Open letter: Mothers Appeal To Mumsnet CEO Justine Roberts

Maybe she's more concerned about these women and children because it's British tax payers money that is un-aliving them. We send copious amounts of money to Israel along with weapons for them to use to kill these women and children.

So its about Sudan? No thought not. Frankly I am tired of the only focus being on Gaza, where there is now a fragile ceasefire. The world knows about Gaza, and its appalling, but I don’t think a letter to Justine is going to solve it frankly. Why is there no outrage about the appalling situation in Sudan? Do people not care about the dead children and actual genocide there? If its genocide and dead children that you care about then lift your eyes from Gaza fir 5 minutes and look elsewhere in the world.

I can't work out whether you are being deliberately obtuse or just can't grasp the point?

It doesn't really matter what the topic of the letter is, it's fundamentally problematic to write an open letter like that and address it to an individual (Justine) who has no personal influence over the situation. The correct addressee for the letter was either the prime minister or the foreign Secretary.

I think it's pretty much unprecedented to write a letter like that and send it to the press when it is addressed to somebody with a no actual influence over the situation it refers to.

That's the issue here

It about dead women and children in a specific area. What about all all the other dead women and children in the other wars going on right now - do they not matter to these women?

This letter is all about, dead children, dead women and an on going genocide. The majority of mums on here have all made excuses why they shouldn't sign it. These are the same sort of mums that would have excused Nazis and they are 'raising' the next generation, shame on you. Dead children under any circumstances is wrong, children are innocent, doesn't matter where they come from or what they look like.

They could have approached Justine privately and checked with her what kind of campaigning activity is permissible on Mumsnet under the terms and conditions of Mumsnet use.

They could then have asked her for suggestions about how best to use the site facilities, and she could have explained to them about polls, the petitions board, where best for them to post the template for an open letter to Keir Starmer/Foreign Secretary/ whoever for Mumsnetters to add their signatures to, and any other possibilities the site software and structure provides.

If appropriate, they or Justine could then have issued a press release(s) saying " actors seek women's support for Gaza aid via Mumsnet" or some such suitable wording, and later , "x% of Mumsnetters polled support Gaza aid/ X number of Mumsnetters sign letter to PM" ( or whatever).

In other words, concrete, specific actions carried out by them, with Justine's blessing, and backed by numbers of individual Mumsnetters who have actually been consulted. Not publicly twisting Justine's arm to say that "Mumsnet" is on their side.

100%.

I agree with this.

Ah. I see!

Oh, she has done, and it's working out so well...

Why not just start a thread here, and let the individual women of Mumsnet decide what to support?

We're a forum. Full of women. If the writers of this letter want our support, it's very easy to ask for it. It's patronising to go over our heads to Justine. They want the many voices of Mumsnet behind them, but they want to get them the lazy way - by just getting Justine to speak for all of us, as if she's our mum.

What you or I or Justine think doesn't actually matter here. We can't speak for the entire forum, and shouldn't presume to. There's no need for "Mumsnet" to be treated as an entity here. We can all speak for ourselves.

Having started your own thread and had a very mixed response, (511 votes, 46% saying YABU), you've come to play pigeon chess on ours.

How mature of you.

Where are the other calls? They've been completely silent on women's rights and wars in other countries.

No they are simply asking Mumsnet to support a call to allow aid agencies continue their work supporting pregnant women in Gaza. I think efforts to support reduced maternal and infant mortality are always commendable and worthy of support whatever the nationality of the women involved. Do you not?

This. I don't see what Justine speaking up is going to accomplish. Is she supposed to tell the government to do again what they've already done? It feels like a virtue signal, and as you say, there's a soft power that comes when the CEO of a website makes a statement like that. I suspect the signatories of the letter are hoping to push Justine into making a public statement, in the hope it'll have a chilling effect on discussions here.

I really don't like that.

We're not a hivemind. We're a forum. Women here have all kinds of feelings on the war in Gaza. It's not possible for Justine to speak for all of us. The best she can do is what she's already doing - letting us speak amongst ourselves! That's enough for me, and it should certainly be enough for a bunch of actors who don't even go here.

Well that is a complete misrepresentation of what was said

No one is denying children (and adults) are suffering in Gaza.

You call it whataboutery, I call it accountability. Why is it so unreasonable to want to know why Justine (and in effect all Mumsnet users, as that's her source of political influence) are being asked to support this one particular call to action, over all other conflicts/war zones, and just what difference diluting Mumsnet UK-focused campaigns would make?

The UK Foreign Minister has already called on Israel to drop it's requirements and let MSF et al into Gaza. So what extra is this letter to Justine going to achieve? Foreign Minister writes a p.s.? Netanyahu quakes at the thought of UK mums shouting at each other on a UK web forums?

Sorry, link didn't post.

New restrictions limit access to care for women in Herat | MSF

Bloody hell - the OP on the AIBU thread has handwaved away all the comments about Afghanistan by proclaiming the Taliban allow in humanitarian staff.

Well I didn't think they did because have been following WDI afghanistan but I eventually (after some searching) found this from the MSF. Most of the blurb on their website about Afghanistan is from much longer ago, but this is fairly recent.

At the Islam Qala border crossing with Iran, humanitarian organisations are witnessing similar challenges while bringing care to returnees who have been expelled from Iran. Out of more than one hundred female staff who previously worked there, only three - a midwife, a doctor, and a nurse - are currently permitted to work, under strict conditions requiring them to wear a burqa at all times.

so basically, no, the Taliban are not allowing humanitarian staff in to treat women.

I certainly agree it’s disgusting that children in Gaza are suffering like this, and everyone is pretending to forget it. No whataboutery needed.

Personally I think it’s inhumane that little Jewish kids in this country need an armed guard on the doors of their schools because crazy Islamic terrorists keep trying to murder them. People who actually support peace in Gaza need to stop marching in lockstep with the ‘globalise the intifada’ crowd really, don’t they? Otherwise it just looks like you just want to replace one alleged genocide with another.

I keep thinking about this (your 1st paragraph) in response to claims on the other thread that Justine/Mumsnet wields some huge political power that has politicians quaking... What political campaigns has Mumsnet actually 'won'? 🤔 How much influence did Mumsnet have on the setting up of the maternity review?
For immediate change in government policy Joanna Lumley achieved it for the Gurkha soldiers so they should just wheel her out again!

I'd be pretty annoyed if Justine did support the letter writers without first properly surveying users to see if they want to change the type of campaigns Mumsnet supports.

Justine has been very clever up till now to not show her own politics and all her political influence is from claiming to represent users. (As you say - we're the marketable product.)