Men using Mumsnet

Mumsnet was always a safe space to me

There's nothing "safe" about an public internet forum.

a community of women for women

If you look at the tagline, it's "For Parents by Parents" - no mention of women!

and recently I have noticed an influx of husbands on here.

Maybe, maybe not. There is no way to prove who anyone really is here.

Can't women have anything just for themselves? It's getting on my nerves!

Kind of difficult on the internet, but you'd need to start a private group, advertise it, and ask everyone for ID before they can join. Good luck with that!

For context, I am not even a parent and yet here I am! 😂

It`s a fact you do not know the sex of any anonymous poster on the internet , so you cannot say that men dominate everything where's your evidence?

Please back up your proof that men do or do not dominate mums net? you don't know either way, every one is anonymous.

If you want a safe space set up a closed forum of your own and demand they facetime you or send id first 🙄.

Just to add to my previous post, I have absolutely no issue with child free people coming here and asking questions or commenting on things. There is defo a place for them here and sometimes their perspective is required. Where I draw the line is when child free people comment awful comments about children on threads.

Nope that was the exact thread I was referring to. Perhaps you tagged the wrong poster in your response then.

You joke but I once saw a pencil sharpener for over £100 where the website waxed lyrical about just how perfectly it sharpened a pencil

And for a moment I was tempted...

Pencil sharpener enthusiasts here I come 😂

Nope. No idea what you're talking about.....Can you point me to what you're referring to?

My thread was 'things you thought were hard pre-kid' - many replies such as 'using the phone/going to the loo' etc. All very light hearted.

Don't recall any sort of bitching about being a carer. Please do show me though if I've forgotten something? I don't tend to launch attacks unless provoked so be interesting to see the context if I did indeed say something but I have no recollection of it. So I think you've confused me with someone else.

@Neitheronethingnortheother

Absolutely spot on

Thank you! I was just about to say that! I am child free, I asked Google a question a few years ago and was directed here. I've only recently joined up, as another question directed me here again! I may not have had children, but I have common sense and been around and looked after friends and families children since they were born... I've been the first port of call for advice when it comes to my nephew and he still comes to me now and he's 27! He calls me Mum No 2! (And no, his mum doesn't mind one bit!)
So it's sad to me that the person who commented this, has had bad experiences with the "childless"... And from what I've seen, MN is a public forum now and about other things than children... I've seen some really good advice given on MN and I value that... AIBU is a question that can be directed to anyone!

Men being able to post is no different from having a section for child free people in my opinion. They could have a section for pencil sharpener enthusiasts for all I care.

As long as people are respectful of each other (and that's not the case at all these days) then everyone should be allowed to post.

But a man helped someone fix a computer isn't the issue. The OP didn't state that sone men aren't nice, the problem is that they dominate everything and it would be quite nice if there was somewhere they weren't, sometimes.

The fact that there aren't equivalent forums made up mainly of men anywhere shows that there is a benefit and a wish for women dominant spaces.

Imagine thinking a site where some posters tried to hound black posters off the site when they wanted their own topic...

Or where recently people with ME were told they should have their passports and driving licences removed from them..

Or a poster was asked why she would want to live in social housing when she could instead buy a house and have "nice neighbours"

I mean sure it might be a safe space if you are white, middle class, able bodied, not a dog or cat owner, not a cyclist, drive a car, are in your 30s, have more than 1 child because single children are selfish but less than 3 because otherwise you are destroying the planet, have money but dont talk about it etc etc

But even then just wait a few years and you will get the ageist posts anyway and the diagnosis of dementia once you are over 50

Jesus get over yourself OP.

Funny thing is I was having a joke with my DH, only yesterday. It was last christmas there was a poster on AIBU that bought a graphics card for her sons computer and it would not work and she felt christmas was ruined last year, on christmas day morning. He spent the entire morning advising her and posting photos on how to get it worked (shocking a man on MN), funnily enough a lot of posters thought it was one of the kindest posts on MN, when she got her sons present working on christmas day.

That alone says get a grip, there are good and bad in every one 😊

No shit 😂

The vast, vast majority of child free posters aren't here to bitch about children though. They're here to chat about the vast array of other topics discussed on here.

There's no such thing as a safe space online, but yeah, I don't interact with men on here. Even the ones who think we think they don't know that we know they're men. Bad enough in real life.

There's nothing safe about MN. I don't think men are the cause. Just look on AIBU at anytime.

I find most of the men posting on here very polite and articulate.

No website with a public forum is ever going to be a 'safe space' (although of course you can report posts).

Men can be parents and decent people too.

Safe space. lol.

YABU for thinking a public internet forum is your safe space

YABU for using the term safe space

The OP hasn't come back though has she?

Instead she's started a clearly contentious topic, dropping in some additional gems around equality and same sex marriage and fucked off

I don't think the posters discussing the topic are trolls but unless the OP is here to engaging in meaningful discussion then their motives do look a bit like they wanted to start a bun fight sit back and watch it take off

And this is a behaviour that's often repeated across the site over the years whether it's about men or people without children so I can understand why any poster who has been around for awhile might question the OPs motives regardless of that posters sex

Doesn't bother me in the least, it's an extremely useful forum for everyone - I'm Mum to adult children and find it a fantastic resource for all sorts of things . We should be celebrating Dads who seek to be better parents through resources like this. You'll never be able to police it anyway as it's impossible to tell from email addresses whether someone is a Dad, a Mum, or not a parent at all. It shouldn't matter.

What does bother me is the number of truly unpleasant comments you see which really are unwarranted. Whether those posters are male or female I don't know but suspect the majority of them are not male. No problem with people being told straight, myself included, when it's necessary but it's the downright nasty posts for no reason that get to me more than whether someone is male or female.

I think the man bashing threads can be quite tedious, as are the transphobia ones.

As someone else pointed out the male equivalent in reverse would be Incels on Reddit bashing women, so all those woman who are very vocal about their man hate should stop and think about that. Hate is never acceptable and says more about the hater than what they are actually hating. Get help.

I hate segregation and love diversity so I have no probs with MN being open to all.

You can't always tell if a poster is male though unless they announce it or something in their post makes it clear that they're male.
I'm pretty sure that there are more male posters than you would think here.

I’m surprised at people saying posts on here are about parenting. They’re really not, the majority are about relationships, TV, style, AIBU etc. and aren’t actually about being a parent.