Bloggers Specials this week

[HandDivedScallopsrgreat]

Hi MNHQ,

I wonder if you could tell me the reason behind endorsing/promoting a blog regarding a wife who believes her husband, a convicted rapist, is innocent. I was quite shocked to find it in the weekly parenting news e-mail.

There are a lot of women on MN who have been victims of rape and whose attackers will never be brought to justice. It is incredibly hard to get a rape conviction due to all the rape myths, one of which is women lie and the man didn't do it. I feel it is insulting to the victims of rape and could be triggering.

A couple of months ago you were asked to support a campaign to help dispel rape mytha which you looked on favourably here but endorsing this blog seems to fly in the face of that.

Thanks

Hello all. We've just spoken to our Bloggers team, and they've asked us to post up this reply from them

"On the Bloggers Network, we aim to promote great writing and share the voices of our bloggers. We do not select or reject bloggers on the basis of their personal lives, and we would be wrong to do so.

"We promoted this blog because it provides an unusual perspective on the justice system, and sheds light on what it's like to be a family member or relative of a prisoner. We thought this was an important and underrepresented perspective, since we often hear about the people who go to jail but not about the families and relatives they leave behind. We didn't promote the blog to condone or reject any particular point of view on rape; indeed, the rape and the case itself is not discussed in the blog. We invited people to read the blog because we think it's well written and unusual.

"Having said all that, we agree with many of those who posted here that the way we promoted her blog both in our Parenting News email and her Bloggers Network News email did give the impression that the focus of her blog was her belief in his innocence (which it isn't). And for that we do apologise. We will be careful to pick our words more carefully when we promote our Blogs of the Week in the future. Thanks for all your comments."

Thanks Helen & thanks to MNHQ & the blog people too

You're welcome

x-posted. Obviously

I think it is going to be a constant problem for MN when selecting blogs that they can only select from the limited range of blogs they have available, and what have they available might not be appropriate to inform MN posters about.

I don't think it is really a matter of simply the words used to promote it; it is the content of the blog itself. The rape is mentioned in so far as she believes her husband is innocent. The lives of prisoners' families is important, and there will be lots of stuff on that on the internet which doesn't involve saying a particular victim isn't really a victim. MN doesn't have those more appropriate stories of prisoners' families available in blogs, so they should simply have decided not to promote an inappropriate one.

I can't see how people will have greater sympathy for the predicament of prisoners' families if their predicament in their own story is highlighted by making out the victim either isn't a victim or has made accusations against the wrong person. As others have said, I think the blogger has every right to blog, but I don't see how MN can justify promoting that blog, regardless of the language they use to promote it.

I hope the woman who was raped isn't on mumsnet. And that it hasn't been too triggering to the many women who post here who have been raped.

Helen, thank you for your reply. It wasn't really the wording that bothered me. It was the fact that the blogger (jentlydoesit) doesn't believe the victim of the crime, a crime where women have to fight all the time just to be believed let alone get convictions. (that is why I believe it to be insulting jently)

Jently is more than entitles to write what she wants in her own blog, obviously, but that doesn't mean to say the blog should be promoted.

I agree the blog doesn't dwell on the crime but she does mention it and the fact that she doesn't believe it happened:

This is a women-dominated site, one of the few on the web, surely it is not too much to ask MNHQ to be sensitive around subjects like rape where women are predominantly the victims.

The more I read about this, the more crushingly insensitive I feel Mumsnet have been: "This blogger's husband is serving time for a crime she believes he didn't commit. Find out more about the justice system and lone parenting from an inspirational mum.
Enjoy more blogs on our Bloggers Network"

The belief in the rapist's innocence is foregrounded. He was jailed after DNA evidence harvested years later after a domestic violence attack on the blogger. In one fell swoop, we are asked to find inspiring a woman who stands by her man, despite his abuse of her and other women, and somehow see this as an insight into the criminal justice system (which, let's face it, isn't exactly proficient at convicting rapists).

I find this extremely offensive.

I have every sympathy for the blogger and her situation, but I do not believe this should be held up as an example of anything inspiring whatsoever. Not one tiny bit.

Shameful.

When I've seen documentaries about life in prison when prisoners and or their partners have been interviewed, the prisoners crime is often not mentioned. I suspose this is so that the focus can be on what it is like to be a prisoner/family of prisoner. I think the experiences of prisoners' partners and children is a story that needs to be told but by mentioning the crime and the mans 'susposed innocence' attention is diverted and it becomes controversial.

What LeBOF said. had the focus not been on the fact that the blogger believe's her husband is innocent, it may have been received differently. but throw in the crime, the protest of innocence and you have just offended a lot of women, especially survivors of rape.

Well said BOF.

I felt very sorry for this woman, and it is clear from her blog that she has suffered a great deal.

But I refuse to accept I should find her 'inspirational'. I hope and trust that was not her intention, and I know it wasn't her word.

Awful, awful way to characterize it.

I've been out so hadn't read the response from MNHQ properly and didn't want to post in a rush.

I find MNHQ's response at odds with their usual sensible stance and I don't think it's a very satisfactory response for all the reasons given. The very first post and the most recent ones make reference to believing a convicted rapist is not guilty. It is clearly mentioned in the blog

By promoting it on the blogger's network and via the parenting emails MNHQ is showing a lack of judgement. I also don't think it is compliant with MN's ethos or objectives as published on About Us pages.

I would not be surprised if MNHQ came back and revised their stance and said they got it wrong. I would be very disappointed if they did not.

Quite. I would have thought that one of Mumsnet's unique strengths was the support its posters offer to help victims of rape, and even more often, encouraging women in abusive relationships to leave. The world has been turned on its head by holding this blog up as something to "enjoy".

I don't see how it helps the blogger, and it certainly doesn't help other posters affected by these issues. Frankly, I think promoting this blog is nothing short of disgraceful.

Yes, what BoF said, absolutely.

Question for MNHQ - if you don't select the blogs, who is on the bloggers team?

I'm not satisfied with MNHQ's promotion or response to this either.

I'm curious who comprises the blogging team and whether they realise how spectacularly tasteless their journo-style 'hook' is "This week we're glued to the blog 'A Convict's Wife' by Izzy Gil-Tee", when a cursory google throws up the most distressing accounts of a truly monstrous crime.

Jesus, its like a Private Eye spoof of how crass the Press are. It trivialises something so horrific that I'm embarrassed to be associated with this as a poster here.

BOF's post hits the nail on the head. There is nothing inspirational about a woman who stands by a convicted rapist and I cannot believe MNHQ believe that. There are plenty of single mums and plenty of women whose husbands are in prison - I'm sure I could find you any number of blogs describing what it's like.

The only person who is inspirational in any of this is the woman who had the guts to stand in the courtroom and face her assailant.

Absolutely, LeBof.

Totally agree with LeBof.

This is shockingly awful!

If we as members can find out the ins and outs of this awful awful case in a matter of clicks then surely the bloggers team should be carrying out the same sort of checks FFS?

God I'm bored with fucking moaning about stupid shit like this round here lately. coming a week after the dreadful decision to allow some anti choice statements to stand on a thread where opinion was NOT sought only support just makes me wonder. Again.

I hope you are OK Amor. LeBof has summed up my discomfort. I am really quite angry and disappointed by the response from the bloggers team. It is lacking in empathy and understanding of how rape victims would feel about this.

Come on MNHQ, please can you tell us who is on the bloggers team who decided to make this blog of the week and wrote the terrible blurb on the specials page? There's no indication on the bloggers' network site as to who is running it. I assumed it was MNHQ.