Jordan Peterson is so Extra
Becca Rothfield lays bare the deception of our greatest modern misogynist, Jordan Peterson, in a piece titled, “Sexism and the aesthetics of rationality”. Peterson’s cunning lies not in what he has to say, Rothfield suggests, but what he doesn’t say:
They’re not saying that a Good Woman (tm) has kids and quits her job, of course. They’re not saying anything. They’re just giving the impression of having said something…
He’s not peddling ideas. He’s peddling a “sensibility”, she says. And sensibilities, unlike conjectures, are unrefutable. She quotes Susan Sontag:
“…a sensibility (as distinct from an idea) is one of the hardest things to talk about,” writes Sontag. This is because a sensibility trades in hint and insinuation, not in propositions that can be directly identified (and therefore directly attacked).
Rothfield calls Peterson’s schtick “Performatively Rational Sexism”, which is a terrific name for something that is both performatively rational, and sexist. While reading the piece, I couldn’t help but think about other professionals who are “just asking questions”: The investigative journalist — the curious therapist — the cop who’d just like to ask you a few questions. I thought about their unimpeachability. I thought about what effect that blamelessness has on their meal ticket.
