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Concerns regarding one of your surveys

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AbigailAdams · 19/11/2012 16:38

I had a quick look at this survey and have real concerns about the paragraph after the 3rd question. My concerns are namely that often lack of contact is not down to administrative difficulties, but down to abuse and a system like this could mean a further tool of abuse. Plus isn't this putting the onus on women, once again, to facilitate contact for the men?

I also find it a bit that this is in conjunction with a so far unnamed father's rights group, many of which are not exactly known for their co-operation with mothers. I am feeling really uneasy about this. Does anyone else? And could we have a bit more information about what this would entail?

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MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 19/11/2012 17:47

Hi all,

Just wanted to say that we aren't ignoring you, we have seen this.

We've passed your comments onto our insight team who will be along shortly.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 19/11/2012 23:07

@FastidiaBlueberry

I am just very sceptical about the fact that mumsnet have not named the father's group to whom they are talking.

I think there's one that doesn't sound like it's run by a bunch of entitled whiners (can't remember its name, it's not one of the better-known ones) but most of them are not interested in the welfare of children, they're interested in the entitlements of men and they really do see it as women's jobs to facilitate their relationships with their children on their terms.

Mumsnet would be selling women and children down the river if it co-operated with men like that. Not for the first time - I haven't forgotten the way it tolerated MRA's the way Facebook tolerates rapists and I completely lost respect for them for it and haven't yet regained it. I really hope they're speaking to a decent father's org, not FNF or one of those other awful ones.

Viz the abuse thing, I really don't think that can be emphasised enough - people think feminists are rabid about DV because they are unaware of just how common it is: figures show that it is a major factor (if not a cause) in a very large percentage of family breakdowns - Lundy Bancroft quotes 50% in the States, I'm not sure what the figure is here, but 1 in 4 is all women subjected to DV so it's reasonable to suppose that women who have separated, will be disproportionately more likely to be the victims of DV. That's a huge percentage. Any father's group which denies or minimises this, is shit, let's be clear: and so any work MN does with any father's group, will be fucking shit if MN allows the MRA agenda of pretending that DV is just a minimal side issue. When it comes to relationship breakdown, abuse is a huge issue and just because the rest of the media don't talk about it, doesn't mean MN shouldn't. If it doesn't, it's shit.

So to the app: how are you going to deal with the fact that a large percentage of participants will be abusive and without body language, tone of voice etc., a virtual mediator is simply not going to be able to pick that up?

Hiya,
This is the very early stages of a proposal to work together on a particular project and we are bound by confidentiality at this stage because it's a condition of the process, not because it's likely to be controversial.

For that reason we can't name the fathers' group right now, but I can tell you that we are not entirely dim. No really . We would in never choose to work in partnership with any group that Mumsnetters would be uncomfortable with. I have NO DOUBT that the dads' group we are talking to would not be difficult for anyone here to accept as a partner - it's not a group representing fathers who have separated, it is just a group for all dads, much like mumsnet is for mums.

Sorry to ask you to trust us, but trust us!

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