Woke staff revolt over Jordan Peterson book

[Apollo440]

thepostmillennial.com/publishers-woke-staff-revolt-over-jordan-petersons-new-book

Isn't he regarded as transphobic for refusing to use compelled speech and warning of the consequences (and proven right by Yaniv). Seems like the woke at Random House publishing are appalled that their business is based on making a profit. Peterson may not be your glass of tea but he's hardly Goebals.

My understanding is that Peterson's key message is that humans are flawed and therefore we can never reach any kind of utopia. Therefore any sort of ideology can never achieve the perfection it seeks, and seeking to implement them will cause suffering.
It's a very old message, Biblical really, the idea of the Fallen nature. We tend to view it now from an evolutionary perspective. Our old non rational ways still lurk, things like tribal thinking,pattern recognition/stereotypical thinking, sexual and reproductive instincts, deep drivers such as disgust and rage and fear. He doesn't think you can root out instincts entirely, merely minimise them or at least train the briers in helpful ways, like in a garden. And that our ancestors have dealt with these for millennia, and have built constructs which work well enough within the bounds of our limitations.

Society is so thoroughly secularised that it just seems like a new idea, to many.

But it is most definitely anti "woke", if we take woke as meaning that all is a social construct and that tearing down constructs is how we achieve a fair society.

I'm reminded of old sermons and tracts on the Perfectability of Man.

He has tweeted for people to leave the staff at Penguin alone.

Maybe the story has been exaggerated

Fair play to him. Decent.

@hamstersarse

His comments on the pieta and how mothers give their children up to the suffering of the world gets to the heart and tragedy of motherhood, in my experience.

I find the accusations that he hates women really curious. I have found more validation of my experience of motherhood from JP than any feminist. His approach of acknowledging the biological aspect to nurturing really made sense to me as I approached the ‘end’ of motherhood. I had actually spent many years being frustrated (not daily frustration but a simpering frustration) at my seeming incapacity to be an ‘all things’ mother. I’m a single parent raising two boys so maybe this was more pronounced, but I had been trying for years and years to overcome most of my natural responses to motherhood. Late meeting vs. Get home to the kids. Cook (nurture) an amazing meal vs be resentful about being in the kitchen. I had been doing the late meetings and feeling discombobulated by it, for years. It never felt right. But I carried on because apparently I was a blank slate and only told by society that I couldn’t do that corporate high flying job, it was the glass ceiling etc.

I think it’s much more grey than that. If I’m totally 100% honest with myself, I would have preferred to have had the opportunity to raise my children away from the pressures of my corporate job. And he helped validate me that that was perfectly natural, that many women feel that. I know feminists say that too, but honestly I never really believed them. I felt I was letting the side down if I didn’t want to smash the glass ceiling.

As it turns out I married a terrible man and had to just crack on anyway and it’s no bad thing I’ve a decent job, but as I say the actual truth is is that I would have sacrificed all of that in a heart beat if I could have and would have spent my life feeling much more congruent and satisfied.

I find it ironic that JP, the one accused of being anti-feminist, is the person who helped me find peace with motherhood and sacrifice.

Just out of interest, do you think there is a biological reason why women end up doing not only the birthing and breastfeeding but also the cooking dinner, caring for elderly parents, keeping track of when parents evening is etc? Because I actually read your comment with something of a chill in my body because JP believes in strict gender-roles and believes that women are naturally suited to doing the nurturing work and should focus on that. It was that shit that meant women originally didn’t have the vote, couldn’t get university degrees, and were barred from entering many professions. Not because they were less worthy apparently (but of course they were) but because they were different and their skills lay in the domestic sphere.

I don’t think you’re unique in wanting a work life balance and many would work less or not work at all, regardless of parental status or sex. I don’t think everyone who works a corporate job loves the long hours. It’s not just about doing ‘what makes you happy’. Almost half of marriages break down and divorce courts have pretty much stopped making long term maintenance orders. You’re expected to stand on your own two feet even if you gave up your job to care for your children. Women over 60 are the fastest growing group of homeless people and pension poverty is soon going to be off the scale as the younger cohort of the boomer generation retires (if they can afford to). If you give up your job, or don’t pay into your pension, you fuck yourself royally and there are many who don’t understand or realise that and are in for a nasty shock later in life. Why shouldn’t childcare beyond breastfeeding be split equally between partners? Why should you have this inner turmoil about whether to cook dinner or go to work when your male partner most probably doesn’t have this? The answer is that women are told by society that they are selfish if they work and aren’t a good mum whereas men are told no such thing. People like Jordan Peterson reinforce this stuff by pretending it’s inherent and it’s scary that some women seem to think he’s some sort of feminist hero.

Also, feminism is not ‘doing what I want’ and people validating it because you’re a woman, as it seems to have been interpreted in modern times. It’s about working to free women from oppression, and doing most of the domestic work when men are perfectly able to pull their weight is a way that oppression still occurs.

Ooh thanks to everyone who managed to condense some of Peterson's work into more digestible summaries. I think there is something of the preacher about him, especially in his self help stuff, and maybe that's part of the appeal he has for some. I guess he can be pompous at times but he can also be humble and will admit to being wrong and flawed, which I find a good quality in a public intellectual. I like his work on personality and his Jungian stuff - I'm a reader and writer so no stranger to that kind of analysis but I think he often offers insights there. I think he does a bit of what Clarissa Pinkola Estes does, in celebrating both the vision and the mystery of old stories. He speaks to people about their souls/spiritual lives. I don't see him as anti-women at all, although probably fair to say he's anti feminist (but so are most of the posters here, depending on the version of feminism we're talking about). He is way more conservative and more traditional than I am but I tend to agree that much of gender is not a social construct, although unfairness and discrimination towards women should be overcome. It was interesting to me in the Cathy Newman interview that he was so much more positive and supportive of women than she was. Although as a pp pointed out, that whole interview just makes you cringe for Cathy N. Anyone would have looked more feminist than she did in that moment!

I tend to agree that much of gender is not a social construct

Really? So you think it’s inherent? Just to clarify, you are talking about gender here (as in the behaviour, norms and roles of femininity) rather than sex (as in the biological reality of being female)? I know Jordan Peterson thinks gender isn’t socially constructed but I just wanted to check whether that’s what you also meant.

FWR is interesting these days...

if you give up your job, or don’t pay into your pension, you fuck yourself royally and there are many who don’t understand or realise that and are in for a nasty shock later in life. Why shouldn’t childcare beyond breastfeeding be split equally between partners? Why should you have this inner turmoil about whether to cook dinner or go to work when your male partner most probably doesn’t have this? The answer is that women are told by society that they are selfish if they work and aren’t a good mum whereas men are told no such thing. People like Jordan Peterson reinforce this stuff by pretending it’s inherent and it’s scary that some women seem to think he’s some sort of feminist hero.

I totally understand why you find it chilling what I have written. I do too to some extent!

But where I am with it, I think, (I’m not totally sure and there is no solution that covers everything) is that I did have biological urges that were ‘feminine’. I did. I hate that I did for exactly the reasons you point out. But there is no doubt my instincts to child rearing were different to almost all men that I’ve ever come across and more similar to most women.

I wanted to nurture, it was the thing that gave me greatest pleasure. I love a family meal, the joy of doing things for others that I love. These minutiae of family life are not what I see most men (I know I know) actually enjoy. I know this goes against a lot of feminist writing, but I still think it to be true. The trans debate which has overlayed all of this, is based on the fact that men and women are different, so in that sense we can’t have it both ways. We are different, for good reason and one is not better than the other.

BUT it doesn’t get away from the economic aspect. As I said, I had to ‘do it all’ anyway because I made a bad partner choice, so in many ways that’s worked out well, I am ok economically. But I absolutely appreciate, know, see, how it can all go very wrong for women economically.

But then we need better men, men who take on responsibility, including in the family, and so JP does cover that. He is extremely scathing about irresponsible men.

So, I get you. I really do.
I don’t know the answer for women, JP doesn’t either, but where I am with it is that women do generally have different life satisfaction instincts to men, and that should be fine. The equality paradox shows this....the more equality there is, the more people conform to ‘gender roles’ and that speaks to me - given a good responsible man, one who I could trust with my economic survival, I would have been more ‘female’ in my life. That would have been the choice that would have given me most satisfaction.

How we achieve that is beyond me, I just know that to be true.

RealityNotEssentialism

you write that JP believes in strict gender-roles. I see no evidence from him to suggest that is true. What you got to support this assertion of yours?

None I suspect, but let's see.

@hamstersarse but many women will not feel the same as you about family meals and nurturing. It’s not something that is necessarily inbuilt in women because of their sex. Many women loathe domesticity and being a SAHM but they are guilted for feeling that way. A lot of it is also taught because girls are told from infancy that they must be kind, gentle and caring. Boys are not. How can we separate out what is biological and what is socialised? Men and women are biologically different but we get into dangerous territory (lady-brain etc) if we say that our psychology is inherently different, rather than as a result of socialisation, because then we will get males claiming to be women because they love tidying the house. We’ve all seen the stories from FTMs claiming that they noticed that the floor needed hoovering after starting HRT, when they hadn’t before. It’s also interesting that the things that women are so good at and come naturally to them (cooking meals etc) are the ones that directly benefit men (now they don’t have to tidy or cook as much).

You may feel differently if you did stay at home and sacrificed your career because of it. I know several women who did just that and then got divorced in their 50s. From them, I hear largely bitterness and regret about it because they are now, in their late 60s, seeing the effects that it has had. They are intent that their daughters won’t do what they did. So I wonder whether it’s a ‘grass is always greener’ effect. If you didn’t have your earning capacity and were counting the pennies to be able to afford to have the heating on after your husband had left you high and dry, would you feel that you had still made the right choice?

I also like cooking for others and caring for them. I also like the mental stimulation of my career and I don’t like that it’s still presented as a choice between the two for women whereas it’s presumed men can do both. I also know that, even if work can sometimes be boring and dull and I may prefer to be at home or work part-time, paying into my pension every month means I will be comfortable when I am older and that the actions i take when younger will directly impact me later in life.

@sawdustformypony

RealityNotEssentialism

you write that JP believes in strict gender-roles. I see no evidence from him to suggest that is true. What you got to support this assertion of yours?

None I suspect, but let's see.

So the fact that he says women are chaos and men are order isn’t something that troubles you? That he says ‘women want X’ and ‘men want Y’ isn’t him making giant generalisation about men and women based on him apparently knowing how both sexes think?

@RealityNotEssentialism

I tend to agree that much of gender is not a social construct

Really? So you think it’s inherent? Just to clarify, you are talking about gender here (as in the behaviour, norms and roles of femininity) rather than sex (as in the biological reality of being female)? I know Jordan Peterson thinks gender isn’t socially constructed but I just wanted to check whether that’s what you also meant.

FWR is interesting these days...

I think that the oppression of women is social rather than natural. But I think the differences between men's and women's behaviour are largely biological in nature - things like nurturing vs aggression, for example. Of course, those are generalisations, and you get aggressive women and nurturing men, but by and large I think there's good evidence that many of the differences between the sexes are not socialised into us but are inherent to our different natures. We are animals after all; it would be very strange if we were the only mammals born with an entirely blank slate in terms of personalities and behaviours.

Eradicating the pay gap could work against women’s true interests, he says, by interfering with their preferred choices, such as less demanding careers.

So for instance in the film industry, male leads being paid twice that of their female co-stars is because the female actress’ career is less demanding? And professions that were traditionally seen as male-dominated losing social status and salary-level when more women enter them?

It also ignores the fact that men and women are paid different amounts when they are literally doing the exact same job and performing to the same standard. And that often the ‘choice’ Peterson talks about is one dictated to them because childcare costs are so high and because their male partners often prove themselves to be a bit half-arsed in their parenting abilities, meaning many women are forced to do all of it or at least take responsibility for all of it. We laugh at the hapless dad who forgets the kids’ PE kit and burns the dinner but the reality is that if you are in a relationship like that, you have no option but to take over responsibility there, for the good of the kids. It’s amazing how we think what often amounts to neglect is funny when it’s done by men ‘babysitting’ their children but women would be judged as bad mothers. In research on lesbian mothers, there’s a much more equal division of work between partners, which suggests that maybe women aren’t naturally hardwired to want to do all of it to the detriment of their career.

I think that the oppression of women is social rather than natural. But I think the differences between men's and women's behaviour are largely biological in nature - things like nurturing vs aggression, for example. Of course, those are generalisations, and you get aggressive women and nurturing men, but by and large I think there's good evidence that many of the differences between the sexes are not socialised into us but are inherent to our different natures. We are animals after all; it would be very strange if we were the only mammals born with an entirely blank slate in terms of personalities and behaviours.

Well then I guess you would agree with Jordan Peterson because that’s essentially what he says.
However it’s untrue that in the animal world every species behaves the same in that females are the nurturers and males the aggressive hunters. Humans also have the capacity for rational thought and self-control that most species of animals don’t have. The entire world that we have created for ourselves is socially constructed and bears no resemblance to the animal world. The attempt to equate going to work with ‘hunting’ for instance is ludicrous. Therefore, comparisons to the ‘animal kingdom’ as evidence of why men and women are treated so extremely differently in the world are bound to be weak.

120 years ago, it was considered absolutely unsuitable for a woman to enter the legal profession for instance. Similar arguments about natural temperament and inclinations were used to support it - it’s just a fact that men and women are different and think and behave differently. Seems that was somewhat incorrect in hindsight. It’s also the case in the countries that have a comprehensive system of state-funded childcare and a less sexist society that women do better. When Peterson talks about Scandinavia, he is very selective with the facts and it doesn’t represent the reality, which is that there is a smaller pay gap and more representation of women in higher status professions.

but many women will not feel the same as you about family meals and nurturing. It’s not something that is necessarily inbuilt in women because of their sex. Many women loathe domesticity and being a SAHM but they are guilted for feeling that way. A lot of it is also taught because girls are told from infancy that they must be kind, gentle and caring. Boys are not. How can we separate out what is biological and what is socialised? Men and women are biologically different but we get into dangerous territory (lady-brain etc) if we say that our psychology is inherently different, rather than as a result of socialisation, because then we will get males claiming to be women because they love tidying the house.

I can’t work out whether you’ve listening / read his stuff or not. But if you haven’t, I’m sure if you did you would see he is not offensive in this regard.

I am surprised to hear myself say the things I do after many many years of being more blank slate / social constructivist.

But I do feel that way, and I suspect many (not all) women may feel that way too, and certainly may examine it after they have done the hardest years of child rearing and reflect on their ‘choices’

I think radical feminism forgot about biology too quickly after getting going, too easily and probably for good reason - it was needed to compete. But I don’t think it serves us well now that we have essentially gained equal opportunity.

So the fact that he says women are chaos and men are order isn’t something that troubles you? That he says ‘women want X’ and ‘men want Y’ isn’t him making giant generalisation about men and women based on him apparently knowing how both sexes think?

He doesn't say women are chaos and men are order. Here below is a link where he expressly says this is not what he believes. It's not long.

(I don't have a huge knowledge of his interviews, I used google to find this)

And when it comes to what the sexes "want", I recall hearing another interview - possibly the Helen Lewis one - with him saying that there was much more within the two sexes that they have in common then separates them. So, I don't see you have shown he believes in strict gender-roles.

And chaos isn't bad and order good.

Chaos is progress and change, order is stability and preservation.
Chaos is progressive, order is conservative.(which one do you want to be now 😉)

We need both to balance.

Too much chaos brings anarchy and destruction too much order brings tyranny and oppression.

It's yin and yang.
It's male and female as representations of differing ideas of which we need both for balance.

It's metaphorical trying to represent a truth of humanity.
It's not saying anyone is one or the other. Or that one is good and the other is bad.

It seems that we all read or listen to JP and take different things away from it. Maybe that is why he is so divisive?

My understanding was that he didn’t express much in terms of views on what men vs women should do. What I have seen and heard, he talks about how the average man compares to the average woman in terms of measurable (Likert scale) psychological personality traits. He uses this to for example say (in the Newman interview) that on average women tend to score higher on agreeableness than men (on average). He then says that agreeableness is negatively correlated to salary progression. In layman terms, women are more people pleasers and negotiating less hard.

Furthermore, he does not say that this is right, he just seems to think that it is one of the structures in society that is hard to change. His focus as I understand it is less feminist in that it doesn’t attempt to change the existing structure (he finds that hard), but feminist in that he wants the individual women to take charge and create small changes for themselves and be aware of these dynamics.

I have also heard him say that the average man is more career obsessed than the average woman which resulted in on average higher positions, but he found that obsession pointless and slightly baffling.

However it’s untrue that in the animal world every species behaves the same in that females are the nurturers and males the aggressive hunters.

I've never argued that (although I think most mammal species do have this kind of division - I'm no biologist though). But I think it's pretty hard to make a case that human males and females are equally aggressive, for example, when near on 100% of violent crimes are committed by males and very few by females. Do you not believe there's any natural/biological/evolutionary component to behaviour then? If not, how would you account for that statistic, which seems pretty stable throughout various societies?

The attempt to equate going to work with ‘hunting’ for instance is ludicrous. Therefore, comparisons to the ‘animal kingdom’ as evidence of why men and women are treated so extremely differently in the world are bound to be weak.

Again, this is not an argument I've made. I also don't argue that it's natural that women are treated differently (badly) - in fact I specifically said I do not believe it is. But I do believe that men and women have naturally different traits, broadly speaking. It isn't and shouldn't be used as a justification for oppression or discrimination or unfair treatment. We can be different without having to be inferior or be treated as such. (Although of course, we are inferior in terms of say, upper body strength, and males are inferior in terms of longevity, for instance - so when we talk of equality, we are talking about political/legal equality, and equality of opportunity. We will never beat men in arm wrestling competitions, no matter how much we are socialised to be tough. But in a modern society, that should not matter, except in sports competitions.)

For me, the sexism comes in with building societies that valorise male behaviours and denigrate female ones. That's entirely avoidable/fixable without having to argue that men and women are naturally interchangeable in our natures. It would be so strange for men and women to be completely alike in nature when one sex is so vital to the process of child birthing and rearing. It seems inevitable to me that this will have an impact on our nature. (Again, on a population level - individuals will align more or less with these traits.)

I think you're making some unjustified leaps in your thinking here, or perhaps I am just not seeing the links. Just because an argument has sometimes been used to support a bad conclusion, doesn't make the argument itself wrong. It's possible to believe that women and men are fundamentally different without also believing that oppression is therefore a fine and natural state for us to live under. I believe we are different, but that it is a gross injustice that we have been oppressed and treated so unfairly. I don't find these to be mutually exclusive beliefs at all.

The main focus of feminism should be ending violence against women.

The economic problems of SAHMs - that is an issue that could be resolved by government policy. It shouldn’t just be seen as a problem women have to tackle individually. The same with homelessness. We should be able to resolve homelessness as a society. These issues shouldn’t be left to negotiations between individual women and men.

There are obviously many women who are not interested in nurturing. That was one of Peterson’s points to Newman. Most women don’t want to be Newman - she’s not the average woman. But there are a large number of women who do have more of a focus on providing care, and I do think that is partly innate. I also think that nurturing is socialised out of men. We should be able to say that all personality types and interests should be open to both sexes whether there are average differences or not.

But all of that is really secondary to the issue that whatever women collectively do - they need full human rights. They should not be child brides, raped, in domestic violence situations, abducted, trafficked, disenfranchised or enslaved.

Queenofknives, I agree to a certain extent. I think that men are more aggressive that women due to hormonal differences. However, I believe that JP may be ignoring female socialisation and that his conclusions are based on the society we live in. I do not believe that the Scandinavian countries which he quotes as an example of how sex differences are inherent is free from male and female socialisation.

However, I do think this comes back to my point that he takes the structures in society as given (partly with some support from the animal kingdom). It is impossible to strip socialisation from personality traits in adults and those are some measures he uses to discuss sex differences.

But again, I think that he has some good points for individuals as long as you accept the limitation that he to a large extent takes society and socialisation as given.

Still no quote then?

I also find the low status given to single mothers to be a consequence of the notion that success as a woman rests on negotiating with a man so he will do 50% of the childcare and nurturing.

That 50% may represent some form of equality, but it isn’t liberation from relying on male approval and attention.

That was one of Peterson’s points to Newman. Most women don’t want to be Newman - she’s not the average woman.

One of Helen Lewis' points to Peterson is that he's not the average man - he cries easily, is in touch with his emotions, is devoted to his family, has many traditionally 'feminine' interests, started out working in childcare and so on. It's absolutely right that all the personality types and interests should be open to all of us, even if on a population level, men and women exhibit different sets of traits. No one should be punished for not having a certain kind of personality or interests, nor should we as a society say that only certain kinds of interests are important and valuable. Individuals of both sexes should be free to pursue their highest calling. Peterson argues that denying this is a net loss to society. If we cut off access for females into the sciences, for example, we lose what brilliance they can bring. But it still might be the case, all other things being equal, that more men pursue work in the sciences. We won't know, until all other things are equal, I guess.

(I think JP argues that we have equality in Scandinavia, and the data from there shows women are still more likely to go into certain professions, such as nursing and childcare, than men are, even without barriers to accessing other professions. I suspect he might be wrong that there are no longer any barriers to women in those countries, however.)

However, I believe that JP may be ignoring female socialisation and that his conclusions are based on the society we live in. I do not believe that the Scandinavian countries which he quotes as an example of how sex differences are inherent is free from male and female socialisation.

Yes, I think you're quite possibly completely right about that. That's what I suspect also.

@CatsCantCatchCriminals2

Still no quote then?

What is it that you're looking for a quote about?