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.

Hi @MurdoMunro.
Thanks for taking the time to share your concerns and we're sorry to hear you're not enjoying your time on the site right now.

We want to address a few of your points to clarify Mumsnet’s stance on the issues raised. We value organic and authentic discussion among users and have always done so. There is no manipulation to "drive engagement" by planting clickbait or divisive posts and we do not set up debates or plant themes to "stifle" conversation. There are thousands of new posts on Mumsnet every day - to be perfectly frank, we wouldn’t do any of this because it's not what we're about - but we certainly don’t need to either.

We understand that some threads may resonate more with certain posters, leading to long discussions and high engagement. That said, we don’t promote or generate "drama" to boost activity. As a platform, our goal is to support discussions and make parents’ lives easier, not to "pit women against each other."

We’re not sure what you mean by Mumsnet ‘stools’ or what you’re referring to exactly when you ask: ‘who benefits?’ Please feel free to expand on this and we’d be happy to address it.

Oh I don’t know Becky. I prefer well moderated places which encourage conversation and tolerate nuance and maybe this is just too big a place to handle or it’s a whole load of things coalescing.

Somebody benefits. OPs who delight in creating a drama, bad actors looking for fodder for their forums or twitter, Buzzfeed or the Daily Mail got a content gap, tech bros training their AI machines to talk about ‘women’s stuff’. I assume that you benefit in some way too otherwise you would update your guidelines to crack down on it. There’s a pattern even if the subject themes change.

I’m just sad about it. Sad that this is yet another public place that feels dominated by loud gobshites and/or people with manipulative intent. Fair enough if that’s what people enjoy, crack on, but I don’t and I seem to have run out of other places to go.

Edit: forgot to tag @BeckyAMumsnet