worried about partner

[Nsmum14]

My partner started watching Jordan Peterson videos around this time last year. Being an insecure man who has not really known privilege he was instantly attracted to J P and to his lectures. My partner started to say things like male privilege is a myth. He now believes it is men that are hard done by by the world generally. That women act like they're victims but it is simply an act.
A year on he's watching all these seemingly vile videos on youtube. Last night he was watching a video called How Women Destroy Nations (and why men let them). Whenever I ask why he is watching this stuff he gets angry and goes into fighty mode. We fall out enough as it is so I'm just keeping silent and hoping this phase passes.

It is upsetting to me though. I don't know why I'm posting this. He seems strengthened by what he watches, I think I just wanted to hear what some of you think of this.

I agree with the pp who mentioned equality of opportunity Vs equality of outcomes. However people who rant about it often fail to realise equality of opportunity has to take into consideration the fact some people have a head start and some are held back. So for example offering a scholarship based on academic merit, assessed by an exam, favours well fed, well rested and well prepped kids over intelligent kids from chaotic homes, who might have more raw ability but who won't pass the exam. Conversely, if we take forced equality of outcomes to the extreme we end up with people in outcomes they didn't merit, with the well fed, well rested and well prepped being left behind through no fault of their own. The solution is often difficult and expensive, and that in this example would be to ensure all children had a chance of a decent primary and secondary education, weren't in overcrowded homes, had enough to eat and were parented well, and that the exams were not able to be crammed for.
At the moment those who lose out on opportunities ringfenced for ethnic minorities, women, or underprivileged people shout loudly and are echoed by the alt-right, but little mention is made of ensuring an equal starting point.

Tbh, I often find MRAs to be not that dissimilar from certain types of feminists (not all obviously as there are so many permutations).

Long lists of why their sex is the most oppressed etc.

To be fair, it seems to me that men often occupy the positions at the very bottom as well as at the top, and there are many men who aren't particularly privileged.

ScottCheggJnr
This is true, but the feminist line is that those men at the bottom are adversely affected by patriarchy.
Or that they fall into various demographic groups that can be covered off by intersectionalism.
I still think OP has got a problem on her hands, thinking about it more. She doesn't say her partner has started to disagree with her more or discuss his opinions or that they disagree etc, but that he's watching echo chamber misogynistic videos online. And if I was with someone who started getting obsessed with race, religion, conspiracy theories, misogyny, whatever - I'd be worried. If I was a member of the group the echo chamber polemics were ranting against, I'd take it pretty personally.
There's a discussion to be had on JP's influence, his overreach, where he is right and where he is wrong, but the issue the OP has is her partner is being pretty weird.

Yeah Oink, I agree. JP himself, controversial as he is, isn‘t the problem. Rather, what OP‘s partner made of it is. Reminds me of my ZeroHedge experience, which has mostly nonmainstream market analysis, geopolitics... controversial, libertarian, gossipy, tinfoil hatty maybe, but that is it. But in the comment section, some link to Storm front level stuff is never far away. Question is, when you stumble upon some such link and realize what is written there, do you go down that path or do you employ your critical thinking skills...

I'm not disagreeing that there's pretty misogynistic stuff out there, but in many ways it's the flipside of the type of feminist who resents men. I can see why disadvantaged men become bitter when repeatedly feeling told they're privileged - it's a bit like how certain demographics are seemingly more at risk of falling for nationalistic/racist ideologies.

ScottCheggJnr it's not about accessing that stuff. I read all kinds of weird stuff online, I like to see what is out there. It's about watching stuff like that alone, and what effect it has on the relationship.
It doesn't sound like a discussion, it sounds like he has his secret online misogynistic persona. If he was watching this stuff with the OP and discussing it with her that's one thing, but if he's becoming resentful and hateful in secret and isn't open to discussion, and she seems nervous about having that discussion - you can see the actual content is only part of the issue. Where it's relevant is the fact she is a woman, and the questionable online content is misogynist. It would be similar if he was consuming white supremacist content and she was black. There's an element of the personal to it, no matter how dispassionately he might be viewing that content. Added to the fact he's consuming it alone, yes, I'd be worried.
Whether the content is justified or should exist isnt the issue.

Scott what is the female equivalent to Peterson, MRAs and incels, though? The man-hating, man resenting feminist is a stereotype, feminists have husbands, brothers, sons, male friends and relatives too. Feminism is not about hating or resenting men, it is about equality of opportunity for women and addressing systematic inequalities.

I think it is quite reasonable, for example, to resent the fact that women do the majority of the childcare and domestic work and are the main sufferers of poverty and austerity as a result. Does that mean I resent men? No, it means I see the structural inequalities and think a more equal society benefits everyone. Oh, and I would like a bit more leisure time.

Do I hate certain men who have harmed me? No, I have felt fear, sadness, and most recently anger, but these are private emotions and no, I do not hate these men and certainly not all men because of this.

These are individual examples, yes, and I note you acknowledge the mulitplicities of feminisms, but I challenge the view that there is an equivalence between even some strands of feminsim, and extreme incel and MRA discourse.

The worst I can think of at the moment is male tears which is IMO pretty childish

Scottwhat is the female equivalent to Peterson, MRAs and incels, though?

Maybe somebody like the tumblr celebrity Misandry Mermaid with her 'I drink male tears' mug or the infamous feminist who stated she would underfeed a male child as they were already at an intrinsic strength advantage (or the other one who said she'd abort a male foetus).

Ultimately it's likely that both these types of character (MRA and extreme feminist) are likely to be socially/mentally unadjusted as individuals and potentially this is just the medium through which they channel their energies (symptom rather than the problem).

There's no doubt that incels etc are more extreme in their resentment, but they're generally adolescent neckbeards without much influence.

However, there are many powerful feminists who exert real influence. Many of them I respect, but there there some instances where I'm more sceptical.

Jess Phillips, for example, is a respected MP and no doubt wants the best for women, but seeing her scoffing at the IMD proposal and commenting that she was the only woman in the room gave the wrong message IMO - as if the priviligeged MPs surrounding her have anything in common with the men at the bottom killing themselves. Same thing with that feminist politician in Australia who cut funding for prostate cancer causing many men to die unnecessarily.

IMO the media have misrepresented some of JP' less palatable (but still within the range of normal debate) opinions to discredit him and his resistance to coerced speech. Watching JP videos would not be a red flag for me in a person who has critical thinking skills.

The other videos you describe are worrying.

Anyway OP you sound unhappy and he sounds changed and unpleasant. Maybe it's time to move on?

ScottCheggJnr it's not really neckbeards Vs powerful female MPs though is it? Visitors to Return of Kings or A Voice for Men or even Reddit/4chan come from all backgrounds, I don't think we can write them all off as neckbeards with no influence.
I mean if misogyny was limited to a handful of losers there would be no need for feminism at all!

For any who would like examples of feminist extremist acts I have a few:

Valerie Solanus, who wrote the SCUM Manifesto (or the society of cutting up men) who went on to attempt the murder of Andy Warhol in 1968.

North American feminists groups consistently oppose any legislation to give men equal parental rights. In 2001 feminist groups refused to even participate in consultations on legislation were any fathers rights groups involved. They demanded only women be allowed to even discuss the issue.

Erin Pizzey, the woman who setup the first woman's refuge who upon going on to attempt to do similar for men has recieved death threats and protests from feminists at the mere presumption that men can be victims.

Feminists have protested and attempted to shut down research and discussion looking into the scale and effect of female pedophiles. Thus obsfucating the scale of the problem.

Finally feminists in academia have this very year managed to get depublished a mathematical proof looking at the greater male variability hypothesis. Rather than refute or rebut with better science it has been censored and removed. This hypothesis attempts to examine that there are more men at the extremes on statistical distributions like birth weight, but more significantly IQ ie that whilst IQ averages out across the sexes there are way more men of significantly lower IQ than average coupled with more men at the extremes of IQ.

This disparity could explain why more men are in prison as low IQ correlates with poor impulse control and violence, but it also explains why you see more men in professorships as well as occupying board positions and CEO roles, as again extremely high IQs correlate with competency in those roles.

Note I'm not any happier with MRAs or men's rights groups I'm happy to list a litany of sins on that "side". However I assume most of you are already conversant with those. What I'm most interested in is finding those open minded enough to meet in the middle.

Feminists have protested and attempted to shut down research and discussion looking into the scale and effect of female pedophiles. Thus obsfucating the scale of the problem.

Proof please.

Disadvantaged and poor men still maintain their male privilege.

Just leave the pathetic prick. There are really nice decent men out there. Why waste your life on a misogynist?

CritEqual considering that there are numerous articles on the higher variability hypothesis (Wikipedia has a nice summary for a start), I very much doubt said study was „the Proof that was suppressed“. For one, numerous studies are already out there that do show distinct variabilities in several areas (also note that there is no proof in science, strictly speaking). So why suppress something that is already out there.
Depublishing usually happens when the science is flawed, the method does not fit the scientific question, the data do not support the conclusion. Whining that one‘s work did not meet the scientific standards smacks of entitlement.

Amazing how men manage to home in on a thread like this, and arrive to explain how wrong feminists are.

I've never gone on a website aimed at men, not once. Don't care what they say. Wouldn't occur to me to join up to put the feminist POV.

I've never gone on a website aimed at men, not once. Don't care what they say. Wouldn't occur to me to join up to put the feminist POV.
Yeah, but I do. As mentioned above, I visit their sites, I am nosy. I argue.

Haha that wasn't aimed at you, Oink.

And I think that less than half a dozen examples of "extremist" feminism is quite telling in itself.
Extremist misogyny: ISIS, foot binding, FGM, sex slavery, female infanticide, bride burning, dowries, I could go on all day.
Extremist feminism: the examples above.

No worries Juells

I also do that at times, Oink. But I never get emotional or whiny, or throwing insults like incel around - contrary to what we see here. (Like feminazi - really?).

Agree - where is the proof about female paedophilia? Would also like to know the details about the equal parental rights objections - the fact that men have equal parental rights can be used by men to pursue women in domestic abuse cases through the courts in a continuation of the abuse, this is well documented in research. It is also why Women’s Aid are currently running a campaign against the presumption of contact even where there has been violence

Child First Campaign

While I totally agree in a presumption of equal parental rights, what often gets lost is parental responsibilty, and indeed, the fact that the law is - or should be - about the best interests and voice of the child.

I appreciate that is a tangent from your point but worth considering broader context (which I would need to look up here)

Regarding the ‘de-published’ paper, that is interesting as it raises a couple of possibilities
A) the research was flawed and should not have been published
B) there are a number of subjects which the academy will not touch (being gender critical is one). I wonder if this one comes under the rubric of ‘modern day eugenics’ which again is closed down for obvious historical reasons. I am not sure I agree it should be closed down, but it is an interesting thought example as to how people would react if male and female were replaced by white and black.

Anyway, thank you for providing some examples. I am happy to meet in the middle as I have a son. I think the fact that boys suffer child abuse for example is under recognised because society sees the victims of paedophilia as female but the truth is that men are mostly the perpetrators of violence and sexual abuse against boys and men are men (and one or two examples of women does not disprove this). The truth is that men have opportunities across the world which are denied to women. The truth is that meeting in the middle means the areas where we need to meet are around men taking equal parental responsibilty (from day one); being able to express concerns about their health and emotions (in ways which are typically decried as feminine) to reduce the incidence of male suicidality and mental health and to catch diseases earlier; and to take apart a social system which judges male success on professional prestige and earning power - which is basically another way of saying patriarchy hurts men too.