Really disappointed with Peter Boghossian

[Wearingmybluejumper]

https://www.youtube.com/live/yJkmeRcTMbk?si=PcsetnbbiR4xy_za

I have a lot of respect for Peter Boghossian and have watched his YouTube interviews for some time. However I was quite disappointed with him when he interviewed Julie Bindel. He claimed to struggle to understand why women would not seek to take self defence classes or carry guns/mace to protect themselves from perceived threats eg from men in women’s single sex spaces. Julie was magnificent in explaining the many ways that women already defend themselves every day from male aggression. Peter just didn’t seem to get it.

He’s tried that particular nonsense argument before and like a kid with a new toy he now seems to be using it every chance he gets:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5043382-kara-dansky-interview-3-april-2024

He was defending a man who posted himself eating shit [literally] a couple of weeks ago.

I think this really shows just how little men understand about reality for women and girls. He can't even stop his 'help me understand this' when she explained it time and again the issues with women arming themselves, or fighting back, or explaining that yes, that is why women stay home and guess what Peter - most women are attacked in the home, the place that they went to to avoid public male violence.

Sheesh. What an utter turd he turned out to be.

He claimed to struggle to understand why women would not seek to take self defence classes or carry guns/mace to protect themselves from perceived threats eg from men in women’s single sex spaces.

Why is this so hard to understand? As Alison says, women are at particular risk at home, but even if you feel frightened while out and about (which most of us do, I think, at least some of the time), what is the point of having self-defence techniques or even carrying mace when you're up against an attacker who is bigger, stronger and faster than you, as well as possibly armed? In any case, in the UK, it's illegal to carry either mace or guns. Idiot.

For someone who is basing his whole premise on listening to others, he seems to have difficulty hearing women's voices. It's odd.

@AlisonDonut What an utter turd he turned out to be.

So many of them do

That was so depressing. He just wasn't taking in anything she said.

I'm sure the stats on gun ownership showed you were more likely to die by your own weapon than use it on someone else. Even if carrying a knife was legal here, I wouldn't, due to the risk of the assailant getting it off me.

And anyone who thinks a few self defence classes are going to protect a woman from a much stronger male attacker has watched far too many Marvel movies.

I find it funny that he doesnt think that women have thought about it. Its a big issue for him at the moment because he talked about it with destiny, too.

He understands why there are separate male and female martial art competitions, so does know that men are stronger than woman. But i dont think he understands the need for single sex spaces, but i maybe wrong.

Presumably he thinks that an average woman with x hours of martial art training can fight off a man who has none? Some women would have to do nothing but train all day, and hope men dont do the same.

I think there's probably an element of truth in the idea that been stronger than expected would be in a womans benefit, but there are so many othet factors it just wouldnt help the majority of women in many situations.

I appreciate julies attitude in this interview.

Me too. She’s so used to it now it’s water off a ducks back.

Indeed! Julie Bindel in full flight is a sight to behold.

I was really annoyed by this line of questioning with Kara Dansky, who at least lives in a country where guns & mace etc are generally legal. But they are illegal in the UK, so it's a ridiculous line of questioning for Julie Bindel.

Even if you carry a rape alarm you actually have to be able to get hold of it if the need arises, and that's not always possible if it's buried in the bottom of your bag. It's no good depending on objects which, as others have said, can be turned against you. Weapons have no loyalty.

I think it needs to be put to him whether he considers men who don't do jujitsu to be putting themselves as risk by not doing it. Men who are smaller or less strong than others, men who don't work out, are they irresponsible by not carrying methods of self defence. I just cannot grasp why he cannot see this - I am just trying to understand. (As he might put it).

Its quite simple. If you are in an enclosed space with someone and they verbally announce their intention to attack/rape you (as is procedure) you ask them to hold on a tic while you grab the gun from your bag, or assume a fighting stance. You then can shoot them/kung-fu kick them to oblivion in that period.

Of course some attackers don't give much warning, and won't wait patiently. Its not actually that easy to tell the difference from "creepy guy invading my personal space a bit" and attacker - and if women went around pre-emptively shooting every man that made them uncomfortable there would be an awful mess. In which case if you are in America you start singing the National Anthem. They will then either immediately stand to attention, or drop to one knee depending on political persuasion. At which point you can shoot them/mace them/kung-fu kick them. I don't know what the UK version would be.

I am sure this could be adapted for women

I’m beginning to think Boghossian would prefer women adopt this advice 😈

Having watched both Kara amd Julie interviews- I'm now wondering if what PB is really trying to suggest, (but can't bring himself to say outright), is this:

"If you feminists are genuinely worried about danger from men in your spaces, then you would all be arming yourselves and learning martial arts wouldn't you?" In other words; "I don't believe you do actually feel threatened. It's just posturing/feminism as identity politics"

Rather than that he thinks women should do those things to protect themselves if they are feeling under threat.

I could be wrong. It's just that's what occurred to me, and seems in line with the flavour of how Benjamin Boyce, and James Lindsay etc view feminists (They- BB et al are GC, but see gender ideology as an extension of feminism- and that feminists are to blame/are 'just as bad').

I mean, as a kind of clumsy, convoluted attempt at a gotcha.

I might be overthinking this- but that makes it make more sense to me than the bizarreness of the face value interpretation (that he actually thinks women should be doing these things to protect ourselves)

I think this is probably accurate. He is very very very against "grievance" politics. Which is reasonable given his background (for example the whole grievance studies debacle). But if, for example, someone stole his wallet he would be a victim of wallet theft. Doesn't need to make it his whole identity, but he would have suffered a crime. In the same way that when women (or men) are raped they are victims of a crime (or survivors if you want to frame it that way). But talking about the ways in which women are victims of male violence or vulnerable to male violence probably feels to close to "grievance politics". Even though it is real. And sometimes for pragmatic reasons you do need to talk about it. But he can't see that on this issue he is being irrational.

namity and Maud. That’s a very interesting perspective and I hadn’t thought of that. But even if PB is framing it as grievance politics (as namity noted) the fact remains that violence against women is a very real threat and in the vast majority of cases is perpetrated by men (in Australia so far this year there has been a woman murdered every four days). I thought JB spoke very clearly about the practical issues women face on a daily basis which would not be addressed by taking self defence lessons. PBs failure to understand her came across to me as a disappointing lack of empathy.

@Wearingmybluejumper Yes but you're probably thinking about the practical implications of those statistics. It isn't about hating men. It also isn't about winning some weird competition about who had it worst. Its just an extremely unfortunate fact we need to take account of (and try to reduce that violence). I can't see inside Peter Boghassian's head. But everything I have seen him say about "feminism" and grievance culture is based on a campus-politics understanding where it does seem to be about winning academic arguments or fitting facts to match an obscure thesis. And he takes that viewpoint and sort of fits the arguments he hears around it. His whole entry point into this is from trying to fight "woke" politics rather than a woman's rights viewpoint. And I actually think he is right to want to tackle that sort of over-politicised anti-critical thinking rot you see in academia. But there is a danger in becoming the thing you are fighting.

And yes I agree it is a massive failure of empathy.

Campus feminism is pretty much part and parcel of other identity politics, and gender ideology and other types of id pol have borrowed a fair bit from it.

And it's not always been good for the academy as a whole - Kathleen Stock has talked interestingly about the results of trying to make university departments more friendly to female ways of thinking/doing. Which in many cases seems to have involved importing a sort of toxic femininity which has not improved them at all.

So in many ways I can see why PB would tend to see it as having had a largely negative effect.

The thing about carrying mace is an odd one. It may be that it's just very difficult to understand the kind of physical reality of being almost certainly weaker if you haven't experienced it. Not as a women necessarily, but for example a man who has done physical labour or sports with women a lot would very likely understand.

It's worth keeping in mind that many women don't really understand this themselves - I've met plenty who think that their strength is on par with mens, or at least close. Like that idiot woman who was at the senate hearing in the US who thought that Serena Williams could easily beat a top male tennis player.

ALl that being said - I don't think that the issue of separate toilets etc is so exclusively about risk. I think more than anything it's about dignity - that is still an important element even when risk doesn't enter into it. People find that a more difficult argument to make though. Which is interesting because at one time it would have been accepted without question - it's worth asking why that has changed, and why we find it so difficult to even try to argue it. Though I think most people feel that way intuitively.

I'd also say - I like PB's advice for talking to people with differernt views, it's useful. And I think he's been admirable in working to maintain standards of truth and the mission of universities.

But I don't think he's a first rate thinker by any stretch. I'm possibly being unfair, but I'd put him closer to someone like Sam Harris, rather than Kathleen Stock.

Interesting that the first place he went to was counter violence. Women have been explaining to him that we use other methods to avoid or defuse situations, but he doesn't engage with us.

IMO, men don't want to admit how women use so many non violent strategies to manage their behaviour, because they would have to accept that sometimes women have had to manage them.