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.

I listened. I thought is was an interesting discussion and Helen was as thougthtful and articulate and wonderfully enraged as ever. Regarding the comment about female nervous sytems, and not wanting to be argumentative with posters here BUT for those who have birthed kids, does it not ring a bit true that one's nervous system is on alert for dangers to your baby? How many of us report waking seconds before a new baby starts crying in the night for example? How many of us are unable to do the flaming controlled crying thing because we are primed to respond to our baby crying etc? (rhetorical) I didn't feel that his comment was out of the ball park, but unless you have been through it, you won't know. JP has kids and grandkids, so presumably has witnessed it. JCJ hasn't, so it rightly speaking from her own experience about catcalling etc. But I think JP has a point.

JCJ hasn't, so it rightly speaking from her own experience about catcalling etc.

Much as I love JCJ, I wonder if she's slightly doing what she has spent a while decrying in Radical Notion - the urge to create binaries and argue "either/or", rather than figuring out that its "both/and".

There are many factors, and feedback loops.

I like JCJ but I think she is completely off the mark here. She has fallen into the trap of "quoting" out of context. (Her quote is, in fact, not a quote at all). J P is talking as a psychologist about whether the female nervous system has developed in a way that leaves women vulnerable to depression because we are particularly in tune with the needs of infants. He doesn't even state this as a fact, just posits that we shouldn't assume this is not the case. He is not talking about other wider societal influences here so I'm not sure why she finds what he is saying so offensive. I think it's an interesting point.

I find JCJ's writing rather angsty and teenagerish for my liking. I'm sure she's very clever but I can never manage to get through more than a few hundred words of her writing. So I may be not fully underetarding her argument. But it seems to me that both things can be true. It's self-evident that we are adapted to be in sync with our babies. And for many women, there is an increased perception of risk and threat at puberty. Both of these things are going to contribute to increased neuroticism in women. Although, as JP points out, at least 10% of women do not have many or any of the stereotypically feminine traits.

Over the years I have become very suspicious of evolutionary psychology because it seem to lie on a bed of reductive ideas and stereotypes about what women are and what women want.

But I shall listen to this and rejoin the fray.

I don't think evolutionary psychology is bad per se, it's more that it's often used to prop up sexist arguments. So some might say "women have evolved to be more aware of their children's needs so they should all be sahms" whereas noone ever says "men have evolved to run faster so they can hunt so they should give up their desk jobs and get out there with a spear ".

I'm suspicious of it for many reasons, one being that we are now so far removed from some of the issues that get raised, it's redundant.

It's hardly redundant - we are pretty much exactly the same humans as we were 40,000 or 200,000 years ago. Our environment has changed drastically in the last couple of thousand years, but our bodies are still driven by the same needs and fears.

Listening. This is good stuff although JP is not a good interviewer as he has too much to say! Typical man!

It's hardly redundant - we are pretty much exactly the same humans as we were 40,000 or 200,000 years ago. Our environment has changed drastically in the last couple of thousand years, but our bodies are still driven by the same needs and fears.

True. Which is why the statement "there must be lots of evolutionary factors" is prima facie far more sensible than any sort of blank slatism.

The problem is that what do you do with that statement? What's your actual hypothesis about a particular evolutionary factor, how are you going to test it, and so on. You need to do some work to come up with anything actually scientific, or useful. It's not so much "redundant" as "it must be so baked into everything we can't separate it out to analyse".

I think JP has been somewhat serious about this - hence the cross-species comparisons like lobsters, talking about how various fundamental hormones serve the same fundamental function via different outcomes in radically different organisms.

But I think lots of people into evolutionary psychology are not very serious at all. Although I could say the same thing about people into patriarchy, or systemic racism on the "other side". They're all things that can kind of mean what you want them to mean, and hence attract pseudo-scientific analysis.

This is good stuff although JP is not a good interviewer as he has too much to say! Typical man!

It gets better. I think they do manage to establish a wavelength to communicate on after a while - his initial ramblings do lead Helen down some paths less travelled for her in other interviews.

The other element is that women are smaller and, also because of having an infant, more physically vulnerable.

It wouldn't be that weird to imagine that would produce a different type of reactivity. If you have an infant at the breast you aren't going to face the same odds in a fight or flight situation.

I find JCJ and people like her mainly seem to object because they don't like the possibility that their personalities and emotional responses are adapted to being mothers, because they find it offensive. It's not that they are actually offering a real alternative theory, because that's not what she is offering here. Well, sorry, but we are all profoundly shaped by our reproductive role.

I fall into that 10% myself, I am low in agreeability and also quite low in neuroticism. But even I can see that when I had kids my emotional life changed in a profound way in response to the hormonal effects. (And it seems it is now as well, I think due to menopause, I almost started to cry because someone had eaten the bag of chips I'd been saving. I will be happy when it finally settles down and I can go back to being my normal phlegmatic self.)

Yes it is really, really good. Every parent should look at this. I love the way he is actually supportive of women / mothers in their role. Great!

I agree, he does interrupt rather a lot. That said, he always makes highly thought provoking points. I'm a huge fan of both Peterson and Joyce. Her recent book on the trans' fad is an excellent read.

I agree @mangyinseam . I think we would all (men and women) benefit from recognizing how our behaviour and perception is shaped by our physical reality, including sex hormones.

To me everyone should listen to this. I have known people who are caught up in this and it is incredibly narcissistic in that nobody else matters apart from them in their world - even wife, family, kids, etc.. it is most disturbing. I think a very good point was made towards the end where she said that if you tell a girl they are a boy ( or vice versa) you are telling them a lie. The fact that we are sacrificing our children to Moloch as a society is a disturbing thing and some of the things that are going on appear as moral as what the Nazis were doing in their medical experimentation. I can express it no less strongly. Even plenty of adult people who have transitioned wonder whether they have done the right thing. So to try this stuff on children is criminal

Yeah there is loads and loads of discursive interest in that hour and half slot. I liked the chat about Jung and development psychology, the consideration of toddler mentality was interesting. The discussion effectively of the subject/notion of good and evil, of the place or not of religion in society. My impression was two reasonably evenly matched intellects enjoying a wide ranging discussion. Helen seemed very comfortable with the exchanges and reported enjoying it. Worth a listen/watch.

I've mixed feelings about JP but this looks interesting - thanks for sharing

In JP's younger years he worked in a nursery. He always has interesting things to say about child development. He says himself he is not stereotypically masculine - it's a shame that he's been so mischaracterised.

I don't know if anyone else saw his discussion with Abigail Shrier a couple of years ago - he was way more aggressive and really took her to task. He admitted in that conversation that he was scared to be talking about it. He clearly agreed with her but he felt he had to grill her/put her through her paces. I'd love it if he had her back on again now that he's 'educated himself' (to borrow a term!)

JP really isn't my cup of tea, and I certainly don't agree with all his points, but I'm enjoying this interview with Helen Joyce. It's thoughtful, respectful and a world away from, say, the cesspit of Twitter, the misogyny you see in Guardian comment pieces or the BBC's superficial coverage.

Ha exactly. I often point out that since very little highly paid work ( managerial, professional or technical) is physical, it actually makes more sense for a hetero couple to have the man do the bulk of the domestic labour where physical strength is useful, especially if it includes DIY, and free up the woman to take higher paid, more demanding jobs.

his insistence that marriage and children make women happy loses me and I can't get beyond that.

I thought all the available data on happiness directly contradicts this idea; how does he square the circle? (Cherrypicking stats he likes, I assume).)

^ my understanding of the research is that at a population level, the vast majority of women want marriage and children and do believe it will bring happiness. Again at a population level, in reality for a period of time at least, the findings are it doesn't, but that doesn't stop women thinking it will beforehand if that makes sense.

I think you misunderstand his point. Today women are supposed to have marriage, be a successful mum and have a great career to be fulfilled. For most women (and men) he said it doesn’t work out that way and they feel failures. We need to manage expectations.

I haven't listened to it all, about 45 mins so far.

JP talks so much but actually you can tell that HJ is really enjoying it. There's a point where he says something like don't under-estimate the vitriolic hatred of these men and HJ says " interesting" - I got the feeling JP surprised her there with his views.

I don't alway agree with JP but it is fascinating to listen to him and his thoughts - lots of ideas to mull over.

Helen is as excellent as ever. She gets her points across really well.

They have covered so many topics in the 45 minutes and I'm looking forward to listening to the rest of it.

I think that happiness research is incredibly difficult, given that people are asked (if it's a survey) about a concept which might differ culturally in several ways and also might depend on what the implicit comparison group is for different demographic segments. Sadly, we can't measure it in some roughly objective ways. Individual variations in how people define this might cancel out in the aggregate, but if the cultural definitions are different for, say, women and men, there's no obvious way of fixing that in evaluating the answers.

One way around that is to study the determinants of, say, contentment, such as health levels and economic concerns. Health studies suggest that men might benefit more from being married than women in terms of health, though even there some of that effect could be working in reverse (i.e., less healthy men are less likely to get or stay married). But then the question is why the same wouldn't be true for women.