Why is mumsnet so sexist?

[Lovefromjuliaxo]

Been on here a few months, and while it’s nice to see women sticking up for woman, it’s crazy how sexist some people are on here. I’ve seen threads telling a women to leave her partners name off the BC as revenge because he’s cheated, I’ve seen posts saying “not surprised about huw Edward’s, no men can control themselves” and other numerous anti male threads and posts.

im a female for reference.

curious to see peoples opinions

YABU- it’s not constantly sexist on here
YANBU- it is constantly sexist on here

Often a good way of telling if people agree with you is by checking how many thanks you get for posting. Many posters feel chased away or apprehensive about posting when there are a lot of aggressive, overly sweary posts but many take the trouble to to click the thanks for posting. I find this facility encouraging.

Because the vast VAST majority of the time, violence of any form is perpetrated by men

Majority doesn't have to mean segregation though.

The outcome for the victim is exactly the same.

Men are much more likely to end their life. Should any intervention to reduce suicides be targeting men and ignoring women?

Yes. Also the poll gives the best indication of what most people think, as we don't know how many thanks the opposing views are getting.

"double standards" can only exist in an individual or in a defined group. You can't accuse thousands of random posters on a forum of double standards because some have one opinion and others have another!

It's off the scale at the moment.

Every single one of the threads trying to discuss men being absolute cretins - AS A SEX CLASS - whether it's Huw or the monster who allowed over 80 men to rape his wife, the NAMALTS, Not My Nigel and Women commit crimes too! brigade show up. It's relentless and so depressing.

Men are much more likely to end their life.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say with that sentence but:

The traditional gender paradox of suicide is simple: Men die by suicide more often than women, even though women report thoughts of suicide more often and make more non-fatal suicide attempts than men.

This is because men choose a more violent way to die. We are back to violence again.

I also find some of the language used on MN annoying and sexist. I am not familiar with the rest of the internet so I can't comment.
The terms menz and wimmin seem to be used exclusively on the feminist boards. Not by the many many intelligent, well argued posts on there but just used by some as lazy, knee jerk, patronising terms of abuse.

Yes, A LOT of women on here just hate all men purely because they are men. Don't how those with sons who will grow up into men, cope with the idea. I hope they won't hate their male child just for becoming a man.

This is a common "fact" trotted out to defend men.

The reality is that men and women attempt suicide at equal rates (stats for women often edges higher).

Men are more successful with their attempts because the methods they use are more violent, which reflects them as a sex in general.

If women chose equal methods, then our suicide rates would also be equal to or higher than men's.

This means that our mental health is just as bad as the mental health of men, and we still have higher rates of violence, serial assault and domestic violence to contend with on top of that.

I've been accused of being a man this morning just because I didn't not agree that women shouldn't be encouraged to give birth vaginally if not at risk!

My reasoning is staff and space availability but someone had to come and make it a sex issue!

Well observed

Some women here can be wary of men, over-generalise etc. but it’s most often due to past experiences of abuse, violence, betrayal, they’re entitled to telling their stories and feelings as they wish

On the opposite, most misogynistic men have never been hurt by women to the same extent (if ever), their hatred is innate and violence disproportionate

There s also that …

Yep, we can never have a thread on here to discuss these cases, or just vent about the injustice and share our own experiences, without some twat jumping in to police us and remind us that’s it’s not all men and women are ‘just as bad’.

I was on a thread the other day the discussed the sexual assault rates at universities and someone had the nerve to suggest we stop as we were offending her, as her university aged sons were lovely

Around 90% of homicides between 2010/11 and 2021/22 were carried out by men in the UK. How dare you suggest violence isn't mainly a 'men issue' Fucking hell.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1221306/homicides-in-england-and-wales-by-gender/

This place isn't sexist or childish. It's realistic about the facts. And guess what, when women get raped do you know what percentage of time it's by men? 100 fucking percent. And according to Rape Crisis nearly 800,000 women are raped or sexually assaulted every year. That's around 1 in 30 women. So please don't tell us the whole 'us and them' is childish.

Thank God the men have got you to stick up for them, JULIA. Whatever would they do otherwise? In this world that is so hostile to them and where they are disadvantaged at every turn, you are a trailblazer for equality and a voice for the oppressed. Bravo! 👌

Care to link us to your thread on Reddit? Or is that too outing?

Surely their loving father will help balance that out, whether they live with their son or "only" have 50/50. But then the mother wouldn't be a "man hater" if they had a loving and supportive partner/baby daddy. Hmmm, bit head scratching that 🤔

This is a common "fact" trotted out to defend men
And here we go! Defending men.... I'm not defending anyone.

Suicide is a violent act, whatever the mean or the sex. You prove my point. My view is that it doesn't matter if it's a man or woman who commits it. It's a tragedy and support should focus on reducing it, not on making it a male issue only.

I’ve never, ever been treated as badly by a woman as the men I have met.
Everything from violence to psychological abuse, being kicked out of my own home after a fake argument (I later found out because he had OW coming over)
Being used as an emotional crutch and being discarded when I dared voice my own needs. Cooked for, cleaned for, provided financially for and had it thrown back in my face. Attempts at grooming when I was younger and on top of that, my own dad abandoning me just to keep his new wife happy. And this doesn’t include the micro aggressions, the extremely high expectations on me as a mother that aren’t placed on my child’s father, the being spoken down to, being picked to make the fucking drinks or get the lunch because I was the only woman in the meeting.

Edited to add: these instances are from multiple men. Not just one or two of them. All of them.

I bet nearly every woman posting on here has experienced all this and worse at the hands of men. And I’ve been one of the lucky ones. I mean, at least I am not dead and I haven’t been raped, right?

I’m on Reddit too.

Fixed that for you. There, no need to see any of this awful sexism on MN any longer. 👋

Not one of these threads again, they pop up every week!

In answer to your OP, no I don't think it's sexist to give advice to women to protect themselves or their children.

So please don't tell us the whole 'us and them' is childish
But it is. Men raping women is tragic. Women killing men is tragic. Men killing men is tragic as is women killing other women. And then you have men and women killing children.

In regards to the latter, more than 40% of the killers in these crimes were mothers, with fathers making up about 57% of those who killed their own offspring, so much more equal.

MN calls out a great deal of unacceptable behaviour from men that the woman poster has often been conditioned by society to sweep under the rug and accept.

However, in my experience, it does often also go too far in accusing men of bad behaviour or assuming it in posts where it is not present, often because many posters here tend to think badly of men right off the bat, and tarnish them all with the same brush. Some OP's give 0.1% of detail and there will inevitably be a few posters who grab it and run with an imaginary narrative.

A fair few MN members have been badly betrayed by their male partners, sometimes repeatedly, and in my opinion this bias makes its way into far too many posts.

Women can't play many computer games online as they constantly get threatened with sexual violence. Women can't even be online openly without getting hateful sexist abuse from all angles. Many places in the world where women aren't allowed control over their own bodies or even allowed to speak openly.
This is the one place where I know I won't be subjected to sexism. So I'm fine with that.

But it’s a bias based on fact

If someone was investigating a murder of a woman, they will look at likely suspects and the stats will tell that the offender is most likely a male that the victim knew. That’s not sexist, it is a fact.

So if posters are making an assumption of the men in the OP’s life, they’re making those assumptions based on actual experience