Mumsnet full of inane females according to Petronella Wyatt

[scaryteacher]

www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/9115575/The-state-penalises-women-who-are-childless-and-unmarried-I-might-be-single-but-Im-not-a-failure.html

Methinks she protests too much and should get out more. Isn't she the one that had a thing with Boris?

:o

Having children reduces your economic and professional status if you are a woman, Ms Wyatt. HTH

at her bemoaning the amount of benefits some families are entitled to when she has a £350 per week mortgage!

What a pillock.

I actually agree with lots of this article. I think the stuff about living in a child-centric society, and ongoing expectations that all women are utterly desperate to reproduce are on the money. It's a shame she's so scathing about maternity leave and so sneering about mothers in general though. She needs to spend some time on the Feminism boards!

I'm a childfree woman and I also love it here but I do feel that I need to seek out support from other childfree woman too, as it can feel like a very lonely choice at times. I hope Petronella managed to find Gateway Women - a support website for women who are childless, either through choice or circumstance. There was an interview with the founder of the website in the Observer on Sunday, I've had a look at the website and it's fab!

Petronella Wyatt full of shit according to Mumsnet.

I think her comparison of the plight of the Single Childless Woman with the persecution of the Jews might be pushing the "woe is me" thing a tad far .

I hate these self-indulgent, self-obsessed columns. Unless of course they're funny as well. I don't give a flying fuck whether someone I know or read is single or childless, just as presumably she doesn't give a flying fuck whether or not random reader #254 has kids. Just write interesting things, Petronella.

90% of MN is inane bollocks. 90% of all conversation is inane bollocks, MN, like Twitter, facebook et al simply mirrors verbal conversation ...

A lot of it is fairly spot on! I think using her having terminated a pregnancy as a stick to beat her with is very

women with children are inundated with support, not only by the state but by websites such as Mumsnet.

Poor lady, doesn't she realise that anyone can come and post on MN, not just mums? She clearly needs to learn to be less bound by the names of things.

dickdotcom you are referring to Sturgeon's Law :)

Of course she is totally entitled to terminate her pregnancy. Really I just meant that she might be hacked off by Boris pursuing her, pressuring her to terminate when she got pregnant (according to the media), then totally denying the affair until outed by Petronella's mother and returning to his long-suffering wife and children while rising swiftly up the political greasy pole. I would feel a little teeth-gritty myself in this situation, I think.

She makes some good points certainly about the pressures on women to marry and have children and if you don't you are some kind of failure. But she is living in cloud cuckoo land if she things society is child centric and you gain status from having children. The business world makes very little accommodation for children and us certainly not set up around families, the opposite in fact. Professionally men seem to gain status from having children, being seen as more reliable and committed. The opposite is true of women. Having children, especially when they are young can be very isolating for women so I am not sure about increasing your social status. It certainly reduces your social life!

Well I just read it. 15 minutes of my life I'll never get back.
Petronella, love... If you are reading this can I offer some advice? Ditch your rather unpleasant friends. It'll make a world of difference to your life.

She clearly has not read all the threads on here by women who feel pressured to have more than one child, or feel judged for having a large family, or who have children with SN and are fighting for support for them! Does she really think it is only SAC women who have problems?

Official PRess Release from Mumsnet: "No comment".

Is Pet a bit ill?

And thank the Lord society ISN'T child-centered. Children are barking mad. They get a bit sane for a few years, then when hormones kick in they are off again. Utterly barking.

I so agree with you CavemanDave!

I read this article with a face like this and

She has friends who say things like ''You have to get married and have children. It?s the only thing that will improve your economic and social status.??, the famous (male) broadcaster who said ''The trouble is, single women without kids don?t really fit in.? and perhaps the most shocking quote The other day I asked a male acquaintance if he was going to a mutual (female) friend?s 40th birthday party? ''No,?? he replied. ?Since I got married, I don?t have time for her. And what?s she got to celebrate? Forty years of never being able to close the deal???

And Petronella thinks being SAC is her problem???

No, no and no. It is the rude, arrogant and frankly borderline sociopathic company she keeps. I would ditch her social circle if I were her and get some normal people as friends.

I'll be Pet's friend.

"''You have to get married and have children. It?s the only thing that will improve your economic and social status.??

ha ha ha ha!

Ha ha!

Social status? If you say so. But economic status? No, honestly it doesn't.

Good grief. What a shocking lack of awareness plus, she shagged Boris so I cannot take anything she says seriously.

Surely anyone who is jealous of maternity leave is clueless? Perhaps if she was less whingey people wouldn't want her to sod pair off? Not that I read further than fifth paragraph. It was such terrible dross.

Hey, Petronella! If I have another baby YOU can look after it. I'll pay you £128 per week less tax and NI and you can look after it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for that year you're so jealous of and I'll go to work. Then when you come back to work I'll make sure you're treated a bit shoddily, held back on the career ladder and paid much less than your counterparts for the privilege. Oh and I'll be deducting £1200 per month to pay for childcare. We'll pretend the £80 per month child benefit covers all other expenses like food, nappies and clothes and shoes. Then we'll be all square and in return my child will grown up and contribute to society and the treasury coffers so you can enjoy your free bus pass, winter fuel subsidy and a state pension, plus the various medical expenses you're more likely to incur as an elderly person.

I don't see how anyone can write a paragraph like

"History tells us that every society needs a social group to pick on in order to assuage its fears, particularly when times are bad. Once, homosexuals, Jews and black people fell into this category. Now it?s no longer acceptable to persecute such minorities; it is the single and childless female, or SAC, who is subject to choler and discrimination."

and not immediately strike it out. I can't understand why the subeditor let it stand. It's just awful.

Mind you, Petronella Wyatt has form. She used to write a column in the Spectator that was full of the most appalling drivel, and one can only assume she got the gig because of her famous father Woodrow. Her other claim to fame is having aborted Boris's baby. It's not exactly a career one can look back on with pride, is it.

I look back wistfully at my "SAC" days!! I certainly never felt persecuted in any way!

Ah Bless her...

Clearly a bit deluded.

And I say that as a childless person.

But then I have some decent friends who don't see me as a waste of space just because I haven't sprogged.

Get some nice friends Pet, then have a glass of wine and venture in to AIBU on a Friday night.

(Confesses that I only realised that there was a Baby names section a wee while ago)

I like how niftily she uses the old journo standby of MUA -- making up an acronym, to magic "something I dreamed up when I was short of a column" into "actual real social phenomenon."

I find the comments her friends make extremerly spurious.

Noone actually says those things do they??? Think they're all made up tbh.

I'm not inane, I'm Asinine.

Still, it's an easy mistake to make...