He Didn't Even Look at Her

Warning: Twitter drama. I normally zip right past these sorts of things, but this stuck with me like when a popcorn husk gets stuck between your gums and your teeth, and you've got to keep on working at it but it just doesn't come out. I eat a lot of popcorn... anyway look at this.

Spoiler: Warning: woman in swimsuit

In case the picture doesn't work, it's the Yumi Nu Picture and Jordan Peterson's "Sorry, not beautiful. And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that." Twitter comment regarding it.

Preamble:
It's okay to have an opinion. It's also okay to have a bad take. It's okay to say a woman isn't beautiful. As far as anything insulting goes, it's hardly the worst thing someone can say. I'm not worried about the model's feelings. She's a model, she can get over it. None of this is the end of the world.

There are a lot of women (and men—it goes right to our guts) who cannot wear 240lbs well. Yumi isn't one of those women, and while is obese according to BMI, this is just one of the fringe cases of BMI of which there are many. Sure she could stand to lose 10-15lbs and be closer to an ideal weight, but since I have a y chromosome, I'm the authority here: she's beautiful. Case closed.

Meat, potatoes, map, territory:
This isn't about what he said. This is about what he saw. It's where the real failure lies. He may as well have been looking at a picture of the words "plus-sized model" wearing a bikini. He didn't look at her, not only that, he managed to not look at her in two different ways.
1. Male, hetero:
Nice face, nice curves, nice skin. Again, I'm an expert on the male gaze, so this one's not even up for debate. You blind, Jordy? "But Territory, it's a matter of taste," you say, bringing a centerfold of Sigourney in as Exhibit B. Okay, then...
2. Clinical psychiatrist:
Jordan Peterson should not only have a male understanding of female beauty, but a sociological one. He should be able to whip out the calipers, check that hip-to-waist ratio, then he would measure her face for symmetry (but with a dash of asymmetry) that generally accounts for look-at-ability. Maybe he'd hold a paint swatch up to her skin to confirm a healthy glow. Then he would say "hmm, yes, she is theoretically beautiful according to the average male distribution of visual preference I suppose."

​

He didn't do any of those things. He got caught on the map, blinded by the map, stuck on the words "plus-sized model," and is intellectually worse off for it. Again, not the end of the world. I think it's important to point this out, because it will be obfuscated by different prevailing narratives that will instead try to fault the male gaze in general. My point, sum: the male gaze was never a factor in his evaluation in the first place.