About the great prophet

[indoeuropean]

I’m new to mumsnet and registered to talk about J. B. Peterson (as you will see, English is not my first language). I’m very interested in feminism, but only at the beginning of a road, need to read lot more about it. Few days ago, I learned about Peterson, strongly didn’t like him from woman’s perspective and as an opposite to my life philosophy, came here to read some kind of feminist review on him and…nothing. Everything is rainbows and sunshine apparently, judging from previous discussions.
But what about this?
I won’t say “So you’re saying…” 😊 , but - Peterson is “hinting” that woman should be grateful for patriarchy (concept that he denies). The rule of men had good side that women should appreciate. To me it sounds like – slaves should be grateful for roof over their heads. If I’m put in a golden cage, I’m not going to be grateful for all the gold around me, I’m going to be angry about the lack of freedom. Also sounds as if oppression of women was needed for progress and woman could not have been equal participants in historical progress.
About Petersons attacks on social sciences like Woman’s studies and Anthropology. Things that I have red on these subjects resonate with me. I really feel that history and philosophy have been written and constructed from male perspective, so it is good that now we have an alternative viewpoint. It seems like Peterson is ok with individual women joining rat race by men’s rules but gets angry when somebody tries to adjust the world for females, to make it more feminine, to be guided by feminine values.
Also I (born in USSR, know enough about Stalinism) find Peterson's fear and hate towards the left of 21 century irrational.
So can we talk about Peterson and his influence on young men besides trans question?

Interesting, what made you think to come here to discuss this?

I think taking a snippet out of a lecture on Shamanic Initiations in culture without context or chance to defend himself is probably a bad place to start. Bad in that it is prejudicial. I think a fair place to start would be the Channel 4 interview which you allude to with your "So you're saying..." joke.

I think this is a fair place to start because it both gives him chance to defend his views and also covers how some people have problems with them. And Cathy Newman is a good interviewer (loaded questions not withstanding).

In short, I am certain he has issues on individual basis. And indeed has helped many women. He does have views that there are different tendencies between men and women. And he supports that and I believe he is correct. What I find with Jordan Peterson is that his critics almost always take this extra step that he does not. He says: this is how something is and then the critic extends that to him advocating for it or the one doing it. I'll draw on your own example of " Peterson is ok with individual women joining rat race by men’s rules but gets angry when somebody tries to adjust the world for females".

He says that certain traits such as Disagreeableness (a defined psychological term, to be clear) select for success in business context. (It's actually it's absence selects negatively, but for the sake of informality...). That's backed up by many studies. He also says men are more disagreeable than women on the whole. And that women who do become CEOs, etc. tend to the ones that are highly disagreeable. (And my anecdotal experience in business very much matches that, btw).

But nowhere in this does he argue that it should be like that and nowhere in this is he the one doing it. It's just the outcome of his research. Jordan Peterson is the poster child for shooting the messenger, imo. When you say he gets angry at people trying to change that, it depends what you mean by trying to change that but if it is counter-productive or hurts other people then yes, he gets pissed off about it.

There is a broad division between Left Wing feminist and Right Wing feminists, imo. And that is Equality of Opportunity vs. Equality of Outcome. Respectively. He is very much about Freedom of Opportunity. He's absolutely in favour of it. I think he is right in pointing out that trying to enforce Equality of Outcome can be counter-productive to the former.

If people are going to discuss him I really think it's better to start with something like this interview than the above clip which isn't really fair.

ARGH No edit button. Third paragraph should be "I am certain he has no issues on an individual basis".

I changed what I wrote part way through and missed that.

I'd actually go on to say that the Left Wing has so overtaken Feminism that to most people Feminism and Left Wing are inseparable. 3rd Wave feminism has become so, anyway.

It's difficult to know what to believe anyway. I was watching a interview with him on Vice and they they had cut it to ribbons to suit their agenda. I think this is why more and more people are refusing to do interviews unless they go out live or are having their own people record them at the same time.

Dramatriangle - it was a bad idea?
OldmanOfTheWeb - Disclaimer: I’m left leaning, social democrat. To me Left is not some monsters, more like a hope for humanity. :D (laughing at myself)
I saw the interview and I think most interested people did by now, so not much use to talk about that. I know that men and woman have differences, and even Newman mentioned my point – should world be adjusted for women? Because as it is right now, it was build for men. Of course, men will see everything around them as natural, inevitable and good, and woman do too, when that’s all they have known. But (I suppose, don’t have enough knowledge) disciplines like Woman Studies provide alternative perspective – at last! Peterson calls it propaganda.
I’m interested how feminists comment the fact, that Peterson opposes concept of patriarchy?

Well the thing with "should the world be adjusted for women" really has to be turned into specific examples of what you would do. I mean taken at the absolute most abstract level that question can only really be answered with "no - everyone should be treated equally". The underlying assumption in your question is that it is biased against women but that has to be, again, given in specific examples rather than just accepted as an article of faith.

Whilst I'm going to present this in an acknowledged cartoonish and humorous form, this image is somewhat the general Right Wing perspective on "Women's Studies".