A Salute to the Warrior Women of Substack

Two observations from Jordan Peterson's conversation with Naomi Wolf

When I saw a video come across my feed of Jordan Peterson interviewing Naomi Wolf, I figured I would give it a try.

Wolf rose to fame as a marquee figure of the feminist left, and I was generally aware of her views as such. However, since covid, she has been sounding notes far more in keeping with the political right’s skepticism of government, the official narrative, and the dogma of TheScience™. I wanted to hear how this conversation would play out!

Observation # 1
Careful what you say and how you say it.

As it happens, the title (“The Marxist Slide from Liberalism”) was a bit of a bait-and-switch. Virtually the whole interview was a debate on the politics and history of sex roles—a subject on which Wolf made her name over the last three decades.

The early part of the interview was somewhat painful…

(First, a note…I know a lot of you would like me to avoid ideologically partisan language, and to some extent, I do. But things are the way they are—leftism, as an aggregate ideological phenomenon, has done tremendous damage to human society, culture, and life, and it continues to do so today. I know we have bigger fish to fry now, and that we have to move beyond the battles of the past. But truth is truth. If we do not acknowledge the monstrous failures of the leftist ideology and approach, we risk repeating them in the world of the future.)

Anyway…

If you have ever dealt with hardcore leftist ideologues, you know how careful you have to be with your language. They have rules, you see. Rules about what you are allowed to think and say. Rules about what terms are approved and disfavored. Rules about what is “politically correct” (a term created by Mao).

The rules frequently change. The goalposts move. The official orthodoxy shifts.

(They don’t just do this to their ideological opponents, by the way—they do it to each other. Leftism has a long history of purges—within movements, in communist hierarchies, and going all the way back to their birthplace in the modern era, the Terror of the French Revolution.)

You could feel that “don’t say the wrong thing” vibe from the start. Dr. Wolf was very polite, and yet I was nonetheless getting flashbacks to the years I spent living in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts and hanging out with people at Hampshire College. (If you know, you know.)

It’s a feeling…

Careful…careful…don’t say the wrong thing. Is it Afro-American? No wait, that was the correct term last year. Now it’s African-American. Oh wait, but didn’t they recently decide that the hyphen was racist? Dang it—I can’t remember. What’s that you say? It’s ‘black and brown people’ now? Wasn’t that the most racist thing you possibly could have said, like five years ago?

I am not talking about the average Biden-voter here. I am talking about the hardcore ideologue movement leftist. In a university setting, they will destroy your career without a second thought. In the back alley behind the building where communist apparatchiks meet—God help you. Again…if you know, you know.

Peterson knows. You could hear it in the increasing caution he was taking with his words. I was listening while cleaning the kitchen, but at one point I glanced at the video and it looked like the effort was literally aging him. I suspect that in the interests of professional comity, he would deny it, but it seemed clear to me. I’ve been in those shoes before.

Again, as we move into the new world, we have to remember what happened in the old. The compassionate impulses that motivated people leftwards in the last two centuries are good. The style, policies, tactics, and mechanisms developed in pursuit of the left’s agenda are not.

Observation # 2
Warrior women

So, that was observation number one. I am glad I kept listening, because they eventually reached a point of agreement with which I am quite sympathetic.

At various points throughout the interview, they discussed what men and women find attractive in each other. Unsurprisingly, Peterson referenced social-science data to make a case grounded in evolutionary psychology. Unsurprisingly, Wolf disputed his conclusions in favor of the notion that sex roles are societally imposed. It seemed at times that she was confirming her bias (though don’t we all, to some degree), and she got scorched for it in the comments.¹ Still, the exchange was thought provoking.

Wolf’s argument, in essence, was that the passive, “doll-like” portrayal of femininity was largely imposed by a patriarchal culture in the Victorian era—that it was not the norm in history and that it is changing again now. Peterson largely agreed—especially with the notion that women in history were not archetypically passive.

But even before they got to that moment of agreement, I was already there.

I was thinking about Viking women and how strong they had to be. I was thinking about pioneer women fighting off a bear with one hand while holding a nursing child with the other. (Wolf herself ended up mentioning pioneer women needing to be able to shoot a rifle.)

I was thinking about men and women they way I always have…or at least the way I have always wanted to—as allies, not adversaries. Two people, standing shoulder to shoulder, meeting the trials of life together.

I was also thinking how much I like strong women. I always have.

Most of the women I have dated have been strong. Competent. Assertive. Even fierce, in their way.

I married one of them. A woman of such tenacity that her siblings called her The Bulldog as a child! I would not have it any other way.

I am not qualified to address, with any depth, arguments about Victorian-era culture, politics, and literature. I will just say that I agree with Wolf and Peterson that the vision of the strong woman is far more real to me that that of the passive doll.

What amazes me about the strong women I have known is how strong they can be…while still maintaining all the softness and nurturing characteristics typically associated with femininity. That archetype seems far better to comport with the kind of woman needed to meet the challenges of the world. A balancing force. A partner in the joint project of making a life and building the future.

So in the end, I was happy to find a point on which I agreed with Dr. Wolf!

Finally, and most importantly…

In keeping with this theme, I would like to salute some of the powerful women I have met here on Substack:

The Starfire Codes’ Demi Pietchell, wielding the sword of devastating research in one hand and reaching out to help us with the other.

Jacqueline Rendell—a beautiful balance of pathos and logos (and groovy music).

Charlotte Pendragon, with tales of conquest of mind, body, Hollywood, and the world of illusion.

Tesstamona, who has conquered herself and everything life has thrown at her.

Sue Cartwright manifesting the beauty of natural law and What IS a name, really? manifesting the beauty of music and technology.

Terra Brooke and Uplift Unicorn, seeking peace and understanding.

Rachel Haywire, whom I am just getting to know, andBridgette, whose soaring words are a call to battle!

I am sure I am missing some, but I want to get this published, so I can always update it later.

In the meantime, men and women…fight on together!

(Update: Must add Melissa Petrie of Thinking Man!)

1. “As a psychologist, I've been studying evolutionary psychology and biology for over two decades and am shocked by how many facts Naomi just got completely wrong. She stated that evolutionary biology doesn't analyze the physical characteristics in men which is patently false.

This has long been established in the field that women seek out men with physical traits of strength be it broad shoulders, muscle mass, bone structure, and facial symmetry.

She also stated there has never been a study regarding women's preference in penis size but there have dozens of these studies. One simple Google search alone yielded 5 of these studies.

Thirdly, she stated men now seek out older women with financial resources? Outside of niche perhaps, there isn't a shred of evidence of this being a new standard. Study after study has shown that men rarely seek women based on their financial status.

She views everything from a lens of conspiracy theory that villify men as oppressors, when in reality men's role has been that of hard work and sacrifice. She does this to the point of outright denying the clear science of evolutionary biology and portraying it as being a self-serving narrative created by evolutionary biologists that simply points to the fact that younger women seek men who are older than them and who often have more resources and status yet she herself went on to claim that younger men like older women, oblivious to the blatant contradiction.

Perhaps she is just projecting.

I respect her recent work when it comes to COVID because it revealed that she wasn't willing to go down the lefts path of tyranny but she has an incredibly distorted view of men and the history of the roles of men and women.”