The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
552. The Feminism Debate: Can Women Have It All? | Megyn Kelly
02 Jun 2025
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson and journalist Megyn Kelly dissect the cultural and psychological forces reshaping modern gender dynamics—particularly the rising unhappiness among young women, the suppression of traditional masculinity, and the consequences of empathy-driven institutions. They explore maternal overreach, the devaluation of motherhood, the politicization of victimhood, and the unintended fallout of feminism’s gains in the corporate and academic world. This episode unpacks how men and women are drifting further apart—politically, emotionally, and biologically—and asks whether modern society is equipped to repair the divide wrought by extreme feminism. This episode was filmed on May 28th, 2025. There’s nothing more difficult—or more important—than raising a child. In this new 5-part series, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson brings decades of clinical insight to the questions every parent faces: discipline, identity, responsibility, and what it truly means to guide a child toward a meaningful life. Available now, exclusively on DailyWire+ https://www.dailywire.com/show/parenting | Links | For Megyn Kelly: On X https://x.com/megynkellyshow?lang=en On Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@MegynKelly Website https://www.megynkelly.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Half of Western women, 30 and under, have no child. Half of them will never have a child, and 90% of them will regret it. This is a catastrophe.
Your life will be happier if you have a partner and children. That's just true. And people should be told that, and then they should be told the realities of fertility. But in my case, Jordan, from that day to this, I've always loved working. I love it. It's totally exciting and interesting and intellectually stimulating to me, and I cannot imagine not doing this.
We do potentially have a major societal issue in that men have their pathologies that are expressed socially, aggression, antisocial behavior, drug and alcohol abuse, but there's no reason to assume whatsoever that women wouldn't bring their own pathologies to the workplace.
So
It's become mandatory in our culture to assume that the feminist movement has elevated women to the status that they now enjoy. I'm not so sure about that. I think that technological transformation and plumbing has had a lot more to do with that than ideological movement, let's say, especially one based on resentment. But in any case, it is the case that women occupy...
position in society that was unheard of 100 years ago. There's a downside to all of that.
And the downside appears to be the mounting unhappiness among young women, the precipitous decline in birth rates, the collapse of marriage as a social institution, and a spate of childlessness among young women, as well as the feminization of our institutions in a manner that often borders on the pathological.
I discussed these issues today with Megyn Kelly, a woman who's married, who has children, and who's had a stellar career. And we attempted to sort through these 30 issues and come to a conclusion about how men and women might conduct themselves in relationship to one another and what the consequences of that are for the way we think about ourselves in society.
You've had a very successful career and I'm kind of curious about how you've balanced your life and your work and how that's worked for you and what advice you would give young women who are apparently struggling quite radically.
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