Jordan Peterson explaining how 'identity' isn't something you can impose on others...its a negotiated position

[mooncuplanding]

Love him or hate him, this is great at articulating the pysc issues around the trans agenda

Yes I do think there is there is something in the argument about the universality across cultures in differences. I also think (although Im not sure about the evidence base) that it is less about differences in the intrinsic abilities between the sexes but more about heterosexual courtship/competition. Somehow lesbians and gay men are not so 'conforming' to heterosexual gender stereotypes from an early age, before they have any thought about sex itself. My sense is that something about orientation comes first and then your susceptibility to gender sterotypes follows. I'm sure lesbians are are subject still to 'patriarchy' but perhaps in less ways? And of course there are plenty of misogynistic gay men.

Yes I agree 2rebecca. also though, where a child is perhaps lacking in skill (I'm very much coming from mild and severe additional needs here) so very much can be done early on to help those skills develop.

Incidentally I've always wondered about the research by professor J James McKenna at Notre Dame University on how cosleeping positively benefits boys more than girls in terms of behaviour reported by teachers later at school (hazy memory). Is it 'undoing' socialisation macho stuff or is it supporting emotional development in a sex that might sometimes not be as adept at social communication as the other sex?

Y belief is that if it was all down to socialization, it would be relatively easy to shift patterns. But it is not. Which suggests there are unseen forces at play. Like heritability and innate difference.

YippeeKiYayMelonFarmer
JP discussing sex differences and the statistical analysis. About 13 mins in youtu.be/6T7pUEZfgdI

I had to stop after 5 mins as I could feel my blood boil- they are both so dismissive of women's perspective. Perhaps what they fail to understand is that most of the stats and science is measuring things that men understand and not which truly reflects many women's reality. Look at the issues faced by Womensaid etc in trying to reflect how pernicious and widespread is male violence. It is not a myth that the coherent stats reflecting womens' reality are not even collated well at present - it's getting better but started at a very low base when compared to biological research that has been funded for many years cos men find stuff that appeals to men - that's the reality when the financial basis of grants etc is analysed.

If you're one of the many women who have been very affected by male violence and male subjugation, in its many forms, and have paid a high price, then that isn't reflected accurately anywhere. The stats look as though the percentage of women affected is somewhere between 25 and 40%, dependent upon age, so not insignificant. Many suffer lifelong physical and psychological impacts, as the first longitudinal research into the impact on DV victims showed recently. That's where womens' studies came from in the 70s/80s that had gone on to morph into the monster Gender Studies, that has lost its way seemingly recently in its hyper-focus on Trans etc - to try and highlight and bring light to the reality of many women's lives.

I think age has much to do with perspective as well - younger people tend not to have had the life experience to confront the major injustices that hobble many women - not a criticism just a reflection. When older one has a very different perspective I and others observe, assuming one survives life's challenges, which many don't

Dissimilitude
A mediation analysis suggested that life-quality pressures in less gender-equal countries promote girls’ and women’s engagement with STEM subjects.

I can't agree with that conclusion until I see the whole report. I also know that the stats for the complex socialising factors that underlie so called choices for women are not collected yet. If the forces determining women and girls job and career choices aren't comprehensively collated, how can it be reflected in any results?

For there to be an increase in female uptake of CS, there would have to be a decline in women taking different high-status - it's the same population of people.

There will no doubt be a number of factors at play in the drop from 35% to 20% - my contention is one significant avenue was closed off for recruiting women into IT that wasn't pre-determined on having a IT grad qualification and that isn't reflected anywhere in any research I have seen. Many women grads went into IT on that route.

Computer science is computer science. There is not a gendered interpretation of it. I find the argument that it needs to be 'feminised' to appeal to women somewhat pernicious.

Again I reiterate this is one factor that is not measured at all - I am arguing it should be. The way computer science is traditionally taught does not reflect the reality of roles in IT. I see it argued again and again that you have a be a great coder to get a job at Google - certainly understanding coding and being proficient is essential but it doesn't mean that all jobs are coding based - quite the contrary. It doesn't mean that if one hasn't got an IT grad qualification that one can't be trained in technical IT work. It's just that Google et al prefer to hire men with IT qualifications rather than women and their thinking hasn't been challenged on that front until relatively recently. Hence why there algorithms etc are so male biased.

I wouldn't make any claim stronger than this - the idea that differences in occupational choice are entirely down to patriarchy, or societal bias, is bunk.

I wouldn't use the term bunk, which is pretty dismissive, however I agree that a number of factors are at play. My contention is much of the longitudinal and quantitative data doesn't exist yet to draw any safe conclusions that truely reflects the factors at play in women's career choices. Biology may be part of it ...

womanformallyknownaswoman

Not much there to disagree with. There are very likely many factors at play. I tend to object to absolutist positions that don’t acknowledge any force but social bias (but that’s not what you argue) - I agree there is lots of room here for many interpretations of what evidence there is, and scope for more evidence to be collected!

Clearly not all jobs within a company like google involve coding or infrastructure engineering, though it is around 50%. I do think there’s a danger in the approach you suggest of emphasising non technical aspects of the work in that you end up reinforcing the current split inside these companies in order to meet company wide diversity targets, and reflecting the difficulty of finding female software engineers, they compensate in other areas. So you end up with an even bigger gender disparity between google engineering, and say google HR or google product management. The core issue at stake here is not enough female engineers, not females in google in general.

Software engineering is many things, and in most environments requires a range of soft skills; but at the end of the day, it is technical work requiring a significant interest in that - it has to appeal on that basis.

I’m still not sure I agree on the IT teaching front. CS degrees don’t reflect work because they’re academic degrees, they are not vocational. Pure CS is almost applied mathematics and will not even cover basic practical technical topics, never mind non technical, sticking instead to pure theory. I’m sure YMMV for other vocational style IT degrees.

One can definitely be trained to do this kind of work without a CS degree. But I’d argue for most work at the technical end of the range (which google qualified for), then having a numerate degree in a hard science is likely to help enormously - so we hit the same problem.

had to stop after 5 mins as I could feel my blood boil- they are both so dismissive of women's perspective. Perhaps what they fail to understand is that most of the stats and science is measuring things that men understand and not which truly reflects many women's reality. Look at the issues faced by Womensaid etc in trying to reflect how pernicious and widespread is male violence.

I experienced the same hackle rising when I first heard him/them talk like this. However, my own reflection on this is that I WAS verging on stereotyping men as ALL violent, having experienced dv myself.

JP is very critical of the man child, he's got 2 hour lectures on Peter Pan, the men who never grow up and take responsibility for themselves and their families. And he is VERY critical. His whole thing is getting people to be responsible, there's no deviation from this.

I find this perspective really helpful, it's an actual way to shame the perpetrators and completely get them to take responsibility for their actions. If you take the 'it's society's fault' route then men continue to get away with it. His thing about individuals making a choice everyday between good or evil means that perpetrator is at fault, period. And I think that position may be most helpful in resolving dv long term.

I like how unbending he is. No excuses, no softening. I can't find a word to describe what I mean. He's excessively rational. I'm sure he isn't always right, but I think he'd be wrong for the right reason. It's that business of being subjective, I think. His objectivity denies the subjective experience of women, just as it denies the subjectivity of trans identity. We'd need to find a way to speak to him in objective terms.

I'm so in awe of the way Lindsay and JP express themselves, as well. Ferocious intellects, there.

His rather woolly religious views make me wonder if he's that objective and rational. It does seem a bit of a hotch potch of beliefs, but that's probably because as an atheist I don't see how any logical intelligent person can believe in a god, or half believe.

And his answer to "do you believe in god?" Is "it depends what you mean by god"

He describes himself in one podcast as a "deeply religious person" which to me makes him sound like people who describe themselves as "very empathetic". The rest of us are so superficial and shallow. A lot of it seems intense naval gazing, many people are very good at that.

I love JP.

I also think if you told him (cf Cathy Newman) “so what you are saying is that the rest of us are superficial and shallow” he would (rightly) say, “That isn’t what I said at all.”

His lectures, talks and discussions are pretty incredible. Impossible to summarise why and how but they have really made me appreciate what a huge wealth of knowledge there is out there and how little I know. I can feel my brain expanding as I listen to him.

I agree that giving up after 5 minutes is sort of laughable, and you’re really missing out if you don’t give it a bit more effort.

Ah my words have not conveyed the complete picture - I have been watching Person, Rogan, Shapiro etc for weeks now , on and off and am engaged somewhere else in a discussion about why women's perspectives don't get a look in. I absolutely agree that the messages he conveys to male toddlers is much needed - i.e. grow up and build character. Easier said than done. So what he says I like however it's not the complete picture. The male view of life and on women is incomplete unless it actually mirrors what many of us experience - the adverse impact of male violence and their male entitlement on our lives, choices, health and economic security.

one of the good thing about social media is that there seems to be nothing to stop womens voices being heard in the same way. Anyone can do a podcast, after all.

@ippeeKiYayMelonFarmer

Yep I agree re the huge gap - and that's my beef with all those guys - they don't invite women to speak or as recently when Heather Heying was on JR, she's was talked over and seemed to defer to her hubby and JR - shame. But she doesn't seem to speak out about socialisation of women and male violence I think - but I need to listen to some more of her stuff - I get she's more in Peterson et Al's camp of biology - it's so frustrating. I posted about it on a reddit sub I belong to to verify my assumptions - as I'm trying to find ways to present the issues verbally and diagrammatically without diving into the academic theory (as it turns me off tbh). To bridge that divide for the women and men who may be open to listen. JP has talked about women and it's excoriating - he seems to have these stereotypes of virgin, mother and whore - I wish he wouldn't talk for women but I do like his acknowledging of the scope male violence but he doesn't talk about impacts…..

@lucydogz agree - a podcast is on my mind - I suppose as I don't know any other gender critical people where I am I feel a bit unsupported irl - ah well- I am a good presenter and only relatively recently waded into the radfem and gender critical space actively - I have believed in equity but have been too busy with other priorities to really participate and get around the issues

I've been listening to JP podcasts which are a bit like Russell Brand's - he usually has a guest and the themes are varied, inside a main theme. The podcasts are awesome and in a way more interesting than the youtube lectures because he's interacting with some awesome people I'd never heard of, but who are doing great work within the areas that re problematic in society at the moment. Each podcast will have lots of info on the guest so people can look up their work as well.

I suspect JP would welcome a discussion about women's rights or even having more women in these discussions. He did mention a couple of women youtubers he follows/ watches (forgot names - must check).

I think he's brilliant and am completely baffled as to why people think he's alt-right. Is it because he's not a leftie?

m.youtube.com/watch?v=vMSmUzDt-7U

I have been following him for some time now and came across this link today.

You have to admire him for keeping his cool throughout this disruption.

He has helped me see through the entire lunacy of post modernism. I wasn't post modern massive, but for sure there were elements I was subscribing too and although I now feel a bit stupid for that I'm so pleased I've gained clarity about what was going on.