The view of Mumsnet from Reddit

[Xanthangum]

Not sure how I got there, but I found myself reading a reddit conversation in answer to the question 'Why is mumsnet so transphobic?'

www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/ewqit7/why_is_mumsnet_so_transphobic/

I have tried to compile the various suggestions. Even if you accept the premisese of the question, see if you agree with the answers, many of which are assumptions about Mumsnet posters.

1. Its owners are transphobic

1. Its users are middle aged, middle or upper class, white, CIS, uneducated women

1. Other, similar boards are too right-wing. Oh, but its users all follow Katie Hopkins and read the Sun

1. Some conspiracy theory about Russian bots... no idea...

1. The echo chamber/ network effect / breeding ground, populated by people who sit around in their pajamas all day

1. It's all just the same few people posting anyway

1. Mothers tend to get judged all the time, so judging others is their way of getting their own back. Mothers who are feeling insecure because they have achieved little other than breed.

Does anyone actually recognise themselves in this misogynistic pile of stereotypical assumption?

[PermanentTemporary]

One of the difficulties with debate is that the big fault line of TWAW comes up so early. If you think that believing TW aren't W is transphobic, that's kind of the end. If you think TW aren't W or are nasty enough to say TW are M, that's kind of it too.

I would quite like to see a proper formal long debate on the proposition 'This house believes TW are W and TM are M' because of course there are arguments on both sides, it depends on how you define things. But it cant be done in 140 characters, especially if you get cancelled and doxxed literally for liking an 140 character message from someone who once stated that biology matters.

[boatyardblues]

I recognise the posting in my pyjamas bit, but even that is on non-busy weekend mornings. The rest of it? 🤣 Like someone else said: more projection than IMAX.

[Mossyrock]

They can say what they like. It's sexist othering nonsense. Apart from the bit about sitting around in pyjamas, which I am doing today.

I think socialisation has much more of reality than many GC feminists like to admit

Look at variations in sexist norms over time and geography - gender is all socialisation. This is uncontroversial amongst GC feminists I think?

PermanentTemorary

I agree with you about Twitter. But why is it nasty to say that TW are M? It is a neutral fact, robustly evidenced. Saying this doesn't make a person nasty, even if other people don't want to hear it.

I find that assertion that TWAW dangerous, appropriative and nasty. The people who say it aren't necessarily nasty themselves.

[Mossyrock]

Cross posted with you boatyardblues! Fellow pyjama poster

[NotTerfNorCis]

uneducated women

I thought it was the opposite - we're all middle-aged snobs dwelling in academia.

[ScrimshawTheSecond]

Most of us identify as cunty types, I suppose.

[Michelleoftheresistance]

So, so much of this is at heart teenagers grumping about mum. It's quite sweet in a warped way.

All the fury that mum has views, a mind of her own, a sex life, and does other things apart from exist to nurture and serve them.

[fazakerleyjackie]

I looked at it a few times. What shite!

Come the Fazak Revolution, it's where I'll be sending the grammar police who derail threads from young Asian women looking for a bit of support on here. My version of Dante's Inferno.

Mwah hah ha ha hah!

[WeetabixBananaHipsterFFS]

PJs?

This, my friends, is a trans trouser suit.

I’m formal like that.

[Needmoresleep]

True. I'm a Russian bot.

[BeyondReasonablyDoubtsLots]

Pft. I'll have you know I got dressed today!!

[BeyondReasonablyDoubtsLots]

I even had a shower

[littlbrowndog]

A shower. Stop with that boasting

[BeyondReasonablyDoubtsLots]

I will admit, it was hard to decide which shower or bath to use in my seventeen bathroom-ed middle/upper class home.
Rather than the ex-council house, y'know.

[HandsOffMyLangCleg]

I didn't know Stewart Lee had been posting on Reddit too.

It always makes me laugh that if we are as so thick/ignorant/bigoted/inconsequential,
then why we are such a perceived threat? Why do the likes of Harrop and Aslan go out of their way to bother themselves with what the Mumsnet massive are doing?

Why does the NSPCC pull out of safeguarding talks? Why did Mumsnet produce a thread about our influence on Westminster? why was Jess Philips so rattled? And why did news of Jo Swinson's failure to acknowledge the two sexes, travel far and wide?

If we are so insignificant then why does anybody care?

[TalkingtoLangClegintheDark]

It's the usual reason. A lot of women talking, without men to supervise them, makes misogynist nervous.

Yeah, that was my take. How very dare all these uppity females think and speak without male supervision?! What on earth is going on in the world when we can’t control them? Outrageous state of affairs.

They might as well all sign off as Outraged of Tunbridge Wells.

[HandsOffMyLangCleg]

Correct Talking and this is why women daring to meet up at WPUK events is met with such outrage from males and when we say "no" it turns even nastier.

[Xanthangum]

If we are so insignificant then why does anybody care?

This was kind of my point in starting the thread HandsOff. There is a mis-match between the nuanced, informative debate hosted here, (and enhanced by myriad voices, not just the same few I hasten to add) and the preconceived ideas of who people think Mumsnetters are.

It's both a blessing (how many years of radicalising scale-eye-dropping now?) and a curse - in the sense that "bleary-eyed baby-makers cant possibly have important opinions" that gets thrown at contributors to this place.

[aliasundercover]

What stands out to me is how much these people hate - REALLY HATE - women in general and mothers in particular.

I wonder why that would be?

[picklesdragonisawelshdragon]

I have been educated by MN- it's not that I was uneducated before, but my mind has been blown here. I recognise a bit of echo chamber too- there are posters here who have long conversations about which shade of white to use on a wall, and others who get all technical about whether to tuck or not.

I'm a card carrying member of the 'if it's clean and covers the essentials then I'm respectably dressed' club, wouldn't know a farrow and ball paint chart from a Mac foundation chart.

[picklesdragonisawelshdragon]

And the very next thread I open is discussing intimate bleaching. 'What tone were you aiming for?'. Classic.

[TirisfalPumpkin]

It has a forum culture that puts off people with specious and crappy arguments that have to be 'respected', not dissected and challenged. There are lots of intimidatingly intelligent women who post here. This upsets the average redditor.

That said, I was in PJs til 3pm today. Maybe I am the stereotype and don't know it.

[StrangeLookingParasite]

seventeen bathroom-ed middle/upper class home.

Jésus wept, who'd want to clean that?

[janeskettle]

I have to say, the amount I care about what general reddit users think about Mumsnet is less than zero.

[janeskettle]

Also, fuck off with 2 & 5, snow.

Working class worker who is only in PJ's to drink my fucking coffee before breakfast, leftist, double-degreed, and piss off with the ageism and misogyny.

Jesus, I find it hard to cope with nasty stupidity.