Said Jordan Peterson in his podcast talking to the NYT columnist David French. The episode is called "When Does Masculinity Become Toxic?" Here's the Podscribe link (for text + audio).
The meaning of "And so they pursue that in some ways" might be a little difficult to catch, but it's clear in the context, that he means that women are out in the "evil corporate world" pursuing the kind of career success that they also associate with toxicity in the male.
The conversation continues into a Daily Wire episode, "The $20 Million Mistake Democrats Made with Young Men." You need a subscription for that. I've got one, but there's no transcript to quote, so... maybe a word about that later. Why $20 million?
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72 comments:
No one ever talks about "toxic femininity". Even Jordan "I cry a lot" Peterson continues to take the totally-on-purpose framing feminists have designed for the purpose. Anything to divert attention from and avoid a conversation about it is de rigueur almost everywhere.
No one must be allowed to bash the AWFL's favorite hobby horse, not even the millions of young guys that have clued in on what I realized years ago: American women are not wife or maternal material anymore.
Men didn't do that. Women did.
Peterson is on target 95 percent of the time. I listen to his interviews, have read his three books, and lumber through podcasts. Quite a mind and his courage is undeniable.
No one did more to damage the perception of the 20-30 something American female professional with men across the globe than whichever dense broad decided to tweet her daily routine as an employee at Google.
It was only a few years ago and I'm sure many saw it. In an accelerated 1 minute and 30 seconds showing her 8 hour day she essentially revealed that her "work" involved little actual productive activity at all...a day filled with 2 1-hour coffee breaks, a 2 hour lunch (all google-financed), 3 conference calls about bullshit, and a pre-release tension-easing massage and mani before going home (yes, Google has a "spa department").
I wish I could find it, but it was that literal video that spawned the online "jew daycare" meme. A literal 6-figure salary to get her nails done, which I'm sure she thought was a flex of some kind. I'm sure that was a final straw for tons of young college guys, and probably a few girls too.
Don't even get me started on women in uniform and the welfare program many of the services have become in order to accomodate them...I could fill a book.
George Carlin used to have a joke: Did you ever notice, anyone who drives slower than you do is an idiot and anyone who drives faster is a maniac?
Masculinity is kinda like that. Anyone who is more masculine than you is a toxic neanderthal and anyone who is less masculine is probably gay.
RSM, to my ears, Jordan Peterson spends a lot of time decrying or mocking the "toxic masculinity" framing of the left. When you say he accepts it, are you talking about just in this piece, or generally?
“Toxic masculinity” is one of those phrases like “social justice” or “democratic socialism,” created to turn something into the opposite of what it is.
Ironic, since toxic femininisty is actually the affliction we’re suffering under.
Somehow $20 million doesn't really sound like a very big mistake anymore...hardly worth mentioning even.
Men are the source, of ALL our problems!
what we NEED TO DO, is Remove ALL Men..
Then, in just a few years (80 or so, at the max)..
ALL OUR PROBLEMS will be OVER!
All of these issues are the result of an ever accelerating technological explosion that begin with the invention of the diesel engine. Our environment that we as people created over the last 130 years is forcing people to adapt very rapidly to a constantly changing situation. One of the things that has turned the pressure up on both men and women has been the increasing dominance of the very very very wealthy in completely controlling the government and amount of money that the working class it's able to Garner since the middle 70's. Couple of that with the unending pile of regulatory mazes and sticky webs that people must fight through in order to live their lives has created a pressure cooker in which many people don't know whether to shit or go blind.
“American women are not wife or maternal material anymore.”
I don’t know. I think my granddaughters will both be great wife and maternal material. Smart, pretty, caring, Jersey Girls …
Just like their Grandmom.
Toxic masculinity however is a real thing. Because the structure of civilization, actual masculinity is no longer the primary determining factor in the success of a man. We are now overrun by the beta money changers who know how to manipulate laws and systems rather than the actual physical world that we live in. To me the biggest example of toxic masculinity is the Federal reserve scam.
This starts in grade school... common rowdy behaviors of little boys are treated as "mental illness" and even the tiniest bit of aggressive, competitive behavior is treated as psychopathy. Grade school teachers are overwhelmingly female, and they want little boys to sit still and behave like little girls. It's no surprise that later in life these young men are rebelling.
Jamie said, "RSM, to my ears, Jordan Peterson spends a lot of time decrying or mocking the "toxic masculinity" framing of the left. When you say he accepts it, are you talking about just in this piece, or generally?"
No. He's used oppo-language and framing many times. He looked promising at first, but then quickly turned into a gatekeeper when lots of young men seeking guidance began to ask him uncomfortable questions about feminism, social expectations, and blindingly incandescent double-standards, among many others. His drug problems, though resolved, were also a red flag.
The "toxic masculinity" framing - regardless of pro-vs-con - is gaslighting designed to keep a conversation about a much bigger gorilla in the room from happening. It's the same kind of gaslighting you see with "undocumented" = illegal, "unhoused" = homeless, and "transgender" = dude-in-a-dress...the focus on the linguistic legerdemain is slight-of-hand to keep criticism from falling where it's roundly deserved (pun intended...most American women are now certifiably obese).
I feel bad for young guys these days I really do. Lots of them don't have the resources or ability to travel the world and experience genteel-femininity from other cultures in the way I did. I'm one of the OG passport bros and the phenomenon he's describing is a reason for its explosion.
Being PCS'd to some of my first overseas assignments was like a breath of fresh air (not Japan though...bad sex in Japan) and put a great deal in perspective. Many young men are tuning in to what they're missing, and American women are beginning to tune into what they're missing out on.
American women are asking "where are all the guys?" They're leaving, and going away from them.
@Jersey Fled, congratulations. You're lucky. They're also going to be a minority.
Why $20 million?
The Democrats recently spent $20M on a conference at a luxury hotel to try an figure out how to speak to American men.
While I am quite sure it's pretty bad in the urban environment, out here in the country I still see plenty of hard working, testosterone oozing, young men. Take a look at that young coast Guard Rescue Swimmer that saved all those kids in the Texas floods. I think the ridicule of masculinity is much more prevalent in the educate, elite ranks.
Don't worry, everything is going to be fine.
The obvious problem is toxic femininity. Women are over indulged and demand rights without responsibilities. This is just as problematic from "conservative" women as it is from liberal women.
Andrew Wilson destroys Tomi Lehren over this
Women refuse to accept responsibility or duty. They demand jobs where they sit in air conditioning and comfort and they demand respect for producing nothing that society needs.
They constantly attack and demean the working class men that build the infrastructure that makes their coddled lives possible because those men can't provide for a family. They refuse to have children and if they do they wait til they are in their 30's and have 1 or 2.
For $20 million, I'm sure anyone here could tell the Democrats what they need to stop doing in order to appeal to young men. I'd do it for $19 million.
It's no wonder so many men are now transitioning to women. It's like going from a devil to a saint. Even a fake woman is celebrated and accepted more than a man. Your actions are brave, historic, and above reproach, while men are toxic, sex is rape, courting is harassment, and 99% of men are considered insufficient physically and financially to the average and even below- average woman. It's awesome!
Howard said...
All of these issues are the result of an ever accelerating technological explosion that begin with the invention of the diesel engine. Our environment that we as people created over the last 130 years is forcing people to adapt very rapidly to a constantly changing situation. One of the things that has turned the pressure up on both men and women has been the increasing dominance of the very very very wealthy in completely controlling the government and amount of money that the working class it's able to Garner since the middle 70's. Couple of that with the unending pile of regulatory mazes and sticky webs that people must fight through in order to live their lives has created a pressure cooker in which many people don't know whether to shit or go blind.
This has little to do with technological change but the rest of your point is dead on.
Men still maintain order and the infrastructure in our society. If men were removed from the planet electricity and modern accoutrements would be out in a month and all the remaining women would fight over the remaining food until they starved to death.
The real problem is the creation of "Jobs" like HR and government Bureaucracy that allow women to sit in a chair in air conditioned comfort making more than the men that actually make things possible.
When Obama made his "shovels ready" comment women demanded more of the money that was supposed to go to infrastructure but women don't want to build infrastructure or use a shovel. They want to sit in a chair and tell other people what to do so they made jobs for them.
bagoh for the win.
Yah, i don't know what the costly mistake is supposed to be but it's probably a good bet it isn't we have bad policies that men can't abide. It's probably something more like we need to do a better job at messaging or do a better job at brainwashing men or we need to spend more money on women talking about men, preferably in fancy locales and hotels and dinners with drinks...on someone else's dime...
It seems that RideSpaceMountain's ideal woman is a mail order bride, preferably Oriental, who will be submissive and obedient to her husband in all matters.
rehajm said...
"i don't know what the costly mistake is supposed to be.."
They LITERALLY spent $20 MILLION on hiring a:
Obese
Ugly
Queer
Lesbian
(did i mention that she was ugly and fat?)
SHE was supposed to be the DRAW.
young men were supposed to see her, and think:
"WOW! if *i* join the democrats.. I'll become HER!!"
some how; it didn't work. Democrats can't figure out WHY.
I love Jordon Peterson's understatement. LOL. The truth is, no one should be wasting their youth in the service of an evil corporate world. But to stop that, you'll have to stop worshipping capitalism and the "free market" which is what French and Peterson do.
The obvious solution to the problem is to stop pushing "You go girl" affirmative action but then if you did, then Peterson's would be get upset because someone told him a sob story. "This great girl would've been the the greatest pilot since Lindy but the meanie men wouldn't give her a chance".
But on the whole, I agree its a problem. Look at the 4 Female justices, its embarrassing. Or rather they're embarrassing. None of them are there on merit and at 2 aren't up to the job. Maybe they didn't put the right kind of women on the court - Lesbians.
Peterson and French are two fake Conservatives. I guess a stopped clock twice a day, so its not like they're wrong on everything. And they are on to something.
Men's self-worth is defined by their work and always has been. If you take that away, you got a problem. Western society isn't like African society. Men don't want to sit around drink and play cards while the women toil in the fields and do everything.
OTOH, women don't know what they want. Or rather they want something that's not possible for most of them. Even more then men, they want to have their cake and eat it too. But any change in society won't come from them. It will have to be led by the men.
"Achilles said...
Men still maintain order and the infrastructure in our society. If men were removed from the planet electricity and modern accoutrements would be out in a month and all the remaining women would fight over the remaining food until they starved to death."
Absolutely correct. While there is a need for college-educated medical personnel, engineers, and even some lawyers, no society can survive long without skilled people who build and maintain everything. Those people are overwhelmingly men. Many, probably most, don't have or need college degrees, but their work is absolutely essential. Without them, society collapses rapidly and without mercy. Utilities will collapse, food supply will collapse, and people will starve to death by the millions within weeks if they don't die of thirst first.
@lonejustice, actually my ideal woman is my Brazilian wife who I managed to meet in the US of all places. She's demure but nowhere near as obedient as I'd like (is any man's?), and I couldn't have scored a better mother for our kids. Her nickname is "The General".
The most interesting part is she's Catholic and I'm not. I'm not used to the concept of confession & absolution, but I've learned that Catholics will do things in hope of it afterwards, which is excellent😉
https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-news/who-is-olivia-julianna-activist-claims-she-lost-50-pounds-sincedonald-trump-took-office-because-she-cant-afford-food-article-117994403
I will never forget the howls this meme caused. It was unreal that such a simple truth caused a reaction among American women like a vampire smeared with garlic.
I'm sure that meme was an inflection point for tons of guys.
"Look at the 4 Female justices, its embarrassing."
KBJ is a disgrace to the bar and the bench. Even the "Unwise Latina" had to join with ACB a 2nd time. The ultimate diversity hire.
Anybody want to bet on whether the DNC will come up with an effective solution to this...
or anything else, for that matter?
It's a great way to get some money thrown at you. Just call yourself an expert, hire some friends, go to lunch and stuff and meet some connected people.
First we drugged our young boys with Ritalin or Adderall. They were too twitchy, had too much energy in the classroom. They tended to take over hand raising and answering questions, the girls could not be called on without being interrupted.
So...we drugged a couple of generations of the boys.
But we didn't stop there. We made sure the girls were called on more. We ignored the boys. We changed up curricula to appeal more to the girls, less to the boys. We then institutionalized the degradation of boys- we declared them dangerous and toxic.
"Your boys are toxic" we told America, all the while pumping hard at raising the self-esteem of the girls and young women. "You are great. You are Superwomen- all of you. Everything you do is fantastic and surely better than...those men."
And so...slowly, the boys stopped paying attention- to school, or to girls. They pulled back. The boys stopped graduating high school. Fewer now to go college. Even fewer get graduate degrees.
And the women? They all get one or more degrees. And the work world: focused on hiring either women or people of color (preferably women of color). It's all been institutionalized.
We get more of what we subsidize, less of what we tax. In this case we've gotten exactly what has been done by design.
And so now we've got a generation of young women approaching middle age, alone, not married, not having kids.
Who's happy now?
Achilles, do you know how much plumbers and electricians make? And I don't think you're meeting real conservative women. Tomi Lehren
(Sorry) Tomi Lehren is just a talking head.
“squandering their youth on service to the evil corporate world — bizarrely enough, given that it's a leftist trope — ”
Not Bizarre. Anyone who been in politics for any length of time or who has studied financial contributions knows Democrats are the party of big business.
Anybody want to bet on whether the DNC will come up with an effective solution to this...?
Don't look for a solution from someone who's job is to fund-raise off of the problem.
“For $20 million, I'm sure anyone here could tell the Democrats what they need to stop doing in order to appeal to young men. I'd do it for $19 million.”
Fuck that. I’d do it for $10 million and I’d even throw in a ginormous kick in the ass…
It is telling how often the evils of progressivism are bizarrely manifested by the actions of women in positions of authority: judges, teachers, HR apparatchiks, etc., not to mention voters. Very few of them make good men.
Peterson and French are two fake Conservatives.
Peterson never claimed to be conservative. His opponents call him that.
Years ago, he described himself as a classical liberal.
Bob Boyd, I said the same yesterday in a slightly different context. Answering "Why is America so divided?" I said "It's not. There's a perception of a divided America created by people and institutions whose livelihoods depend on promoting, analysing, and fighting that perceived division."
hombre said, "It is telling how often the evils of progressivism are bizarrely manifested by the actions of women in positions of authority: judges, teachers, HR apparatchiks, etc., not to mention voters."
"Did I call it or what!" - George Orwell
"Tell the Democrats...for $20 million"
No, no, all y'all don't understand.
I'll do it for $50 million. And MY telling is obviously better than yours, because it's more expensive.
He's right, but the situation is complicated. Some women "lean in" to the corporate world as competitive, individualistic sharks. Others "lean in" as part of the herd, obsessed with their careers but not making hard decisions or doing too much actual work. If Hollywood is any indication of broader trends, women execs come down hard on DEI stuff to the detriment of their companies' bottom lines.
Yes, it's a toxic brew. Cui bono?
lonejustice said...
It seems that RideSpaceMountain's ideal woman is a mail order bride, preferably Oriental, who will be submissive and obedient to her husband in all matters.
My wife is Oriental.
You are such a racist piece of shit.
"Said Jordan Peterson in his podcast talking to the NYT columnist David French.
Boy, Peterson is really scraping the bottom of that barrel.
Achilles to lonejustice (9:56): “ My wife is Oriental. You are such a racist piece of shit.” OTOH, racial stereotypes and “mail order bride” aside, lonejustice may have something there.
What could possibly explain the acquiescence of the Western men to their own marginalization since the 1960s? I don't see this in any other part of the world. Which suggests that Western feminism as reaction to "toxic masculinity" is a lie--closer to the case may be the opposite, Western men born after WWII lack testicular fortitude. The internalized guilt necessary to build a high trust non-violent culture with all its material achievements may prove its fatal flaw.
But to stop that, you'll have to stop worshipping capitalism and the "free market" which is what French and Peterson do.
"Capitalism and the "free market""are the engine which has produced the wealth which has lifted billions of human beings out of the abject poverty which was the lot of most of the worlds inhabitants less than 200 years ago.
The "worship" of capitalism is the same as the recognition that men are men and women are women--to deny it is the way to ruin.
Tina Trent said...
Achilles, do you know how much plumbers and electricians make? And I don't think you're meeting real conservative women. Tomi Lehren
7/10/25, 9:13 AM
Tina Trent said...
(Sorry) Tomi Lehren is just a talking head.
I fully understand and agree mostly with all of this. I built houses and did all of that. My wife gets quotes for things and I do it because the prices for that type of work are pretty high.
And also Tomi Lehren is just another example of the globalist tool. She is a Neocon with a different schtick paid to be pretty and to drive the divisive message of the elite.
Watching racist simps like lonejustice white knight for these harridans just makes the whole situation more ridiculous.
"This has little to do with technological change but the rest of your point is dead on."
I disagree. For most of human history, most people did exactly what their parents had done. Which meant that the knowledge their parents had was very useful to them. But the economy is now changing so fast that is no longer true. And that is due to technological change.
Question to those who glorify Trades people, why do so many Trades people work their butts off to make sure their kids get college education and escape Trades jobs?
In a perfect world everyone should master a Trade and get a College degree, however esoteric. In this real world we play the cards we are dealt, the best way we can.
Plumbers and electricians can make good money - family-supporting money - to be sure. But they don't typically get stock options, bonuses that exceed their salary (or wages), or more or less auto-promotions for time served. Those benefits are artifacts of a college education in business (from the right school).
A high-level HR person's "additional compensation" typically doesn't compete with a high-level finance person's, but on the plus side, her job is usually damn secure and there are few penalties for lack of measurable results (and often a ridiculously large budget for producing meaningless metrics to create the appearance of rigor, via hiring consultants). Plus, power, and in many organizations, the ability to operate relatively without supervision, such that you can turn the HR function into a grievance-punishing engine.
Not every HR person works this way - a dear friend of ours is just the opposite. But lots certainly seem to.
What could possibly explain the acquiescence of the Western men to their own marginalization since the 1960s? I don't see this in any other part of the world. Which suggests that Western feminism as reaction to "toxic masculinity" is a lie--closer to the case may be the opposite, Western men born after WWII lack testicular fortitude.
But the reaction in the 60s and 70s was largely a reaction to men of the older generation (and those early Boomers who imitated them). Since then, women may have found that they were pushing against a rotted or open or non-existent door and this could have emboldened them to become more aggressive, but in the beginning American feminist women were in rebellion against a more assertive masculinity than we have today.
Also, feminism takes different forms in different countries and cultures. From what I've heard there's a lot of female rebellion in other countries and cultures, but it's more strident in places like the US and Germany than it is elsewhere. That could be because men are weaker here and put up with more, but feminism can be found in countries where men are still very domineering.
If women did go after dangerous, physical jobs in the trades, the complaint would be, "they're taking jobs from working men." And if women didn't pursue jobs at all, the complaint would be, "they don't produce anything; they just have kids and expect to be supported."
why do so many Trades people work their butts off to make sure their kids get college education and escape Trades jobs?
This is an outdated sitcom meme, not modern life. The whole "student loan crisis" came about largely because of government sanctioned predatory lending and the degrees that didn't generate enough income to pay the loans back.
If you have data that shows this happening I'll gladly look at it.
Tom T. said...
"If women did go after dangerous, physical jobs in the trades, the complaint would be, "they're taking jobs from working men." "
It's because very few women can physically do the job. Same reason there are no women special operators.
@Rusty, there are actually some women in SF. Just enough they can be counted with both hands. Specifically, in Afghanistan they were integrated into the Cultural Support Teams (CTS's) that worked with Delta, GB's and Seals because of islamic culture norms regarding invasions of privacy in a muslim home while their women are present.
They did a good job and were for the most part very competent...at "cultural support". If memory serves there were a few instances where they had to get frosty and engage with the guys in combat. Those instances could be counted on one hand, but 99% of the time they were not actively engaged. The units would simply pass off to the CTS's when Afghan women needed frisking or investigation.
For the most part, like I said they did a good job.
Met my wife in the office 30+ yrs ago. The first thing I said to her is a lawsuit today, but she just laughed.
I have made many errors in the course of my life but the worst by a fair margin was not marrying early and having lots of children- there were women in my life who would have been quite happy to help me accomplish that but I kept putting it off for education and professional work. This mistake is the only one that I truly regret and is quickly becoming the one I will never get to fix.
RideSpaceMountain said..."No one did more to damage the perception of the 20-30 something American female professional with men across the globe than whichever dense broad decided to tweet her daily routine as an employee at Google."
I think she actually worked at pre-Elon Twitter.
Yancey Ward said..."I have made many errors in the course of my life but the worst by a fair margin was not marrying early and having lots of children"
Ditto.
If you think Asian wives are all "submissive and obedient" then you will quickly learn something.
When I was young and foolish I married 1970s Womens Studies Major from a Big Ten school. It did not end well. There was just one part of my being that she actually valued. After we parted my Dad advised me to marry a nice Catholic girl, which I am grateful that I did.
@Biff, no that's not the one but it's a good analogy. The one I'm referring to was Google (maaaaaybe facebook??) and was identical in length but there was no dialogue, just captions with sound. I recall some subreddits being incensed by its pretention, in much the same way your link is outrageous. When I have more time I'll try to find it.
robother: "The internalized guilt necessary to build a high trust non-violent culture with all its material achievements may prove its fatal flaw."
That is interesting. Does a high-trust culture depend on internalized guilt?
I could see that going either way. A high-trust culture depends on a shared sense of right and wrong, and the idea that the people around you are going to act according to that sense. I suppose if you violate the social code, you feel guilty. But in the high-trust culture most people don't violate the code. And on the rare occasions you do, you make amends and get re-admitted to society.
It's the Catholics that go get forgiven in secret that have guilt, not the Puritans who spend a day in the public pillory then get put back to work.
Our highest-trust culture over here in the USA was the 20th-century white-male-dominated culture. Things went low-trust when statutes, regulations, and SCOTUS decisions replaced the social code in order to let non-white non-males in (to clarify: it was great to let everyone in, not so great to do it that way).
And no one feels morally guilty in a DEI/AA/Title IX/CRA/VRA regime: we just feel criminally guilty or not, civilly liable or not.
Are you thinking more of Europe, specifically Germany? We imposed a lot of guilt on them, through their school system for the last 80 years. But they were already a high-trust culture: Germans will always do a good job; Hitler knew that once he got them started on the Holocaust and foreign conquest, they would to a good job at that, too. They also had half their military-age males held by the USSR into the 50s, so women kind of had to step up.
The Japanese passively evaded a lot of our attempts to impose guilt and re-engineer their society. They adopted MacArthur's outward forms, but kept the inside the same. That's probably why they still have much more traditional male/female roles than us. And people can visit the shrines to WWII leaders without being cast out of polite society. And you can send your small child out on errands for you. That's high trust. But maybe Japanese culture is more of a shame culture than a truth culture, and the high trust comes from people's desperate fear of doing something shameful?
RR
JSM
Yancey Ward said, "This mistake is the only one that I truly regret and is quickly becoming the one I will never get to fix."
Don't blackpill. Go to Brazil. They love American men down there and at least 1/3 speak decent English (if you're not willing to fala Portuguese). Especially the South.
Hell, the way Canada's going there's probably a bunch of women that would kill to get the hell out.
Is it better to be a slave of the evil, toxic corporate world or to live with the evil, toxic man/woman? If you married a psycho, get out. Don't mate with the neurodivergents of any sort, mental illness is toxic and can't be cured. Don't mate with assholes. Don't work for assholes. Easier said than done.
The biggest factor in toxic masculinity is the lack of foundational punches on your man card. Achilles boiled it down to serving in the military and fatherhood the other day wrt voting rights. T there are lots of other things that can qualify as manly man activities that contribute to your status as someone who can be counted on in a pinch when the chips are down and time is of the essence.
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