Hi guys, unfortunately this thread is not well informed and relies on lazy accusations of misogyny. I suggest this BBC Radio 5 airing for people who genuinely want to understand Jordan Peterson's stance on masculinity:
After reading through the comments on this thread it is clear that the people have not listened carefully to this interview and are grossly mis-characterising his arguments. As such, people are attacking a straw man caricature that makes Peterson seem extreme and irrational when in actual fact, his arguments are well reasoned and frequently backed up with hard science. He is certainly very serious, but considering he is constantly having people purposefully misconstrue his arguments that is probably justified.
In terms of him appealing mostly to men - I have attended one of his shows (in which he spoke thoughtfully for an hour about the importance of telling the truth) and the audience was roughly 40% female. There were people of ages between 20 and about 50, many there with there partners. The stereotype of his followers as young, alt-right misogynistic incels is completely inaccurate, and often used by people who wish to dismiss him so they don't have to address his substantive arguments.
Many people have said that he thinks women are just meant for having children and men meant to do the important jobs. He has never said women are only capable of looking after kids, or should have to have kids, or aren't able to do certain jobs. In the example of engineering people mostly a male profession, he draws upon the fact (established for decades) that women tend to be more interested in people and men tend to be more interested in things. There is a lot of overlap meaning that lots of men will be moderately interested in people and lots of women will be moderately interested in things. However, in order to be an engineer you need to be very interested in things, and it so happens that most people who are very interested in things are men. Hence, the lack of women engineers is not a result of a patriarchal conspiracy but a result of women's free choice. If we really care about women being free to do as they wish then we shouldn't get annoyed if they tend to not choose certain careers. Same with the "wage gap" - this is not a result of pay discrimination but a result of different career or life choices made by women.
Ladies- we should be aware that women now dominate the majority of university courses , including humanities, medicine, vert med and biology (which are all people oriented subjects). Young women are being paid more than young men, and the women who do work in the STEM fields are more likely to be hired than men due to positive discrimination. There is also vast amounts of positive discrimination in other areas which ends up benefiting middle-class women more than working class women who actually need the help. Men work more hours, take fewer days off sick, do more dangerous jobs, are badly discriminated against in family court, are 40% of domestic abuse victims and are more likely to live in poverty or be homeless and also more likely to die from suicide. The ex UCAS chief recently said that school boys aren't receiving adequate assistance because feminists have made helping boys taboo. That's really shameful.
Maybe it's time to stop naval gazing, trying to see oppression wherever we look and accusing any person who talks honestly and openly about these issues as a misogynist. Boys and men are falling behind, which is a tragedy and will only end up damaging all of us. This attitude that men have it easy, or that all their problems are of their own making is really cruel and self absorbed. We should care about all people and problems - preoccupation with women's issues is coming at the expense of men. We need to be having these conversations simultaneously and assessing things with a fair eye.
We also should not shun scientific evidence when it says things that undermine our ideologies. That is what the Catholic church used to do - let's not fall into that trap. Eg. There are average psychological deffirences between men and women, in both personality and interests. These differences grow as societies become more egalitarian between gender, demonstrating that the. As a result of different average interests and personalities, we should not be surprised when there are different outcomes in career choices for men and women. Remember that equal opportunities and equal outcomes are mutually exclusive, ie. when there is equal opportunity and free choice, the outcomes will never be the same.
Anyway, I could go on - but I've tried to address some of the main glaring mischaracterisations of Peterson's stance that I've seen in this thread. You don't have to like what he says, but at least make an effort to genuinely understand it rather than hurling personal insults and resorting to ill-informed and lazy accusations of ignorance and bigotry. Happy to elaborate if anyone cares for it.