AIBU yes I probably am. Who is mumsnet for?

[bluebeardsbabe]

I am a lone parent to a small toddler. I found this forum very useful during my pregnancy (when exp left) for legal information, handholding etc. I mainly lurk now but still dip in from time to time...which is how I noticed how many more dads seem to be posting here now. Now although my exp was a complete vile bastard to me so much so that I still have a hard time trusting men, I fully appreciate that there is good and bad in both sexes and men also need a forum to express emotions relating to single parenting and so on. it's just I'm not sure I feel it's here.

I joined mumsnet specifically to find a nurturing informative environment by women for women, a safe haven to express my emotions. Is it wrong of me to think dads should go off and form dadsnet? I realise my judgement is probably quite clouded like I say but AIBU to think mumsnet should be for mums?

YABU. MNHQ make it very clear that this site is for parents and they didn't call it 'parentsnet' because it sounded crap.

If you want a safe haven, start a thread asking for women contributors only....or join a woman only forum somewhere...

Bluebeard, there's a lot of great advice and thoughts on here from posters who are male, both those who say that they are and those that don't. I don't know the stats but I imagine the membership is 90+% female. To start a new website about fatherhood (and MN discusses so much more) would probably have a very slow build as fewer men take paternity leave, which is the time many women join, I think.

I'm sorry your ex was vile

I am afraid YABU, and that U stands for unrealistic as much as unreasonable, though I have every sympathy for why you feel that way.

Mumsnet is a public website, and there is no way that MNHQ could check the gender of everyone who registers to post, so even if they made it women-only (which I am sure they never would) you still could not be sure that everyone was who they claimed to be.

As it is, I think many men are put off by the name, but there are many regular male posters who make valuable contributions, and others who need the advice they find here (eg there have been recently widowed fathers who have come here looking for advice).

I think given the public nature of the site, if you are feeling fragile, you need to remember that anyone at all could be reading posts here.

Thanks for the input. I totally accept that I am likely being unreasonable and also that I need to reflect on how I interpret what mumsnet means to me. I was feeling a lot more vulnerable and am thankfully in a better place now hence not coming here so often but yes, obviously if I feel mumsnet doesn't suit me it is up to me to leave. Not the men . I guess I just read a few threads on here tonight that got me thinking hmmmm.

There have been a few hmm threads this week, for sure!

I think that there are some men who give decent, impartial advice. But I can also predict which threads are immediately targeted by MRAs and I find it so frustrating when excuses are repeatedly made for abusive behaviour.
It would be great to have a 'safe' place to discuss the issues of dealing with child contact with an abusive Ex without threads being jumped on.

The strap line is 'by parents for parents'

Anyone an post here. It's an open, public website. It is not a safe space.

If you need a safe space, you will need to seek a site that verifies membership or pre-moderates all posts. I agree that it would be great to have such a space.

But MN is not it.

Yes obviously everything above makes perfect sense. it would be impossible for MN to check the gender of posters. Guess what I was thinking was that posters could police themselves

While it's impossible to know the gender of all posters i think there are more women on here giving other women a hard time/ bad advice/ generalising/ stereotyping etc etcthan the small percentage of men on the site.

It's FOR anyone who wants to use it, who doesn't break the rules.

God to see you come around to a sensible position so quickly!

There have been some very hmmm posts today, all on the single parents board about contact. Quite odd.

There have been odd posts all over the place.

I'm hoping it'll all settle down now term has started again. I'm not finding it that tiresome (yet) but I can see that plenty of others do.

My experience of the people on MN is that on a whole the male posters have been more supportive and practical in their advice than the female posters. There are a far greater percentage of female posters too eager to intentionally cause upset than male posters. If the male posters on MN were multiplied so that their numbers matched the female posters MN would, i feel based on the males that are here, be a far more supportive place for all. Thats based on the male posters that ive engaged with. Of course if there were lots of new men to join the likelyhood of a bad'un coming to stir up shite would increase aswell. But the ones we have seem like very nice people.

Trills I don't consider my original thoughts not to be sensible however reading the above posts I can see how impractical, even impossible my reasoning was. I think my post was spurred by the many hmmm posts I stumbled on today which I rightly or wrongly interpreted to be made by men but yes I agree there are many really harsh responses made by women on some areas of the forum. Like I say I may have had a slightly idealised version of a mumsnet for mums

apart from the odd troll the men on here are likely to be here looking for support similar to what the women are after.

I'm female, in case you wondered!

I totally sympathise OP.

I do find it awkward sometimes that there's men on here but only when they pop up on certain types of threads and take out their own vendetta on other people. Or when they give biased advice about jealous bitch exes etc!

Other than that I wouldn't know if someone was male or female on here most of the time.

a publicly searchable internet forum is not a safe place... male posters often give valuable insight

In my experience, the easiest way to create the sort of group/atmosphere you want, bluebeardsbabe, is with a secret, locked FB group. Start with people you know, and keep the admin reins in your hands, so you get to decide who joins the group and who doesn't.

You will get a smaller group, which will have advantages and disadvantages, but you will be able to exclude those people you don't want.

I can understand where the OP is coming from. Separation and things like arguing over DC can be extremely painful and it's only natural to want to feel a sense of safety. I've been there, I'm not perfect.

On the other hand having attended support meetings for separated parents - where there are nonresident and resident dads with nonresident and resident mums it quickly becomes clear it isn't a gender issue. A good parent is a good parent and a bad one is a bad one.

Having both men and women on this forum is useful to see it from each others points of views.

lostdad - Presumably you are a man? As a woman, I do see a difference in how women and men respond to things. I think that difference is socialised not innate, but i think it is clearly there.

YABU. This site is for mums, dads, grandparents but also for single people, young and older. I'm sad for you that your ex partner treated you so disgustingly and you have trouble trusting since then but it is a bit out there to suggest this should only be for mums. I find the male input really useful at times, especially when I need a male perspective. I agree with the pp who said you should put Women Only on your topic title or move to net mums

Yes this site is for everyone.

I get a bit sad when a woman is told that she is being unreasonable to wish a site was women only.

Yes, I don't think it's unreasonable for OP to wish there was a safe space. It can be hard to ask for advice about an ex partner when you know you will get a few replies from men trying to get you to see it from his point of view even when you mention abuse etc. And putting "women only" on threads wouldn't work. You'd get men posting to rant about the title and also some women who think it isn't fair.