MNHQ here: How would you feel about a Jordan Peterson webchat?

I would LOVE it.

No thanks. He’s a misogynist asshat who uses pseudoscience to support his ideas. Evolutionary psychology is 90% bollocks. As a female scientist I’ve had to fight against silly little pricks like him and it is so dispiriting to think you’d give him space on here.
Would you give space to a far right sexist politician? No, so you shouldn’t be giving space to him either.

It would be like posting a neon sign to direct all the really vile, woman-hating keyboard warriors towards MN. It would also suggest that he is a credible voice on parenting.

I agree with this. It's tedious enough trying to keep the MRAs and community disruptors off FWR as it is. Having just witnessed his mob going after a Cambridge academic, I'd say it would be extremely tiresome.

Cross-posting this from my comment on the similar thread in FWR:

Can't say I'd be particularly interested in taking part. As a female scientist who knows how many social and cultural barriers there are to female progress in my profession, I'm inclined to take his "the data are in" claim vis-a-vis men liking stuff and women liking people with a pinch of salt. Yes, there are many more men in scientific professions and women in caring professions - but the bare numbers don't tell us anything. They don't tell us why.

We still haven't got a test which can tell us whether it's nature or nurture. Yes, I know his claim is "look at the Nordic countries, they've done more than anyone else to remove barriers to women's participation - yet women still aren't rushing for those jobs" - but as we all know, legislation and workplace culture are two different things. You can have laws on paper saying you've got a right to long maternity leave, your partner gets just as much paternity leave, you have a right to flexible working, you have a right to equal pay. But it's quite possible for all those legislative aspects to be in place and for the culture to still be putting up barriers. Or for those legislative aspects to be in place but "more honoured in the breach than the observance."

(I had to take my last employer to court to get equal pay - the law was there, hence I won, but my employer certainly wasn't going to do it off their own bat. And I was lucky in being in a unionised environment, so there was a union to bear the legal costs and financial risk on our behalf, and in a workplace with enough decent men prepared to step forward that we could get workplace comparators to prove the case. Those are the sort of soft, cultural issues that act along side the law.)

However, Peterson has spent his adult life building up a repertoire of obscure test cases and facts about different legal systems, and is a very polished performer and polemicist - I know that short of putting in inordinate amounts of time picking his writing apart, reference by reference, he'd simply do a Gish gallop. So I'm inclined to view any such webchat as wasted time and effort on my part.

But if other people fancy it... I'm inclined to agree with posters on here and on the FWR thread - it'd be hard to see how it could be worse than Penny Mordaunt's efforts.

shrug I just ... can't be arsed with him. I find all that 'controversy' is boring, and I suspect he's not all that bright, really. Surely there's other people we could learn more from?

Yes. If people don't want to read him they don't have to; if they want to challenge him they can; if they want to discuss and agree they can. The increasing tendency to not engage in debate or with people we don't agree with by just stating that person is a multiple -ist/-phobe and saying the conversation stops there (or rather doesn't even start) isn't good. Nobody learns anything new from an echo chamber.

No thanks.

I haven't said anything about no platforming and banning freedom of speech. I said your right to say that you don't want to hear him speak was as legitimate as mine. Neither one of us is wrong or right.

I think the very fact that some people are so angry he might be invited is reason enough to consider whether he should be. Until 18 months ago he was a backwater academic in Toronto. We're now having this debate on MN. I think that's interesting in itself.

Really, @sawdustformypony? That's where you're going with this?

@nicenewdusters Excellent. Seeing as MNHQ have asked for feedback then it's great that everyone gets a chance to put their point of view forward. Good that no one thinks that one person putting their POV across is the same as no platforming and banning freedom of speech. Because that would be ridiculous.

Katterina Ballerina
And you think that sexist woman haters don't come here already?
I think it could be really funny, if he thinks that Mumsnet posters are all about knitting, babies, cooking and fluffy things then it may be interesting.
Also as pp have said can't be worse than Penny Mordaunt

So you know what he's going to say, why he's going to say it, and that he won't debate anything. Ok. I respect your right not to want to hear his views, I respect mine and others to hear them.

Books ! - urghh, horrible things, throw them on the bonfire.

BTW this isn't 'no platform', he's only trying to peddle his book! No, it's about who we invite for that privilege.

He’s known as the stupid man’s smart person.

Absolutely not. Why would we want to speak with a virulent misogynist?

No thanks, he's a sexist twunt.

His views are out there. He doesn’t shy away from the spotlight. It’s hardly silencing him to refuse to let him onto MN. Inviting him would lend credibility to someone who now wants to be seen as a voice on parenting.

There is no point putting any points to him, he will simply restate that in his opinion, that's what the research shows and then stonewall/ignore. He isn't going to debate.

I am fed up of the patronising attitude that anyone who disagrees doesn't understand his arguments or the research he refers to.

It is not important or valuable to highlight and focus on the supposed hard wired differences are between women and men. It enables misogyny and hatred, and maintenance of the status quo that does harm to women.

It’s not like we’re an MRA Free Zone anyway.

I disagree with no platforming. I think MNers are perfectly capable of holding their own, and it is good to hear views from outside of the bubble and to question your beliefs. I would hope that MNHQ would deal with any influx of MRAs after the event.

Who does he hate?

Essentially he manages to articulate hate speech without ever losing his temper or getting riled. Kudos to him for his ability to stay blasé and monotone, but if you invite him, you're still giving a platform to hate speech.

Bring it on. Open debate and diversity of opinion is good. ‘No platforming’ is for idiots.

He's right wing, he's sexist, he's absolutely horrible. Please don't give him a platform!!

"but that women, in general, tend to be more interested in people, men in things"

Oh look. Telling us what women are like. I'm not interested in his opinion on that.

You write "his opinion" but this is a good example, it's not his opinion. It's a finding based upon clinical research. It's not saying so women only like to be a mum, or a nurse, or a carer, and men like to be engineers, or mechanics, and no one can ever be any different. If you immediately filter it through any objection that men and women are different in any way then yes, you would disagree.

This is often used to justify why, in part, there are less women in STEM fields. I think it is possibly a part, but there are other obvious reasons why women don't enter these fields, and many of these are due to gender stereotyping, sexism and reported misogyny. So why not take the chance to put these things to him?