Since the majority of parenting is actually done by women - "mothers" -naming a parenting website in a "gender neutral" way would actually have been deeply sexist. Like taking an eraser and rubbing a fact out. Not neutral at all, in fact. A pretend neutrality.
It also flags up that this - massively successful - site was established by women - mothers - how cool is that!
I am really perplexed by how you intend this phrase: "It suggests that the forum is only for women, which in turn conveys the idea that women do more parenting than men."
There is the teeniest implication in there, though perhaps I am misreading you, that it might be incorrect or wrong in some way to convey the idea that women do more parenting than men.
I am genuinely interested in your further thoughts on that.
I'm quite an old lady now, and have been pondering gender and parenting for quite a few of my years. I've reached this conclusion: while there may well be no biological determination to parenting roles, if we look at social roles in the UK, as they currently stand, and analyse the meaning of parenting on a statistical basis, we would be forced to conclude there is a gender dimension to the meaning of parenting. Parenting gendered female, carried out by women in the main, we might call mothering, and the people (actually, women) doing it, we might call mothers. Likewise, we could call the gendered- male counterpart, fathering, carried out by those persons with the biological sex of men mainly, and called fathers. The mothers role tends to be a bit more "present" and involve day to day care - physical and emotional - of the children. On a statistical basis. That is, on a majority basis, at the moment. Male parenting, fathering, at present, in the majority of cases, looks rather different.
We might not feel that the above is ideal. We may work in our own private spheres to alter/modify this. But I think it's a pretty fair summing up of how things stand at present.
Now, given this current set up, isn't there something a leetle weird about people trying to insist that with weasel words you gloss over that?
And I will put my cards on the table here -- I have a sneaky suspicion that one or two chaps are fucking seething - with the rage of those who feel their entitlement to own the whole of the world has been infringed - every time they see the word "mum" in mumsnet. They are furious at the success of this site. And they are furious that it proudly proclaims the presence of not just women, but mothers.
Remember, people feel quite oddly about mothers. Quite a lot of "people" (see what I did there?) feel quite oddly about women.* But you can cube that oddness when it comes to mothers.
*Just look at some of the new stories we've enjoyed this week.