Why are there so many men on this site?

[19ptrialprice]

There seems to be an increasing number of men on this website. These men appear to present themselves as straight cisgender men. This isn’t a trans issue. I don’t understand why a website that was created specifically for mums have a large number of men on it.

I understand why childfree women join as there are a lot of threads that are not about parenting. Childfree women will also use the site to get advice on TTC or miscarriage which are women exclusive, in the sense that women are the ones that give birth and also have to go through miscarriage. Men of course will experience child birth and grief but it’s the women, whose bodies have to experience this. Women have a shared experience of being a woman for example starting your period, growing breasts, TTC, miscarriage and menopause. Something that men’s body will never experience. Of course men are entitled to use this site but why should women have to put up with the men that are making sexist goady comments, which they are a lot of.

Should say this post is influenced by a man who told me to fuck off on this site after I called him out on his sexist behaviour.

Why were you banned

It was last summer and I said a male boxer was male.

I’m pretty sure there was more to it.

@19ptrialprice yes that was probably an oversimplified version. I happened to join Reddit at the time of the Olympics boxing scandal. The overwhelming view on there was that 2 female boxers were the victim of a Russian conspiracy to pretend they were male, which I thought was BS and said so. The way it seemed to work was that as a new account that had been heavily downvoted, I got flagged as a troll, banned from the subreddits I'd posted on & shadowbanned from the wider site. None of which means I need to post on MN but very occasionally when reading I guess I forget where I am and join in.

You forget where you are and join in? I guess you can’t control these urges?

Guess not.

I can confirm this, I said something about how in any sport needs to be divided by sex it was combat sport and they suspended my account for 3 days.

And @notimagain

Woman and mother here

Sections on MN have largely sprung up following user requests. Back when it was all fields round here, I was instrumental in canvassing for History Club and Science & Nature.

There are also many defunct sections (Euro 2022 etc) that haven’t been deleted and some odd topic names (why is it called “What we are reading” and not “Books”, for example) There are still MN specific emojis from the days before smartphones

The organic and rather haphazard growth of MN is part of its charm, to me - and I’m sure if several posters asked for a men’s health section, one might be created.

And one of the experts on school threads.

To be honest I wish MN would ban male posters from the sex topic.
Women can't even post there asking for any advice because it's full of the hairy handed sat waiting with their tiny cocks in their hands waiting for someone to post something they can wank to.

I do get it, OP - mansplaining is effing annoying (the gynae op example mentioned is particularly galling) but there is nothing you can do about it. The site is female focussed but not exclusively female and I think it genuinely is one of the best places on the UK internet for lots of life advice - books, holidays, best schools in an area etc. Any new site is up against MN already being well entrenched - if you googled “best family holiday in Italy” and got 50 threads on MN and two on DadsRUs.com, where would you click?

At the end of the day it's the internet. It's not a 'safe space'. There are plenty of people who annoy me on this site, most of whom are probably women, but I don't get to tell them not to post.

is one of the best places on the UK internet
It used to be but now it’s overrun with common garden misogynists posting facile and boring comments, nothing more dull than mansplaining or male clever clogs comments😴. It's spoiling the threads but, on the upside, I can finally kick my MN habit, which will free up time for more productive things. Thank you misogynists.

Yawn. It has never been a women’s only space.
I like the variety of posters, male, female, younger, older, people with loads of children, others with none, people from all over the world with a huge variety of backgrounds and cultures. Imagine how dull it would be if the only posters were all white middle class middle aged British women with 2.4 children.

No, how about they fuck off to a male website and leave women's websites alone.
This isn't a woman's we site though.

100%. I don't know why we have to have this boring discussion time and time again, but I am over it. It is not and never has been a 'woman's website' and people who don't like that need to just get over it.

I dont advocate any ban for men or anything like that but must admit I'm not keen on it either. Men dominate so much in life that its nice to have this site. And I hope it will always be massively prodominantly women.

Engaging on threads that you find dull is a fools game.

it’s the great thing about MN: subjects that people are interested in gain traction and those that are not of interest fizzle out.

But what's even the point of these threads? Half the replies on them are explaining that this site was never intended exclusively for women. I also don't understand why the minority of women on here who don't want men to post think that their desires are more important than the majority's. It is just silly. If people feel that strongly about that they should set up their own site and stop spamming this one with the same boring crap.

Good grief if a man posts in good faith that he's baffled, has a problem for X reasons with his female partner I'm happy to explain if I understand

Same. I don't understand why so many women on here seem to detest men. I suspect that they have chosen poorly themselves and assume that all men are as crap as their partners/exes.

I’m glad you reported that.

I’ve had a sexist poster who says he’s a man (and I believe that he is) be vile to me. It’s not what I come to Mumsnet for, no.

Like pp said, I have plenty of wonderful men in my life but it’s good to be able to be with women.