MP receives abusive emails (from men) for taking mat leave

insideandout3, that's okay too.

I don't know you and I don't respect your problem-exacerbating strain of women-do-it-tooism so disappointing you is irrelevant to me.

@Goosefoot all MPs have a constituency office that runs things in their absence. That absence can, for some, be the usual situation, depending on what cabinet/group position they also hold. My current MP is usually in London, where I used to live the local MP was always in his surgery. I live on the Welsh border. The difference is my current MP is/was a cabinet minister.

And having such qualms automatically means you have doubts about any woman's ability to do the job fully! That's why legislation exists, to counteract such discrimination.

insideandout3, you've made a few assumptions, I'm afraid that the ones about me are incorrect. I understand why you would make those assumptions but it's a little disappointing.

Regarding women being abusive about maternity leaves, I have heard quite a few anecdotal comments by women who said that they found other women in their business to be more likely to be unsympathetic compared to men with regard to maternity leaves. Typically these were not "job" type positions but careers with a lot of hours and money attached to them. My sense was always that these women had sacrificed family life themselves and saw other women taking advantage of maternity leave through that lens.

But as for the OP - I am actually a little uncomfortable with MPs taking extensive leave, be it maternity or parental, or even medical. Four weeks is not a lot, in fact I might wonder if she will find it enough. But MPs are there to represent constituents for only four years and if they take extensive leave, something like a year which I certainly think a new mother is entitled to, I find myself concerned about who is fulfilling the role of elected representative. A civil servant, IMO, doesn't cut it.

I also think it's important to have broad representation in Parliament, although it's not something I care much about in other sectors. So I find myself in a bit of a bind as to a good answer.

People who write abusive and rude emails are, of course, dickheads.

A woman in a powerful position takes a highly gendered action and receives a deluge of gendered threats and abuse.

I don't understand the mindset that insists on hitting the reset button in their own brains to fool themselves saying misogynistic abuse is 'equal opportunity' abuse by both men and women. It's not being balanced or equality-minded, it relies on ignoring the mountain of facts that came before it to apply an ahistorical and unearned benefit of the doubt to modern menkind.

There's a sexist slug of "women do it toooo" lurking in there as well, for as I'm typing this Gronky has put up four entire posts on his preferred subject of women being mean and hypothetically abusive instead of talking about MP Siobhan Baillie receiving threatening messages from male constituents for the highly gendered act of taking maternity leave.

Gronky, leave off googling for "women abusive in workplace" for a bit and see what googling "pregnancy discrimination in the UK" pops up for your inspection, then try replying to the subject of the thread instead of the nagging voice in your reset-for-today head.

I was trying to dig up some statistics on workplace abuse but was unable to find studies with a breakdown that listed the sex of the perpetrator vs victim. Another issue I would identify is that perceptions of 'abuse' vary from person to person but, more pertinently to this, an interesting suggestion here is that the sex of the perpetrator might play a role:

www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/female-leaders-likely-accused-bullying/

Would it itself be a form of abuse if a woman had to endure allegations of bullying where a man would not over the same behaviour?

Who is a woman more likely to receive abuse from - a man or a woman?

I believe it massively depends on the lifestyle of a particular woman. For example, I almost never interact with members of the public in the course of my job. Even when I do, it's not as a service provider so I'm unlikely to suffer the slings and arrows people in the service industry might endure. I'm also heterosexual but have also been single for a long time so I'm unlikely to endure abuse at the hands of a partner and even less likely to endure abuse from a female partner.

It would also depend on what your threshold is for differentiating someone being unkind from someone being abusive (I believe the legal definition would be too high to account for what a lot of people consider 'abuse').

Who is a woman more likely to receive abuse from - a man or a woman?

If you're not interested in feminism Gronky, perhaps you should hang out on a different board.

Is my "not [being] interested in feminism" a supposition, a provocation or a provocative supposition?

And calling someone a lazy cunt behind their back isn't the same as sending abusive messages

It was in a reply-to-all email and she was very hurt when she unfortunately read it (an oversight on the part of personnel) but abuse isn't a contest.

Oh give overDildothe "(men)" part in the title would be almost universally interpreted to mean including men, not exclusively men

Oh come off it.

It's a bit like someone who hates cats hanging around the Litter Tray. Just a bit odd frankly

No it isn't. That's a ridiculous comment. Women's rights affect everyone who is a woman, regardless of whether or not they agree with the particular brand of feminism you follow. That comment just telling women to shut up because they don't agree with you.

And also, why be abusive? They aren't just disagreeing if the staff are talking about involving the police.

Yup! Men held her to account for not personally responding to their complaints about other men.

Despite the fact that an office including men had responded!

It was on points west last night (bbc) and they quoted, emails from constituents, mostly men. Apparently because she wasn’t available to be a punch bag for the boho/Cummings situation.

Yes, your assumption was entirely correct and, having seen some examples of the comments, the men involved were quite weird.

Like the man who wondered why she couldn't take time to respond as she was sat at home; or the one who was pissed off that having been voted for she had the nerve to stop working just because she had given birth. The one who didn't think MPs should take maternity leave at all.

Most of the comments I saw ignored the fact that all queries had been responded to by her constituency office. They just wanted to know what gave her the nerve not to be doing the job they may or may not have voted for her to do and were paying for via taxes.

There was a lot of angry and exasperated tone in many of the queries. Damn woman! And they were equally dismissive of the male secretary trying to explain the situation.

^ to be clear, I don't want to move in with you.

Oh give over Dildo the "(men)" part in the title would be almost universally interpreted to mean including men, not exclusively men.

Why are you defending the abuse of a woman for taking maternity leave, by not exclusively but including men.

Other articles have also pointed out that men were in the majority of complainants.

Can we move in now?

Maternity leave is a problem in politics and I believe Stella Creasey was the first MP to EVER take maternity leave as recently as last year.

It is asad reflection on the state of Women's rights overall in the UK.

Your supposition is only correct in that some of the emails were indeed sent by men. Not much of a supposition really given that all of the e- mails must have been sent by either men or women. Some of them were from women.

And obviously I was being deliberately provocative.

No, I was making a supposition. Which appears was correct

because women never complain about other women taking maternity leave

I've lived quite a sheltered life so I'm sure there's worse out there but the most horrible abuse I've (indirectly) experienced relating to maternity leave was a new hire who thought it would be a good idea to, in her first week, refer to her manager as a "lazy c*" because she took the most maternity leave available to her (12 months, 9 at full salary).

I've never had children but I have had surgical recovery and sleep deprivation separately, the two together seem almost unthinkably challenging.

And obviously I was being deliberately provocative

No you were making it up to suit your own agenda.

I agree, attributing negative attributes to men on FWR isn't terribly provocative.

It is a supposition that all the complaints were from men in the absence of a report that chose to capture that information. And I'd hazard a fair supposition at that.

I also think it's fairly unlikely that women would complain about a woman taking a mere 4 weeks off after giving birth

Oh ha ha - because women never complain about other women taking maternity leave- yeah right.

And obviously I was being deliberately provocative

No you were making it up to suit your own agenda.