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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think the majority of MN'ers are very hypocritical?

134 replies

BobbyElvis · 10/08/2015 15:41

Do you agree? For example, please compare and contrast these two threads I have read on this forum today...

Post 1.
A woman found out her husband had been to a strip club. 12 years ago, before they were married, on a drunken stag do. All fairly normal behaviour for most stag parties. No cheating, just a strip club. The reaction to this was unbelievable - almost all posters urging this woman to leave a happy marriage. This woman reiterated that she was very happy in her marriage but the consensus was STILL - LTB.

Post 2.
A woman kisses a man on holiday and lies to her husband. All of the replies apart from one tell her to sweep it under the rug and not hurt a happy relationship.

The double standards here are absolutely disgusting. I can guarantee if the thread was started by a woman asking for advice after her partner had kissed a woman on holiday the replies would be LTB.

Why is it okay for a man to be kept in the dark but not a woman? Do the women on Mumsnet have such low self esteem that they can't handle their "DH" looking at another woman on a drunken stag do but will happily have a drunken fumble in Spain for a quick confidence boost then laugh about it with their friends for years to come?

OP posts:
rabbitstew · 10/08/2015 17:06

Well, of course some posters want to escalate threads into huge dramas - a huge drama is FAR more interesting than a woman getting a man to buy her Maltesers. Grin

StillStayingClassySanDiego · 10/08/2015 17:16

OP come back and defend your opinion.

It's no good lobbing in a grenade of a thread then running off.

chicken Wink

wafflyversatile · 10/08/2015 17:26

The last time I looked at the first thread the majority had told her to let it go and move on. However there were some people determined to continue and up the drama despite her updates.

Looked at as a whole things can seem hypocritical because different posters so happen to post on different threads, and pretty no one in real life does not have contradictions in their reactions to apparently similar situations. That's being human.

What annoys me is the number of times abuse is used when describing a man's behaviour and how rarely when describing a woman's behaviour. Other words seem to be preferred. - nightmare, toxic, insecure, train wreck. controlling seem to be used for both.

tethersend · 10/08/2015 17:28

Men can get a rough deal on MN sometimes.

If only there were some way to redress the balance... Perhaps in the wider world? Maybe if they had certain advantages over women in society or something?

Hmm... It's a tough one.

wafflyversatile · 10/08/2015 17:39

yes dear.

lastuseraccount123 · 10/08/2015 17:44

to the OP: we're all hypocrites. to be human is to be a hypocrite to one degree or another.

so, congrats on discovering this truth Grin

Birdsgottafly · 10/08/2015 17:46

I often wish that the OP would swap the genders, because the advice would be completely different.

the most dangerous one's are when abusive Mothering is minimised, because it's considered that Mothers reign supreme, whilst Fathers need permission.

rabbitstew · 10/08/2015 17:53

The worst posts are those which generalise massively. Oh, yes - l like this whole thread. Grin

Caprinihahahaha · 10/08/2015 17:56

Grin tethers

rabbitstew · 10/08/2015 17:57

Also, if referring to posts to justify your opinion, it's kind of essential to link the actual posts, so that people can see what you are actually talking about and check to see whether the same posters have indeed posted on both and given conflicting advice, as suggested, depending on the sex of the supposed offender. If different people have posted, then obviously the OP is a twat who doesn't know how to construct an argument. Grin

JohnFarleysRuskin · 10/08/2015 18:02

Op, have you worked out how mumsnet works now?

I'll admit that I've been a hypocrite anyway- there are people on here who sound so awful, so disrespectful, so phenomenally lazy that no partner should have to put up with them, I wouldn't, but I still haven't said ltb. I regret that really.

caroldecker · 10/08/2015 18:25

But the 2 questions in the OP example are entirely different.

  1. i have found out about 'dodgy' behaviour of partner - LTB
  2. I have behaved in a 'dodgy' fashion, should I tell my partner - No.
rabbitstew · 10/08/2015 19:05

Very true, caroldecker. What we need to know is what the replies would have been if a MAN had posted that he had kissed a woman who wasn't his wife while on holiday and asked whether or not he should admit this to his wife, to whom he was otherwise very happily married. If he was advised to be honest by the same people who said that the wife should lie, then that would be hypocrisy. If he were advised not to tell his wife, because it would hurt an otherwise happy relationship, then obviously it wouldn't.

theQuibbler · 10/08/2015 19:32

I don't think it is necessarily hypocritical, but the responses to some posts can be terribly self-righteous. And, also, it seems as though people sometimes forget there are (or could be) real people behind the screens. And they seem to treat those situations and what the response should be as though it is a real life soap opera, complete with dialogue straight out of a script.

It's most worrying when people turn on a poster for not doing what they assume they should do. Difficult decisions are very rarely made on the spot and people take their time before they can do some things. Those are the threads I really dislike (and hide).

rabbitstew · 10/08/2015 19:59

I agree with that, theQuibbler.

EygptianSnow · 10/08/2015 20:01

A lot of women are jealous of women in the sex industry because they are usually hot and they think they are better than the girls even though they themselves have had 50 partners but some how girls in the sex industry are "slags"
It isn't just Mumsnet op it's women in general

EygptianSnow · 10/08/2015 20:04

Also just to add it's ok when a woman does something but if a man does it it's not ok
All of this is from feminist who are Ruining society.
The same feminist who will prech they don't need a man whilst going home to their husband and getting on their knees
'But that's none of my business'

JohnFarleysRuskin · 10/08/2015 20:11

Why do woman-haters come on mumsnet?

I have no idea.

GiddyOnZackHunt · 10/08/2015 20:12

People posting on MN are not one hive mind sharing one attitude to everything. This is not news.

GreenSkittles · 10/08/2015 20:26

I read the first thread and am well aware it was not as black and white as the OP claimed. The man in the first thread admitted he would happily use sex workers again, had no respect for his partner and laughed at the fact that a woman had to endure very violent sex with a friend of his on the same trip. By almost anyone's standards a horror of a man.

So your whole premise is fucked.

ChickChickQuack · 10/08/2015 20:30

YANBU. There are some utter crazies on here; people I am delighted I don't have to encounter IRL!

ChickChickQuack · 10/08/2015 20:30

(Also many many truly lovely people too, thankfully SmileFlowers)

Mandatorymongoose · 10/08/2015 21:19

What Lweji said earlier makes a huge difference.

People give advice to the OP, the majority of whom are women so it might seem skewed that way.

If the DH from the first thread had posted 'should I tell DW about the time 12 years ago I saw a stripper?' then the response would very likely have been similar - no.

Equally if the DH from the 2nd thread posted 'I just found out DW kissed someone else' then there would have been a fair proportion of LTBs.

It's about WHO posts, not their gender that biases the question.

There is a bias in domestic abuse related answers though, that's true but I think that's probably reflective of the genuine statistical differences in gendered violence / abuse. There is a real difference in male on female v female on male abuse, ignoring that doesn't make it not true. I don't think I've ever seen a thread where a woman has admitted to being violent not been called on it though - which is as it should be, no level of violence is an acceptable one.

cranberryx · 10/08/2015 22:04

I think it's mostly due to how the OP is worded, which points they chose to stress and which details they left out. People can only respond based on the information they are given, I don't think it's that men=bad, but sometimes people tend to only stress the bad points when posting because they are going through a difficult time at that point (which is why they are asking for advice)

I have often used the method of 'if I posted this to mumsnet and they told me to leave DP, would I? Or is this something stupid I will get over' and it works.

Eekaman · 11/08/2015 00:44

We've drifted away from OP's point, and got sidetracked by an entirely different strip club tale. The one OP was referring to was about a brief visit to a strip club while drunk on his stag night. There was a lot of posters there giving the OP advice to LTB for lying, and deal breaking.

Yet the second post OP referred to had posters telling that OP that her snogging other blokes on nights out can easily happen and to not worry about it.

I'm pretty certain that if a female had posted that her DH had a drunken snog on a night out, it would have had a dramatically response from the MN faithful, and brushing it under the carpet wouldn't have been the advice given.

So yes, I see it as a typical example of MN double standards, gender bias.