to ask if you're male, what you've learnt from mumsnet

[whymustialwaysexplain]

?

That puppies are completely different (and clearly much harder work) from kittens.

That being a man is the worst thing ever on here

I've learnt:

1. Women are much better at giving each other support and advice or at least setting up types of support networks. We men are much worse at communicating.

1. Despite women being better at communicating that doesn't mean they're necessarily nice to each other!

1. Juggling a job and children is bloody hard. Overall men should probably (this is a generalisation) help out more at home.

1. This may be controversial but I've been shocked at some of the misandry from some of the women towards men here. I know that some women have suffered terribly at the hands of men but we're not all bad. The decent men despise the bad ones like you do, I promise.

1. Despite the differences between the sexes (mental or physical) we're largely the same (human!) and share the same fears (rejection, ridicule etc) and hopes (nice job, good health, supportive friends).

men should probably (this is a generalisation) help out more at home.

Oh dear.

The political threads are really good. It's the opposite of Twitter - a wide cross-section of views and no character limit. Even when an OP turns up wanting a fight, a civilised discussion usually breaks out instead.

On a more basic note, I'm surprised that the stereotype of women being expected to do all the domestic chores and child-rearing persists so much. My mum made it clear to me that I wasn't allowed to be "useless like your father". My dad's in his seventies now and I thought those attitudes belonged to his generation, not mine.

Why oh dear olio ?

Northernparent - cos its not about 'helping' - its called parenting

Not everyone on this site are parents, so helping each other around the home extends to more than parenting.

Keeping a home and all that entails is hard work, doing that hard work is helpful to each other rather than doing it all yourself.

You’re seriously reaching to be offended by an innocuous comment.

Hasn't done the washing up - LEAVE THE BASTARD
Breathes - LEAVE THE BASTARD

Helping implies that there's someone who has the main task/responsibility and is being helped/assisted by someone who doesn't have that responsibility. There's a good cartoon called something like The Mental Load that explains it well.
I'm not offended by the pp's use of 'helped' but it really doesn't mean an equal partnership.

If a woman and a man make a thread, that is very similar, they receive different advice

It might have been better to say something like men should pull their weight or do their fair share at home.

One doesn’t “help” in their own home or with their own children

I’d be interested to know how many men there actually are on MN. I always imagine it’s a tiny percentage of posters.

I know that some women have suffered terribly at the hands of men but we're not all bad. The decent men despise the bad ones like you do, I promise

But do you challenge the bad ones? Do you remove them from your friendship groups? Do you have the bare minimum to do with them if they are family? Do you challenge again of the first challenge is ignored?

My issue, as a long term single parent with an ex who pays no maintenance, is just how vocal he is about that in the public domain (I know because it gets back to me, including through our children) and yet he has the same group of people around him he did upon divorce and seemingly an endless stream of women prepared to be with him. So whilst I would say the women get the man they deserve, if there are men out there who detest this kind of thing, what are you doing about it?

@Howaboutanewname, very good point. I think male behaviour has deteriorated because there is less stigma in society.

In some ways that is positive but there needs to be action from the good men.

"Evil flourishes when good men do nothing"

An example is the culture of some men openly having affairs in the workplace. One colleague would tell us how his wife thought he was going to rugby practice when in reality he would be meeting a woman. On the way home he would drop his kit into a muddy puddle to make it look worn. His unsuspecting wife would them wash it ready for the next week. It was grim and I was the only one in a large group of men to say that is not on. Others would laugh. This was a corporate full of well paid men.

The amount of everyday sexism and harassment women are subjected to
How lazy and unpleasant some men can be
The importance of women’s rights and access to safe spaces and how easily they can be eroded

I have found that there is a small amount of misandry on the site, but that in general the majority of (presumably female) posters do often call out with "you wouldn't say the same if the sexes of the participants were reversed" or whatever else is necessary to make the point, which certainly helps create the impression that actually feminism / most feminists are about equality, not man-hating.

I joined because I'm a single father who felt a woman's perspective on various parenting issues would help me be a better parent as I think that a lone parent must play a different role than a parent working as part of a couple. So I've found lots of different ways to deal with various child-rearing problems that I probably wouldn't have come up with on my own and which were better.

I've also learned a lot about the whole trans issue in law and how it relates to women's rights, and have moved from having no opinion or interest at all, to being quite... agitated... by the whole thing and adopting a staunch GC position, which has made for some animated conversations with younger, 'woker' family members.

Men shouldn't "help out" more. They should do their share. The language around shared chores is wrong.