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?

Aye. It's an attempt to use the Mumsnet name/brand as a proxy for 'UK women', without lowering themselves to actually speaking to us.

I hope Justine tells them to FRO.

I'm sure they do some good work, but their reputation among the NGO sector seems varied. They're sometimes accused of being vanity/ego driven.

The Red Cross webpages are much more focused on aid and neutral on politics in Gaza. A big difference in approach.

I fail to understand how, if you think a big monster with no redeeming qualities is threatening and harming people you want to help, doing things to deliberately provoke that monster will help?

Msf don't have to make political statements and I fail to see how doing so helps them to provide aid. It seems self evidently that it will do the opposite. They can't be that stupid so I can only presume they are more interested in political activism than aid in this particular area now.

"Many parents may not feel confident enough to speak out themselves"

I'd like any of the women who signed that letter to go on TV, the Graham Norton show for example, and say something truly controversial, not just a funny story with a slightly outre punchline but something that is considered unsayable in their circles, come on Dame Judy say "sex is binary and immutable" on TV, or Annie Lennox go and defend Roisin Murphy on live TV. Be confident, speak out!

They obviously do good work. For decades, however, MSF has had a reputation for being arrogant to the point of putting the volunteers at risk.

Mumsnet has since confirmed receiving the letter and is arranging a meeting with Stevenson and other signatories to discuss the matter.

Disappointing that JR felt pressured into this. A responsible approach on the part of Juliet Stevenson would be to go talk first, publish a letter second subject to JRs approval.

I know, right. How fucking rude. I am 100% confident they have never lowered themselves to read even one page of FWR in their lives otherwise they'd get to find out that speaking out ourselves is what we do.

Someone needs to tell them that FWS met on FWR.

JR can do what she likes with her site and her brand, of course. It's a bit of an odd one politically, as it has soft power that can be used to push views that may not reflect those of its users. Who are the content providers, and effectively the marketable product.

The government hasn't done a huge amount, based on results, to improve maternity care in the UK, which is a current MN campaign (and has been since 2017 IIRC) which came out of grassroots user experiences.

They did a survey and 61% of women didn't have access to food when needed during postnatal hospital "care".

These women seemingly don't give a fuck about UK women and their maternity experiences as have heard nothing about them supporting this campaign (I think Davina McCall did so if she's on the list she gets a pass).

My feeling is very strongly 'how dare they presume to speak for me'.

I'm sick of brain dead celebrities wading into conflicts they clearly know sweet f a about and potentially making things worse. Getting it wrong in this situation means supporting / propping up Hamas which I'm not at all sure would be to the benefit of women and children in Gaza.

They want our power/vote/support but despise us at the same time.

Its tediously familiar, isnt it?

By the by - petition for a Maternity Commissioner is up at gov.uk petition site.

Thanks for the heads up on the petition and yes the letter is tediously familiar behaviour, so depressing.

Hopefully Justine will have a meeting and diplomatically then forget about it all.

The UK government has already done what they want anyway, so it's all a bit of a waste of time and likely just performative virtue signalling, with a bit of a kick in the direction of normal women to make it spicier.

I'd be pretty annoyed if Justine did support the letter writers without first properly surveying users to see if they want to change the type of campaigns Mumsnet supports.

Justine has been very clever up till now to not show her own politics and all her political influence is from claiming to represent users. (As you say - we're the marketable product.)

I keep thinking about this (your 1st paragraph) in response to claims on the other thread that Justine/Mumsnet wields some huge political power that has politicians quaking... What political campaigns has Mumsnet actually 'won'? 🤔 How much influence did Mumsnet have on the setting up of the maternity review?
For immediate change in government policy Joanna Lumley achieved it for the Gurkha soldiers so they should just wheel her out again!

Personally I think it’s inhumane that little Jewish kids in this country need an armed guard on the doors of their schools because crazy Islamic terrorists keep trying to murder them. People who actually support peace in Gaza need to stop marching in lockstep with the ‘globalise the intifada’ crowd really, don’t they? Otherwise it just looks like you just want to replace one alleged genocide with another.

I certainly agree it’s disgusting that children in Gaza are suffering like this, and everyone is pretending to forget it. No whataboutery needed.

Bloody hell - the OP on the AIBU thread has handwaved away all the comments about Afghanistan by proclaiming the Taliban allow in humanitarian staff.

Well I didn't think they did because have been following WDI afghanistan but I eventually (after some searching) found this from the MSF. Most of the blurb on their website about Afghanistan is from much longer ago, but this is fairly recent.

At the Islam Qala border crossing with Iran, humanitarian organisations are witnessing similar challenges while bringing care to returnees who have been expelled from Iran. Out of more than one hundred female staff who previously worked there, only three - a midwife, a doctor, and a nurse - are currently permitted to work, under strict conditions requiring them to wear a burqa at all times.

so basically, no, the Taliban are not allowing humanitarian staff in to treat women.

Sorry, link didn't post.

New restrictions limit access to care for women in Herat | MSF

No one is denying children (and adults) are suffering in Gaza.

You call it whataboutery, I call it accountability. Why is it so unreasonable to want to know why Justine (and in effect all Mumsnet users, as that's her source of political influence) are being asked to support this one particular call to action, over all other conflicts/war zones, and just what difference diluting Mumsnet UK-focused campaigns would make?

The UK Foreign Minister has already called on Israel to drop it's requirements and let MSF et al into Gaza. So what extra is this letter to Justine going to achieve? Foreign Minister writes a p.s.? Netanyahu quakes at the thought of UK mums shouting at each other on a UK web forums?

Well that is a complete misrepresentation of what was said

This. I don't see what Justine speaking up is going to accomplish. Is she supposed to tell the government to do again what they've already done? It feels like a virtue signal, and as you say, there's a soft power that comes when the CEO of a website makes a statement like that. I suspect the signatories of the letter are hoping to push Justine into making a public statement, in the hope it'll have a chilling effect on discussions here.

I really don't like that.

We're not a hivemind. We're a forum. Women here have all kinds of feelings on the war in Gaza. It's not possible for Justine to speak for all of us. The best she can do is what she's already doing - letting us speak amongst ourselves! That's enough for me, and it should certainly be enough for a bunch of actors who don't even go here.

No they are simply asking Mumsnet to support a call to allow aid agencies continue their work supporting pregnant women in Gaza. I think efforts to support reduced maternal and infant mortality are always commendable and worthy of support whatever the nationality of the women involved. Do you not?

Where are the other calls? They've been completely silent on women's rights and wars in other countries.

Having started your own thread and had a very mixed response, (511 votes, 46% saying YABU), you've come to play pigeon chess on ours.

How mature of you.

Why not just start a thread here, and let the individual women of Mumsnet decide what to support?

We're a forum. Full of women. If the writers of this letter want our support, it's very easy to ask for it. It's patronising to go over our heads to Justine. They want the many voices of Mumsnet behind them, but they want to get them the lazy way - by just getting Justine to speak for all of us, as if she's our mum.

What you or I or Justine think doesn't actually matter here. We can't speak for the entire forum, and shouldn't presume to. There's no need for "Mumsnet" to be treated as an entity here. We can all speak for ourselves.