to be highly pissed off that there are still men on Mumsnet?

[Swedes]

Tenacious little bastards, aren't they?

Tare an' hounds, Mme Volatile! A Classic!

2s - my tongue was so far in my cheek it was almost sticking through....

onebat's dh "thought 'there might be an element of fear and paranoia' motivating a man's desire to penetrate a secret female space.' A (slightly controlling)discomfort with being shut out."

I don't imagine that it the motivation of most men on here but I bet my life it is the motivation for a few, especially for a few lurkers.

I like the phrase 'secret female space' though (its sniggersomeness quite aside). We NEED a space where womens' values, attitudes, tone, and humour predominate. God alone knows there are enough spaces where the tone is set by men.

MNHQ chose not to call this place parentsnet (perhaps only because the advertising wouldn't have rolled in so well) and they must have known and accepted that the 'mumsnet' title would guarantee a predominance of women. Good good good. It is brilliant that men come on in small numbers, and of course they should give and receive parenting support on exactly the same terms as men. But this is more than a parenting site. It is a women's room also. And in that capacity men are in my possibly inflamatory view guests.

...on exactly the same terms as women.

So what kind of pan is pan?

A Goat??

The posts that annoy me are from dads who seem to have a permanent anti-SAHM axe to grind, and jump in at the slightest opportunity to bang on about how it is not that hard to look after kids and keep a house nice, certainly easier than working in a competitive corporate environment, and why can't they just make sure the place is clean and tidy with the fridge full of nice things while their H is out giving his all to slay the woolly mammoths that keep them all in meat and skins.
While it may be the case that some of the women who aren't "coping" (by their standards, or someone else's) are not in fact operating at maximal efficiency, for whatever reason, it seems so gratuitously churlish to be so eager to leap to that position of hectoring criticism immediately. Even if it is true that some of them watch TV sometimes (SHOCK HORROR), they should be able to come here for constructive support, not another message that confirms their inadequacy.

I stand beside Wormsmeat. Welcome Guests.

Vezzie too of course - but actually those ones get shouted down pretty quickly on the whole, I think?

I'm not sure I recognise that habit, vezzie. Having said that I wouldn't go anywhere hear the SAHM threads, mainly as they get rather inflammatory with women telling other women how they should live.
Still I don't imaging BGD, or Barcode or Bythepower or UQD for example being daft enough to post in theway you dscribe. Would stand unhappily corrected though.

Guests hmm?

Yup. That, if I'm honest, is how I feel about the men on here. I'm sure there are lots of others who don't, but I think that one of the things I value most on MN is the preponderance of female voices. Varied - clever, dumbass, liberal, freaky, conservative - but female.

That's the starting point of my relationship with MN. Why that's valuable, many others have already eloquently argued.

I would modestly suggest you use another word, then.

When I googled HSC re dd and was led to MN, my registration was accepted by MNHQ, who own and run the site. Not by any posters. You have no claim to being proprieters any more than I surely??
I think I catch your drift, and acknowledge that it is obv. a predominantly female chamber, and should be respected as such. Which I do each time I come on here. But the notion of having 'guest' status is a bit of an absurdity.

oh pan! how nice to see you!

Do come in and have a cup of tea.

May I take your coat?

Here, let me shift that pile of clothes so you can sit down

so... erm... biscuit?

nah, don't like the "guest" idea.

Much prefer the "you know where the kettle is, get me one while you're there" option

lucky this afternoon, pan...

Well, I don't think anyone's suggesting an actual 'login as guest' status. Just that, as you acknowledge, it's a predominantly female chamber - for which word, huge congratulations. It's totally neutral in terms of gender, but has that sort of resonant weight and .. BIGness, which I've been searching for in this and previous convos about this general subject.

Obviously not guests in the formal sense, since the hosts are MNHQ, and we are all heir guests -- but guests in the sense that they are visiting the cultural territory of women, need to respect the mores there and ought really to be present insofar as they remain welcome.

I don't say that with any hostility, just with a desire to preserve a female space. I like men very much, most of the people I have learnt most from have been men, and for many years I had few women friends.

But I value just an element of separatism -- for women and for men. I have two sons, no daughters, and I am very conscious of ways in which society is challenging the legitimacy of some elements of maleness. Men need a sphere to celebrate maleness, women to celebrate femaleness, and all of us can share other spaces together.

Like it or not, mumsnet is a robustly and wonderfully female place. Just because that is what it is, it should be allowed to continue unashamedly as such.

Phew! And who IS that boy?? IT's curry night at a friends so have set the tv for MOTD2!

It all sounded a bit easy for the Arse? Hopefully your chaps are saving themselves for the Jeermins??

there's probably more we agree on than disagree here, worms and batty??
off for the curry! may see you later.

Phew! And who IS that boy?? IT's curry night at a friends so have set the tv for MOTD2!

It all sounded a bit easy for the Arse? Hopefully your chaps are saving themselves for the Jeermins??grin

Jesus, did you accidentally post on the wrong thread, in which case and for the third time this weekend,"res ipsa loquitur".

sorry, onebat, he was talking to me

translation: Man United are lucky bastards who managed to pop in an extra goal in the fourth minute of added time, by a completely relatively unknown player.

Man city were robbed of a win against Arsenal yesterday but it doesn't matter because hopefully they will beat Hamburg soundly on thursday night, leaving the second leg (which I am going to) a formality.

or words to that effect

enjoy the curry, pan.

No,Pan didn't post on the wrong thread. He was referring to earlier events in THIS thread, back in the days when it was all still jokey and jocular.

Before onebat and worms made it all a bit heavy:

"guests in the sense that they are visiting the cultural territory of women, need to respect the mores there and ought really to be present insofar as they remain welcome."

One thing I know about mumsnet is that the women on here will not all agree upon the 'mores' you assume exist.

And that the men on here will remain welcomed by some, and resented by others. So how can you presume to speak for the whole site?

If Squonk and Pan want to bring a conversation about Arsenal's glorious thrashing of Citeh into a thread satirising men, they have that right.

No,Pan didn't post on the wrong thread. He was referring to earlier events in THIS thread, back in the days when it was all still jokey and jocular.

Before onebat and worms made it all a bit heavy:

"guests in the sense that they are visiting the cultural territory of women, need to respect the mores there and ought really to be present insofar as they remain welcome."

One thing I know about mumsnet is that the women on here will not all agree upon the 'mores' you assume exist.

And that the men on here will remain welcomed by some, and resented by others. So how can you presume to speak for the whole site?

If Squonk and Pan want to bring a conversation about Arsenal's glorious thrashing of Citeh into a thread satirising men, they have that right.

sorry for double post!

Good luck on Thursday, squonk.

I didn't claim to speak for the whole site.

And not many cultures involve universal agreement on anything much. They are distinctive cultures nonetheless. So I didn't imply any monolithic agreement among mn women.

Anyway, as pan says, there is probably plenty of agreement between many MN men's viewpoint on this issue and my personal view.

thanks paddad

um... glorious thrashing of citeh? Shorely you mean "a couple of lucky goals against the run of play"

(love the mancunian accent there )

I find this really sad. Sad that intelligent women don't really find it appropriate/desirable/acceptable that men have equal status on here. Sad that there is a need for somewhere that is 'for women'.

We are all parents and we need support from wherever it comes - and that should preclude our gender (or our age, or our faith, or our race, etc).

And given that we can all use nicknames, who is to say who is a man and who is a woman anyway? Although it's interesting that most/many of the men here do insert 'dad' somewhere in their names. I wonder why that is? And I'm asking that in a genuine way, not in any kind of sarcastic way!

i would be sad if there were not dads here.i like men,lots of men.just not all at once mind