to wish this was a woman only forum?

[raspberrychoc]

I know anyone can join and that's fair enough, I'm not actually trying to impose my wish on anyone or the site but it still always annoys me when I am reading thought a thread where a woman is posting for advice from other women and a man pops up saying "speaking as a man" or "from a blokes perspective" I always want to say I'm not interested in what you think right now, there is a whole world of "men's opinions" shoved down our throats from the time we are little girls and all though our lives on every aspect of our bodies, what we do and think. I'd love just one space like this with lots of women without it having men interject and that is before we even get to the men who pitch up looking for permission to have affairs or get their jollies from dubious posts.

What I don't like is the fact that there are lots of men and bad faith actors on here and yet the forum broadly speaking is considered to be "mums only".
"Mums want to vote Reform", etc.

There are also some decent men and childfree people on here and that's good too.

What I would like is to be able to remove agitators, people who aren't who they say they are and people who are just here to stir things. These people could be male or female.

There is a regular period male troll on here too. One obsessed with teen underwear. Another one who talks about his teen SD stealing her mums vibrator. Sick bastards.

Lots of women have said they don’t feel comfortable to post anything about periods, underwear, toileting, breastfeeding, womens health issues. We even had a perv PMing a woman who posted about thrush. Mumsnet did ban him though.

I don't spend that much time thinking about male masturbatory habits. If you are thinking about men thinking about sex when posting about toilet habits that is frankly bizarre, even if there are a few weirdos who are into that.

The fact the people are posting the few usernames of the decent male posters on here says it all

It might be called mumsnet but plenty of people aren't mums. Why shouldn't anyone comment on parenting? An experienced dad can probably advise better than a woman who has never had kids (even women who are nursery nurses admit they didn't understand certain things until they actually had kids).If you specifically want advice from someone who has had a forceps delivery for example, obviously a man won't know, but then neither would many women (and while most gynaecologists are probably too busy to be posting on here, if there was one who happened to be male, he could probably give better advice than most women).
Being male or female doesn't qualify you to give better advice, although you might be able to give a view from personal experience. But just being born with a uterus doesn't necessarily mean you'll give better advice/more related to me than anyone who isn't, just as a female gym instructor won't necessarily know how to train me better than a man would.

It’s more than a few and they’re very persistent. Mumsnet actually refused to have a sex board for years because they said it would attract ‘a shed load of trolls’. I’ve been on mumsnet for 20 years, there has been a lot of bad men in that time and even more that I’ve suspected.

There is a poster who claims to be a woman who constantly posts about knickers, breasts, mowing ‘her’ lawn topless. ‘She’ is all over any post to do with sex, breasts, underwear. It’s a bloke, lots of people know it is.

Its off putting,

It’s impossible to get a female only
space online unless it’s private & either invite only or at least extremely well gatekept, so there would be no point in it for MN. There will always be men who want in, the most annoying ones claiming it’s their right because they’re women too.

I don’t go on Relationships much so the only bloke I really interact with on MN is Grumpyoldpersonwithcats in the Litter Tray, who’s a good sort.

Yeah, I know we have to accept it if we want to be here. Again though, I'm still allowed to dislike it. There are more men (well men that admit they are) here than there used to be, and I just wish they'd piss off, in all honesty.

There is one that hasn’t been mentioned yet on this thread who I’ve seen praised before a few times. But years ago they were on a thread that was deleted where they showed their true colours. Pervy and misogynistic, I always wondered if he had forgotten to name change as it was very not in keeping with his other posts. I have screen shots somewhere on an old phone as I was so shocked. He’s still here, still gets praise. I’m awaiting his name to come up as a good egg. He’s definitely not!

I agree with this.

And since the vast majority of MNetters are women, then I imagine the vast majority of trolls are too.

Especially the ones who know how to press MNetter's buttons and get them frothing by posting the words "Man here".

Personally i think it should only be mums on this website, its called mumsnet

Yes! I asked about my perception of the unfair division of labour in our house, I was very distressed at the time of posting. I listed all the things I do and what my husband does( he does the tea dishes, but not every night)the poster said, so your husband comes home after work and does all the washing?

Totally disingenuous, trying to wind me up when I was already really sad and exhausted.

How do you know if the mean people are women? Most people don't announce their sex unless it's relevent to the subject. I've seen some very aggressive posters on threads about politics, benefits and immigration that I've thought were likely men. They didnt say, so i dont know, but there's a particularly bombastic, arrogant style about some of them that reminds me of the way men speak when they've a bee in their bonnet.

😂😂😂

one time I posted a flippant comment on mn about my sex life and my plans to be Samantha jones

I had a man dm me!

that’s what they do 🤷‍♀️

Also, you get a grip!

My favourite thing about Mumsnet is that you can tell most here are women so I agree with you. It's very different compared to most of the internet.

Its the cunty incels that drive me bonkers. Just fuck off.

Or the creepy ones that ask advice about their sex life - yuk.

What about wannabe mums, or might be mums one day?

Cool that’s nice for people who can’t have kids

You're going to shit kittens when you discover topics like cooking, relationships, gardening and conception.

There are some women with evil opinions as well. And that's not counting the disgenuous and the ignorant.

It’s a parent forum as it should be

I’d sooner have reasonable men giving sensible views than chat/bots. Women only, yelling in an echo chamber, isn’t that great. 🤷‍♀️

So AIBU threads about parking, topics on pets, weight loss, relationships and sex are all about parenting are they? Righty ho.

The fantastic thing about this forum is that it's a mainly female, feminist space (unlike most of the internet). That is such a strong part of its identity that I don't really care about the small percentage of male posters. They don't really change the overall feel of the place IMO.