This is how traffic to the feminism board has increased

[BarrackerBarmer]

You're going to love this.

Number of people entering the MN site via the Feminist Chat topic:
June 2016: 15,000
June 2018: 177,000

That's a TWELVE-FOLD increase.
And that's just people entering the MN site directly into femchat. Lots of people enter Mumsnet via other routes like active talk, and then navigate to the feminism boards next.

Overall site visits in June 2018 compared to June 2016 showed an increase from 17M to 26M, which is a very healthy increase of 53%. But the impressive twelvefold increase in visitors going directly to feminism shows a significant change in behaviour.

Keep talking, brilliant women of feminist chat.
People are taking notice.

Thanks to @MNHQ for responding to my request. And if others find this stuff interesting, join me in asking MNHQ to share more data like this with us.

(I'd like to know overall visits to femchat as a proportion of site traffic, and see if that has changed too)

So all those scaremongering posts about how the new talk guidelines will kill MumsNet are exposed, aren't they?

Stats relate to an increase over the past 2 years. Time will tell how the very recent changes affect things.

this corner of mumsnet has been an education for me.

Me too!

Thank you everyone.

Incredible. I rarely post on other forums. I'm on Twitter now but here feels a spiritual home.

It makes me realise that I'm not alone in these feelings. That something is wrong and that women will stand up together. I feel proud.

Those numbers are actually a bit unsettling. I vaguely knew from the press MN was a force but I also thought it was a bit white middle class yummy mummy for me I'm sorry I now know I was wrong and I came to this corner thinking it was just a few people and especially when they took it off the front pg & muted trending that not many people would find their way here.

So whilst not all visitors will be supporters (and we don't all agree amongst ourselves) there's clearly a lot more GC feminists lurking IRL than we realised

Although trans issues predominate I've noticed trans issues dominate feminism for young female university students as well but it's all about what they can do for transwomen.

And yet women who know what the difference between male and female is are routinely told by at least one mod that they "may not belong here" if they dare mention it. I wonder what those MN mods think the huge increase in visitors are here for? Do they think they're all here tutting at us? Because I've noticed threads of people delurking overwhelmingly sway gender critical.

Do MN not want the extra visitors maybe? I think it is LaSqrrl who pointed out before that the 'feminist' sites who welcomed trans activists alienated their actual feminist visitors and became virtual deserts. I think that's probably worth noting for anyone whose paycheck depends on this site generating hits and clicks. Get rid of the women who know what male is and the hits will drop off, whoever they are and why ever they come.

Brilliant news!

I came for the pregnancy support and pram reviews.
I stayed for the radical feminism

for the lurkers, for ye are many.

I think that's promising, and hope it's not just tumblr crew looking for transphobia quotes. It must be bringing Mumsnet a chunk of profit too through advertising.

I have to admit though, any numbers just make me ask more questions. I'd love to drill deeper.

Is this consistent growth or has June been a random month? Where are people visiting from? How long are they spending here? How many are repeat visitors? What happens when you include mobile visits? What happens when you look at non-landing page traffic? How do these compare to the rest of the site and boards?

... but I'm guessing that level of detail would be restricted to HQ!

I came on here initially to look at a particular board relating to my parenting set up.

Now I come here first, every day, several times some days. I do have a peek at active threads but 99% of my MNing is on FWR.

Oh and I usually come onto here via active talk not FWR so I'm not counted in those figures Barracker.

It seems fairly obvious there is a silent groundswell of support. You only have to look at the many thousands of pounds the various crowdfunders raise in a short space of time. There is no way all that money is just from the FWR regular posters.

Many women are fearful of speaking out even anonymously on MN but they are quietly supporting the brave women that get stuck into the activism (probably the odd man or two as well).

I am not generally interested in feminism boards but recently with all the shared toilet debate, they have just got hilarious. So thinking a lot of 'newcomers' have just came on for a laugh.

I still think that we need to take the debate about self-id off the feminist boards whenever we can (i.e. whenever the question/point could be a post in another topic it should go there rather than Feminist Chat) so that other mners hear about the issues.

Absolutely.

Thanks for this information OP. So interesting.

I used to come to MN mainly for AIBU, Chat, etc. Now I am straight into the feminism section.

I wouldn't use MN half as much if feminism was shut up or shut down.

I'm one of the gender critical lurkers. I used to stick to active threads, but then I started seeing threads about the women's protests, and how TRAs were complaining about pussy hats being transphobic.
That got me interested in the FWR board, and now I spend most of my time there.

Yes, thanks OP.
It's great to have a safe place to discuss things. Even if we aren't always in agreement with each other.
Of course these boards are 'watched' and it's quite entertaining to see how certain posters are ready to pounce and try their hardest to derail. I find it amusing.

I think it's funny and ironic that some of those will be antifeminist activists trying to disrupt threads and piss us off and they add to the "look how feminism has grown and is a plus for mumsnet" figures!

Yep, I'm another one who came to MN for the parenting stuff - mostly Special Needs and education as I've had (still having) a bloody difficult time with my son with SN, battling the local authority bureaucracy. Then one day about 6 months ago I noticed there was a feminism section. "Ooh, I'm a feminist", I thought, "I wonder what goes on there." Now I'm a bit hooked.

It truly has been a radicalisation portal for me! Like previous posters said: came for the due-month thread, stayed when I realised it was a place where really bright, funny, articulate women come to talk. And swear. It's been a hugely important place for me, to the point that I will actually say that I feel you are my sisters.

Radicalised me. I came here for the dog pages, stayed for AIBU and now FWR is the only thing I really read.

I can't even remember how I ended up here, I am guessing I was searching for advice when my boys were tiny. But gradually it was fwr that I lurked on most. I mostly use MN via the active threads and during those few days when fwr was banned from active recently, there were hardly any threads I bothered to open. I wouldn't stay if it wasn't for the feminism.

BarrackerBarmer

Bloody hell, well done to you. What a shot in the arm that is.

Mumsnet: Yeah so you know when you signed up we had 15,000 visitors that month? Well two years later, month-on-month, it's increased twelvefold to 177,000.

Advertisers: Wow, that's brilliant. Here, have some more business.

What do you think is the reason?

Mumsnet: Not sure, but the dominating topic is transgenderism and women's rights.

Advertisers: Ah ok. Got it.

Mumsnet: Yes, there are dozens of targeted campaigns to get the entire issue outlawed and the board shutdown.

Advertisers: WHAT!!!!

The Streisand Effect Datun.

In all its epic glory.

I came to MN initially for conception/pregnancy advice and then moved onto some of the baby related stuff. A bit of poking around during those sleepless led me to FWR. I loved reading the discussions here and it helped reignite my own feminism. It’s the first place I check in now although there are a few other boards I like to look at/join in with.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a chunk of the increased traffic is the frothers from Twatter. Seems a lot of them have nothing better to do.