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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

To think MN is getting nastier?

970 replies

MaggieJoyBlunt · 17/07/2015 15:15

So far this week we've had giving birth referred to as 'calving' (in the context of women having children while young). Someone loved that one so much they immediately commented on what a great expression it was and repeated it.

We've had someone propose that Prince Phillip should be 'humanely destroyed'. swiftly followed up by a similar suggestion about taking him out to a barn or a shed or some such and shooting him.

We've had a thread about the death of a convicted murdered where several posters queued up to tell us they were, smiling or "laughing gleefully" or simply to post "lol" as a one word comment. (Okay she was a vicious killer and will not be much missed, but really?)

Add to all of that the Budget threads where in the midst of people worrying and calculating the cut to their household budget, other people came to gloat and make helpful observations such as "If you can't afford DC, don't have them."

MN didn't used to be nasty. Vigorous, challenging etc; But not nasty.

What's going on around here?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
6
Ubik1 · 19/07/2015 20:03

Male posters get a really tough time on here, sometimes for no reason at all. I've seen men relentlessly criticised, especially on the relationships boards.

usualsuspect333 · 19/07/2015 20:03

Are you? Do you post in the sex topic?

There's a few pervs in there.

Baddz · 19/07/2015 20:04

I like the men's perspective.
and am secretly in love pigletjohn

UncertainSmile · 19/07/2015 20:04

No, I've got no desire (sic) to go near that particular board.

Hexadecimal1 · 19/07/2015 20:12

People without children get a rough time sometimes as well "why are you even posting here if you have no children?" The poster may not be childless through choice but thanks!

Mintyy · 19/07/2015 20:19

I've seen the "why are you even posting on here if you have no children" comment a few times. Swiftly followed by 500 posts telling that person to fuck off, all are welcome on Mumsnet. That's what you might call thread policing too if you had a mind to see it that way?

It would do people good to remember that most of Mumsnet is worthwhile and most Mumsnetters are nice enough people. But flawed, not perfect, as prone to "off" days as the next person.

TiggyD · 19/07/2015 20:22

You're also allowed to refer to trans women as "he" and "him" on here. MNHQ is fine with it.

UncertainSmile · 19/07/2015 20:23

Really, Tiggy?

YouTheCat · 19/07/2015 20:25

I've seen the reverse with one male poster. Where a lot of people piled in and said people were only pulling him up on stuff because he was a man. But it really wasn't the case. He was being an abusive tit towards his wife who had PND and had come to MN for validation. Apparently his wife was a MNetter and this had been her support network.

TiggyD · 19/07/2015 20:39

Yes Uncertain.
After I reported posts HQ sent me mails which included "As we've said before, we're not at the stage where we feel it appropriate to delete every post which uses 'he' instead of 'she'..." and "We tend only to delete misgendering when we can see that it is aimed squarely at a real (non-celeb) person and done deliberately to offend."

You're allowed to refer to Caitlyn Jenner as he and him as she's a celeb, and you can call transwomen men as they're people in general rather than specific people. Good huh?

UncertainSmile · 19/07/2015 20:41

That is truly appalling. MNHQ are ridiculously twitchy about some things, but not about the important stuff it seems.

YouTheCat · 19/07/2015 20:41

That's a bit shit though.

People should be referred to as the gender they identify as. It's so disrespectful.

ilovesooty · 19/07/2015 20:44

I'm pretty appalled by that as well.

SophiePendragon · 19/07/2015 20:49

It doesn't worry me if people call someone who was born male and still has a penis, 'he'. It bothers me more when people refer to them as 'she' tbh. I think that's more disrespectful.

I understand we may differ on this though. I think it's a grey area really.

SophiePendragon · 19/07/2015 20:50

What I mean is I have no wish actively to offend a transgender person, but I feel offended by their claiming to be female when they are patently not.

Identifying as female is one thing - claiming to be female is another.

TiggyD · 19/07/2015 20:53

gov.uk on types of discrimination:
"harassment - unwanted behaviour linked to a protected characteristic that violates someone’s dignity or creates an offensive environment for them". Have MNHQ created an offensive environment for transgendered people on this site? I'd say so.

TiggyD · 19/07/2015 20:55

But they are legally female Sophie. It's on their birth certificates and everything.

UncertainSmile · 19/07/2015 20:56

I disagree strongly, Sophie

SophiePendragon · 19/07/2015 20:57

Do you mean their birth certificate has been changed to say they were born female when they were not?

YouTheCat · 19/07/2015 21:00

How can you feel offended by someone who feels they are not the gender they were assigned at birth? How does that affect you? I can't even begin to imagine the turmoil of feelings that a transgender person does. And if me referring to them as the gender they feel they are offends someone, that's just tough shit.

TiggyD · 19/07/2015 21:01

"Gender Recognition Act

The Gender Recognition Act 2004 created a process to enable transsexual people to get their UK birth certificates and legal gender changed. The Act requires applicants to have transitioned two years before a certificate is issued. It makes no requirement for sex reassignment surgery to have taken place, although such surgery will be accepted as part of the supporting evidence for a case where it has taken place."

TiggyD · 19/07/2015 21:02

Anyway, getting sidetracked.

Back to the nastiness...

SophiePendragon · 19/07/2015 21:03

If I was in personal contact with a person who dressed as a woman, and wanted to be addressed as a woman then I would respect that and call them whatever they wanted me to call them. I would call them 'she' in the third person and so on.

If I am observing from a distance a celebrity who is seeking to make money and publicity from 'being a woman' then I have zero respect for that. Especially if it involves being photographed in their underwear for a magazine as of course that's what being a 'woman' is all about - it makes me very angry. I feel womanhood is being exploited there.

I feel resistant to calling that person 'she', simply because they are so insistent about it. And I don't see the point of the birth certificate thing. I guess it's to enforce legal recognition of how they want to be perceived which is fine. But it doesn't change the fact they were born male.

SophiePendragon · 19/07/2015 21:05

As you say - thread drift, I apologise. We should probably agree to disagree.

SophiePendragon · 19/07/2015 21:11

YoutheCat - sorry, just to say that it's probably because I don't understand the concept of gender - I think of someone's sex as a matter of biology and nothing more. I identify as male in many ways - well, traditionally male I suppose - but as that is such a fluid thing, such a subjective thing, that I wouldn't feel it was worth changing my name or appearance for, not by the use of surgery or whatever anyway. I just behave in those ways, or wear those clothes, when I feel like it. I'm still a bird but I like to do 'men's' things, or as they ought to be known, 'things'...without the gender attached.

People should be allowed to wear and do what they like without being assigned a 'gender' because of it - their sex is just the body they were born with - this would remove all the fuss and bother IMO and let people be who they feel they are without having to call it male or female and without having to have surgery. Men in skirts? bring it on.