Helen Joyce on Jordan Peterson's podcast

[DuckInAPuddle]

Just saw on Twitter that Jordan Peterson has interviewed Helen Joyce for the latest episode of his podcast. Just listening to it now, so can't really comment yet. There doesn't seem to be a thread on this yet, so thought I'd share the link in case anyone else is interested.

Agreed with the first part. I've come round to JP a lot and been impressed by some of what I've seen him talk about eg treating depression. I think he often gets a bad press because he has some very dubious followers who amplify the weird things he says while ignoring all the sensible stuff.

We've lived under patriarchy for so long that no one can have any idea what women would choose if they were to be free to make any decision they wish without judgment and prejudice from the rest of society.

And it's not just about judgement and prejudice, it's also about what's available. If we lived in a society that wasn't founded on male exploitation of women's labour, I'm sure that marriage would, at the population level, be a net happiness benefit for women. Sex is nice, companionship is nice, cuddles are nice, having a life partner who's on your team is nice (for most people.) But we are where we are, and it seems that currently most men aren't a better option for women than being single. (And it also seems like this problem is getting worse not better with younger generations of men.)

more than just a Guardian article

The Guardian article describes research and names the researcher, it should be very easy to follow up for anyone interested.

Ok, so swap that with ‘more than a single research paper, reported on in The Guardian’

This discussion came up on MN recently when a woman posted that she had given up on men. It seems the research on what makes women happy is not too conclusive. But being in a good marriage is going to make you happier than being single.

So come on, please point us in the direction of all the reams of research that indicates that married women, and women with children, are happier than single and childfree women.

But being in a good marriage is going to make you happier than being single.

i think this is true but almost tautological because you’re filtering for positive experiences. Compare “being in a fulfilling full-time job makes you happier than being a housewife” or “having good sibling relationships makes you happier than being an only child.”

I thought the basic human drive was to fuck, which until fairly recently (available contraceptives) automatically led to pregnancy.

And I'm sorry, but we all live in a patriarchy, whether we want to fully acknowledge it or not.

Indeed. This is, after all, a feminism board. Being single and child free doesn't mean one can't fuck, obviously.

Research does show that men do much better being married than being single in terms of health outcomes etc. The findings on women are less conclusive.

I haven't listened to this discussion, but wonder if Helen brought up the possibility that girls' emotions turn more negative in puberty partly because they begin to experience the sexual objectification of women and girls, perhaps made even more difficult to adjust to with vastly increased porn consumption and the spread of views from porn.

It's still weird that we now seem to live in a world where both the political conservatives (such as Jordan Peterson) and the political left wing (TRAs) agree on the importance of traditional gender roles, rules, and stereotype, and only disagree on what determines who goes in which gender box.

I haven't listened to this discussion, but wonder if Helen brought up the possibility that girls' emotions turn more negative in puberty partly because they begin to experience the sexual objectification of women and girls

Pretty sure she did she did.

One of JP's explanations, which I don't think was mentioned above here, is that women may well not be evolutionarily optimised for what suits them, but rather for what suits the woman+child pair.

Increased anxiety, and hence negative emotions, in women, could be an evolutionary adaptation to protecting a child under her care, at the woman's expense.

I don't live in a patriarchy. Nothing in my life is under the authority of men. There are patriarchal societies in the world which make it outrageous to say that the UK is one. I think the people who claim we live in a patriarchal, racist etc hellhole don't realise just how privileged we actually are compared to a) most of humanity in history and b) most of the rest of the world.

Yes, I take the pp's point about comparison. As I say, the thread suggested the research is inconclusive.

But the drive to fuck is a result of the drive to procreate. Separating sex from reproduction has been both brilliant and terrible for women. Again, Louise Perry has much to say on this.

I finally finished listening to the podcast. Thought it was excellent.

JP doesn't advocate for traditional gender roles, btw. You should probably listen to the podcast before trying to summarise the arguments.

Thanks for the information on Joyce's response, Necessary Scene.

One of JP's explanations, which I don't think was mentioned above here, is that women may well not be evolutionarily optimised for what suits them, but rather for what suits the woman+child pair.

Increased anxiety, and hence negative emotions, in women, could be an evolutionary adaptation to protecting a child under her care, at the woman's expense.

That could be the case, of course.

The difficulty I have with many evolutionary psychology hypotheses is that it's not hard to think of one for almost anything, especially if we look at something in isolation from the culture in which it happens.

For instance, if boys turned more anxious at puberty and had more negative emotions than girls, we could then argue that this is because of men's role as protectors of women and children which benefits from men being suspicious, ready to see dangers, and ready to act fast etc.

I will listen to it soonish (lots of work right now). I base my views on his past record, but I would be very happy to be shown wrong as to his current views.

Yes, I thought that was a very interesting, if somewhat depressing, idea.

Patriarchy doesn't simply encompass rule or authority, but societal norms and expectations. That society is biased in many ways towards men isn't difficult to see. Things are built to fit their bodies, not women's. They're not socialised into caring roles in the same way as women. They speak more of the time in meetings, talk over women, etc, etc. They harrass women in public far more often than the reverse. Over 98% of all sexual assaults are committed by men. The list is endless.

And yes, NAMALT, obvious. But there is a great deal of misogyny built into society and both men and women are steeped in it. It's the water we swim in, so it can be difficult to see and easy to pretend it doesn't exist.

I didn't say anything about single people living in the woods, and the fact that in many places being single is not really socially normal is irrelevent to what I, and JP, said.

The research on women being less happy is not all that strong.Nor is it an issue that is amenable to simple research - are you asking people right in the middle of having kids? At 70?

It's also not the same question as whether most women want kids. That's really not a controversial point, most women say they want kids, and most have them, even in the west.

@pattihews
JP can't help it. He understands the position of women better now than he did, but his insistence that marriage and children make women happy loses me and I can't get beyond that.

Exactly. I saw an interview on which he said, but unmarried women get to retirement and then what have they got in their life. Nothing. Hat do they do then? I'm like WTF. They've got wider family, friends, money to do stuff... It just didn't make sense but it gave great insight into his life and maybe men's lives. They just couldn't hack living alone. He needs to learn, men need women but many women don't need men.

I am sure the thread has moved on, but I would like to comment on what JP said about girl's level of negativity and sensitivity that increases at puberty. What I find extraordinarily frustrating about Peterson is that the reason is clear to all to see if you acknowledge the increase in negative male attention that begins at that time. As these girls grow into young women they can't avoid the cat-calls, the moans, the whistles, cars driven by much older men following them, etc.

Any animal under that much threat becomes hyper vigilant in order to survive. So his information and data seem sound, but he seems incapable of seeing root causes.

I had the same level of frustration over his position that Gender Ideology is anti-Christian. I have seen more Christians saying openly how much better it is for a gay or lesbian person in their life to transition as heterosexuality is natural.

I gave up 15 mins in as well, as I hadn't tuned in to her JP talk at length. I may check out the bit later in the video. Thanks for the commentary.

I had the same level of frustration over his position that Gender Ideology is anti-Christian. I have seen more Christians saying openly how much better it is for a gay or lesbian person in their life to transition as heterosexuality is natural.

Right, but I think many of us would also say gender ideology is not left wing, yes we have seen more "left wingers" supporting it.

He's presumably making the same critique - people identifying as X are promoting something contrary to the alleged values of X.

Jane Clare Jones has a thread on it - not a fan, unsurprisingly.

twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1569796691582242817

Oh Lord, watching Jordan Peterson explaining why young women experience more negative emotions during puberty while essentialising the whole business of male dominance and male objectification is frickin enraging.

'Women's nervous systems are adapted to look after infants so they're oversensitive.'

Yeah, nothing to do with going from being treated like a human being to a piece of meat overnight then, cool.
...

Well yes, if you change the meaning of the word 'patriarchy' then you can say we live in a patriarchy.

We actually don't, though.

Sorry, that was in response to msrosley

NecessaryScare, ah fair point about objecting to people on either side supporting GI.