All white images on MN?

[AuntyElle]

The ‘This may also interest you’ links show me overwhelmingly white babies, toddlers and mums.
This gives a very limited impression of who MN think their audience is.
I’d really like to see more diversity.

How do you choose these images? How do you try to ensure diversity is represented?

Clicked through to your Toddlers section and, again, the images are overwhelmingly of white children:
www.mumsnet.com/toddlers

I agree, OP. Very good point.

In the area where I live, the population is white. Actually, there is a black boy in dgs' school. Out of about 300 children, one black boy. It would be interesting to know what percentage of the UK population is of minority ethnic background. I'm sure there must be statistics somewhere.

Of course there are, Singlenotsingle, published by the Office of National Statistics:

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/articles/ethnicityandnationalidentityinenglandandwales/2012-12-11#ethnicity-in-england-and-wales

Totally agree . I think it’s very old fashioned and quite rare nowadays to have marketing images or assets that aren’t multicultural. Disappointing.

There has been for a few weeks now a beautiful dual heritage looking baby on the 'baby names that grandparents hate' section.

www.mumsnet.com/baby-names/baby-name-wars

He's not white is he? I'm not sure now :/

Anyway, he's beautiful. I've been watching him for a while. I'm not a stalker I promise.

Yes I agree. Also it's all babies!

No preschoolers, teenagers. Primary age with disabilities. Come on!

I’ve now looked at other sections and the Pregnancy one certainly has images of a more diverse group. So may be MN just need to look at their image use again and ensure it is diverse throughout. It’s so important that we all see images that reflect us.
I love that you’re keeping an eye on that beautiful baby, WhatCanIDoNowPlease

AuntyElle - we're really grateful that you've flagged this up. We'll make sure to pass this on straight away as it sounds like there's more we could be doing to make sure all our users and their DC are represented.

Thanks again

Fantastic! Thanks, FlissMumsnet.

The quote I’ve attached is from this recent article by Afua Hirsch: www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/media/2018/apr/10/glossy-magazine-covers-too-white-models-black-ethnic-minority

It focuses on magazines but I think is also relevant here.

Other resources:
www.demos.co.uk/press-release/61-of-ethnic-minority-kids-in-england-and-90-in-london-begin-year-1-in-schools-where-ethnic-minorities-are-the-majority-of-the-student-body/

diversity-matters.org.uk

Yummy beautiful baby!

Really glad to see this has been raised thanks OP and Fliss@MN! Britain is very diverse in many areas and not in others, I think some people have a view that MN is just middle class white, I used to think that but slowly it's coming across that it's not and it's a good mix of people! What would be good is like you say having a mixture of pictures from all backgrounds/cultures to represent that. Hope there's a rapid change soon.

I use the app, so never normally see any pictures unless they're posted on a thread.

Certainly the images that come up in any Google search would not encourage me to use MN. They're generally beautiful white babies and Boden mummies (and sometimes daddies), or posed scummy-mummy stereotypes. Not relevant to me. Off-putting, even.

I'm surprised MN don't show more diversity, especially given the This Is My Child campaign.