Sympathiser of MN hacking runs blog on childcare provider site

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Troll or not - he has decided that this company site is the right forum for his musings.

On a site which claims "A large part of the My Family Care Group is Tinies Childcare, a well-known name in childcare and parenting circles since 1975"
www.myfamilycare.co.uk

there is blog:
www.myfamilycare.co.uk/news/blog/hacktivism-or-poetic-justice.html

"Ben's no hacktivist but he knows when poetic justice has been done. With some recent reveals from website hacking, he wonders if these people are doing the right thing.

Marriage is tough, but
There have been two big website hacks that made plenty of headlines in the last few weeks. Top of the pile was obviously the Ashley Madison comeuppance. "Life is short - have an affair". I mean I'm all for living life, and marriage can be complicated, but it was pretty depressing stuff. 1.2 million email addresses in the UK! It's just an extraordinary number.
And whilst a few of us sniggered gleefully at the deserving member of the SNP caught up in the mix, overall it's a damning indictment of this wonderful modern world we've created for ourselves.

A real hacking win
And as for the other big hack it involved those holier than thou folk at Mumsnet. Some militant dads took exception to the sexist, opinionated vitriol that often passes for normal Mumsnet comment and decided to take the law into their own hands... Probably not the most sensible approach but I have some sympathy. Just ask Gina Ford or Amanda Holden. Being on the receiving end of a Mumsnet invective isn't much fun.

Positivity doesn't make news
I don't like Mumsnet - all those opinionated know-it-all mothers dominating the bulletin boards simply aren't my cup of tea. Its defenders say that it's nothing if not democratic. For every foul-mouthed tirade there's a positive comment in return, claim the founders. And for some lonely, depressed and grief stricken mothers it's an absolute lifeline. My issue with the site and everything it stands for runs a bit deeper.

And the loser is...
I dream of a world where there is equality between the sexes. I want my daughters to have exactly the same career and life opportunities as their brother, whether or not they decide to start a family along the way. We're getting closer but we'll only truly smash the remaining glass ceilings if men learn to be less macho and mothers stop being aggressively feminist. And some of the most aggressive feminists out there seem to live on Mumsnet. There I said it.
I expect my abuse to start. Let's hope I'm strong enough!
Ben Black

Surely it's much more sound business sense to vote for the woman who founded a business with many staff that could use Tinies services, rather than an author who presumably has no staff?

The cougar piece isn't actually as awful as you might think although not sure what he thinks cougar means.

There are a couple of other pieces, which read as if they are written by someone who thinks he has to say what he is saying rather than it being genuine whereas the MN comments are his genuine opinions.

Lass, I skimmed the piece. Use of the word cougar, a word for sexually assertive older women dating younger men, when talking about a business networking event he attended, is just inappropriate.

I do know that -I'm not sure he does.

I think he thinks it means assertive, go-getter. That and the other articles read as if he thinks he has to say certain feminist/ equal opportunities statements but his heart isn't it and he doesn't really understand it.

Do you think he thinks that? I suspect he knows what it means and is being "edgy". He's somewhere between you and I in age and we both know what it means!

Y'know, I don't think it's acceptable as a defence even if he doesn't know. If you are blogging with your corporate hat on and say something racist "by accident" (Cumberbatch springs to mind), you can still be held to account for it at the court of public opinion.

If he does know what cougar means then it's utterly bizarre to use it at a business networking event.

Och, bollocks, I have used this agency - being a working, single mum and needing an emergency nanny and no hubbie in sight - and I was on the hacked 'list' and I have posted on feminism in my previous incarnation.

Oh yes I agree he can be held accountable. As I said the articles I read could be taken at face value (the women's tennis one for exampe) but they read as very fake.

I can play both Kumbaya and Hotel California on my guitar for Sparkling

That seems strangely appropriate OP. MN is like Hotel California - you can check out, but you can never leave

A Lass, "There are a couple of other pieces, which read as if they are written by someone who thinks he has to say what he is saying rather than it being genuine whereas the MN comments are his genuine opinions" - maybe the others wee written by his PR agency, thus breaking the first rule of blogging

Well . What can I say.

My company is one that is generous enough to pay for the service his company provides, we get a certain amount of free emergency childcare every year. I imagine that my company pays him well for this service.

Due to this, I get the bulletin delivered to my work inbox periodically, what with it being a work benefit that I use and all, I subscribe in order to keep up with changes to the process etc.

I have so far enjoyed, while sitting at my desk, some excitement with my blood pressure around the "boys are like this and girls are like that" educational parenting series, and of course the great Cougar article.

Most teeth grating of all is this man obviously thinks he is very right-on and at the forefront of sex equality etc.

Which his company is. They provide a service to assist (in my case) people with caring responsibilities who are working. Companies who buy this service for their employees are by that single thing carrying out a feminist action - whether they are doing it for pragmatic reasons or just because they feel it is the right thing to do or (my company) I would imagine a mix of the 2.

And then you get all this sexist crap that he comes out with. And it's his company. I don't get it. I don't want to listen to this shit, I'm sure that many others who use his service don't either. Given that we are really likely to be the sort of person who uses MN FGS.

The article is a very personal attack on MN, applauding illegal hacking and presumably the calling of the armed police to family homes in the middle of the night. He has directly called many of his service users an awful lot of names.

I really, really don't get it.

I wish I knew someone in HR, or on the D&I team, to quietly mention this to them and flag it up as a problem. I really hope that other women who are fucked off about this are in a position in their organisations to actually instigate questions / actions if they feel moved to do so.

Like I say, I was sitting at my desk doing my work this morning and I got an email from one of our benefit suppliers that basically called me a cunt.

So, you know. I hope he loses a shit-ton of business.

Just out of interest, can anyone remember if bogging the conversation down in small, unimportant and pretty much unrelated points was one of the things that was mentioned in the 'derailing for dummies' blog?

Asking for a friend, naturally.

Tiger Mum was glamorous in a super fit "my plastic surgeon has become a personal friend" kind of way. She was also witty, highly articulate and passionate about the right way to parent.

Mumsnetter, by contrast, was a bit flabbier all round - less glamorous, less eloquent, less passionate and unfortunately seemed to have a piece of that morning's breakfast stuck to her long green dress.

Hah.

Nothing like a lesson in glamour from a guy who's hair looks like a bad bikini wax.

" those opinionated know-it-all mothers dominating the bulletin boards simply aren't my cup of tea. "

"Opinionated" - women with opinions (this adjective is very rarely used about men)

"Know it all" - well informed, knowledgeable, sometimes expert

"mothers" - um, this is mumsnet. It's a site primarily for mothers with a few fathers who can be bothered to dip their toe in.

"dominating the bulletin boards" by which I suppose he means dominating the site.

Who does he expect to dominate a parenting site? Eighteen year old clubbers exchanging opinions about the latest places? Single hobbyists exchanging news about their hobbies? Men exchanging views about how women ought to look? Ignorant, uninformed, unopinionated women who haven't been told by men what opinions they are allowed to hold?

Wow he's outed himself as the most incredible misogynist. Just wow.

Most teeth grating of all is this man obviously thinks he is very right-on and at the forefront of sex equality etc.

Yes- that's what I got. His website generally would put me. I'm always suspicious of commercial organisations who are "passionate " about what they do.

I don't need passion - I just need to do what you are hired to do , well and at a fair price.

There speaks male privilege.

An extremely unattractive man like him thinks he's got the right to criticise women's looks. Justine is definitely better looking than he is. And I suspect she's better dressed as well.

But of course, unlike a human with a vagina, his value doesn't lie in his looks.

Which is just as well.

"put me off"

"I don't need passion - I just need to do what you are hired to do , well and at a fair price."

Christ yes. If you're passionate about making your customers happy, you are living an empty life.

Wow, i can't take any of the comments I have just read in this thread seriously. Get a grip.

No of course you can't.

It's just silly women saying it.

Number of women give the opinion that they are fucked off
Man says they should forget it and shut up

Plus ca change

If you can't see a problem with a person who runs a childcare related service supporting hacking and getting armed police sent to family homes in the middle of the night, and calling large numbers of their service users a whole bunch of unpleasant names, then that's your lookout I guess. In the opinion of lots of women though, it's shite

We're getting closer but we'll only truly smash the remaining glass ceilings if men learn to be less macho and mothers stop being aggressively feminist.

The really, really sad thing is that he probably will never understand what is so very wrong about that statement. He honestly thinks women should appreciate the generosity of the guys like him who so benignly admit that some men (not him! The nasty macho ones! Not All Men, remember!) are at least part to blame for the systematic societal disadvantage suffered by half the population. He thinks women should accept their part in causing and sustaining thousands of years of their total legal, civil and familial disenfranchisement. Because those nasty, aggressive feminists are at least as much to blame for it. Suffragettes and the Women's Movement had nothing to do with equal votes, equal pay and/or equal ops legislation. They should have been more ladylike.

I mean... seriously.

Wow, i can't take any of the comments I have just read in this thread seriously. Get a grip.

Would you like us to differentiate the sarcastic ones from the jokey ones from the serious ones?

Would that help you to take it more seriously?

I have a lovely grip here, Buffy, I'll share it with you, if you like?