Jordan Peterson: Psychology and Philosophy of Life, Part III

The concept of archetypes leads us to a key aspect of Peterson’s message, and a source of a major point of controversy, which refers to the nature and the source of the differences between men and women. The postmodern-sociological view is that humans are very plastic and much of the differences between men and women are the result of social norms and constructed realities.

In contrast, there are evolutionary psychological views that view men and women having different psychosocial architectures that result in different tendencies, abilities, and interests. Peterson believes that the idea that sex/gender differences are wholly constructed by social norms to be ridiculous. He argues that both theory and data point to important differences in a number of key domains. Men are more likely to be aggressive (especially physically), dominant, and interested in things (e.g., tools and engineering projects), whereas women are more likely to be agreeable, nurturing and interested in people. This is not completely fixed (i.e., it is malleable to some extent), but nor is it completely constructed by modern social norms.

This idea is important because it relates to a key point he makes about outcomes. We should NOT expect, according to this view, equal outcomes between men and women in all contexts. For example, we should expect to see more men interested in mechanical engineering and more women interested in early childhood education. And it means that if we see women underrepresented in engineering, we should not automatically conclude that it is a function of a sexist culture (as the famous Damore Google Memo incident makes clear), any more than we should presume that the relative infrequency of men in early childhood education is a consequence of a form of discrimination.

Article