Mumsnet affair hypocrisy

YANBU

I stopped coming on MN for a while because the obvious differences in advice for men vs women was too annoying.

There was a thread about a women having sex and posters were saying that it’s her DH’s fault as he must not be meeting her needs and she’s got nothing to feel bad about etc.
Whereas a man gave his female colleague a lift home and he was called every name under the sun.

But it’s not just affairs.

I’ve read literally the opposite advice/reactions for inheritance (if it’s his it’s family money if it’s hers it’s just her money), working PT, not being able to drive, spending lots of time with their mum, spending large amounts of money etc - if it’s the man doing it it’s the worst thing in the world, if it’s the woman doing it then it’s absolutely fine.

I’ve also read at least 3 threads where a woman has physically hit their DH with no provocation and still posters were falling over themselves to defend her and somehow blame the DH.

2 in particular come to mind.

1 when they were arguing and she slapped him whilst he was washing his hands, so then he splashed her with water and walked out and then she pushed and slapped him again - so many replies were saying how he assaulted her by splashing her with water, even though she hit him first. And saying things like well he shouldn’t have walked away from you when you were trying to talk to him so he deserves it etc.

The other was when a woman was drunk and she kept wanting to snog her DH at the pub/restaurant and he kept saying no, so she punched him and went off crying - and the replies were ridiculous, saying him not kissing her was abuse and that he should have gone running after her etc.

I don’t know why OPs put the sex of each person.
They know full well if the person is female then most posters will automatically side with them and if they’re male they’ll be against him.

If you want true, unbiased opinions then the only way to do it is by not saying the sex.

There are definitely a lot more sympathetic posts in threads where a woman has cheated, that's without question. But, thankfully, the OPs generally get their arses handed to them by the majority.

TBH the pattern I see is that a handful of excuse-makers show up on every thread where the OP is cheating and tell her it's understandable and just to keep quiet (these are probably people who've cheated in the past) and then all hell breaks loose and the OP and her supporters get a massive dressing-down from everyone else.

It's almost like mumsnet is made up of millions of individuals who comment on different topics and in different ways...🤔

What does structural inequality have to do with shagging around with people who aren't your spouse? We're not using the sexism trump card again

@deathbyfluffy structural inequality. Holding the less powerful to higher standards than the powerful. Whose purpose are you serving here?

No.

The majority of threads I've knowingly seen are definitely the unfaithful woman being torn to shreds and being told she deserves to lose everything. It's a definite sway that way for both sexes.

So that makes it OK to justify women cheating, but not men?
If someone cheats regardless of reason or gender, they’re a fucking awful person - they only have themselves to blame for things ‘going wrong’.

Could you post an example of a thread where the woman gets a sympathetic hearing?

This one:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/4748704-the-outcome-of-my-affair

100% MNs is very anti men at times. That thread where a significant number of posters told the poster not to tell her husband she cheated proved it.

I suspect that a lot of MN have been the other woman at times judging by some of the posts.

@ohhbaby it's clearly not put you off that much 🧐

Why shouldn't it be? This is one of the vanishingly few spaces online (or anywhere) where women are in charge, set the tone, and aren't blamed for every fucking things that goes wrong.

Definitely! It's not just with cheating though. It's with everything male female related.
Abuse
If a woman is being badly treated (ie yelled at, etc) it is abuse and she should contact women's aid and get out ASAP.

If a man is treated badly, they ask 'but what did he do, to make you act like that. He must have treated you horribly for you to do that. Poor girl'

Maintenance payment.

Dad should always pay, the insufferable bastard. Oh he took a paycut and had a new family? 'there is no nuance, he cannot leave his family high and dry and think he can galavant with his new family?? Pay up!'

Moms on the other hand.
Oh you've lost your job, he can't expect you to pay?? Surely, he should realise you have a new family to support?

There was a thread here recently where a mom was the resident parent and thus received maintenance form the father. The dd then moved to her father as a main carer as the mom wanted to study and people said 'no you'd be cruel to stop paying maintenence! It's not morally right, she trying to better her life, pay!

If it was a man they would say, cheeky fucker, trying to study to get out of CM payment.

Even with teenage /young adult relationships. The young boys must dare to do xyz. The girls 'ahh she's still young, we all make mistakes'

Its sickening to me rally and put me off of mumsnet a lot. But I guess it just mirroring current society where a straight white male is the epitome of lucifer. And amuthing inexplicable is always the patriarchy! Even women's bad behaviour, 'we've been conditioned through the patriarchy'

There is a definite double standard.

If a man strays because of a lack of sex, he is a total bastard and sex isn’t a right. If a woman strays, it is because he has not ‘met her needs’ and it is inevitable.

But, it’s the internet and a female dominated site. The bias would probably be the opposite on a male dominated one.

No I really haven't seen this TBH. Mumsnet is pretty hardline on this as a rule. I think MN attitudes to cheating are cookie cutter moral majority most of the time.

For the record I don't approve of cheating but as the product of an affair which turned into a 45 year happy marriage I instinctively realise the world is more nuanced than people would have you believe and cheating does regrettably sometimes happen and it doesn't automatically follow that the participants are going to drown in a pit of brimstone for eternity.

Could you post an example of a thread where the woman gets a sympathetic hearing?

No I don't find that to be the case at all.

I actually find this site to be very knee-jerk about both sexes having affairs. A lot of people on here are projecting.

I haven’t noticed that actually. I think attitudes to women who cheat are really harsh on here.

No i disagree - i think both men and women get a hard time on here if they have affairs.

It's more the weird reasoning: men cheat, it's a fact, regardless of any circumstances at home, however happy they are, it's in their nature.

Only deeply unhappy wives can be pushed to cheat.

We don't have enough same-sex couples on this forum, it would make a refreshing change for such discussion, when you cannot blame a penis for everything.

It's not the same people commenting on every thread, and - strangely enough - different people have different perspectives and opinions. So not double standards.

It's the same thing though...people are responding to two different types of poster in very different situations.