Why is mumsnet so anti men?

[LolaKicks]

I joined mumsnet because I am currently seven months pregnant, but I didn't expect it to be so negative towards men. Husbands always seem to be in the wrong and for most posts there seems to be a reply of "leave the bastard" or "he seems abusive to me" even when it is not warranted.

I am not saying that the relationships being posted about are all sweetness and light, but surely females are in the wrong sometimes. In some cases it is okay for a woman to something i.e. tell a lie or buy something secretly, however a shooting offence for the man in the relationship to do the same thing.

Maybe I am naive but I thought this was a parenting website and I and really questioning whether it is worth sticking around. So am I being unreasonable and unrealistic?

Kitty I thought I was wrong once in my house but it turns out I was actually mistaken.....

And so what if Mumsnet is anti men at times??
Big deal.
Isn't the rest of the world anti women all the time??
You'll live and learn.

I posted this on another thread but will repeat.

In relationships the other day there was a post from a woman who's husband had a new job which involved being away from home and he deleted all his messages in his phone but she had no idea if he had always done this or not. Plus she admitted the new job was high powered and their were genuine reasons he would be away. On this 'evidence' she was being told if her gut told her then he must be having an affair, advised to follow him to see what he was doing and snoop on him.

The same day there was another thread from a woman who's husband was accusing her of affairs and snooping on her and the same people were saying what a bastard he was and how terrible it was he didn't trust her and accusing him of emotional abuse and paranoia because he was accusing her of affairs on flimsy evidence, snooping, spyng etc.

It was incredibly weird because in the same forum on the same day people were giving the exact opposite advice on the same situation dependant on whether it was a man or a woman. They were actively encouraging the woman to engage in behaviour that they had labelled paranoid and emotionally abusive in a man. Go figure.

Welcome to the 'real world' honey. The stuff women post on MN are the issues that they can not talk about openly in rl. So its a supportive social network. Not everybody's life is smooth (but if yours is, keep it that way)

A problem shared with total strangers, is a problem solved/eased
And that's my opinion.

Worra

Sallykitten and were these all the same posters that were posting? Or could it be that - gasp - different posters respond to different threads and have different opinions and ideas?

But that anecdote only has any relevance if the two threads comprised the same posters Sally. There's a huge variety of opinions on Mumsnet and in my experience, for every poster who's got a problem with men as an entire sex (rather than men who are wankers) there are 100 who tell women to suck up bad behaviour from men because that's what they do, 20 who seem to hate women and try to make the OP feel small and belittled (especially in AIBU) and 800 balanced and kind posters who genuinely care for a poster's feelings and do their best to listen rather than projecting their own experiences on to the OP.

That said, I do think those posters who infantilise men and claim that they don't see dirt, can't help but look at porn, have higher sex-drives than women and if they behave badly, a woman is to blame i.e. the posters who consistently blame women for men lying to them - really don't have a very high opinion of men at all. I see more of that type of man-hating than the kind you seem to be alluding to in your OP.

Isn't the rest of the world anti women all the time??

No, I don't think it is.

Isn't the rest of the world anti women all the time??

No, I don't think it is.
Add message | Report | Message poster sternface Sun 17-Jun-12

Completely agree with Sooty. And, er, no it isn't.

OP, it doesn't matter who you are, what colour, creed or gender.... generally on mumsnet people tend to just say it like it is...
anywya, as others have pointed out, when things are good people rarely feel the need to post about it, it tends to be when things are going not so good

Ilovesooty and howdoo you are wrong. The world is very anti women, open your eyes!

The rest of the world is not anti-women all the time. Just most of the time in most of the places. Massive disparity in wages, forced/child marriages, education favoring boys, rape, the sex trade, work in the home massively devalued, power and money mostly in the hands of men. If you are a woman you can't drive in Saudi, you can't have sex with who you want in Afghanistan, you can't vote without proving your education in the Lebanon.

I like the men in my life but let's not pretend that we won the war.

i speak for all mumsnetters when i say we are most definatley anti men.

@op

Women post here about men.

If you go to male mags you won't see articles like ' my wife is a wonderful woman' unless it ends with 'when it comes to blow jobs'.

LineRunner Sat 16-Jun-12 22:15:05

Are there poeple for whom it is some sort of community sentence to come on MN? Because they really don't seem to like it.

Linerunner - thank you for my morning laugh!

Apart from the times that I've been threatened with having my beard burnt off, I've never been subject to anti male sentiment on MN. To be fair I deserved the beard burning too, I'd just done something silly with the Olympic torch

As others have said:

Mumsnet isn't anti or pro anything, it's a community with loads of different women (and men) and different views - it's not one big homogenous lump of any type of woman.

Posters on Mumsnet are not anti men, but a vast majority are anti cocklodgers and twunts.

We all have our own views and boundaries. I wouldn't divorce my dh for visiting a strip club (though I would kick his arse). And I don't think a man who goes on a beer bender twice a month is an alcoholic and a terrible father.

But you know what, often the 'leave the bastard' posters do sense and see something in an opening post and very often it turns out there to be more problems and shitty behaviour from the bloke in question. I've seen that many times.

Women post about problems. If you read about MIL you would assume that they were all dreadful. No one feels the need to write about lovely ones. The same with men.

It is a support network-when people say 'leave the bastard' they are generally right!

I think that society in general encourages women to "stand by your man" and put up with no end of questionable behaviour, and just be grateful they have a man.

So yes, he may shag about "try to make it work" do nothing around the house "men eh " leaving your to scrub his skidmarks off the bog, duck out of parenting at the weekends "he's tired, he deserves a rest" etc - and there are very few places in life where people who manage relationships without this shit (or are happily single) say - actually, bugger this - why are you putting up with it?

At least-having off loaded she ought to then see that she doesn't have to put up with it-it is actually abuse.