Surprised by the judgemental tone here and hoping for more solidarity

[Newonhere]

I recently googled ‘does Per Una clothing come up small?’ and it led me to mumsnet.com for the first time. Now from that one sentence I’m sure you will have already realised I’m getting on in my years and it’s been a while that my children were toddlers, but I don’t think I’m that out of touch with motherhood, due to Nanny days with my 1 and 3 year old grandkids.
The thread that I followed made me so desperately sad that I felt compelled to write my own chat. All I read were chats with women judging and laughing at other women. Commenting on clothing style and choices of the older generation or work colleagues as if their opinions were superior. Now I’m all for having an opinion and love the idea of free speech and the opportunity to express yourself. But sniping, bitchy and judgmental posts about fellow women, in a world that needs us to stick together, in fact on a forum that I’d have thought was an opportunity for solidarity of fellow mums. Well if you can’t see the sadness in that……? But you’ve probably stopped reading this anyhow.

I read it.

What topic were you on, OP? There are plenty of supportive threads on here. Whilst there may be some judgey posts on some threads, mostly threads are a mix. Could you link a couple of the threads you are criticising?

There are hundreds of thousands of posters - perhaps millions - on MN, mostly but not 100% women, often but not always mothers. Some of those people won't be nice people. Some of those people will be nice but be having a bad day. That's humans for you.

The style and beauty mavens take no prisoners. But if you see ageism do report it.

OP don't be sad.

I also read your post. No reason for sadness, OP. Do you realise how enormous Mn is? Supposedly it has something like 8 million users. Expecting it to be some kind of solidarityfest purely because it’s female dominated makes no sense.

There are enormously supportive boards on here, too.

But sniping, bitchy and judgmental posts about fellow women, in a world that needs us to stick together, in fact on a forum that I’d have thought was an opportunity for solidarity of fellow mums.

Men post here too. As do child free adults. Bit judgey to assume it was just mothers being bitchy...

Haven’t you just started a thread snipping, bitching and being judgmental about other women because you disagreed with some comments on other threads though…?

We do have more than one brain and opinion between us.

Depends where you're looking really. I'm on a long running thread for a health condition for my child (under another name) and it's honestly been the thing that keeps me going. The support has been incredible. Stay out of aibu and chat generally would be my advice. Find something that is about your specific needs or interests and you'll see a different side to mumsnet.

MN has many very supportive boards, I hang out a lot on education and elderly parents and SEN - all extremely supportive.

It also has boards where posters will be blunt to help the OP rather than sugar coating and just agreeing. That is still being supportive.

It also has AIBU which is a bun fight and best stayed clear of unless of strong constitution.

If you want platitudes and "be kind", suggest netmums might be better for you?

Alternatively, you could set up your own forum?

I've been on MN since 2005 under various user names. Trust me, it was way more brutal back then.

I would say that MN has been a steady constant in my life through then. It has helped me through some really difficult times, celebrated happy events with me and it remains my go to for honest advice. Everything from where to find the best value car insurance for teenagers to "what can I cook with these ingredients" to "please can someone identify this moth I've found".

I've seen abused women, who didn't even know they were in abusive relationships, and parents struggling to cope with neurodiverse children, get the most fantastic support.

Granted, you have to be brave to post on AIBU or in Style and beauty, but if you are looking for an honest opinion then you can be sure of getting that.

I've only asked one question here, and it was a few months ago when my partner of 15 years had a wobbly and thought he wanted to leave me, and the advice was lovely. A lot of people assumed he'd met someone else, which turned out not to be the case, and a few went off on their own tangents, arguing between themselves, but 99.9% of the replies were extremely supportive, and I have to say, that is what I see in the majority.

Why do women have to be support humans? Why do we have to be tone policed?

It's a very old fashioned and limiting attitude to have towards women that we all have to be simpering and nice.

God forbid we give honest feedback and say "Jesus you'll look like a sack of shit in that".

It might save someone from embarrassing themselves in public.

I think many people are generally rude these days.
Communication has changed. People speak to each other via machines. Not directly over a landline or in person so much. And a lot of communication is lost. No body language, no tone. A lot is lost if only using text.

And peoples manners have deteriorated as a result. People are anonymous. And say what they like without care. People justify rudeness by saying they are being honest. But what they are being often is unkind. Some even transfer into the world of enjoying being unkind online. And are probably a bit damaged by it.
They may know or not realise it.

I also think peoples communication skills are way lower than they used to be generally speaking. Some people can barely enunciate the words they do speak. Mumbling. Unclear words barely said clearly.

Whilst this is called Mumsnet anyone can join. And from anywhere. This site is not exclusive to women in the UK. A bloke anywhere could be online and pretend to be a woman. But most will be women. And women are not supportive to other women simply because they are.

Your own OP appears to be fairly judgemental.

Women are whole people aside from their motherhood, they don’t have to be perfect paragons on the Internet or anywhere else.

We all have to hashtag be kind remember 🙄

Bitchy

Nothing says "solidarity for mums" quite like telling women off for being mean......by being mean about women.

Its a bold strategy, Cotton.

I remember a thread years ago that sneered at ‘tourist mums’ out with their families in London for wearing fleeces, carrying cross-body bags and having ‘sagging bums in baggy mum jeans’.

I was pretty disappointed by the tone on that thread and posted saying as much. It stuck in my mind because I have a female relative who would probably look just like that, for whom getting out and about in London would be a massive achievement due to the severe MH problems that MN loves to purport to support.

But funnily enough, the cross-body bags and baggy jeans seem to have come back into style…

Not everyone likes Per Una, or baggy jeans, or any one of a million other choices. But there’s also nothing wrong with being polite and nice (yes, I stand by ‘nice’!) towards someone who is asking for help or advice. Otherwise what’s the point? We might as well be grunting at each other in caves.

Would you speak to your friend like that? Or your sister? No, you bloody well wouldn't. Theres giving an opinion and then deliberately being a b**ch.

Fucking would.

Along with "christ, dont wear that, its awful"

I don’t think anyone spoke to OP directly like that (though I think this might be a post and run from the OP, so we may never know…)

Having read a lot of Red's posts over the years... yes they would. As would I, and I hope my friends and family were honest with me if I looked awful.

'Getting on in years..' and we are supposed to take you seriously OP

I find the whole #bekind (which is always aimed at women) extremely problematic. We are losing the art of robust debate and sometimes it helps people to be honest rather than staying quiet because you think that women must always be kind to one another and never say anything controversial. It's a pretty misogynistic view in my opinion..... essentially "be nice or shut up."

An example immediately comes to mind from a long running thread I'm part of on the weight loss boards where someone clearly needed help and had taken it too far and another poster bravely spoke up and said they were concerned. They received a load of abuse in return but they did the exact right thing in my opinion.

I agree there are ways of saying things, and some replies can be brutal but women aren't a homogeneous group.... there'll be plenty of total bitches on here just like there's loads of lovely posters. If you think a poster has gone too far then report their post and it'll be deleted if it's broken any rules.

Personally I've had some of the best support and advice of my life on Mumsnet over the years. It was a poster on the Money board that encouraged me to start investing for my future and paying extra into my pension, I've had advice on parenting matters, health matters and support with everything from as big an issue as coping with an alcoholic relative to as small as make-up recommendations.

She was on style and beauty! It’s a shame if we can’t advise each other on clothes or products without being snide or nasty.

OP isn't talking about advice threads.

Commenting on clothing style and choices of the older generation or work colleagues as if their opinions were superior

Also, she doesn't explicitly say that she was on style and beauty - she found MN by googling Per Una sizing.

ETA the first MN thread that came up when I googled that was an AIBU from 2008. I dunno about you but I wasn't on MN in 2008.

ETA2 and the second that comes up IS a S+B thread from 2019 but the OP of the thread is effectively saying 'I bought a Per Una dress and it's better than I thought it would be, mock if you want!" with the replies including things like "ooh, that is nice" and "I have that in another colour"

Hardly a bitchy mcsnipefest...