...to think that LinkedIn isn't so mum-friendly?

[semi]

I am a working mum with quite a few professional contacts on Linkedin and have found that most self-employed women/mumpreneurs I've spotted in the press haven't got a Linkedin profile. What's that all about? Don't virtual networks well lend themselves to busy mums? Or is it that we just don't like to share what we are up to? Talk about our successes/achievements?

I thought it was a mum who is also an entrepreneur

unlike a mumployee or mumployer or in fact a mumunemployed person

Well, it's condescending, sarahseashell. You don't call them Dadpreneurs, do you?

So why must the word mum be there?

WOW - such a range of views. I thought everyone was aware of the 'mumpreneur' name tag that's often used to describe stay at home or working mums who run their own businesses? I guess not Tee2072 and Euroshaggleton? And what's YABVVVVVVU all about? Should I spend more time on here to decipher the code? Oreocrumbs - that was my point. It is a networking site but I don't see many mumpreneurs on there networking. I guess it's an industry thing like many of you have said. I'm both legal and PR (figure that!) and love it on there. Thought that I've float this question as I wondered if I was the only one. Am sure I won't see many of you on there soon. One of the papers should write a piece about the vitriol surrounding the word 'mumpreneur' as it's caused such fury!

Montmartre, your post has made my day.

We are aware of the name, but that doesn't mean we like it. It sets a very odd and unnecessary distinction between people who run their own business and are also mothers and women without children or all men, who just get to entrepreneurs. The implication is that being a mum is their primary role and isn't it sweet that they've got a little hobby, rather than being taken as seriously as anyone else with the same sort of business.

YABVU - You are have posted on a board called "Am I Being Unreasonable" (AIBU) and the answer may be YABU (you are being unreasonable) or YANBU (you are not being unreasonable). V is for very.

And before anyone says "but being a mum IS my primary role" - it's not the first that a business associate should think of when they see you.

I am a Mum and I work from home.

My LinkedIn profile does not mention the fact that I have given birth as it has nothing to do with my ability to teach and translate.

I feel a little bit vommy at that silly word btw.

WHAT ABOUT THE DADPRENEURS?

Jeez.

Of course I'm aware of the incredibly twee and condescending term mumpreneur. Do you call them dadpreneurs as well? Or do they get to just be entrepreneurs as their parental status isn't important and a woman's is?

Are all of your opinions and terminology also sexist and condescending to women? Or just this one?

Many many papers have written about the term mumpreneur. Perhaps you've been living under a rock for the last few years?

As I said, I have a LI profile. I'm an entrepreneur. My being a mother has nothing to do with it.

at Montmartre.

Am sure I won't see many of you on there soon

Did you mean to sound so patronising, because that's how it came across.

BTW, if I did see you on there? You'd not be part of my network. I only network with people who aren't condescending to their own gender.

HTH!

Revolting word, deeply patronising and cringeworthy.

I can't work out why one would want to talk about one's kids whilst using LinkedIn.

I'm on Linked In. I agree that that bit where they cyber-test your womb to check whether it has expelled children, and then downgrade you to a lower-status membership seemed a bit unfair. Perhaps if I'd never had children Linked In wouldn't be the bizarrely pointless purveyor of esoteric spam that I have found it to be.

I'm a mumopy-editor, btw. It's like a mumpreneur except that I edit books.

Floaty

We're forgetting the real issue here - that LinkedIn is a pile of rubbish.
And I don't like the term mumpreneur either.

One of the papers should write a piece about the vitriol surrounding the word 'mumpreneur' as it's caused such fury!

It is not a word.

Mumpreneur suggest a mummy who has a cupcake/bunting business as a hobby rather than an entrepreneurial business person. It is a term that does women a disservice which is why people prob don't put themselves on LinkedIn with that terminology. They prefer to be taken seriously. You don't see top business women referring to themselves in such a naff way.

I just don't understand why anyone thinks that defining themselves as a mother is in any way going to progress their career.

It tells me that that individual is likely to be unreliable, part time, wear a lot of boden, worry about their weight, be the lesser earning partner in their relationship and generally be unprofessional.

Not because I think that of mothers in the work place, but because I think that of someone who wishes to define themselves first as a freakin mumpreneur.

It can only possibly assist someone wishing to reach out to other mumpreneur s. in which case actually, please do continue to brand yourselves so the rst of us can avoid you.

I'm sure journos have already written the anti-"mumpreneur" piece. It's standard procedure to invent a trend, coin a new word to make it seem real, extract whatever drops of column-writing utility the term has to offer, and then write a final few columns about how unrealistic, offensive and trivialising this new term (that you peddled in the first place) is.

Women often seem to get the brunt of these pretend controversies with their neat new labels. Yummy mummies and slummy mummies, SAHM/WOHM, mumpreneurs v. anti-cup-cakist businesswomen in a man's world. Invented divisions to fill column-inches.

"5 years, 3 months, 15 days since I incorporated my media solutions providing business!!!!!

I'm on LinkedIn and use it in work related ways. As it happens, I am currently using it as one of the ways to look for a new job.

Fail to see how being a mum has any relevance.

And like others, I find the term "mumpreneur" somewhat condescending. I'm sure Richard Branson or Alan Sugar would have welcomed being labelled "Dadpreneurs" when they were setting up business.

If you are setting up a business, be proud of the fact that you are an entrepreneur or self employed. The fact that you have ovaries that have been used is not relevant to your customers, colleagues or suppliers.

CuttedUpPear - well I wasn't going to go that far but frankly I have never heard of anyone who is in a large business or at a senior level actively using LinkedIn to get business or get a job. Its just seems like something you end up being linked to via other people by accident as far as I can see.

I get links from all sorts of people I barely know and no one has ever contacted me via a LinkedIn. Maybe its just me.

yabu

firstly for using the term mumpreneurs, BOAK

and secondly for articulating a silly idea that a professional website does not lend itself to mums. HOW ON EARTH!!!

SO, another yabu I am afraid