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Jordan Peterson Doesn’t Understand Beauty
His criticism of plus-size model Yumi Nu was both ignorant and hypocritical
In May, Sports Illustrated (SI) released its annual swimsuit edition, featuring plus-sized model Yumi Nu on the cover. Shortly thereafter, Jordan Peterson tweeted an image of the cover with the following caption: “Sorry. Not beautiful. And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that.”
After a fierce backlash against his remarks, Peterson ragequit Twitter, though he continued to stand by his initial claim. His basic argument is that woke activists are trying to erase biologically ingrained beauty standards, using terms like “fat-shaming” and “fat-phobic” to silence anyone who disagrees.
Now, as I’ve pointed out before, the whole idea of “body positivity” is a double-edged sword. Sure, it doesn’t do any good to shame people on account of their weight. But as I argued in that piece, ignoring the dramatic rise in obesity rates in the United States, as well as the real health consequences that are strongly correlated with obesity, makes us less likely to examine the political and economic realities that are making our diets less healthy and depriving us of adequate time for exercise.