I will raise my hand to say, my entire body of work is all in the service of helping women out of the moral and social chaos in which we were all raised. I work pretty much endlessly, producing books, YouTube channel, podcast, courses, webinars, live workshops -- serving as a relationship advice "columnist" (I responding to 100+ letters on YouTube each year), and leading 1-2 hour Zoom Q&As every week.
Before I jumped online, I worked to change the patient experience in women's healthcare, and in my "spare time," sponsored at least 300 women over 25 years in 12-step recovery. About 20% of my audience is male, btw. I'm not a doctor or therapist; I teach by my own example of rising from a nearly wrecked life, and back this up with all I can learn by reading.
My "brand" is tough love for healing from the way past trauma has hurt your life (and moral chaos IS trauma, btw --it's also the cause of trauma, and shits out trauma -- the expert don't talk about this).
My content is about getting your shit together, especially around relationships, laying off so much *talking* about what happened and waking up to what you can do from where you are, to change your life.
At just 1M or so subscribers globally, I'm not in the league of Jordan Peterson. I like and respect him, and I'm aligned with him in that I'm teaching ancient principles about how to live (and like him, people punch back at me). He's rocketed way past his original training. But what I like better about what I do is that my credibility has been granted to me, not by governing or teaching bodies, nor is it guided by any approved canon. When you're a scrappy misfit woman who grew up poor in a home full of addicts, your advantages generally come from your own gifts and ingenuity, your own hard knocks, and the folk wisdom absorbed from brilliant souls who have walked the path before you and with you. I'll never be "doctor" anyone. But I have the great joy of serving and witnessing the healing of thousands of good souls who are rising up to share *their *gifts with the world.
I was just thinking about this at Mass today. My church is a beautiful cathedral covered in images. One is Mary standing on the serpent's head. I've heard much about this image by various thinkers, but when I was in California I heard a lot of women saying the serpent represents the feminine energy and this image of Mary was created by the patriarchal church father's need to kill the goddess and keep women controlled. Today, as I gazed upon her I thought, perhaps that's true but it was for the good of all. The serpent energy of tantra is sexuality unleashed. A woman's sexuality is so powerful it creates new life. A miracle of regeneration. The pre-christian ancients called sex magic the raising of the serpents. However, a woman who is not in control of this force causes great destruction. She must also kill the children of her womb or chemically modify her sexuality in order to be completely free in her sex magic. She is in constant mateform, having to perform to get men to have sex with her. Her entire existence is to seek sex. That is ho culture. It is chaos, undirected, and harms all of us. It won't end until we as women put it in it's place. Crush the serpent under our feet by disciplining ourselves. The image of Mary stomping the serpent 's head is the image of a woman in control of herself and her power, using it instead to serve the world. It's powerful not subjugation.
Many Churches teach it just fine. But you have to have ears to hear and be committed to a life of learning through the Church. It is hard work and study.
There is nothing in the brilliant comment above that contradicts the endlessly deep and ever present Catholic wisdom and Truth.
I so agree with the need to call women out. It's too easy to blame the patriarchy. Women have to take responsibility. There are many issues, but one that seems to drive the energy of this is an addiction level relationship that the next generation has with their feelings. They can't get out from underneath their emotional disregulation and they blame EVERYONE else for it. It's as though no objective reality matters...ONLY their fleeting subjective experience matters. I've stepped away from teaching in a graduate school (after 15 years) b/c the women (not men) could not practice rational problem solving in a medical training program. They always "felt" a patient needed this or that. I would respond, "I can't grade you on your feelings....I grade your thought process." It's very discouraging. And their moms encourage this..."she's expressing herself..." or whatever. As though she's living her "you go girl" through her daughter. Super creepy and hard to turn around.
Yes! Moms must balance carefully between not crushing their daughters' first attempts at adulthood/self-expression etc, and not indulging the madness that can ensue.
This is a cancer that I ponder all the damn time. I think females these days are being heavily socialized to believe their feelings are incredibly important - to me it looks like mutant form of self focus/self importance, they believe how they feel matters a lot and should literally control situations and the environment, that their feelings should be a command that is obeyed. I ponder this problem all the time. I wonder if they were parented a certain way? Like how do you get into adulthood actually believing your feelings are that important if it wasn’t a trend in your life that they were actually treated this way?
This is an interesting comment. It got me thinking - it made me remember an episode when I was with an acquaintance and her toddler daughter. The little girl fell and started to cry. I quickly assessed, saw she was fine and redirected her thoughts to get her to stop crying. She was about to smile and laugh when her mother, my acquaintance, shot me such a look of anger and then proceeded to scoop her up “comfort” her and get her to cry again! I’ll never forget it and in a way, your comment just explained what I witnessed that day. It was malevolent- I’ll tell you that.
I'm trying to find a balance with my toddler. I hear a thump, I look over, and I wait. She knows I care because I check on her, but I wait until she cries without further stimuli to judge how badly she got hurt. She's had some severe bumps that needed some comfort (and a bit of nursing) to soothe, but most of the time it sounds WAY worse than it was, because she just shakes it off with a whine or two. She definitely hasn't started to play it up, and I don't know if she will, but I'm aware of the possibility.
My dad stayed home with us, and took it too far the other way. Mostly, it was good old-fashioned stoicism (No blood? No bruise? Shake it off, you're fine) but I remember bloodying my knees wrecking my bike and barely being able to get a bandaid out of him, let alone any comfort or sympathy. I do think that girls need a bit more comfort than boys, and my dad had no idea how to raise two girls. OTOH, I think that if Mom had stayed home with us, she'd have coddled us too much. I'm trying to split the difference.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Dr. Julie Ponesse, Abigail Shrier, Susan Cain: all on substack (to a lesser or greater degree).
That said, numerous of Dr. Peterson's common sense truths apply regardless of gender (male / female), don't you think? Self-respect? A work ethic, the search for adventure, striving for personal best, holding to a moral code ...
Yes, JP definitely applies to women/girls too. All of the women you mention are great, and helpful, and there are many more too. I think want I am trying to get at is a certain bluntness and mass appeal, and a worldly experience like an older sister/auntie.
Oh yes and to add grave insult to injury, Rubin framed the discussion as how much he sacrificed for his child, and how parenting was about parents’ sacrifice. The fact that JP did not lacerate him screaming that the only person to be made to sacrifice is the child, deprived of two biological female parents, enrages me to this moment.
I remember watching that and feeling very uncomfortable. What I saw was Jordan Peterson hesitating, uncertain, confused (this may have been projection on my part). Rubin was telling JBP that he had taken his advice to become a parent (i.e. JBP was the reason Rubin had resorted to surrogacy). Peterson had toured with Rubin, they were friends. It seems to me Peterson was put in the position of either publicly bestowing his blessing on the whole surrogacy affair or telling Rubin that gay men should not be buying babies, that they shouldn't be creating motherless children, that being in a homosexual male couple is not compatible with starting a family. If ever JBP had any qualms about blessing Rubin's use of surrogacy, he wasn't prepared at that moment to express them.
What a great piece, thank you - I have heard this sentiment before but no where so eloquently expressed underpinned with humour …. it’s not an exaggeration to say Jordan Peterson changed my life - having heard his messages not as a young man but as a much older man who was encountering a number of life crisis at the one time and I was well and truly settling into a comfortable attitude of resentment and bitterness for the malice and adversity that was I experiencing - the most challenging thing he asked was ‘what is the maximum amount of responsibility can you take for your circumstances?’ Not to say I didn’t have things ‘done to me’ - there was plenty of that - but the flip side of that was ‘a what are you going to do about it?’ And importantly ‘The lack of your very best in engaging in life if a tragedy’ …. Important, warm encouragements … and young men so rarely hear such encouragement in public …
On the female side I really respect Louise Perry and what she has done to change the narrative on sexuality for woman. Thoughtful contributions. I think it is really difficult for young women atm, in some ways much harder than what young men are experiencing because the narrative around sexuality for woman is so much more embedded in society … it’s difficult to act in a counter cultural manner in those circumstances.
I'm sorry to have missed the point, Jenny (or rather, no one really sprung to mind and in the absence of that, specifically, thought some sort of combination might fill the bill, at least partially). I'll certainly keep my ear to the ground and get back to you in the event of a good find.
With this epidemic of loneliness, I'm wondering whether the notion of friend groups - meeting in person (perhaps through something like meetup.com) - could be a starting point? Sometimes hard advice is easier to hear in person?
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have grown more and more appalled and disappointed to see how social media has encouraged women (and men), young and old, to flaunt themselves. Of course I would be lacking if I didn't point out that the arrogant confidence to do so is likely stemming from overindulgent parenting from the time of birth. Parents fawning over their darlings who can do no wrong have effectively created an entire generation of undisciplined, inconsiderate morons. Add to that, the schools are hamstrung and can no longer discipline there either. The end result is entitlement and this, in my eyes, is exactly what you are describing with women and girls defending their right to be a "ho" in the name of entertainment. What has happened to self-respect and confidence built from actually achieving something noteworthy? And No, hanging one's body parts out to public display does not qualify as an achievement. It is lazy and cheap. We are so much better than this. Gloria Steinham, where are you?
This is in line with some thoughts I’ve been trying to put into written shape, lately. Two things that are at the forefront, so far, is that when women got birth control and more public freedom, the only role models we had for what freedom looked like in any form were men’s lives. That is what we emulated for a long time, and still do to some degree. There is a growing awareness now, that freedom for women may look completely different than what freedom for men looks like. We also expected men to change, but generally speaking, men need to see what’s in it for them to make changes, and not just because it serves others well to do so.
Then, there is the matter of how women behave badly, which is often almost trivialised as ‘bitchy’ or ‘mean girl’. Because it’s not physical violence like men are more prone to, the consequences are not as easy to determine and make boundaries for. I believe we need better descriptions for how women behave badly other than those I’ve mentioned above, to give it the same prominence as how men behave badly.
Btw, both women and men can behave badly in the same ways as each other, too.
“Promiscuity in women is a leakage of identity. The promiscuous woman is self-contaminated and is incapable of clear ideas.” Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae:
People - parents, teachers, others - have been afraid of telling girls how it actually is, and holding them accountable. The culture has become so warped - that many others feel that they cannot oppose it. I have always tried - personally with my own children, and professionally with the young people I work with - to be counter-cultural and speak the truth. One aspect that women tend to overlook entirely is the unique power that women have to change things, given their role in childcare. We raise the adults of the future - or increasingly. choose not to. When asked once if he was sorry he only had daughters, my late father said "No, not at all - the future is always in women's hands". Among his other sayings were "You can't have a permissive society without permissive women" and - especially to we girls - "You will be taken at the price you put upon yourself". All of this is entirely true - and yet it is a power we women have willingly surrendered, and chosen to blame 'the patriarchy' instead of stepping up.
I think part of the problem is the lack of extended family and community. In the past, there would be literal aunts or what I call “middle class aunts” (women who are friends of your parents, but referred to and treated as aunts) who would intervene. For many women, these do not exist any more.
I think the lack of responsibility and the targeting of a scapegoat (in this case, men) is common in many parts of society, sadly. Again, the decline of Judaeo-Christian religion (which preached personal responsibility) and the growth of identity politics and grievance studies degrees (which teach scapegoating and blame) is part of the problem. How to change it is a bigger question.
Recently, a female friend shared her own perspective on this with me, and I wish I had her in my own life decades ago. She said that girls and young women should consider what they have in terms of sexuality like they possessed the most precious gem that ever existed - more valuable than the Hope Diamond. They have one opportunity to give the gem to another person, so how will they handle that decision? Will it be given to someone they like/love/honor/trust? or will it be to some random person? Of course, she was talking in terms of the first time and losing one's virginity, but I think that message of putting a value on our sexuality could apply always. Our culture seems to have reached a point where sex is almost meaningless - an exchange of bodily fluids, a necessary momentary physical release, nothing more than an exercise. I hear young people are choosing a friend with which to lose their virginity "just to get it over with". I thank you, Jenny, for writing about this topic. It's part of the core of what is happening in our society that degrades anything and everything, but to what end? To my eyes, all the efforts that females put into gaining equality and respect somehow got lost with what you are aptly referring to as ho culture.
I used to listen to Dr. Laura. I remember her telling fawning young women to dump their fiances if they didn't make a certain amount of money, and to never speak to them again. My wife married me when I was a telephone booth repairman making eighty cents for each booth I fixed and cleaned. We still have a good marriage forty-five years later. In the meantime, her sisters have gone through multiple bad marriages and divorces to guys with great jobs and wealthy families. Laura is no Jordan Peterson.
I never heard her give advice like that, and your anecdotal account is based on the same fallacious reasoning that people use when they say "Grampa smoked 2 pecks a day and lived to 100, therefore smoking isn't bad for you"
I'm glad it worked out in your case.
My own relationship followed a similar arc, but telling young women to consider a mate's potential as a provider is generally good advice that mirrors Peterson's admonition to young men to find purpose in the acceptance of burdens and responsibility.
Both Peterson and Dr. Laura are known for their "get your own house in order, no more excuses, own your shit" style of moral hectoring.
But her message tends to be tailored to women, and Peterson mostly speaks to men.
Do you have your own podcast? I mean, maybe it could be you.
I totally agree with you about the fake 'intellectual free thinking' porn stars like Candice. It's just laughable. On the other hand, I honestly can't stand lex Fridman and several other fake centrist dudes who podcast. Triggernometry is almost as bad. It's like some of them struggle and go out of their way to entertain ANY viewpoint and never take a side.
Kind of?? You are great on solid ground which I do follow. I feel like a better way to get messages across maybe is something like disaffected, not just another podcast that interviews guests. We have an unending supply of those
I agree, totally. They are very much in that vein. I think having a woman a decade or so older, and um...less polite... would be good. Maybe Roseanne Barr? 🤣
I will raise my hand to say, my entire body of work is all in the service of helping women out of the moral and social chaos in which we were all raised. I work pretty much endlessly, producing books, YouTube channel, podcast, courses, webinars, live workshops -- serving as a relationship advice "columnist" (I responding to 100+ letters on YouTube each year), and leading 1-2 hour Zoom Q&As every week.
Before I jumped online, I worked to change the patient experience in women's healthcare, and in my "spare time," sponsored at least 300 women over 25 years in 12-step recovery. About 20% of my audience is male, btw. I'm not a doctor or therapist; I teach by my own example of rising from a nearly wrecked life, and back this up with all I can learn by reading.
My "brand" is tough love for healing from the way past trauma has hurt your life (and moral chaos IS trauma, btw --it's also the cause of trauma, and shits out trauma -- the expert don't talk about this).
My content is about getting your shit together, especially around relationships, laying off so much *talking* about what happened and waking up to what you can do from where you are, to change your life.
At just 1M or so subscribers globally, I'm not in the league of Jordan Peterson. I like and respect him, and I'm aligned with him in that I'm teaching ancient principles about how to live (and like him, people punch back at me). He's rocketed way past his original training. But what I like better about what I do is that my credibility has been granted to me, not by governing or teaching bodies, nor is it guided by any approved canon. When you're a scrappy misfit woman who grew up poor in a home full of addicts, your advantages generally come from your own gifts and ingenuity, your own hard knocks, and the folk wisdom absorbed from brilliant souls who have walked the path before you and with you. I'll never be "doctor" anyone. But I have the great joy of serving and witnessing the healing of thousands of good souls who are rising up to share *their *gifts with the world.
Omg Anna, as soon as I hit send I thought -- 'but we have Anna Runkle!'
🥰
Moral chaos - why have never heard that? Those two words perfectly describe what I grew up with and could not quite articulate.
I'd love to hear more of this!
Thank you Anna! Your work does wonders!
Aw, bless you.
I was just thinking about this at Mass today. My church is a beautiful cathedral covered in images. One is Mary standing on the serpent's head. I've heard much about this image by various thinkers, but when I was in California I heard a lot of women saying the serpent represents the feminine energy and this image of Mary was created by the patriarchal church father's need to kill the goddess and keep women controlled. Today, as I gazed upon her I thought, perhaps that's true but it was for the good of all. The serpent energy of tantra is sexuality unleashed. A woman's sexuality is so powerful it creates new life. A miracle of regeneration. The pre-christian ancients called sex magic the raising of the serpents. However, a woman who is not in control of this force causes great destruction. She must also kill the children of her womb or chemically modify her sexuality in order to be completely free in her sex magic. She is in constant mateform, having to perform to get men to have sex with her. Her entire existence is to seek sex. That is ho culture. It is chaos, undirected, and harms all of us. It won't end until we as women put it in it's place. Crush the serpent under our feet by disciplining ourselves. The image of Mary stomping the serpent 's head is the image of a woman in control of herself and her power, using it instead to serve the world. It's powerful not subjugation.
Ok. This comment is amazing. Truly.
"Her entire existence is to seek sex." I'm a little unnerved at how well expressed that is.
Brilliant. I will ponder this reply for a while
Brilliant, and a much better interpretation of Mary stamping the servant than any church teaches!
Many Churches teach it just fine. But you have to have ears to hear and be committed to a life of learning through the Church. It is hard work and study.
There is nothing in the brilliant comment above that contradicts the endlessly deep and ever present Catholic wisdom and Truth.
I so agree with the need to call women out. It's too easy to blame the patriarchy. Women have to take responsibility. There are many issues, but one that seems to drive the energy of this is an addiction level relationship that the next generation has with their feelings. They can't get out from underneath their emotional disregulation and they blame EVERYONE else for it. It's as though no objective reality matters...ONLY their fleeting subjective experience matters. I've stepped away from teaching in a graduate school (after 15 years) b/c the women (not men) could not practice rational problem solving in a medical training program. They always "felt" a patient needed this or that. I would respond, "I can't grade you on your feelings....I grade your thought process." It's very discouraging. And their moms encourage this..."she's expressing herself..." or whatever. As though she's living her "you go girl" through her daughter. Super creepy and hard to turn around.
Yes! Moms must balance carefully between not crushing their daughters' first attempts at adulthood/self-expression etc, and not indulging the madness that can ensue.
This is a cancer that I ponder all the damn time. I think females these days are being heavily socialized to believe their feelings are incredibly important - to me it looks like mutant form of self focus/self importance, they believe how they feel matters a lot and should literally control situations and the environment, that their feelings should be a command that is obeyed. I ponder this problem all the time. I wonder if they were parented a certain way? Like how do you get into adulthood actually believing your feelings are that important if it wasn’t a trend in your life that they were actually treated this way?
This is an interesting comment. It got me thinking - it made me remember an episode when I was with an acquaintance and her toddler daughter. The little girl fell and started to cry. I quickly assessed, saw she was fine and redirected her thoughts to get her to stop crying. She was about to smile and laugh when her mother, my acquaintance, shot me such a look of anger and then proceeded to scoop her up “comfort” her and get her to cry again! I’ll never forget it and in a way, your comment just explained what I witnessed that day. It was malevolent- I’ll tell you that.
I'm trying to find a balance with my toddler. I hear a thump, I look over, and I wait. She knows I care because I check on her, but I wait until she cries without further stimuli to judge how badly she got hurt. She's had some severe bumps that needed some comfort (and a bit of nursing) to soothe, but most of the time it sounds WAY worse than it was, because she just shakes it off with a whine or two. She definitely hasn't started to play it up, and I don't know if she will, but I'm aware of the possibility.
My dad stayed home with us, and took it too far the other way. Mostly, it was good old-fashioned stoicism (No blood? No bruise? Shake it off, you're fine) but I remember bloodying my knees wrecking my bike and barely being able to get a bandaid out of him, let alone any comfort or sympathy. I do think that girls need a bit more comfort than boys, and my dad had no idea how to raise two girls. OTOH, I think that if Mom had stayed home with us, she'd have coddled us too much. I'm trying to split the difference.
Dr. Peterson's wife, perhaps? https://www.youtube.com/user/tmrpeterson
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Dr. Julie Ponesse, Abigail Shrier, Susan Cain: all on substack (to a lesser or greater degree).
That said, numerous of Dr. Peterson's common sense truths apply regardless of gender (male / female), don't you think? Self-respect? A work ethic, the search for adventure, striving for personal best, holding to a moral code ...
Yes, JP definitely applies to women/girls too. All of the women you mention are great, and helpful, and there are many more too. I think want I am trying to get at is a certain bluntness and mass appeal, and a worldly experience like an older sister/auntie.
Women can do better than JP, I hope. See his utter cowardly retreat in discussions of his pal’s surrogacy habit.
You know what? I agree with you about that surrogacy thing. It was Dave Rubin right? I forgot about that.
Oh yes and to add grave insult to injury, Rubin framed the discussion as how much he sacrificed for his child, and how parenting was about parents’ sacrifice. The fact that JP did not lacerate him screaming that the only person to be made to sacrifice is the child, deprived of two biological female parents, enrages me to this moment.
I remember watching that and feeling very uncomfortable. What I saw was Jordan Peterson hesitating, uncertain, confused (this may have been projection on my part). Rubin was telling JBP that he had taken his advice to become a parent (i.e. JBP was the reason Rubin had resorted to surrogacy). Peterson had toured with Rubin, they were friends. It seems to me Peterson was put in the position of either publicly bestowing his blessing on the whole surrogacy affair or telling Rubin that gay men should not be buying babies, that they shouldn't be creating motherless children, that being in a homosexual male couple is not compatible with starting a family. If ever JBP had any qualms about blessing Rubin's use of surrogacy, he wasn't prepared at that moment to express them.
What a great piece, thank you - I have heard this sentiment before but no where so eloquently expressed underpinned with humour …. it’s not an exaggeration to say Jordan Peterson changed my life - having heard his messages not as a young man but as a much older man who was encountering a number of life crisis at the one time and I was well and truly settling into a comfortable attitude of resentment and bitterness for the malice and adversity that was I experiencing - the most challenging thing he asked was ‘what is the maximum amount of responsibility can you take for your circumstances?’ Not to say I didn’t have things ‘done to me’ - there was plenty of that - but the flip side of that was ‘a what are you going to do about it?’ And importantly ‘The lack of your very best in engaging in life if a tragedy’ …. Important, warm encouragements … and young men so rarely hear such encouragement in public …
On the female side I really respect Louise Perry and what she has done to change the narrative on sexuality for woman. Thoughtful contributions. I think it is really difficult for young women atm, in some ways much harder than what young men are experiencing because the narrative around sexuality for woman is so much more embedded in society … it’s difficult to act in a counter cultural manner in those circumstances.
I'm sorry to have missed the point, Jenny (or rather, no one really sprung to mind and in the absence of that, specifically, thought some sort of combination might fill the bill, at least partially). I'll certainly keep my ear to the ground and get back to you in the event of a good find.
With this epidemic of loneliness, I'm wondering whether the notion of friend groups - meeting in person (perhaps through something like meetup.com) - could be a starting point? Sometimes hard advice is easier to hear in person?
Add to the list: Louise Perry
Excellent! Thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have grown more and more appalled and disappointed to see how social media has encouraged women (and men), young and old, to flaunt themselves. Of course I would be lacking if I didn't point out that the arrogant confidence to do so is likely stemming from overindulgent parenting from the time of birth. Parents fawning over their darlings who can do no wrong have effectively created an entire generation of undisciplined, inconsiderate morons. Add to that, the schools are hamstrung and can no longer discipline there either. The end result is entitlement and this, in my eyes, is exactly what you are describing with women and girls defending their right to be a "ho" in the name of entertainment. What has happened to self-respect and confidence built from actually achieving something noteworthy? And No, hanging one's body parts out to public display does not qualify as an achievement. It is lazy and cheap. We are so much better than this. Gloria Steinham, where are you?
Ugh Gloria Steinem is the worst. 🤣
Agree, but if she were still active, I am certain she would find women behaving this way intolerable. ;)
This is in line with some thoughts I’ve been trying to put into written shape, lately. Two things that are at the forefront, so far, is that when women got birth control and more public freedom, the only role models we had for what freedom looked like in any form were men’s lives. That is what we emulated for a long time, and still do to some degree. There is a growing awareness now, that freedom for women may look completely different than what freedom for men looks like. We also expected men to change, but generally speaking, men need to see what’s in it for them to make changes, and not just because it serves others well to do so.
Then, there is the matter of how women behave badly, which is often almost trivialised as ‘bitchy’ or ‘mean girl’. Because it’s not physical violence like men are more prone to, the consequences are not as easy to determine and make boundaries for. I believe we need better descriptions for how women behave badly other than those I’ve mentioned above, to give it the same prominence as how men behave badly.
Btw, both women and men can behave badly in the same ways as each other, too.
Yes, very true.
"“We are saying that because they were sexual, they can no longer participate in civilised discussions, businesses and industries.”
No. We're saying you can't participate in respectable industries because you're a whore. Not because you're sexual.
Because you're a whore.
You are even more blunt than I am, Josh! 🤣💜
“Promiscuity in women is a leakage of identity. The promiscuous woman is self-contaminated and is incapable of clear ideas.” Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae:
Excellent piece. Take a look at the Fiamengo File Substack. Janice Fiamengo may not be Jordan Peterson but she’s a force in her own right.
I agree!
I love Janice!
Lovelovelovelovelove your pieces. TY so very much for being a voice of sanity and of health.
Thank you!!!!
People - parents, teachers, others - have been afraid of telling girls how it actually is, and holding them accountable. The culture has become so warped - that many others feel that they cannot oppose it. I have always tried - personally with my own children, and professionally with the young people I work with - to be counter-cultural and speak the truth. One aspect that women tend to overlook entirely is the unique power that women have to change things, given their role in childcare. We raise the adults of the future - or increasingly. choose not to. When asked once if he was sorry he only had daughters, my late father said "No, not at all - the future is always in women's hands". Among his other sayings were "You can't have a permissive society without permissive women" and - especially to we girls - "You will be taken at the price you put upon yourself". All of this is entirely true - and yet it is a power we women have willingly surrendered, and chosen to blame 'the patriarchy' instead of stepping up.
I strongly agree with this.
I think part of the problem is the lack of extended family and community. In the past, there would be literal aunts or what I call “middle class aunts” (women who are friends of your parents, but referred to and treated as aunts) who would intervene. For many women, these do not exist any more.
I think the lack of responsibility and the targeting of a scapegoat (in this case, men) is common in many parts of society, sadly. Again, the decline of Judaeo-Christian religion (which preached personal responsibility) and the growth of identity politics and grievance studies degrees (which teach scapegoating and blame) is part of the problem. How to change it is a bigger question.
Recently, a female friend shared her own perspective on this with me, and I wish I had her in my own life decades ago. She said that girls and young women should consider what they have in terms of sexuality like they possessed the most precious gem that ever existed - more valuable than the Hope Diamond. They have one opportunity to give the gem to another person, so how will they handle that decision? Will it be given to someone they like/love/honor/trust? or will it be to some random person? Of course, she was talking in terms of the first time and losing one's virginity, but I think that message of putting a value on our sexuality could apply always. Our culture seems to have reached a point where sex is almost meaningless - an exchange of bodily fluids, a necessary momentary physical release, nothing more than an exercise. I hear young people are choosing a friend with which to lose their virginity "just to get it over with". I thank you, Jenny, for writing about this topic. It's part of the core of what is happening in our society that degrades anything and everything, but to what end? To my eyes, all the efforts that females put into gaining equality and respect somehow got lost with what you are aptly referring to as ho culture.
Well said! Thank you.
Isn't Dr Laura still around?
Her schtick was very Peterson-esqe back in the day...
I used to listen to Dr. Laura. I remember her telling fawning young women to dump their fiances if they didn't make a certain amount of money, and to never speak to them again. My wife married me when I was a telephone booth repairman making eighty cents for each booth I fixed and cleaned. We still have a good marriage forty-five years later. In the meantime, her sisters have gone through multiple bad marriages and divorces to guys with great jobs and wealthy families. Laura is no Jordan Peterson.
I used to listen to her a lot too.
I never heard her give advice like that, and your anecdotal account is based on the same fallacious reasoning that people use when they say "Grampa smoked 2 pecks a day and lived to 100, therefore smoking isn't bad for you"
I'm glad it worked out in your case.
My own relationship followed a similar arc, but telling young women to consider a mate's potential as a provider is generally good advice that mirrors Peterson's admonition to young men to find purpose in the acceptance of burdens and responsibility.
Both Peterson and Dr. Laura are known for their "get your own house in order, no more excuses, own your shit" style of moral hectoring.
But her message tends to be tailored to women, and Peterson mostly speaks to men.
Otherwise, there's lots of overlap
Okay.
Do you have your own podcast? I mean, maybe it could be you.
I totally agree with you about the fake 'intellectual free thinking' porn stars like Candice. It's just laughable. On the other hand, I honestly can't stand lex Fridman and several other fake centrist dudes who podcast. Triggernometry is almost as bad. It's like some of them struggle and go out of their way to entertain ANY viewpoint and never take a side.
EXACTLY. What you said. Every word.
(Also, I kind of have a podcast, if I wasn't so technically inept i would promote it more! Secretly, I want it to be me, so thank you 🤣🤣🤣.)
Just putting in a vote of support for your secret wish!
Kind of?? You are great on solid ground which I do follow. I feel like a better way to get messages across maybe is something like disaffected, not just another podcast that interviews guests. We have an unending supply of those
I vote Jenny Holland, Voice of Reason!
Very well said! Women must accept accountability to be taken seriously.
Louise Perry is very based, she did an interview with Jordan Peterson. I also like Mary Harrington.
I agree, totally. They are very much in that vein. I think having a woman a decade or so older, and um...less polite... would be good. Maybe Roseanne Barr? 🤣
Ooh yeah she’s a good one for being less polite! I agree with her on some things for sure.
Louise Perry is a great role model.