Every now and then, a moment comes when someone fires a bolt of truth into the mayhem of modern culture and the repercussions are felt around the world, in a good way! Such a moment was the historic interview by Cathy Newman, an avowed radical feminist, with a mild but firm professor, Jordan Peterson from Canada, a highly intelligent advocate for common sense.
The interview has gone viral and is now up to 7 million views on YouTube. Watch the interview — if nothing else, to put a smile on your face.
We live in an age where delusions have become mainstream and are metamorphosing into even more grotesque nightmares. One often wonders whether to laugh or cry. Sadly, our children pay the price for adult delusional behaviour. Such is the case with the mainstreaming of Gender Marxism which is now being taught as verbatim fact in our universities and now in our schools.
With the fall of Marxist Russia and almost every other communist regime in the world, Marxism, as an organisational and economic model for countries, has fallen into disrepute. The trail of blood from communist countries should be enough of a warning, with the death toll being at 149,469,610 and climbing.
Unfortunately, Cultural Marxist theory about the oppressive capitalist patriarchy underpins almost all public policy in regard to mothers and fathers, families and children in most western countries, including Australia. The variants of this damaging ideology are as follows:
- Men and women are the same
- Gender is a social construct
- Gender does not matter
- You can be any gender you want to be (at last count, Facebook listed 71 Genders)
- Motherhood is bad
- Fatherhood is bad
- Masculinity is toxic
- Children don’t need a mother and father
- Families are bad, and the state knows better, and needs to raise the children, not the parents.
The bolt of truth that Jordan Peterson fired into the cultural maelstrom on the Channel 4 UK interview was the simple statement: “Men and women aren’t the same.” Let me give some further insight into the interview with help from Conor Friedersdorf in his great article called “Why Can’t People Hear What Jordan Peterson Is Saying?”
Peterson begins the interview by explaining why he tells young men to grow up and take responsibility for getting their lives together and becoming good partners. He notes he isn’t talking exclusively to men, and that he has lots of female fans.
“What’s in it for the women, though?” Newman asks.
“Well, what sort of partner do you want?” Peterson says. “Do you want an overgrown child? Or do you want someone to contend with, who is going to help you?”
“So you’re saying,” Newman retorts, “that women have some sort of duty to help fix the crisis of masculinity.” But that’s not what he said. He posited a vested interest, not a duty.
“Women deeply want men who are competent and powerful,” Peterson goes on to assert. “And I don’t mean power in that they can exert tyrannical control over others. That’s not power. That’s just corruption. Power is competence. And why in the world would you not want a competent partner?…
The next section of the interview concerns the pay gap between men and women, and whether it is rooted in gender itself or other non-discriminatory factors:
Newman: … that 9 percent pay gap, that’s a gap between median hourly earnings between men and women. That exists.
Peterson: Yes. But there’s multiple reasons for that. One of them is gender, but that’s not the only reason. If you’re a social scientist worth your salt, you never do a univariate analysis. You say women in aggregate are paid less than men. Okay. Well then, we break it down by age; we break it down by occupation; we break it down by interest; we break it down by personality.
Newman: But you’re saying, basically, it doesn’t matter if women aren’t getting to the top, because that’s what is skewing that gender pay gap, isn’t it? You’re saying that’s just a fact of life, women aren’t necessarily going to get to the top.
Peterson: No, I’m not saying it doesn’t matter, either. I’m saying there are multiple reasons for it.
Newman: Yeah, but why should women put up with those reasons?
Peterson: I’m not saying that they should put up with it! I’m saying that the claim that the wage gap between men and women is only due to sex is wrong. And it is wrong. There’s no doubt about that. The multivariate analysis has been done. So, let me give you an example —
The interviewer seemed eager to impute to Peterson a belief that a large, extant wage gap between men and women is a “fact of life” that women should just “put up with,” though all those assertions are contrary to his real positions on the matter.
Throughout this next section, the interviewer repeatedly tries to oversimplify Peterson’s view, as if he believes one factor he discusses is all-important, and then she seems to assume that because Peterson believes that given factor helps to explain a pay gap between men and women, he doesn’t support any actions that would bring about a more equal outcome.
Her surprised question near the end suggests earnest confusion:
Peterson: There’s a personality trait known as agreeableness. Agreeable people are compassionate and polite. And agreeable people get paid less than disagreeable people for the same job. Women are more agreeable than men.
Newman: Again, a vast generalisation. Some women are not more agreeable than men.
Peterson: That’s true. And some women get paid more than men.
Newman: So you’re saying by and large women are too agreeable to get the pay raises that they deserve.
Peterson: No, I’m saying that is one component of a multivariate equation that predicts salary. It accounts for maybe 5 percent of the variance. So you need another 18 factors, one of which is gender. And there is prejudice. There’s no doubt about that. But it accounts for a much smaller portion of the variance in the pay gap than the radical feminists claim.
Newman: Okay, so rather than denying that the pay gap exists, which is what you did at the beginning of this conversation, shouldn’t you say to women, rather than being agreeable and not asking for a pay raise, go ask for a pay raise. Make yourself disagreeable with your boss.
Peterson: But I didn’t deny it existed, I denied that it existed because of gender. See, because I’m very, very, very careful with my words.
Newman: So the pay gap exists. You accept that. I mean the pay gap between men and women exists — but you’re saying it’s not because of gender, it’s because women are too agreeable to ask for pay raises.
Peterson: That’s one of the reasons.
Newman: Okay, so why not get them to ask for a pay raise? Wouldn’t that be fairer?
Peterson: I’ve done that many, many, many times in my career. So, one of the things you do as a clinical psychologist is assertiveness training. So you might say — often you treat people for anxiety, you treat them for depression, and maybe the next most common category after that would be assertiveness training. So I’ve had many, many women, extraordinarily competent women, in my clinical and consulting practice, and we’ve put together strategies for their career development that involved continual pushing, competing, for higher wages. And often tripled their wages within a five-year period.
Newman: And you celebrate that?
Peterson: Of course! Of course!
Another passage on gender equality proceeded thusly:
Newman: Is gender equality a myth?
Peterson: I don’t know what you mean by the question. Men and women aren’t the same. And they won’t be the same. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be treated fairly.
Lovework
After this interview, I ordered my own copy of 12 Rules for Life — An Antidote to Chaos which rose to #1 on Amazon and now sits at #2. I have a feeling it will be there for a while. I will read his book and tell you what I think. In the meantime, be a man for your family, because your family doesn’t need another woman. Your wife is doing a good job of that and besides, it takes two to tango.
Yours for the fact that men and women are wonderfully different,
Warwick Marsh
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First published at Dads4Kids.
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