Peterson's 12 Rules for Life v2.0-- actual book discussion

[bennyboy]

The chaos from femininity talk is particularly off putting. Even as an allegorical device.

Well, he is pretty clear about minimizing that as a symbolic reference, and it's not his own idea. It goes to both Apollo vs. Dionysus, Yin/Yang, and also to the writings of some of the authors he's mentioned a lot, like Jung and Nietzsche.

Even in just normal speak, we can all identify personality traits that we'd acknowledge as generally feminine or masculine, without investing in stereotyping.

For example, I'd say that a caring instinct, especially for small helpless things, is generally a feminine trait-- wouldn't you? That doesn't mean that all women are caring or that no men are caring-- it's just acknowledgment of a pretty easily-observed gender difference overall.

The problem is that some parties will immediately trigger-- talking about how I'm imposing a patriarchal view, or how gender expression is a rainbow, or whatever else their personal world views require hysterical shouting about.