Additional problems with Peterson's story about Steinem.

[_Lemmie]

Peterson's story about meeting and communicating with Gloria Steinem has more problems. As Symmachus and others pointed out, Peterson's inconsistent comments about religions in Egypt at the time are troubling, but in my view even his basic story is suspect.

I confirmed that Steinem did speak in the Spring of 1980 at the American University in Egypt, but found no transcript.

However, in April of 1980, Steinem held a seminar with the Neiman Fellows at Harvard University, where she gave her opinion that patriarchal religions are a way of reinforcing male authority.

Her next comments, however, were very interesting in light of Peterson's story, as she described three religious groups and behavior within those groups:

Within each different religious group, there is a very conservative cluster - Orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Baptists, conservative Roman Catholics- who oppose some of the issues, even though the majority of the people within that religion may have a very different view.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=us

What are the odds that in a speech given within weeks or months on apparently the same topic, Steinem would change her three data points so dramatically? According to Peterson:

...her remarks... concentrated on Catholicism, Orthodox Judaism, and Mormonism...

Steinem's words are in direct contrast to Peterson's tale that her 'three religion' story included Mormonism. With that point now suspect in Peterson's story, is there really any reason to believe she mentioned members of Mormonism at all? It is extremely difficult to believe she additionally promised to send Peterson her 'data on Mormon membership numbers,' and even more difficult to believe that Peterson wrote her multiple times after that asking for data.

Although, if Peterson actually did write multiple letters asking for imaginary data on a topic she did not cover in her speech.... well, according to the Library holding collections of Steinem's work and correspondence, there is this note:

From the Gloria Steinem Papers, 1940 - 2000 (Ongoing)
Another large category of mail in this series comes from eccentric and/or mentally or emotionally disturbed correspondents. Steinem labeled this "crazy mail," alerting her staff to them in the event that the writer might become dangerous. In some cases, dozens of letters were mailed in a short period of time by a single writer and deposited to the Sophia Smith Collection unopened; in these cases, a sampling was retained and the remainder discarded.
https://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findai ... sss66.html

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Well, Mr. Peterson's memory on such things is suspect. We asked for years that he produce the 2nd Watson Letter, and, well, we all know how that debacle turned out.

He's a known prevaricator and will alter history to suit his narrative.

- Doc

[_I have a question]

Lemmie,

That is a tremendous (and well referenced) catch.
Bravo.

[_RockSlider]

oh my, is the internet an incredible thing or not.

Too funny, the nasty email note. Of course Dan has never come out in an openly public area and acted that way!


something about mediocre Mormon family pictures and what was it news week photo journal or some such?

[_Chap]

Egyptian mail wasn’t completely reliable in those days, and I can only assume that the evidence she sent was lost somewhere in a Cairo post office and that the two or three letters that we sent to remind her of our request never reached New York.

From the Gloria Steinem Papers, 1940 - 2000 (Ongoing)
Another large category of mail in this series comes from eccentric and/or mentally or emotionally disturbed correspondents. Steinem labeled this "crazy mail," alerting her staff to them in the event that the writer might become dangerous. In some cases, dozens of letters were mailed in a short period of time by a single writer

[_consiglieri]

Perhaps Daniel Peterson was able to convince her during their meeting that Mormonism should not be considered patriarchal and Ms. Steinem therefore substituted a suitable alternative?

[_Lemmie]

Lemmie,

That is a tremendous (and well referenced) catch.
Bravo.

Thank you!

[_sock puppet]

Maybe Dan could call his old pal Gloria and have her send a letter verifying Dan's recollection.

[_Symmachus]

That's some good digging, Lemmie. I spent a little time trying to find out about this but got nowhere. I did find something about contemporary Egyptian feminism in a snippet from Ms. Magazine in 1979, but Google only let me see a few sentences and I'm not about to waste any more time trying to prove that Peterson's memory is not self-serving. I should point out, though, that since he is concerned to imply that Ms. Steinem was a gutless hypocrite, the issue of patriarchy was a hot topic in Egypt at the time because Sadat had just a passed (or imposed, if you prefer) a law regarding women's rights that was as controversial as was it liberal (the so-called Family Law, later repealed as a failed ploy to buy off fundamentalists). I don't know why a gutless hypocrite feminist would even say anything about feminism anywhere in that context.

I can see such a speech being given 1980-ish in Egypt as being particularly relevant, and I can see there being a sympathetic audience at the American University in Cairo (maybe the gutless hypocrite should have given her speech to some imams in a village in Upper Egypt to prove how courageous she was). Mr. Peterson, by his own account, was not sympathetic to Ms. Steinem's views, but I see no reason to doubt that she mentioned Mormonism. I do doubt that it would have had some kind of particular focus, and it seems much more likely that contemporary issues in Egyptian society were the topic. Probably she mentioned Mormonism and a few other groups as being particularly patriarchal and probably she pointed out that even this small American sect was antithetical to the ERA (the Egyptian equivalent to which was the then controversial Family Law of Sadat). Whatever she said, it offended Daniel Peterson.

I can't follow Everybody Wang Chung in going after Peterson's honesty. One has to care about truth in order to tell a lie, and I don't think Peterson is lying so much as he is using whatever Steinem said to grandstand about Mormonism and inflate his importance, both of which to me seem more of a focus for him than such things as truth and accuracy.

[_Lemmie]

That's some good digging, Lemmie. I spent a little time trying to find out about this but got nowhere. I did find something about contemporary Egyptian feminism in a snippet from Ms. Magazine in 1979, but Google only let me see a few sentences and I'm not about to waste any more time trying to prove that Peterson's memory is not self-serving. I should point out, though, that since he is concerned to imply that Ms. Steinem was a gutless hypocrite, the issue of patriarchy was a hot topic in Egypt at the time because Sadat had just a passed (or imposed, if you prefer) a law regarding women's rights that was as controversial as was it liberal (the so-called Family Law, later repealed as a failed ploy to buy off fundamentalists). I don't know why a gutless hypocrite feminist would even say anything about feminism anywhere in that context.

I can see such a speech being given 1980-ish in Egypt as being particularly relevant, and I can see there being a sympathetic audience at the American University in Cairo (maybe the gutless hypocrite should have given her speech to some imams in a village in Upper Egypt to prove how courageous she was). Mr. Peterson, by his own account, was not sympathetic to Ms. Steinem's views, but I see no reason to doubt that she mentioned Mormonism. I do doubt that it would have had some kind of particular focus, and it seems much more likely that contemporary issues in Egyptian society were the topic. Probably she mentioned Mormonism and a few other groups as being particularly patriarchal and probably she pointed out that even this small American sect was antithetical to the ERA (the Egyptian equivalent to which was the then controversial Family Law of Sadat). Whatever she said, it offended Daniel Peterson.

I can't follow Everybody Wang Chung in going after Peterson's honesty. One has to care about truth in order to tell a lie, and I don't think Peterson is lying so much as he is using whatever Steinem said to grandstand about Mormonism and inflate his importance, both of which to me seem more of a focus for him than such things as truth and accuracy.

Good points, Symmachus. I still think it is too coincidental that her patriarchy lecture (apparently given multiple times in that time period) singled out a group of three religions for comment, and Peterson's 'memory' was that she emphasized, in her speech (i.e. not in casual conversation), three groups --with his Mormon group replacing her Fundamentalist Baptist group.

During this time, she was speaking up to 10 times a month, and yes, she was well acquainted with Sadat's wife who championed feminism and the patriarchal issues, I'm guessing it was no coincidence she was invited to speak in that time frame, and that she spoke on that subject.

It stretches credulity, however, to imagine that in Egypt, where there were '0' official Mormons at the time, she would have had the inclination, time, or incentive to change her speech. Why would she? If she learned about Mormons somehow, it is remotely possible she might have added Mormons to her group of three, but there would be no rational reason to remove one of her three.

And I would politely disagree about liars, in my opinion the very best liars don't care about the truth at all-at least in the sense that the actual truth being different from their lie is a non-issue in their minds. The 'truth' is whatever version of their story that they find most useful to tell.