To wonder why MN is so left wing/liberal?

[cdvegan2023]

MN hates Brexit, the tories, pink toys, violent video games... you get the idea. But in real life most women don't mind buying gender specific toys/clothes and the election/brexit female vote was about 50/50. So what makes this place 90% lefty/lib when general society is either split or completely reversed?

MN is far to the right of most people I know!

Education level at a guess.

I’m not sure it is. I started a thread about social inequality and many people were denying there is a problem despite proper evidence to the contrary.

The fact that mumsnet needs people to be reasonably literate might mean that posters are more educated than average which could skew towards the left.

Cue the momemtum bot.
Yes it is a left wing , anti brexit bubble.

I think it's really subjective. MN feels quite right wing to me - people tend to be to the right of most of my social circles on benefits, trans issues, sexuality in general, religion and immigration.

1. MN attracts a certain demographic and 'type' of user
2. You only see what people post about. People who don't care about e.g. pink toys won't bother posting on threads about them, so what you see is self selecting
3. There is a known issue of 'shy Tories'. So people who vote Tory quietly but don't want to get in to bun fights about politics.

If you were to hang out on Relationships you'd probably think 100% of marriages are in trouble.
If you hang out in Education, you'd have trouble realising that actually only 7% of children are privately educated.

Perhaps because people that hold these view have the luxury of more time to be able to spend online talking about it

The average age of users maybe? Younger people tend to have a surprisingly narrow world view/education for some reason. As a result they all seem to have very similar political values. (I'm not millennial bashing, I am one myself but as a result of slightly more varied set of influences in life I tend to sit quite far on the liberal extreme and am only very very slightly left wing, centrist even I suppose. It's just something's that I've noticed among my monocultured counterparts).

Because it's full of rich, posh twats.

Teen
Totally agree people who have no issue with pink toys done spend time talking. About it online

I'd say it's more middle class than specifically one ideological bent or the other. I've watched the 'centre' shift rightwards since I joined, which probably reflects the response of that demographic to the financial crash. It certainly wouldn't have been so anti-trans early on - I've been surprised by how many alt-right talking points are being 'appropriated' by the feminists!

It's definitely got more right wing and some comments would be at home on the DM.

That's funny Amy because I find the people on MN who put great effort into signalling their wealth, no names mentioned, are very right of centre and hate the left.

I think it's quite right wing, too. I don't know anyone as openly right wing in real life.

Because the demographic (and the ownership) is generally wealthy and university educated and that's Labour's core demographic these days. The average income of Labour voters has overtaken that of the Tories.

I think a lot of Labour voters would get a nasty shock if Corbyn actually got in and they realised it was their wealth he was after rather than some nebulous 'rich' they always think are people richer than them. I suspect a lot of his student support wouldn't be happy with him taking most of their inheritance in tax.

I think MN is very London-centric and the views tend to reflect that demographic which is overwhelmingly Labour voting/Remain voting, middle class white women.

I always get the impression, here and in real life, that left wing types are more vocal, that's all. It doesn't necessarily mean they are a majority.

Surely part of the Brexit thing is that anti-Brexiters are keener to talk about how alarming / depressing / horrifying / infuriating it all is whereas Brexiters don't feel the same need to vent as they think it's all going to be fine

I also think there are a vocal group of left wingers on Mumsnet.

I read an intersting article discussing the "intolerance of liberals" recently and the view of a few of said vocal left wing mumsnetters sprung to mind.

From my perspective, I don't care what way people vote, what I hate is the way some feel the need to ram their own views down others' throats if they disagree with their political views.

Incidentally all Tories voted for Brexit. Wandsworth has traditionally been a Tory stronghold, nothwithstanding the current situation, yet voted overwhelmingly (74% I believe) for Brexit.

MN is self selecting. People will only become regular contributors if they think they’ve found their “people”.

I’m generally left wing and liberal but found MN a very uncomfortable place to be during the Scottish Independence Referendum because that brought out previously unexpressed views.

There are plenty of right wing MNers though.

*is

*not!!

Jesus christ, I can't get my shit together today.
What I meant to say was:

I also think there is a vocal group of left wingers on Mumsnet.

I read an interesting article discussing the "intolerance of liberals" recently and the view of a few of said vocal left wing mumsnetters sprung to mind.

From my perspective, I don't care what way people vote, what I hate is the way some feel the need to ram their own views down others' throats if they disagree with their political views.

Incidentally not all Tories voted for Brexit. Wandsworth has traditionally been a Tory stronghold, nothwithstanding the current situation, yet voted overwhelmingly (74% I believe) to Remain.

Oh bore off with "education levels".
Universities are super left wing, succumbing to the propaganda and repeating back what they tell you like a child does not equal intelligence.
I've learnt to fake lefty views to get the highest marks. Never had less than a first on an essay and I'm in a Russell Group uni with 4 A's at A level, before you say I'm just saying this as an "uneducated" person.

The first ever lecture we had was on the failings of democracy for pete's sake. There's an agenda, and I don't care who thinks I'm mad for saying it.

I repeat: education does not equal intelligence. Being able to think for yourself, rather than regurgitating the views of somebody else is a dying art.

I think your view on how left or right MN is depends on how left or right you are and so how often you go "Hang on.."

So I would say that MN is very left because I'm quite right-leaning which means I notice left-leaning posts/ideas much more because they don't chime with my own.

OTOH, I can imagine someone left-leaning picked out the right-leaning posts much more and concluding that MN is very right wing.

If that makes any sense!!