Threads pitting childfree women against parents

[MiraculousLadybug]

Hi MNHQ.
I am not the only person who has noticed this, there's an ongoing thread on the childfree board as well about this issue.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/childfree-mumsnetters/5201723-is-anyone-else-getting-suspicious

There have been an awful lot of threads trying (with varying levels of transparency) to pit childfree women against women with children.

I really do think that there needs to be an outright rule on this, like the rule about not shaming women who breastfeed or who bottle feed or punditing either type of feeding, because it's really horrible to watch these nasty posters start arguments and they're not productive conversations. Women on whichever side is being hated on in any given thread feel compelled to "defend" themselves and their choice (or lack of choice) and it's clearly deeply upsetting for some people.

Here is one example I've seen just from the last 30 minutes (I saw another one but I've lost it now):

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/amibeingunreasonable/5203690-aibu-to-ask-how-to-handle-this-teacher

While people should be free to talk about problems, these sort of threads with snidey comments about women with or without children are unproductive and reinforce stereotypes on both sides. The thread above is just self explanatory nastiness towards women without children complete with generalisations.

While it isn't the strongest example of the other side of things, "people at work keep saying Christmas is for family and I don't have children and can't get time off" gets trotted out every year around now. It's never ended with a valuable discussion and always descends into a massive bunfight.

There's nothing to debate in these kind of threads, just stereotypes. The world doesn't need more polarisation. There are so many reasons why women don't or can't have children.

I know it's hard to walk the line between policing conversation and preventing harm, but if I was a childfree woman who hadn't made peace with that, some of the comments being made like "they all lack compassion" might actually tip me over the edge. It's unnecessary othering. Feelings run high on this and it's not ok, any more than the shitty "MN is for parents, so go away" comments that some people make.

It would be great if MN could take a position on this because it's gotten quite bad lately and it would be nice to know whether reporting individual threads would be taken seriously or not.

I get that the link to the thread you have added OP is clumsily worded, would it have been ok if the poster had just said that she felt the teacher didn't have much experience or empathy with the children?
Can we get a ban on dogs being likened to children because that is also really offensive and also seems to be a very divisive commonly recurring theme.

Another one has popped up. I've reported but it's still there.

Guilty as charged, m'lud! 😎

Isn't the opposite to child free women a mother not a 'parent'?

For years, women have been rightly complaining that they are identified by whether or not they are married (the Miss / Mrs / Ms and so on debate), whilst men have no such identity issue, all of them being a Mr.

And now we are being divided into 'mothers' and 'not mothers' camps.

Sometimes, not always, it's useful to be able to make distinctions of all sorts.

I have a specific disability. If I go to an event where it's irrelevant then I don't tick the "special adjustments box". If I'm going to an event where it might be an issue then I do.

If a childfree woman wants to ask about what colour to paint her bathroom then she'll post in the Home Decoration forum and her reproductive status is irrelevant. If she wants to post about making a will and choices to make, or moan about the perennial (and real) "childfree people should always work on Christmas Day" problem then she might find the Childfree Mumsnetters board more useful.

There are a lot of similar-sounding ‘deliberate bun-fight-causing’ provocative posts recently, that’s for sure. Not just putting parents against non-parents, also things like ‘Should the NHS not fund ‘self-caused’ illnesses due to obesity?’ Suspiciously similarly phrased, and generally no even token attempt to make it look as if it emerged as the result of something that happened in an OP’s life.

People don't need to post in the threads or even read them

This wanting to control is getting tiresome

It’s not a question about control @Edingril - I think it’s actually the opposite!

Well obviously - but I suppose what I was meaning was that your reproductive status is now assumed to have a direct bearing on your opinions as a whole, and you will think the same was as everyone else.

It could be driving traffic, or classic divide and rule, or perhaps more likely just a reflection of our culture and society and the direction of travel.

Look at all the Trump threads. People are SO angry and looking to take it out on someone, anyone, as long as it isn't those in power of course.

Hi there @MiraculousLadybug. Thanks for getting in touch.

The short answer to your question is: yes, it's always worth reporting if you have a concern and we take all reports seriously. That doesn't necessarily mean we will make deletions; that depends wholly on whether a post breaks Talk guidelines or not. Some of the examples you give would break guidelines as personal attacks, while with others we would expect Mumsnetters to challenge views they disagreed with on the thread itself.

If it were clear that someone were posting here purely to cause trouble, we'd take further action as we'd regard that as trolling. However, we don't think it's appropriate for us to shut down entire topics as conversations or to have a policy on the subject. Actually, we should also make clear that we don't have a policy as such on infant feeding - again, we simply apply our Talk guidelines. If someone were being deliberately inflammatory, rude or agressive, we would delete those posts, but strong opinions, expressed in a civil way are absolutely fine.

We hope that helps. Have another look at the guidelines if that helps and if you're not sure, just hit the report button. We're always happy to take a look.

Agree.

Censorship is not warranted.

I hate this idea that we're all supposed to be on different sides - the very definition of divisive.

Spot on. I'm another one who's noticed this change from people just having a whinge to trying to create teams to pit against each other.

I've certainly seen stuff like a PP mentioned along the lines of "feminists deride mothers", as though feminists and mothers are different people. <facepalm>

Again. My concern, which I think is shared by others on this thread, is not about censorship AT ALL. It’s in-fact the opposite as there appears to be a rising practice of setting up discussions/debates in such a way as to stifle discussion.

I’m here for the different perspectives and experiences and am finding it harder and harder to find threads that welcome this. The place feels a lot about the click-bait at the moment and I’m wondering who benefits from that.

Mothers v non-mothers just seemed to be a frequent one when we started this discussion which felt like a pretty egregious theme.

YES! All of what you say, @MurdoMunro .

Absolutely this. You've summed up exactly why I started this thread much more succinctly than I.

Thanks for the clarification on MN's position, @HebeMumsnet .

So, @HebeMumsnet for an example, what do you think of the thread in AIBU about the mother in law planning to go to the citrus themed Spanish wedding in a black dress with a train.

It’s click bait right? I mean I’m not going to bother to report it officially because plopping an OP that hits a bunch of buttons then disappearing while it runs for 15 pages doesn’t infringe the guidelines does it.

I’m not interested in talking about the content of that thread, BTW it’s tedious and I can happily ignore it. This is not a TAAT. It’s an example of the very frequent practice. But if the issue used to drive that sort of response was more serious (damaging) I would be bothered.

it’s an example if the pattern you see, are you the ones who benefit from this sort of thing? Have the people doing it noticed this thread and thought ‘yeah, they’ve clocked us on the barren v fertile thing, what other buttons can we hit to pitch women against each other and get loads of hits - I know silly brides and mad mothers in law’

If you AS that poster (as I did because my initial reaction was "what") there is quite a bit of history including posts talking about Spanish relatives. The gap between the OP first set of posts and later posts is four hours - hardly unusual.
The subject matter is not that wild If you are aware tof Spanish Summer wedding traditions - the formal evening events with black is a traditional colour for MotG, just different customs. I can't see which guidelines the thread is infringing.

in the case of the teacher thread in the OP example. Its not unreasonable to question the experience of a professional about whom you have concerns and actual years under the belt is very significant in many professions. The second or third post in the thread immediately points out that having or not having children does not determine the quality of a teacher. Should the OP's thread be deleted for ageism and childfree prejudice? (Independent of whether or not the OP is genuine anyway). There is a big difference to say "I have concerns and she seems inexperienced" and saying "she must be shit because she is young/lacks children".

There have always been waves of attacks from MRAs one womens' forums on specific subject of the day. However I also think a lot of the MiL/DiL dynamic threads and childfree/childhaving threads and don't start me on the "lazy SAHM" threads are a symptom of us as women still living in a patriarchal society - and falling foul of divide and rule.

'crotch goblins' ?????????😮😮

Frequently seen.

I've never seen it before. Who could invent such an ugly expression!

Ah OK @C8H10N4O2 a bad example. I expect I have become somewhat jaded and bitter. Perhaps I am so annoyed about feeling manipulated on the forum that I am seeing it where its just plain old ignorance and mean spiritedness.

Whatever it is it seems to be part of the business model so I’ll keep looking for somewhere that suits me better. I left for a good while, after the ‘Jeffrey’ threads, came back as things seemed to have been tidied up a bit. Peaks and troughs.

It'll be our loss if you go, @MurdoMunro . You and the OP are articulating well some difficult stuff which is of benefit to the forum as a whole.

I'm grateful.

Thank you @PerkingFaintly, that’s a very kind comment. I can get with the robust cut and thrust on AIBU (mostly, it can go to far at times) but it’s this sense of being manipulated that I don’t enjoy. I was hoping that by understanding why (the ‘who benefits’ question) I would feel differently.