Comment on the APA Guidelines for the Treatment of Boys and Men

Jordan Peterson · 31 Jan 2019

Jordan Peterson did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
If fatherless boys are the violent ones, masculine socialization cannot be what harms boys and society, as the APA's guidelines claim.

Their wordsConsider this (it’s of primary importance): If it is fatherless boys who are violent, how can it be that masculine socialization produces harm both to mental health and society? The data should indicate precisely the opposite: that boys who are only raised by women are much less violent than boys who have men in their lives and, similarly, that boys who do have fathers are more violent than those who do not.
Our reading
The APA's guidelines for boys and men will keep sensible men and boys away from APA-approved psychologists.

Their wordsThird, the net effect of these Guidelines will be to radically decrease the probability that any man or boy with any sense will go anywhere near an APA-approved psychologist, or dare as an ambitious and interested undergraduate to enroll in an APA-approved clinical psychology program (which are already, by the way, overwhelming dominated at the graduate school level by women).

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