men on mumsnet

I would check your posting history and some of your views about women before defending why men are on here.

Very telling.

Do you think the only involvement men have here is to insert their opinions into threads about VAWG?

And how recent are those? How active? How useful?

100% this.

Problem is @Youdontseehow most men just can't stand the thought of women having something to themselves. Something they enjoy. Something they BENEFIT from. Even my DH had a whinge once as to how it was soooo unfair that the Womens Institute didn't allow men, and it's sooooo sexist. Like as if he would go anyway, even if he WAS allowed. I said 'create the MENS INSTITUTE then if you're that bothered!' He was just like

And a woman I knew once had her own little womens group at her house every couple of weeks for chat and coffees and teas, and one of the womens husbands asked his wife to ask the host if he could come. She said no. It's just for women. A private meet up group for women. He said 'not fair' too! Again, it was suggested to him that he creates a mens meet up group. He also frowned, and pouted like a toddler - but did fuck-all about it.

Some men don't want to join in with women really, they just want to stop women having private, safe, secure spaces where they can discuss womens issues/life's issues in general. And they poke their nose in, and stick their oar in to try and derail it. As you say, there are many things that women just can't discuss with men. Or don't WANT to discuss. And there are many MANY issues women face that men don't have a fucking clue about!

As I said, I find it very odd that men want to come here. Genuinely, really weird.

And I don't care if SOME women on here 'don't want to be on a women only forum.' Some women do. And nobody has any right to tell them that they have no right to feel this way! No matter how much they would like to.

You’ve presumably heard of Google? Or are you just used to asking women to do the grafting for you?

Gingerbread Single dads
Dadmatters
Dadinfo
dadsnet
Families need fsthers
the breaking dad

basically there’s plenty of you can be arsed to look

I think this is what's known as a straw man. You are vehemently arguing something when I've not said anything to the contrary.
While choosing not to respond to my point about whether a decent man would insert himself onto a thread where women are discussing rape, often their own, to tell them off because they don't say NAMALT? Do you think a decent man would do this?

why on earth should a father NOT use mumsnet?

You google something, and it's a MN thread. You talk at a baby group, someone mentions MN, it's often in the press.

There's absolutely no reason whatsoever to look at a thread, and think no, musn't read the info or the banter, because I am not a MUM. Ridiculous.

I don't want to be on a "woman only forum:" either frankly,

I have indeed heard of Google which is why I said that "when I became a single father some years back I looked around a lot and I found nothing comparable to the wealth of UK-specific parenting advice that I found here."

I assume that all you did was Google for "single father" or similar and not gone any further than that. I put way more effort in than that and quickly realised that sites such as dadmatters and breaking dad are nothing like mumsnet, dadinfo and dadsnet are pretty much dead, and FNF is aimed primarily at fathers who had little or no contact with their children and wanted that to change. None of those were as helpful as mumsnet was and I'd like to think that I've repaid that over the years with the advice I've been able to give about topics I have a lot of experience in.

In short, I was indeed arsed to look and found out that the suggestions you gave here are useless. But I guess it was easier for you to do a knee-jerk "men are shit" than to actually think about why I wrote what I wrote. That kind of attitude is one of the downsides of mumsnet but on balance I think the good stuff outweighs that kind of tedious crap.

To me it is a women’s forum. Only women can be mums. Just like only men can be dads. The clue is in the forum name.

Women’s and men’s experiences differ significantly biologically, culturally, socially and emotionally. Women are not one homogeneous group but our experiences are shaped and shared as a result of the way in which society is constructed and how we understand experience is a result of that. Women seek out the opinions of other women because of these shared experiences and understandings.

Men can never understand women’s experiences because they are not women and are not consciously and subconsciously subject to the societal forces which women are. So for example, I might ask my DH’s opinion on a range of subjects like where to go on holiday, what to have for dinner, which sofa to buy. But I would not seek his opinion on what coercive control looks like, how to deal with bullying in the workplace (although I’d want his emotional support) or the best way to deal with menopausal symptoms, as examples.

You might want to do that, other women might want to do that, but I don’t. I can’t stop men from posting and I would respond to a man if I felt like it - I do draw distinction between genuine men asking for advice (and like I said before, I get embarrassed if there’s an unjustified pile on) and those just generally pitching in with advice in response to women’s issues/concerns. That does give me the ick.

MN might now be “for parents”/anyone but it didn’t start out like that. If it was “Parentsnet” and aimed equally at women and men, I’d bet my last dollar that it wouldn’t have been as successful. Women liked having a safe space to chat and discuss their issues - given as many as 1:4 women have been victims of SA, many women are understandably cautious and downright afraid of men. The male voice almost always dominates when a space is shared because we live in a patriarchal society.

At the end of the day this is my opinion - that’s it - just my opinion. But sometimes I just want to scream “FFS just let us have something just for us - stop always having to encroach on women’s spaces!”

You’ve presumably heard of Google? Or are you just used to asking women to do the grafting for you?

Gingerbread Single dads
Dadmatters
Dadinfo
dadsnet
Families need fsthers
the breaking dad

basically there’s plenty of you can be arsed to look

And let's be real, half the people who get accused of being men on here are women

You’ve presumably heard of Google? Or are you just used to asking women to do the grafting for you?

Gingerbread Single dads
Dadmatters
Dadinfo
dadsnet
Families need fsthers
the breaking dad

basically there’s plenty of you can be arsed to look

I must have missed the post listing all the resources for male lone parents. Can you link to it please?

It's definitely the case that when I became a single father some years back I looked around a lot and I found nothing comparable to the wealth of UK-specific parenting advice that I found here. Netmums was close but, frankly, all the huns and tickers made my teeth itch. But if that's changed then I'll definitely look in to it.

I think this is what's known as a straw man. You are vehemently arguing something when I've not said anything to the contrary.
While choosing not to respond to my point about whether a decent man would insert himself onto a thread where women are discussing rape, often their own, to tell them off because they don't say NAMALT? Do you think a decent man would do this?

Nice passive aggressive try at making @thebabayaga2025 DH/DS sound like the problem (ie suggestion they somehow cannot cope with intelligent women) but I think we all know what @thebabayaga2025 means - well at least those of us who are not male apologists do.

As has been said up thread - there are plenty of resources for males/single dads etc - why can’t they just post there where they are more likely to chat with other single dads etc?

It’s fascinating that a website like Mumsnet can attract men to talk about all sorts of mainly female issues behind the anonymity of a screen yet if you started a conversation about such things in say, the pub or at work, they’d likely run a mile!

It's not irrelevant. MEN aren't one single entity, neither are WOMEN

Treating them all as one entity is the problem

Its irrelevant that some men is correct. The point is that a man is on a thread reading about VAWG, often containing distressing personal disclosures from women posters, and his take away is to make it about him. Him and his hurt feelings that in the discussion about rape women didn't pause to remember the lovely men who aren't rapists. I mean, what decent man reading those posts would even think to centre himself?

Some men is correct... but anyway

People aren't saying "men shouldn't be allowed on X, Y and Z board" but they shouldn't be here at all

"Speaking as a man" type starters are no different to "speaking as a gran/childless auntie/teacher/30 year old" starters. It's to place the experience behind the comment in context

On the threads that are nothing to do with a person's sex, there would probably be no cause to know if posters were male or female, so unless the guy does than "man here..." thing, it's a non issue.
Where some people have an issue is when men are on here behaving badly, being disruptive, interrupting discussions about VAWG to tell us what nice men they are and how we really should say 'some men' not 'men' and the inevitable story about how a woman they knew once did something worse.
Then the popping up to offer the 'male perspective', like the whole of the male population has elected Colin from Crawley as their spokesperson on whether 'men like women with curves' or some other nonsense.

Oh, this post again. Makes an appearance every now and again, been a while!
It's a site for PARENTS. You know, both mums and dads. Seeing as men look after their kids as well, they can need parenting support too.
Even the strap line says it's for parents. "By parents, for parents" At least it did last time I looked.

"Male apologists" for being ok with men being where they have every right to be. Ok then.

And plenty on here isn't "women's problems". AIBU can sometimes be almost wholly politics which don't specifically target women for example.

Other topics are about benefits and housing and useful things like that.