Open letter: Mothers Appeal To Mumsnet CEO Justine Roberts

[IwantToRetire]

Mumsnet is a powerhouse, and your advocacy for the protection of women and children carries real political weight. With every Prime Minister since David Cameron fielding your questions, it’s clear that when you speak, policymakers listen. No mother would turn away from the suffering of a child -and the children of Gaza are still suffering needlessly. Together as mothers, we can help.

While many parents may not feel confident enough to speak out themselves, your leadership now would galvanise them to demand tangible actions to get life saving supplies into Gaza and create safe conditions for women to give birth, giving those mothers and babies a chance at life. We cannot leave them alone in the New Year.

From https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XJv6qEHsa8XAQHfc_wjzUvNTqI2uCrvU0k45uk8H-UM/edit?tab=t.0

Irrespective of what they are asking, why aren't the asking politicians. Why are they asking Justine Roberts to do it for them.
https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/cultural-heavyweights-call-for-action-to-help-mothers-in-gaza-after-aid-ban

Cant find anything about this on mumsnet, not sure which forum it would be in. Or is it a pritvate matter. Nothing to do with mumsnet itself?

Yeah, I mean come on. As if every woman in Gaza has a choice about whether to have sex and carry to term.

Yes, I absolutely do understand that. Why is this not a point within the letter and campaigning on this issue?

Which raises the question as to why these celebs aren't petitioning Oxfam etc al to cooperate? Am I missing something?

I'm happy to delete my comment as my flippant tone / sarcasm doesn't really reflect the point I wanted to make, which is that the numbers around pregnancy and infant mortality within Gaza are not to be trusted and the reasons behind the high pregnancy rate need looking at too.

Many women and girls are also raped and abused in the UK and yet nobody seems to have any qualms about discussing the two child cap and whether these women should be more responsible.

I was always opposed to the two child cap, and don't trust statistical claims made by Hamas either.

"run the world order"? oh dear...

They’ve completely missed the grassroots, bottom-up nature of Mumsnet - and that mothers are autonomous people, not a homogeneous, command-able category. Yes and this is a really extremely misogynist, unfeminist upper class snobbish approach too. Seeing women as some kind of mindless group to be used in whatever way a superior class deems is needed is what the Taliban do.

Do they think that mummies can't think?

They're treating the women of mumsnet (and men, though this type of approach is because they're assuming it's majority women) as if we don't have minds of our own and will just go along with what the modern equivalent of our 'betters' the landed gentry tell us to do.

It's in fact even worse than the landed gentry doing it to their housemaids / gardeners because we're not even getting paid or housed by them! I can't see they're giving Justine anything in return for acceding to their request.

My feeling about Gaza is - it's awful but I (along with everyone bar perhaps the foreign secretary and PM in the uk) can't do anything to change it. I CAN try and do something about maternity care in the UK, poverty, VAWG, grooming gangs etc HERE. So I focus my limited time and energy (after paid work and unpaid caring and volunteering) on that.

Agree with points about rape in conflict zones and not trusting Hamas statistics. Wasn't there some reports about women being cooerced into sex (raped) in return for food rations?

Another factor is the cultural desire/pressure to have large families in the Middle East. This article from 2019 is about booming use of IVF in Gaza (https://www.trtworld.com/article/12730203) Where did the money for that come from?

It's doubtful that Mumsnet carries political weight and policy makers listen.

As well as everything else that is wrong with the letter, why Gaza?

The people of Gaza are suffering horribly. War is hell. Modern urban war is particularly hellish for civilians. They should get all the help and support they need.

But why single out Gaza when there are about 60 other armed conflicts going on around the world, there are 17 million people facing famine in Yemen, 14 million people displaced in Sudan, and many more ongoing horrors.

I could go on and on with a litany of human suffering that for some reason doesn't have the X factor that Gaza has.

💯 times this.

Oh dear what?

Or, asking Justine to sign said letter rather than asking her to sort out world peace. But I'm sure she was on the phone to Nettie as she calls him first thing this morning to sort it out. [Or they could just tell the agencies to provide the information required and resolve this themselves].

If you are, then I'm missing it too. Why are they not providing the requested information?

emmm... i'm trying to learn to be kinder in my comments. but talk of there being a 'world order' might lead some to think there is some conspiratorial thinking at play. The 'deepstate', QAnon, shadowy people cackling in darkened rooms as they secretly plot amongst themselves, that sort of this.. 5G masts, chemtrails..

I mean the MN maternity care campaign hasn't sorted UK maternity care so I fail to see how we're going to sort Gaza where it's not even local to us.

I've done some whataboutery on the AIBU about why Gaza (where you can hardly move for celebs 'helping') and not Afghanistan where women seemingly have to now give birth entirely without medical care and indeed live (and most likely therefore die more frequently) without medical care entirely.

It did also prompt me to go down a rabbit hole to see if MSF are still operating within Afghanistan and I have a horrible feeling they're not treating women any more. There's something in March 25 about a child every day dying of measles but they don't use the words girls or women (it's children and parents - we've been here before) and there's a post from July 25 about a trauma recovery centre with photos of only men. I appreciate they can only do what is possible but I found it frustrating to see there is no comment on women's health in Afghanistan more recently whilst they are very happy to call Gaza a 'genocide' and it's easy to find a lot about Gaza and not so much about Afghanistan. But perhaps that's what their donors want. I used to donate regularly but am not as rich as I once was plus having to donate to crowdfunders for women in the UK to try and retain our rights here. (sorry for the derail).

Could only come from a profession that has spent the last 20 years making films where plucky Britishers solve war / poverty / sexism / the Miner's Strike / the lack of geriatric nude calendars / the problems of ballet dancing Geordie boys by just pulling their sleeves up, forming a team, writing a letter and marching to Downing street before punching the air in a cheery musical sequence.

And world peace and voting Labour, Stan.

I’m over being made to feel that if I don’t completely agree with every single word of someone who has decided to label themselves as ‘good’ and ‘right’ and the voice of an entire section of society, then I am somehow bad/evil/a Nazi. It’s manipulative bullshit that seems to only work on people who are either ignorant of the issue at hand, unable to comprehend complexity, or want to be told how to feel and think.

At this point, any sniff of the use of these tactics sends me searching for information and evidence in the opposite camp to their views.

👏👏👏

And on the AIBU thread the OP has said I'm not a feminist. Then said it wasn't an attack, and I said I received it as an attack, and she has actually said sorry, which was nice.

The power of MN at work once again to foster world peace and understanding. 😁

I agree. I'm increasingly put off anyone who describes themselves or the things they're doing as 'good' or 'right' or 'proper' without having in depth knowledge and being able to explain why they think that.

Why are these people so focused on Gaza? What about the Yazidi women and the women in Afghanistan? Surely maternity and child health issues are at least as much of a concern there?

I'm sorry this is derailing but I'm going to put this here until I have time to start a thread about it because it was the luvvies who sent me down this road of research because I was originally going to suggest the luvvies support MSF rather than pile on Justine in a performative way. But decided I was wasting time on the AIBU thread and so have given up.

MSF appeared to still be working in Afghanistan at the end of 2025 and there are also links to their work in Pakistan where many Afghan refugees flee but may not feel confident seeking medical help due to risk of deportation.

They do name women and girls and how restrictions on dress restrict access to healthcare there. This is a good thing both that they're naming the harms to women and that they're still there. Though it's probably a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed and I am sure it is increasingly tricky for them to get around the ban on men treating women and women working at all. I don't know why there's not more on this, maybe they're treading a fine line where if they don't name what they're doing the local Taliban will look the other way.

Afghanistan | Our Work & How to Help | Doctors Without Borders

It's not just Gaza, is the Palestinian cause in general. It seems to matter infinitely more to people here than any other similar situation.
Mass demonstrations, flags all over the place, references to it at the oddest times - it seems obligatory to shoehorn in a reference to support for Palestine.

People are entitled to their opinions, but there seems to be an extraordinary lack of perspective and proportionality in the responding to human tragedy depending on whether the victims are Palestinian or Not-Palestinian - like Yemini or Rohingya or Sudanese or Afghan or any number of other victims of conflict and hunger.

They just doesn't have whatever X-factor the Palestinians have.

Agreed.

Can't the good people of Israel start it off by petitioning their own politicians and government first? Perhaps a bit more forcefully so those lovely men at the top can hear them.

Also agree with pp, as soon as I get a sniff of emotional blackmail my hackles rise and I start looking at what they are trying to hide and dismiss.