Isn't the name of Mumsnet itself sexist?

*thecat

It's a site intended for mums. The name MN makes perfect sense!
And what acatfromjapan said.

No, get a life

I read in a newspaper article recently, cant remember which one, that Justine is thinking about starting a dadsnet.
Which mean that mumsnet are more than aware that the current dadsnet is really just an add on.

Ilikethebreeze - And some debates would be much more realistic with men's perspectives.

I find this statement quite fascinating.

I'm at last getting round to reading Dale Spender's book, Man Made Language and there's quite a lot in there about how 'objectivity' = male subjectivity. This reminds me of that.

There's nothing unrealistic about women's perspectives, they're just not heard or taken seriously with anything like the frequency of men's perspectives, which are considered the mainstream.

I'm perfectly happy for men to post here but I really like how MN is predominantly a female space because it allows women's equally realistic perspectives to be heard and I don't think that's all that common.

"CarerNet" just isn't quite as catchy is it?

"ParentNet" - sounds like a social services special op.

"DadsNet" wouldn't have led to the same place and besides its was started by and for (initially) Mums.

I think "Adultnet" might be in use elsewhere!

You can't swear on other parenting websites!?

ooh no. Only needed a quick glance to know that site is not for me. I am well past the baby stage.

didnt know about parents.com. Will take a look

tethersend I must admit the "mum's gone to Iceland" kind of thing does irk me a bit. But mumsnet's name doesn't.

I think the difference with mumsnet is that there are loads of alternatives. There are websites that are set up for non-gender specific parenting, eg parents.com. There are websites aimed primarily at fathers, including dadsnet.com.

By contrast, the generic "Capable mums deal with the kids while roller-skating through their period, dimwitted fathers can barely dress themselves and need showing how to use a microwave" cliches offer less choice in avoiding them.

I'm on mumsnet simply because I prefer it here. There are loads of fantastically clever, funny, erudite, thoughtful and/or downright rude members. Plus I can swear here which is something of a rarity on parenting sites.

The name is a bit sexist but I think Mumsnet is allowed to get away with it because of its tolerance to people outwith the scope of being a mum.

I think it's the same as mum's gone to Iceland and the thousand and one nappy/formula/food adverts which specifically talk about their products making mums happy. Because fathers don't give a fuck about their kids

It wants changing.

Change it.

At once.

I am a bloke and not bothered by the name at all.

I think when I joined there were about 8 men regularly posting but it seems like a lot more on here now who dont necessarily identify themselves as men. That happened when mainstream media began quoting MN a lot more about 2 years ago and a jolly good thing too.

Mainstream media does still tend to think it is a 'women's issue website' though and that perception might need addressing when MN is campaigning on things like parental leave that affect both sexes.

there x2

Nah breeze, according to marketing principles* they wouldn't make any money of 20,000 men because they couldn't advertise directly to them, and risk alienating the target audience (why are their ads for Gillette razors on my site?) and their wouldn't be enough traffic to Gillette razors to make it worth their while doing that.

*Disclaimer: of course, all marketing principles are deeply, deeply gendered and so on FWR we would potentially choose to disregard that argument. But people tend to make money working on gendered lines.

So actually, I have now talked myself round!! It is sexist because it is based on highly-gendered marketing principles!

From my experience of the site, I think 2,000 men would be welcomed, as long as MN still remained focused on parenthood, including the female-specific bits like childbirth, breast/bottle feeding, maternity leave. The service is effectively accessible to anyone, it just happens, in part, to be more relevant to mums.

MN's a bit confusing because, as Wilson said, it covers such a wide bredth of topics. This makes it a bit harder to see the main focus, and makes it seem more loosely targetted (which is good for business as it means higher ad views and, thus, higher profit.)

One way of looking at it was that it was originally set up by a few mums. Also according to whois info mumsnet.com was registered in 2003 whereas parentsnet.com had already been around for a couple of years by that point although I note that it appears to have died a while ago. Thirdly, I find "parentsnet" a bit clumsy. There's four consonants all squashed in together and it doesn't flow as well.

Most importantly for me as a man however is that I genuinely could not care less if it's called mumsnet.com, parentsnet.com, childtaming.com or schplazingo.com. It's a good site. Decent people are welcomed from a very broad range of backgrounds. Fuckwits are shown the door in a swift and often very entertaining manner. It doesn't matter.

You could be right WilsonFrickett and Frettchen.
I think MN would have a collective heart attack if 20,000 men joined, or even 2,000.
But I would have thought 2,000 men would be enough for extra money making?

Of course, there are the MRAs who can't bear the idea of a forum which attracts mainly women, and gives them a place to talk and find support. Mumsnet isn't just about parenting, its about forming and maintaining relationships, imo. The name is just what it is.

I think as well we have to remember MN isn't a public service. It's making money, which means it has to have a target audience and demographic. And mothers are attractive to advertisers.

YY but 'whole population' forums don't do very well. People like to talk to people like them - I agree this can be a bit limiting though. The 'slices' are usually much narrower tbf, MN is actually quite unusual in its breadth and depth of reach.

number of members/cross section of people it covers. Most other forums segment more heavily, like hobby websites, car owner sites, dating, etc.

I would say, rather than being sexist, it's just being honest about its target audience, which could potentially have the effect of alienating people who aren't its target audience, but it would only, IMHO be sexist if men weren't allowed.

The way I see it, there are many, many forums on the internet; I used to be a member of a pet forum - it was predominantly for pet owners, but non-pet owners were allowed to come in, ask questions, participate etc. It was just aimed more toward people with pets.

I first heard of MN through my best friend when she was first TTC. I signed up at some point because it looked like an interesting place, but I lurked for such a long time because I felt like I didn't belong, even though I had views on many of the non-parenting topics, mainly because I'm not a mum. I've only started posting this year because I'm starting to plan a pregnancy (using IUI with donor sperm, so not your typical potential mother) and I knew when the time came that I had questions, here's the right place to be.

So yeah - that's my thinking...

That said, my inner devil's advocate is asking 'would it be ok to have a WhiteNet website aimed at people of a specific skin colour but open to all people to join it? My immediate response is that no, that wouldn't be ok, but I can't pinpoint how/why that's different to MumsNet or Men's Health, or Women's Choice...

Xenia, vair true not really

I think it's racist and UK-centric
What about all of us in forrin climes? MamasNet? MomsNet?MuttiNet?

Isnt going to happen though, is it?