes between ''identity groups'' is to sweep the rug under everyone and let them fight to the death. But I'm not sure this is the kind of world we should be fighting for.

Also very important to mention that the replacement fertility in most east-euro countries is abysmal and these nations will literally die out within several generations.

@CritEqual IMHO it works very well for them, at 25 they couldn't really throw their weight around as they're usually not established names yet. It isn't till they're in their 40s and 50s that the 'big names' in the media really hit their stride and start leveraging their power/acting like a complete PITA to the 'underlings' like me because they have power and are highly valued for their experience and name. Some are nicer about it than others. No different to the blokes really.

I may be biased against your Cathy Newmans because of this. What jarred with me was her 'I represent poor victimised underpaid women' POV when in reality she is far more closely aligned with the ferociously ambitious male CEOs of this world. Just my opinion though.

@CritEqual IMHO age works very well for them, at 25 they couldn't really throw their weight around as they're usually not established names yet. It isn't till they're in their 40s and 50s that the 'big names' in the media really hit their stride and start leveraging their power/acting like a complete PITA to the 'underlings' like me because they have power and are highly valued for their experience and name. Some are nicer about it than others. No different to the blokes really.

I may be biased against your Cathy Newmans because of this. What jarred with me was her 'I represent poor victimised underpaid women' POV when in reality she is far more closely aligned with the ferociously ambitious male CEOs of this world. I don't envy her poor pro Just my opinion though.

YippeeKiYayMelonFarmer

Proving that this or that is innate, or caused by socialization is a very difficult thing, especially as if any things about human behavior are innate then they’re bound to entwine themselves into the culture and create a mixture whose origins are going to be difficult to discern. I recall someone saying a long time ago that asking “how much of human behaviour is caused by genes and how much is caused by the environment” is a bit like asking how much of a rectangle is caused by its length and how much is caused by its breadth” – well, it’s a bit difficult to say.

I think the main point that should be taken away from people like Peterson and Pinker is that the notion that everything is a function of society, and not at all influenced by biology (and by implication reformable in the political realm*) is essentially a dogma. Reality is more complicated and so we should at least be open to other possibilities. But proving how much is this and how much is that is way more difficult.

As to Scandinavia, you don’t have to accept that the data prove the innateness of interests driving job choices. You could argue that it’s still all about society, but that the Scandinavians have just failed correctly to identify the political levers that they need to pull to get rid of society’s sexist influences. They tried but by accident they pulled the wrong levers.

You could say the same about Peterson and his lobsters. His point is that dominance hierarchies in humans are not a contingent cultural edifice constructed by the patriarchy; because all social animals have them, and regulate them with the same sort of brain systems. But it’s still open to objectors to say – phoeey ! Humans are different, our brains are so big that we can and do override old brain systems that we share with animals. (Peterson’s psychology lectures are an interesting rejoinder to that sort of argument, btw. Essentally, he argues, the new human brain systems get to be in control when, and only when, the old brain systems are completely satisfied and have their feet up having a nap. But whenever the old brain systems are unhappy, the new brain systems don’t get a say at all.)

For another interesting take on the nature v nurture thing, and in particular on the tenacity with which some folk will hang on to dogma, this is a highly entertaining show from Norway.

• note that this is an oversimplification. There may be innate things that are reformable and non innate things that aren't reformable.

To the extent that Cathy Newman is getting abuse, I presume it's coming from resentful bitter men. If any of them have gone further than abuse into actual criminal threats, the correct sentence in the courts is pretty clear to me. They should be made to watch a course of Peterson's lectures. In which they will discover that his main bit of advice for improving your life is "Forget about lecturing other people on their motes, sort out your own beam first."

CritEqual : "I take issue with this 9% figure also as these neatly delineated "reasons" may in fact be comorbid and the sexism that Peterson in no way denies exists and in fact recognises as a factor."

Perfectly fair point. To some extent, the sums are going to tell you something about that. So for example if you find that agreeable men get paid 1% less than non agreeable men, but agreeable women get paid 2% less than non agreeable women, then that's a clue that some other factor is joining in to make agreeableness an extra big handicap for women. Or if the figures go the other way, you might find that there's some other factor damping the effect of agreeableness.

me "[Peterson's] point is that dominance hierarchies in humans are not a contingent cultural edifice constructed by the patriarchy; because all social animals have them"

I realise on rereading that I didn't word that very well. What I should have said is that humans having some kind of dominance hierarchies is not a contingent cultural edifice etc. But the particular form that dominance hierarchies take in human society is obviously influenced by culture. Basketball is not innate. But you can still earn a high place in the male dominance hierarchy by becoming a basketball star (and no not just because of the money.)

SilkyDrawers : "It takes huge, huge self-confidence to confront the great and the good in interviews, and you simply won't get to the top without a very tough hide."

This is an excellent point. We might be overdosing on the "agreeableness" point, as it's not that big a factor at the median level. But at the top pay levels it may loom larger, not merely because top jobs involve tough pay negotiations but because it may be easier to do your job better if you're not extremely agreeable. As well as negotiating for your own pay, you may have to negotiate with people in your company about whether your sales strategy should be pursued rather than theirs. Or whether their plans for a new factory are misconceived. Or you may need to negotiate with a supplier for a discount. Or fire a colleague who's a friend of yours. So some of the agreeableness angle may not just be about asking for pay rises. it may be that some particularly agreeable people don't like jobs where they have to do things that make them uncomfortable.

Someone said on this thread that they were going to go and battle for a pay rise in a few weeks, and the thought of it was bringing her out in hives. But she'll probably be able to manage it despite the stress. Especially if she practices in advance. But you don't want a job where the mere thought of going in to the office brings you out in hives, because you know you're going to hate your day.

YippeeKiYayMelonFarmer I think they other dimension is the equality of opportunity / equality of outcome distinction. I'm not sure which you mean with participation on the same level?

And yes re young men. Mine are too young yet. But I worry about DD for many reasons. And I worry about DS. For some similar reasons but also different ones. Again, I don't think it's zero sum, that looking out for one has to come at the expense of the other.