Talk:Feminism/Archive 13

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Africana womanism

Helo everyone! You may be interested in checking out Africana womanism. Thank you! The Ogre (talk) 15:58, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Adam and Eve and Undue weight

Thanks for your additions to the article User:Jackiestud but please understand why I have removed and/or altered them. Wikipdia articles have guidelines about material contained in them - the guidelines to which I am referring in this case are WP:UNDUE and WP:SUMMARY. This article is a summary of all the articles related to the concept of feminism as well as a weighted article describing that subject. It is against WP:NPOV to accord prominence to aspects of a subject that do not deserve so much space relative to the coverage of other very prominent aspects of the subject in the article.
To be 100% clear. The analysis of Joseph Campbell's work on Adam and Eve and feminism does not deserve the amount of attention that you gave to it relative to the amount of coverage given to other topic s in the Religion and Society topics. Even in an article on Feminism and Religion (something that I think should be started) there was too much information given. But in future I would think that information like whta you added should be included in an article such as Feminism and Religion.
Also as noted by others there were no sources cited - another reason for my removal of that text. All material added to article must be fully and properly sourced.
For guidance on these policies please see WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:SUMMARY--Cailil talk 19:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia readers ~do not deserve only three lines (!!) concerning the feminist view.Jackiestud (talk) 19:50, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Please make yourself aware of the site's policy regarding due weight and sourcing before reinstating disputed material. I'm removing it once more and will ask you to consider all the points I've made above and in reply to you in my talk space--Cailil talk 19:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
I agree with your deletion of the section, Cailil - that content didn't belong in a high level overview of feminism like this article, and even if it did belong, the section was too long, per WP:UNDUE. Dawn Bard (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
how can I have a third opinion? Jackiestud (talk) 20:11, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict - I was writing at the same time as Jackiestud) Jackiestud, I just reverted your re-addition of the text in question. I noted that your edit summary said "can you pls wait until I provide the osurces??? there are hundreds of unsourced articles on wp" so I wanted to address that. First of all, the issue is not merely sourcing, it's that the content really doesn't belong in the "Feminism" article (per WP:UNDUE), because it is tangentially related at best. Even if sourcing were the issue, it it would be best to get the sources before adding to the article, rather than making unsourced additions. Also, the fact that unsourced articles exist is irrelevant to any edits made to this page. Thanks, Dawn Bard (talk) 20:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

RE: a third opinion - you could list this at Wikipedia:Third opinion or at Wikipedia:Requests for comment. Dawn Bard (talk) 20:16, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
I've been trying to discuss this with her on my talk page, she's been putting the same edit elsewhere. Dougweller (talk) 20:54, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd have thought that if we were to include any discussion of Adam and Eve we would start with the most notable feminist Bible scholar who has written on the matter, Phyllis Trimble. It would be nice to see an article or two that drew on her important work, although I am not convinced this is it. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:11, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Right, Phyllis Trible. She needs to have an article written about her! Once done, her name can be linked at The Woman's Bible where it appears as an example of 20th century return to the theme picked up by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others. They worked with the Adam and Eve story, and might have been the first women to do so. Binksternet (talk) 21:13, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Alas, I am in transit and do not have these books available to me ... Slrubenstein | Talk 13:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


Origins section

I've retitled and drastically reduced the 'origins' section that Jackie added. I used it as an opportunity to summarize feminist theology and its link to the Goddess movement ('thealogy'). It needs work but it doesn't break the GFDL and its more duely weighted--Cailil talk 22:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of feminism

I wondered why this section was missing from the article and I added one only to find out later that it has been deleted. Why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.114.161.230 (talk) 12:01, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

"Criticism of..." sections are frowned upon as bad structure. Criticisms of a given subject are to be integrated into the article as a whole. Additionally, in this case, criticisms of one school of feminism are irrelevant to some other schools of feminist thought. --Orange Mike | Talk 12:20, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I went over the article again and I didn't see how criticism can be integrated into it. I will give an example:

"There is also a group of Paleoconservatives including George Gilder and Pat Buchanan that have argued that feminism has produced a fundamentally unworkable, self-destructive, stagnant society. These authors have noted that all of the societies in which feminism has developed the most have below replacement rates of fertility, high rates of immigration (frequently from countries with cultures and religions extremely hostile to feminism). In the US, the "liberal" religious groups most accepting of feminism have had noted decline-in both conversions and natural increase. The most rapidly growing major religion in the US is Islam, some forms of which are extremely hostile to feminism."

It doesn't fit anywhere inside the article current format, it is not specific to a school of feminism and it is a valid critical opinion. Most of the criticism I am aware of has the same problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.114.161.230 (talk) 14:09, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Leaving aside the question of what you mean by "valid", I see your point. I'd probably pick a heading like "Assertions of deleterious effects of feminism on society" and source the dickens out of it, being careful to clarify who said what and to avoid the dreaded original research and synthesis. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:31, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
By way of an addendum - when looking at any material that you wish to include in wikipedia you need to ask yourself these questions: How reliably sourced is it? And how much weight should such sources be given in light of the rest of the article? An op-ed does not deserve equal billing to books that can be found in most university libraries in the English speaking world. A comment by a someone outside a field cannot be given equal weight to someone with academic/professional/occupational qualifications. Please see WP:GEVAL--Cailil talk 02:20, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Also, in many ways what you wrote above would belong in Paleoconservatism not feminism. Again per WP:GEVAL and WP:DUE--Cailil talk 02:26, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Removed paragraph from "Sex-positive feminism" section

I removed the following from the end of Feminism#Sex-positive_movement:

Since the 1990s, other feminists such as Patricia Petersen have argued that pornography may serve an important function for women in that it may reduce the likelihood that they will be raped or become victims of other forms of sex crimes.[1] She has also argued that governments should not determine what individual women do with their bodies. (Patricia Petersen. "Morality, Sexual Facts and Fantasies," Boolarong Press, Brisbane 1999.)

This paragraph is basically cruft about a more-or-less non-notable writer who is advancing an argument (pornography safeguards women against rape) that isn't terribly representative of sex-positive feminism. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 07:28, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

FYI

If people who watch this page are also interested in how Wikipedia is governed, be sure to check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Advisory_Council_on_Project_Development . Slrubenstein | Talk 16:31, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

White feminism

Critics of feminism, as well as many feminists themselves, have often made the argument that feminism suffers from cultural relativism, meaning that the movement continues to be perceived as a primarily Western and primarily white bourgeois liberal movement. Regarding this view, the article should consider examining to what extent feminism has been influenced by white-dominated cultural perspectives. Some modern feminists have even been accused of outright racism, such as Margaret Sanger, who actually promoted the use of abortion to reduce the number of Blacks and other non-Whites in the United States. ADM (talk) 06:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

You must mean contraceptives. Sanger was anti-abortion. It's easy to get confused, since this misinformation is very widespread.
Anyhow, </pedant>
While your observation is true on face I wonder how you would suggest further incorporating this information in an article that, as far as I can tell, already contains a great deal of intersectional analysis, at least in terms of race. Maybe a separate article would be warranted (Feminism and race?). I can see potential there; if there's enough material to fill a stack at my library -- or so it seems -- there should be enough for a wiki page. With an article that's 119 kbs long already, adding is not necessarily a virtue. --Gimme danger (talk) 08:18, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
For anyone interested in discussing this at Talk:Black feminism, ADM left the same comment there. --Gimme danger (talk) 08:30, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
And Talk:Antifeminism#White feminism too. --Gimme danger (talk) 08:33, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


Link farm

Hi. I removed the entire "External links" section because an addition seemed to suggest that any and all women's related links belong here (which I don't believe). See WP:LINKFARM for more information. -SusanLesch (talk) 00:30, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Just a heads up Susan but you need to check Wikipedia:EL#What_should_be_linked which is our policy on what external links should be included. Did you check all the links you removed against this?--Cailil talk 00:55, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Hi Cailil. No I did not check every link. It appears just about any site would qualify under #3, "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons." -SusanLesch (talk) 01:17, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm more a deletionist than inclusionist, so I support the elimination of the the link farm.
  • (I added the deleted links at the top of the thread so we can discuss them more easily.)
  • I think the slide show of Vinna Mara Fonseca should only appear in support of an article about her. She is not "Feminism" defined.
  • Except for Fonseca, the deleted links were not multimedia files, and none had copyright problems preventing inclusion here. If there were salient points to be found in the linked URLs, we should have used them for references. Binksternet (talk) 01:20, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Personally I prefer the page without the linkfarm but that's not the point. The manual of style (see WP:MOS & WP:LAYOUT) includes external links for the benefit of readers who want to get more information on a subject outside of wikipedia (see WP:EL). And while I personally agree with Susan's action I have to point out that the removal of links like now.org and womensforumaustralia.org prevents easy access to other pertinent sites about feminism. Sites like these are pertinent to the subject, its history and fit in with WP:EL. In general I would suggest that we consider creating a good external links section rather than removing it completely. And I agree with Binksternet lets look at the links individually--Cailil talk 02:05, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Yes I agree but leaving in NOW and women's forum Australia seemed slanted towards the U.S. or English speakers. I'm in favor of providing a section of links about feminism, especially if there are any neutral sites. -SusanLesch (talk) 03:08, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Clearly no blogs, social networking sites, etc should be linked, and I'd say no country specific ones (or we might have over a hundred whereas the number of links should be minimal. Dougweller (talk) 09:12, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree but I think we have to balance this with creating a useful section. In regard to NOW - the organization is historically significant enough for a link (plus we are also mentioning them in the article). Would it be helpful if we put together a list of useful links here that aren't national/regional organizations?--Cailil talk 12:55, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Yes, it will take work and time but a list here would be a very good idea. We did this for example for famous people from Minneapolis where I developed a set of criteria that kept that list down to manageable size. -SusanLesch (talk) 13:48, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I decided to be bold and revert this section back in, albeit cutting out much of what was previously included, and leaving some of the larger lobbying organizations in (I also added one, the European Women's Lobby). The list is rather US-centric, however, given the heavy international influence of US feminism and the historic importance of American feminist groups, this is somewhat justified. I agree with the part about blogs - if you include Feministing, then why not Feministe, Shakesville, Pandagon, etc, etc. And considering even these "big blogs" are largely vehicles for a particular set of (mostly white, middle class, American) writers, you risk making them them the privileged "go to" feminists. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 17:08, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I also added a link to the "Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement" archive at Duke University Library. This is clearly an important resource for studying feminist ideas. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 17:14, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
That's cool. Maybe we can build a list in place. I added three. -SusanLesch (talk) 17:49, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Given that this is English Wikipedia, I would expect that links be slanted to countries where English is the dominant or sole national language, then links to countries where English is one national languages, and only than to links to countries speaking other languages (just as I would expect the Danish Wikipedia to favor Danish sites). Beyond that, I would limit links to international organizations (e.g. UN) unless somone cane make a good case that a link to an organization in a non-English speaking country is a link to an organization that has had significant influence internationally. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:58, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
One would think so given this is the English Wikipedia, but for example on the main page, ITN doesn't like U.S.-centric news. -SusanLesch (talk) 18:07, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Well, I do not think Wikipedia will ever compete with US news providers ... What American readers can get from Wikipedia that they canot get from dozens of other familiar news sources may just be that international coverage (if you lived in the US you would know what I mean). But we are competing to be a great Enlglish language encyclopedia, so I think our encyclopedia articles should be shaped accordingly. Not that I think that would include the link you point out, below! Slrubenstein | Talk 19:47, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I have to agree with SLR here. While I think we need to balance the international with the anglophone-centric, we must remember that our audience are English speakers and are looking for English language links--Cailil talk 22:23, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I just wanted to note that one of the links I chose not to resurrect was the Swedish group ROKS. The reason was not because they were from a non-anglophone country and therefore I hadn't heard of them, but because it's a group with a very specific focus on domestic violence rather than a more broad feminist organization. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 20:16, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
The "Feminist Theory" link to a Vermont school server doesn't actually Theorize about Feminism. It is simply an organized list of books about subjects related to feminism. As such, it has both neutrality and value, but its name is woefully misleading. Binksternet (talk) 18:42, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Woops I will try to fix that. Thanks. -SusanLesch (talk) 00:02, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

The "See also" section could use some pruning as well. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 20:18, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Indeed - anything that is already prominently linked to should not be in the list nor should anything truely tagential--Cailil talk 22:23, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

"Pornography" section should really be titled "Sexuality"

The split between sex-positive and anti-porn feminism goes much deeper than simple disagreement over pornography and entails a number of issues other than pornography. Really, the division is over fundamental ideas about sexuality itself. "Anti-pornography feminism" is shorthand for a feminist view that sexuality needs to be subject to very strong rules and constraints to protect women's safety. "Sex-positive feminism" takes a sexual liberationist view. In some cases, the alignment is very explicit – Sheila Jeffreys quite explicitly aligns herself with the 19th Century "social purity" movements often aligned with First-wave feminism. Gayle Rubin explicitly aligns her "pro-sex feminism" with Victoria Woodhull, Havelock Ellis, Magnus Hirschfeld, and Alfred Kinsey and the sexual liberationist tradition. The opposing positions these two branches of feminism take on issues of pornography, prostitution, BDSM, and other sexual issues simply flow from that.

Where it gets tricky is the way the two movements have titled themselves. "Sex-positive feminism" defines itself in relation to the larger issue of sexuality. The term "anti-pornography feminism" narrowly defines itself in opposition to pornography, though it is almost by definition anti-prostitution, and often anti-BDSM as well. However, "Anti-pornography feminism" is pretty much synonymous with "radical feminism" from the mid-1970s onward, but "radical feminism" is an ideology that is broader that just issues around sexuality, plus there is an earlier tradition of radical feminism that still survives in small numbers and does not necessarily identify with anti-pornography feminism. Hence, the titles of these different kinds of feminism do not exactly parallel each other well.

In any event, I propose changing the name of the section to "sexuality" and noting other contested issues in addition to pornography. (These are mentioned already, but only briefly.) How to title the section on anti-pornography/anti-prostitution/radical feminism in this larger context is a bit tricky, but I'm sure something can be worked out.

Also, there are now a couple of articles on Feminist views on pornography and Feminist views on prostitution. However, an article on Feminist views on sexuality, which gets at the core difference between the two (as well as perhaps opening up the stage for feminist perspectives on sexuality which don't neatly fall into these two schools) has yet to be created. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 00:33, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Facism and Feminism

I found this section very confusing. It talks of states glorifying women and the rapid dissolution of rights as the same movement. Is this what the author means? Did the article used to say glorifying men? I hope an "established user" can clear this up Gnostril (talk) 20:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Fascist movements glorified only the most reactionary traditional version of womanhood; while doing so, they reverted as many of the actual advances of actual women as they could. No contradiction is involved. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:03, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

This entire Article, "feminism" is violating Wikipedia's terms of service.

I don't know why Wikipedia is allowing this biased article to appear as encyclopedic information. This is a total abuse of Wikipedia's resources.

Please notice how many times this article has been revised and altered.
Also, search for men's blogs, such as "the National Organization for men" or, "The national center for men", and these articles are no where to be found.

Also, Wikipedia has already removed a Fathers Rights article.
Plus, the Men's Rights page has a citation questioning its validity.

FINALLY, if the Feminists handle this article with such obsessiveness, one can only imagine the type of material being circulated throughout Universities & Scholastics.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mensrightsmovement (talk • contribs)

This article is only as biased as its sources. It's just as revised as a great number of other articles, no different. The editors are only as obsessive as other ones that are continually under attack by people such as yourself. If you want a men's POV article to stand, you'll have to find reliable, verifiable sources, per WP:V and WP:RS. Regarding 'obsessiveness', he who lives in glass house... Binksternet (talk) 19:16, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I can only assume that the above ("he who lives in a glass house") is a personal attack, and therefore against wikipedia's policies.68.146.14.97 (talk) 07:21, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the original posting. This article is a disgrace. There isn't even a controversy section. I, myself, have been repeatedly subjected to highly partisan perspectives in classes throughout university. I have heard an account of an instructor who "lost" tenure because his (female) co-instructor blew up (i.e. was yelling) at a student who dared to disagree with her sacred tenants (I assume he was civil, but irregardless, that's unacceptable). I have been in a psychology of gender class. I received a B+, but it was likewise a disgrace (wholesale indoctrination, basically). I also experienced similar indoctrination throughout high school, with the selection of novels covered throughout my experience. Such partisanship is the reason I was so virulently antifeminist for several years (even now I fall back, on occasion).

I support equal rights for women and other so-called minorities. But I'll be damned if I call myself a feminist. And yes, in case you're wondering I am a male. This should make little difference: you don't need to be an atom to understand physics, and you don't need to be a woman to understand, reason or write about them. Rationality and intellect are neither male nor female. 68.146.14.97 (talk) 04:17, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

So write one if you can; even better would be for controversial bits to be inserted into appropriate places in the article, rather than grouped together. Me? I don't see the need. Binksternet (talk) 04:25, 17 August 2009 (UTC)


Actually, "Controversy" or "Criticism" sections are discouraged. Not because critical views of a given topic are discouraged within an article – WP:NPOV mandates quite the opposite. However, best practice in Wikipedia is when critical views are incorporated into the article as a whole, rather than placed into a special "criticism" section, which generally serves as a troll magnate. If a section specifically concerning reception or evaluation of an idea is called for, then a title like "Reception" or "Evaluation" (which leaves room for positive evaluation as well as negative) is what's called for.
Also, much of what has been discussed as "criticism of feminism" falls under the heading of "antifeminism", and there is actually a section in the article on that.
Another point that needs to be made – criticisms of a subject need to be criticisms that are already in verifiable, published sources and meet the criteria of WP:VERIFY and WP:NOTABILITY. In other words, these can't just be your personal pet criticisms that you happen to feel deserve "equal time". Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 03:06, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I am posting the following (from discussion history), because I believe it has particular merit to the subject under discussion. unfortunately, i haven't been able to format it correctly (something automatically is be applied; I don't know how to remove it). 68.146.14.97 (talk) 04:40, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

"For an example of a criticism of feminism, take this excerpt from a book by Daphne Patai:"

There is within much feminist writing today (as there has been for the past few decades) a pretense that the charge of male-bashing is a slanderous mischaracterization

motivated by political impulses that are conservative (and thus assumed to be reprehensible). But it is plain and irrefutable that much contemporary feminism is indeed marred

by hostility toward men."[3]

What would be inappropriate about including mention of that criticism here? There are many, many examples of both mainstream and academic writing generally critical of feminism. By focusing on internal debates within feminism, or if you prefer, between streams of feminism, this article seems to have an implicit stance that there is little or no notable criticism of feminism itself. That implied stance contradicts your statement that most people aren't feminists or that many people reject feminism -- the latter especially is not made clear at all by reading this article, and we can't assume the reader knows anything about it. I personally have been put in a position to argue just that to people who believe the contrary, i.e., that most people are feminists (some add "but they just don't know it") or that almost no one rejects feminism (some offer the explanation that "they don't really reject it because they don't really know what feminism is"). The latter explanation sounds much like your argument against including criticism here. These additions and your argument are counter-points at best, not reasons for Wikipedia to leave criticism of feminism out of the feminism article, in my view. If what you say is true, it should be clear from reading this article. I claim that it is not clear, at the moment.
Your analogy to evolution suffers from a lack of attention to some glaring differences, namely a lack of scientific rigour in gender studies, and a lack of a scientific consensus (or any apparent consensus, except within feminism) on the validity of feminism's central tenets, or on, say, the net benefit to society of the exploration of those tenets as expressed by feminism's adherents.
Finally, I do not see a valid basis for excluding criticism of feminism on the basis that the article does not explore internal divisions within feminism adequately. Respectfully, this seems like a non-sequitur to me, and an artificial hurdle. I suggest we instead let the reader decide if the abundant criticism of feminism is valid. Of course, such criticism should not predominate the article, and should be supported by good sources. I'm afraid our views on the application of WP:NPOV in relation to this article</nowiki> seem for the moment to be in stark contrast. (originally posted by Blackworm (talk) 05:34, 4 December 2008 (UTC))

The formatting will fix itself if you don't indent a paragraph. Each line of text must start at the left edge, with no tabs or spaces. Binksternet (talk) 14:26, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Guys WP:DFTT, old discussions which keep getting churned out in the same way again and again are not helpful. Criticism sections are discussed in WP:CRITICISM, as Iamcuriousblue has pointed out. If anyone wants to included critical amterial just put in the appropriate place within the article and follow WP:DUE and WP:NOR. And please remember wikipedia is not a forum--Cailil talk 12:31, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Not if you would the lack of a link to Masculism, where as there is one to Feminism on the Masculism page.(Signed by Tally)

This article is indeed an outrage. To call (feminist or non feminist) critics of feminism 'antifeminist' is Orwellian. As one goes back through the history of the discussions about criticisms of feminism one always finds the same editors who squelch valid content by resorting to idiotic WIKIPEDIA rules which themselves are an insult to reason/readers. No one with any intelligence can countenance Wikipedia's editor standards. That may be one reason why participation in Jimbo's Maoist experiment is tapering off. No genuine editor has time to waste on apparatcheks who stifle reasonable content for political purposes. 72.215.174.26 (talk) 03:23, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I will remind our anonymous "friend" that Jimbo is a Randroid, not a Maoist! --Orange Mike | Talk 14:21, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
The proof is in the pudding. Where is critical comment content like that from feminist Daphne Patia's What Price Utopia?: Essays on Ideological Policing, Feminism, and Academic Affairs or from feminist Ellen Klien's Undressing Feminism: A Philosophical Expose seen in this article or any other related article. Politically Correct perverts rule Wikipedia...and Jimbo seems to care little about reason or respectful discourse. To label the previous author a 'troll' for posting thoughtful criticisms that speak directly to the integrity of the article is precisely what one would anticipate in Maoist states. 'Good Faith' indeed! 72.214.255.148 (talk) 05:07, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Yep, looks like one of the many faces of the Great Wikipedia Cabal. Variously described as Politically Correct Pervert Maoists, Rabid Anti-Feminist Pro-Pornographers, Liberals, Zionists, Jihadists, and much else. Believe me, being all enemies to all people is tough job, but sombody's got to do it! Iamcuriousblue (talk) 20:09, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Looks to me like Iamcuriousblue is less curious than her/his name denotes. Sarcasm will hardly suffice 'for all the people'. I, for one, believe that 'all the people' need nice people to call things like the Enron debacle, the recent Wall Street collapse, and even today's Climate Change Data Hacking Tempest. "Proof in the pudding" may be onto something. 128.111.95.31 (talk) 02:10, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Biology of gender introductory sentence, innacurate, bias?

I suggest an edit to the first sentence. It seems to contradict the the balanced content of the rest of the section which states clearly that modern feminism is concerned with BOTH the biological and socially constructed elements of gender identity. It does so without citations. I feel that this is a critical point. I do not have editing privileges. Here is my suggested replacement:

Modern feminist science challenges the biological essentialist view of gender, however it is increasingly interested in the study of biological sex differences and their effect on human behaviour.

This is supported by the references included in the rest of the paragraph.

Thanks!

Seblopedia (talk) 05:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)seblopedia

Done. Anybody can edit. :-) -SusanLesch (talk) 06:05, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Pro Fetal Life

Both Elizabeth Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and others are pro fetal life. It is shameful that Feminism is equated with the pro-choice position without a mention of difference of opinion. Pro-life feminists are a significant force and whenever I add anything about this in the article, I am shot down. This article reeks of intellectual dishonesty. Users like Binksternet are stifling my right to post valid, honest, relevent information to the article. For Shame. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boromir123 (talk • contribs) 15:35, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

"Fetal rights" is not a feminist issue—it is a parenting issue, and a social issue, common to both sexes. Yes, some feminists are interested in those rights, but we are not here to list all the things that some feminists are interested in.
Also: you are gravely mistaken about Susan B. Anthony, who pushed against slavery and the drinking of alcohol, and above all worked for the right for women to vote. Her other concerns were all very much smaller than those big three. Stanton spread herself more widely across the breadth of feminist concerns, and she did talk about "child murder" from time to time. Her main two interests were in striking down the male-dominated hierarchy, what we now call sexism, and thus gaining rights for women. Did you know she wrote The Woman's Bible? She was a very dynamic character, but she did not devote her life to saving fetuses. Binksternet (talk) 16:05, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Again, fetal rights is not a feministi issue. It is a social issue, a religious issue and a parenting issue. It involves men and women who have conceived, men and women who care about the issue in society, and both male and female fetuses. As such, it has nothing to do with purely female concerns. Binksternet (talk) 01:43, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

See also Yoni

-- 188.102.31.118 (talk) 13:32, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

French Feminism - main article link needed

Hello, I'm new to Wikipedia editing, so I'm not sure how to do this. I'm conducting some research for a college English course at the moment to help with my literary criticism, and thought at first that there was no article for French Feminism. Turns out there in fact is an article, titled "Feminism in France." How about adding a "Main Article:" link to the French Feminism section? EDIT: I see now that the page is protected (which I suppose makes sense). That explains why I couldn't figure out how to edit. Please make the change! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sauercrowder (talk • contribs) 23:26, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

gender positive

we must include in this article that feminism is not necessarily anti-male. new feminist trends are attempting to talk considerably about men's liberation too and not just women's liberation. men's lib is the new feminism today. I've tweaked in a bit in the intro, let's see what else others can do? Alinovic (talk) 10:15, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I gree with you. But I reverted one edit because what you had written reduced all of feminism to on set of objectives when there are other kinds of feminisms.Slrubenstein | Talk 12:36, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The Lede line and Nancy Cott

I’m altering UberCryxic's addition to the lede not because I disagree with the addition but because the line is too technical. In line with WP:MOSBEGIN (and WP:LEAD) specialized terminology should be avoided in the introductory line. This is a Manual of Style issue: “the first sentence should give a concise definition: where possible, one that puts the article in context for the nonspecialist”. While Cott’s definition is an excellent one it is far too technical for a non-specialist. I do however believe it should be retained in paragraph one as it gives an accurate and concise, if academic, definition of Feminism. For this same reason however I believe that the older definition (which although longer is jargon-busted) fulfills the MOS criteria for a broad summary of the subject in non-specialist terms--Cailil talk 09:53, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

That's fine. I agree with your reasoning, although I still feel uneasy that the definition in the first sentence is not cited. It should be easy, I'd think, to find a source for such a simple claim.UBER (talk) 15:00, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Protofeminism

This article includes the second example of protofeminism from the protofeminism article, but no mention of the first example of protofeminism. If one example should be mentioned, then at least the frst should be made note of. Faro0485 (talk) 14:47, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

architecture source: quoting

This sentence, in the Feminism#Architecture section, appears to have some internal quotation marks in the wrong places and some quotation marks probably should be single rather than double (using the U.S. syntax of doubles being in the outermost position):

Mathur came up with that term "to explore...the meaning of 'architecture" in terms of gender" and "to explore the meaning of "gender" in terms of architecture" (p. 71).

It's copied here from the source code (the editing page).

Does anyone have the original source handy?

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 02:24, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

redlinked category probably needs renaming or deletion

I tried to fix the category redlink "Articles with unsourced statements from June" but couldn't find it in the source code, so I couldn't fix it. At least, it needs a year. Some categories are automatically assigned, and one with a title somewhat like this probably should be auto-assigned to the article, so the redlink puzzles me.

Does anyone know about this?

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 02:24, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

to-do list item "[c]onsider replacing 'race' with ethnicity" seems done

No reference to race or racism (I searched for every instance of "rac") appears incorrectly to subsume ethnicity, so, although the task list on this talk page suggests editing some of them, perhaps that was already done, as no edits appear warranted on that point. However, if you have any of the references mentioned or implied and an edit should be made because of the reference, please do it. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:33, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Jews and Feminism

Should there not be a mention of the historically high levels of Jewish involvement in feminist organisations and movements? Duckelf (talk) 15:18, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

After Quaker involvement and Protestant involvement, sure. Did you notice the paragraph about Jewish feminism? It is already represented in the article more strongly than Quaker feminism which predates it. Binksternet (talk) 04:26, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
No, I didn't, thank you for that. I was also referring not specifically to the religious character of Jewish feminism, but rather the involvement of those of Jewish birth in feminism as a whole. Duckelf (talk) 11:29, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
If you're up to it, you could write the article Jews in feminism, to describe the works of notable Jews who were feminist advocates or activists. Your article would be a prose expansion of the List of Jewish feminists, and should discuss not just individuals, but groups and synergies. Also: check out the category Jewish feminists, and see if it is as complete as it should be. Binksternet (talk) 15:33, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

copyediting mostly done except references

The main copyediting left is for the references, especially for consistency and sometimes for possible errors. The Village Voice is a weekly, so a citation to a month is somewhat inadequate, unless it was published monthly in that month that year (maybe they had a financial crisis). A title with Powe probably should say Power. But I'm hesitant to copyedit bibliographic references without the originals at hand. Sometimes publishers do unexpected things and citations that look wrong are correct. Maybe there's nothing we should do. Thoughts? Nick Levinson (talk) 02:24, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all the hard work Nick. I'll look into that weekly reference tonight--Cailil talk 13:05, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Fixed that Village voice reference - it was June 17th 1981 - but couldn't find the "Powe" issue. If you spot anything that needs fixing just list them here--Cailil talk 00:40, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for your work. "Powe" is in note 32, re Ramparts. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:49, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
Here's a list (I've omitted those I plan to take care of myself), these all having been copied from the article's source code, so they can be found there using a search function (without quote marks):
  • "Schneir, Miram": should it be "Schneir, Miriam"?
  • "Spitze, Gelnna": should it be "Spitze, Glenna"?
  • "author=Poloma M. M., Garland T. N.": should a comma be added into each name before the initials? or if no comma is needed for each author because the last name is not stated (and the first name is) then should full names be provided?
  • "chapter=Chapter ^": should it be chapter 6, if it's based on a standard U.S. keyboard?
  • "title=Hanisch, New Intro to . . .": since Hanisch is already cited as the apparent author, should "Hanisch" be deleted from the title or is it part of the title, too?
  • "author=Beauvoir, Simone de": should it be "author=de Beauvoir, Simone"?
  • "last=Blaffer Hrdy |first=Sarah": should it be "last=Hrdy |first=Sarah Blaffer"? I think she's usually alphabetized at Hrdy and I don't know these templates well enough to know if they have a middle-nmame field
  • "title=Feminine Mystique": should it be "title=The Feminine Mystique"?
  • "title=The Mismeasure of Woman: : Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, inferior or Opposite Sex":
    • should one of the two colons be deleted?
    • is the first "Sex" present by error? (viz., allowing for capitalization and the lack of a serial comma, should the second part be ". . . Women Are Not the Better, Inferior or Opposite Sex"?)
  • "title=Lacan and Postfeminism (Postmodern Encounters)": should it be "title=Lacan and Postfeminism: Postmodern Encounters"? parentheses used that way are uncommon
  • in the reference that includes "Jones, Amelia. 'Postfeminism, Feminist Pleasures, and Embodied Theories of Art'", a comma is between single quotation marks that are probably intended as an italicization cue; should the comma be moved or something else be done?
  • "title=Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in 'Feminine Mystique,' Dies at 85'": should the last single quote mark be deleted?
  • "Gender Communication Theories and Analyses:From Silence to Performance": should a space be added after the colon?
  • "No Turning Back : The History of Feminism and the Future of Women": should the space before the colon be deleted?
  • "'Laughing with Medusa'": the source code uses single quote marks: are quote marks part of the original work's title or should the title be italicized (or both)?
  • "'Women Artists as the Millennium'": the source code uses single quote marks: are quote marks part of the original work's title or should the title be italicized (or both)?
  • "Brown, p. 208.": this being offered as a complete reference, it requires more; I don't know if it refers to "title=The Anarchist papers, 3", which is also in the article's source code
  • "The Times, 29 December 1975 'Sex discrimination in advertising banned'.": this being offered as a complete reference, it requires more:
    • important newspapers generally called The Times are in New York, Los Angeles, London, and India (I'm not sure if Washington's existed yet) and perhaps elsewhere, not to mention any of the less-well-known papers that might well have been the source here
    • a page reference would be useful
  • "name=hww5" appears in two references for different sources and a third appearance is in an empty ref tag:
    • which of the first two does the third belongs to?
    • one of the two references should lose its name, since it doesn't need a name at all, at this time
In addition, some issues of style consistency affect probably most references:
  • in titles, for most words after the first word, the initials should be either capitalized or not; I favor capitalizing
  • in titles, in a subtitle, in the first word after a colon, the initial should be either capitalized or not; I favor capitalizing
  • in nontemplate reference elements, the punctuation between bibliographic elements should be consistent; I prefer a single-sentence-like style (as in "Jones, T., ed., Almanac (N.Y.: Example, 2d ed. 1970), p. 32") over multiple periods
  • the personal name order for authors other than the first: e.g., "Smith, Chris, & Pat Jones" or "Smith, Chris, & Jones, Pat": I prefer the former
  • in the publisher's location, a city should be followed by a state or province, if known, and then by a nation, if known, except for the best-known publishing cities, like N.Y. or London
  • in the publisher's location, whether to abbreviate; I favor abbreviating when the expansion would be obvious
Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:00, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

unclear sentence on "over-changing hypothesis"

I don't understand the following sentence, which is in the article: "She argues rather than using evidence of innate gender difference there is an over-changing hypothesis to justify inequality and perpetuate stereotypes.[183]"

If anyone wants to rewrite it, especially if you wrote it and you remember your original intention, please go ahead.

Thanks.

Nick Levinson (talk) 02:24, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that might be a typo - "ever-changing" rather than over-changing. This is just a guess though and I'll check it out--Cailil talk 12:51, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I've addressed this one - it's pretty much as I thought. The line isn't a quote from the book but rather a summary. And it was a typo--Cailil talk 00:19, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Anti feminist news source

Is the Men's News Daily page now listed on Wikipedia (which has a wikilink to this article) a legitimate article, ie. does it adhere to WP policy? 123.211.94.143 (talk) 03:50, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

This not the appropriate place to discuss another article. Talk pages are only for the discussion of their respective articles. Please use Talk:Men's News Daily, or if there is a specific policy issue you could post at the apropriate noticeboards attached to our policy pages WP:RS/N, WP:N/N and WP:NPOV/N--Cailil talk 12:45, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

gender hierarchy as socially invalid

The article lead's first paragraph says, "Nancy Cott defines feminism as the belief in the importance of gender equality, invalidating the idea of gender hierarchy as a socially constructed concept.[6]" Probably it should say, "Nancy Cott defines feminism as the belief in the importance of gender equality, invalidating the idea of gender hierarchy as a socially valid concept.[6]" Or does Nancy Cott claim that feminism is biologically caused? I don't recall any feminist claiming feminist essentialism except to argue that difference feminism is biological, which is partly dubious. Does anyone have the cited source handy? Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:24, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I'll get back to you on Tuesday about this one Nick - I've just relocated the book--Cailil talk 13:04, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
This slipped my mind - I'll try to sort this tomorrow--Cailil talk 21:50, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch

As an Australian,I hoped to see some reference or link to Germaine Greers The Female Eunuch.No such luck.Maybe this book is not important enough to feminism to be mentioned within the Feminism article.As a male,I'm reluctant to add mention of it.What would a man know?Ern Malleyscrub (talk) 06:51, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I separated this comment into its own section and chose and assigned the title. A new topic should be started by clicking the "New section" tab link at the top of the Discussion page. Thanks.
I haven't read the book but that was mainly because I read what lots of other people were not reading, and I recall that book as being widely read and very significant to feminism. It probably belongs in WP, perhaps within an existing article.
Nick Levinson (talk) 16:35, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the edit Nick, I tried putting the book title above in "link" form, as it is discussed and has a page in wikipedia, but my symbols are wrong.If you know how to turn title of The Female Eunuch into active link, please feel free.ThanksErn Malleyscrub (talk) 12:11, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't use quote marks or surrounding spaces within the double-bracket markup if they're not part of the title you're linking to. E.g., [[The Female Eunuch]] will work (as illustrated by The Female Eunuch) but [[ "The Female Eunuch" ]] won't (as illustrated by "The Female Eunuch" unless, in the future, someone makes a redirect or other article name and unfortunately makes this redlink work later).
I added the link to the Feminism article temporarily. We're in the process of trimming the article's excessive length (it may be hard to load the whole article into some browsers, so our plan is to reduce the length from 128 KiB to 30–100 KiB). I don't know if the link will survive the cuts. However, no content is to be lost. Removed content will be findable in other articles, which will be linked to from the Feminism article. So this link, also, may move to another article. My plan is to post a draft of the Feminism article in about a week as a subpage of Talk:Feminism, so editors can weigh in on it, and then to edit the article itself to conform to decisions on the draft.
Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:06, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
The original poster has corrected the link in the original post. The advice on how to correct it was in response to the original post as it first appeared. Nick Levinson (talk) 14:48, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

postcolonial & 3d-world: patriarchy not primarily genderally oppressive?

The subsection Postcolonial and Third-World says, "They [postcolonial feminists] challenge the assumption that gender oppression is the primary force of patriarchy." The source appears to be S. Mills & Jackie Jones, ed. Stevi Jackson, Contemporary Feminist Theories (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998 (ISBN 0-7486-0689-0)) (chap. Postcolonial Feminist Theory). I get that their objection is that race, class, and ethnicity are more oppressive forces (whether I agree is irrelevant). But patriarchy is specifically genderal, so how is patriarchy not primarily gender-oppressive?

Is it possible the sentence is simply misdrafted? For example, should "primary" be edited to "only" so it says that "They [postcolonial feminists] challenge the assumption that gender oppression is the only force of patriarchy"? That's a reasonable challenge. Patriarchs are often also racist, classist, or ethnocentric.

Or do they mean that patriarchy is gendered but not oppressive as to gender?

Or maybe something else was meant.

Does anyone have the source handy? Please edit freely.

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:06, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

At its most simple post-colonial feminism argues that women who were involved in colonization were just as oppressive to the colonized women as the men were. It also argues that western feminism tended to ignore the needs of colonized women.
I think the lede of the article Postcolonial feminism is much clearer so I'd suggest dumping what's in the article here and using that--Cailil talk 21:44, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

defining sex when counting number

§ Scientific Discourse Criticism sub§ Biology of Gender says:

Her [Anne Fausto-Sterling's] second book, Sexing the Body, discussed the alleged possibility of more than two true biological sexes. This possibility only exists in yet-unknown extraterrestrial biospheres, as no ratios of true gametes to polar cells other than 4:0 and 1:3 (male and female, respectively) are produced on Earth.

I agree on the limit of two, but I don't understand this explanation. I, albeit as a laic, thought X and Y chromosomes defined sex. Is that what this passage is referring to? Also, I understood that there are several, maybe five, ways of determining sex, an issue at childbirth and in internationally competitive highly visible sports. A recent study explains that prenatal hormonal surges or nonsurges in the fetal brain determine sex, one surge/nonsurge for organs and another for brain organization. I think the passage in the Feminism article needs some clarifying. Thoughts?

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:20, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

what is femalism?

The subsection Postcolonial and Third-World refers to femalism. What's that? Is there a source? Edit freely. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:57, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

It has various definitions. Some negative, see: Lynne Segal's Is the Future Female: Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism. Others not so negative: Chioma Carol Opara's Her mother's daughter:the African writer as woman and Stephanie Newell's West African literatures: ways of reading. I'll try to get a bit of writing doen for this but it may take me 10-15 days. If anyoe can help it'd be appreciated--Cailil talk 21:48, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

how is African feminism unlike postcolonial and Black feminisms?

The subsection Postcolonial and Third-World refers to African feminism. Wikipedia redirects from African feminism to Black feminism with no distinction within the article. Wikipedia also has an article on Africana womanism, but it states that it is neither feminism nor Alice Walker's womanism. Whether African feminism is different from other feminisms in content or just in name and the name is notable, a source to go into the Feminism article would be good. Is there one? Please edit freely. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:48, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Black feminism was a discourse created by African-american and is based in a North American race-gender context. African feminism is usually categorized within 'post-colonial feminism' as it emerged in countries that were colonized. There is usually mention of the subaltern in African feminism and Black feminism tends not to get into that territory. I've never seen African feminism defined outside postcolonial feminism myself but it's important to remember that post-colonial feminism tends to be an umbrella term for many feminism (ie Chicana, Indian, etc). I'll try to source the distinction for you ASAP--Cailil talk 21:36, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
I assume you meant to link to subaltern (postcolonialism). And thanks for the work. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:53, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Feminism as pro-equality in general

I understand that feminism means a variety of things to different people, and I believe that that fact alone should be emphasized within the article.

Specifically, I believe feminism needs to be described in it's form of being not so much "pro-woman" as it is "pro-equality"!

This is particularly important to the movement because so many people misunderstand feminism as being anti-male or purely woman-specific, when in reality it is actually quite inclusive! This causes the movement to lose ground due to a simple over-exaggeration or stereotype of the bra-burning, man-hating woman.

Put simply, if you believe in equality, you are a feminist.

My apologies for lack of references. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.92.225.149 (talk) 15:34, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

The article already reflects what you're saying. See the first paragraph's last sentence on who's a feminist and see the Movements and Ideologies section's many sections on "mean[ing] . . . a variety of things to different people". (A rewrite is under way.) However, Wikipedia also reflects sources that say other things, and that's in WP's purpose.
By way of disclosure: I half-agree with your view and I'm a man and a profeminist (I believe any legitimate civil rights movement must be led, if at all possible, by its immediate beneficiaries, in this case, females, because leadership by men inherently impedes attaining the rights); but our respective views don't much matter for an encyclopedia.
If you follow Wikipedia's links and don't find an adequate discussion in WP with adequate sourcing, go right ahead and gather a source or sources and write, in whichever article applies, about the controversy/ies of whom feminism's immediate beneficiaries are, for whom feminism is ultimately for, who definitionally qualifies to lead the movement/s (not personal or organizational names but necessary qualities, if any are required), and/or whether a problem is that feminists haven't asserted enough about inclusiveness or that it's not feminists' fault that antifeminists whine while scraping barrel bottoms (for example, the complaint about burning bras when that's none of men's business). All of this has been discussed in various sources and so I think you'll find multiple discussions that can be cited in WP.
Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:27, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
One small point: outsider or minority groups benefit from having at least one or several majority persons or insiders as members of the leadership, else they have great trouble gaining a toehold in conventional ways. Binksternet (talk) 18:21, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but for some groups only. In a given movement, at least one group should be exclusionary and at least one inclusionary, since the latter get access into the mainstream while the former explores and articulates theoretical possibilities and thereby gives a kind of permission to the mainstream and the near-mainstream groups. At any rate, it's up to each group to decide. And, at any rate, we're now going outside discussing the article itself, except that this could be fodder for shaping research on the controversy/ies discussed above. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 00:18, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
The idea that equality implies feminism (but not masculism) pervades feminism indeed, and we should explore and source that feminist view well. Feminists indeed believe that focussing all their effort on rights for women benefits men. Blackworm (talk) 00:47, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Libertarian Feminism needs clarification

The section on libertarian feminism is somewhat confused. It starts with right-wing libertarian ideology ("Libertarian" as classical liberal) and then moves straight into libertarian as traditionally understood (i.e., libertarian socialism, or left-libertarianism). It would be far better to break this up with genuine libertarian (i.e., left) feminism discussed and then propertarian-feminism (i.e., right-wing "libertarianism"). Otherwise it gets confusing as it confuses two very different theories (right-"libertarians" are not interested in hierarchy and class struggle, for example, while anarcha-feminists are). Still, I suppose that's what happens when right-wingers steal words used by socialists since the 1850s... I would do it myself, but the page is semi-protected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.40.192.31 (talk) 14:15, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

The article is being trimmed. Suggestion: When the shorter article comes out, write the passage you think should be added, post it into this topic, and someone who can will consider adding it. You may find, by the way, that the shorter article will link to articles more suited to what you have in mind, because they'll have more room, and also they may be available to you immediately for editing. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 19:07, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

pro-life

I think the ideologies section should have a segment on pro-life feminism, because there are more and more people these days who are deciding that a person can be feminist and still hold to a pro-life ideology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ChicagoMel (talk • contribs) 04:35, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

When you add a new topic, please click the "New section" link and give your topic a subject or title. I separated your post from another topic where it didn't belong and gave the resulting new section the title. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 19:07, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

article lengthy and needs moves and cutting

The article is too long, technically speaking, but I think it's well written, which means breaking it up and writing a summary article, or, more likely, moving material to specialized articles and deleting some interarticle redundancies, will take a lot of work. Copyediting alone took me about 5-6 hours, give or take. Editing this for length would probably take me a lot more time.

This would also solve the issue of the long table of contents. It's appropriately long for the article's content, so I wouldn't suggest trimming the number of section titles while leaving the content.

The article is about 127 KiB long. It should be about 30 KiB long, to ensure compatibility with more browsers, probably most important for readers using older computers around the world. I won't have the time to do it. Does anyone?

Thanks.

Nick Levinson (talk) 02:24, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, this is a summary article Nick but I agree it should be 'shorter' in technical terms. It is at the moment summarizing almost everything in it (with some exceptions). However some of teh longer sections could be moved to subpages and summaries of the summaries could be posted here if you know what I mean. I'd be happy to chip in if we work on a section by section basis--Cailil talk 12:49, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I started a draft.
We need to trim it by at least a quarter and preferably by about half, to bring to within 100 KiB or maybe 65 KiB, if not 30. We should anticipate expansion by other editors later, so we should bring it well less than 100 KiB so as to leave a substantial margin for growth.
Some cross-referential templates should go away, with the cross-references being worked into the article text.
A little reorganization would also help. For example, what herstorically preceded the first wave in real life should appear in the History section before the first wave.
Candidates for shortening, with preservation of all content by moving it to more specialized articles or cutting if redundant, include the Movements and Ideologies section and the History section.
Last to be trimmed should be the lede.
You mentioned subpages. I assume you know that subpages aren't allowed in the main namespace, so I assume you meant simply other articles, more specialized than the Feminism one. That's how I'm proceeding.
By the way, about these lengths of 30 and 100 KiB: I wonder what they refer to. When WP states the size of an article, does WP calculate and add in the file sizes of replacement media that the user's browser will display or execute? I haven't looked in Wikipedia's various instructions to find out; it's not that critical, but it's relevant because of the article's many images. Whatever; I'll use WP's stated figure.
I made one mistake already. When I copied the current article's text, I should have measured its size before editing, so I'd have a baseline. I didn't. So I guess I'll just chop a lot. I'll be reasonable.
I do want to preserve a wide sense of the subject in this article. I'll try to keep things in balance.
Nick Levinson (talk) 17:58, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
Hi Nick, that's great and I agree on all points. Yes when I said "sub-page" I meant "child article" or spun off new article. BTW we could work on your draft together if you wanted to put in as a sub-page in your user space? RE: the file sizes - I'm sure but I'll look into it--Cailil talk 17:48, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
A workable draft should be up in about a week, probably as a subpage of the article's talk page. I prefer that to sending a section at a time, since drafting a later section may affect edits to an earlier section. I assume you have the article in your watchlist, so you'll have notice of a talk subpage with the draft. Then you and other editors can edit freely and I can look at what gets done. Thanx. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:25, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Draft is up and it's shorter (July 2010)

A draft of Feminism is now posted. Its major feature is that it's shorter, without losing any information. Please comment here. My plan is to edit the live Feminism article in accordance with the draft in about a week, subject to commentary. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 19:43, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Will have a run through in the next 48 hours--Cailil talk 21:51, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

oh, no

I'm reconsidering the draft, as still too long. I'm sorry that you've probably started working on it when it hasn't been cut enough.

I didn't add subarticles; instead I only used WP's existing articles as subarticles for all moves. That wasn't good enough.

I figured out a way to roughly measure the change in length. I should have figured out the method earlier. I compared the length of main texts mostly without referents, bibliography, or external links. The old length was nearly 73 KiB while the new length is nearly 60 KiB. Since the article as a whole is, according to Wikipedia, 128 KiB, I may have reduced it only to 115 KiB, unless it's even shorter due to referents being trimmed. But 115 KiB is still way too long.

By this guesstimation method, the History section is just over 7 KiB, the Movements and Ideologies section just over 16 KiB, the Societal Impact section over 9 KiB, the Culture section under 8 KiB, the Relationship to Political Movements section under 6 KiB, the Scientific Discourse Criticism section under 4 KiB, and the Reaction section under 5 KiB. If I can cut those to 2, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, and 3 KiB, respectively, that would bring the article length to about 80 KiB. Maybe not enough of a cut, given likely growth by other editors later, but maybe it'll have to do.

Referents in the old version are nearly 30 KiB. I do not know how much that will be cut (it would take a lot of work to figure that out). To be cautious, I'll assume very little was cut.

Newly-added referents in the draft total under 1 KiB, not enough to matter.

I should look at the article on the history of feminism and probably move almost everything on history to there and have that article refer to even more specific articles, such as the one on the first wave.

I should move or, if redundant, delete most of the pictures. They probably are counted in the old 128-KiB total, in which case editing them will save space. With the old main text being under 73 KiB and old referents being under 30 KiB, subtracting from 128 KiB the pictures probably come to about 25 KiB, so maybe I can cut that to 5 KiB, in which case I can save about 20 KiB.

I'm not sure I should cut the bibliography or external links sections, since I'm mostly not familiar enough with each item in them to know if it supports only what's in other articles or if they're still needed for the feminism article itself. But the two sections are less than 1 KiB each, so they don't much matter, even together.

Not losing content means that if other articles don't have the content already I add it there without proposing the additions, since adding there generally shouldn't be controversial, then propose deleting from the Feminism article.

So I'm going to trim the Feminism article some more and post when that's done. It'll probably take me about a week.

Sorry, again.

Nick Levinson (talk) 17:05, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Pictures: Please nominate those you'd particularly like kept in this article. I've ensured that every picture or one very much like it and all the information in any caption is somewhere else closely related to Feminism or to the picture subject in Wikipedia, so deletion from the Feminism article won't lose anything. I anticipate about four-fifths of the 14 images departing this article, so about three should stay. Thanks for suggestions on which three. Nick Levinson (talk) 00:56, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Certainly the Paris 1935 suffragettes shot, and the Ohio 1912 one. Book covers, not so much. Binksternet (talk) 02:21, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Your picture pick is good; I came up with the same but with one caveat: for an article with the range that this one has, are two out of three pictures being about suffrage a bit much? Perhaps there's a picture that isn't in the article at all right now but would be good for the article and is somewhere in WP now? Nick Levinson (talk) 00:08, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
I have some comments on the draft proposal.
  • "and/or women's liberation" Women's liberation means the freeing of women who are oppressed, confined, or under foreign control. That is not what the phrase "women's liberation" as used by the feminist movement means. Is it? In any case, using the phrase without quotes or attribution to the feminist movement implies that women are oppressed, confined or under foreign control. That's not WP:NPOV.
  • "premised on intergenderal similarity" This seems jargon-y.
  • "Some activists of both genders will not refer to men as "feminists" at all and will refer to all pro-feminist men as "pro-feminists"" Is it a majority of people that do so? If not, why are we referring to them as pro-feminist ourselves, like the activists, instead of simply feminist men as the majority do? Do most men who express feminist beliefs calls themselves "pro-feminist" or "feminist?" I suggest, Some activists of both genders will not refer to men as "feminists" at all, using the term "pro-feminist" instead. In fact it should be the first sentence of the section, not the last.
  • There seem to be other NPOV issues with it as well. It's seems written in great part from a feminist viewpoint, and this affects it in subtle ways; choice of language, choice of emphasis, and blurring some facts while others are clear. For example, the Reactions: Men section is just bizarre: naming only men who are pro-feminist and relegating all others to a WP:WEASEL statement that "Others have lobbied and campaigned against feminism." Yes, the dreaded, nameless others. It then goes on to name more feminist men in the same breath as men's rights activists, which is often viewed as a movement against feminism. Anyway, a lot of the draft seems neutral, I hope it can be made neutral enough to replace the current version, but wow, what a lot of work to review. Blackworm (talk) 03:01, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
  • A few points. First I'd suggest doing as you say Nick and starting by condensing the article section by section - the movements one is an obvious place to start. In that instance this could be achieved by starting a new child article to which all the constituents of that section link and then summarizing that new article here. Kemp and Squires's book Feminisms might help to frame that section more succinctly.
    As regards your point about NPOV and weasel words Blackworm please point-out specific examples so we can address them if they need to be rewritten. And I agree that "premised on intergenderal similarity" needs jargon busting--Cailil talk 15:44, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

2d draft is up & thanks for waiting

The new draft replaces the prior one, so the link is unchanged. It's a bit later than intended, but this time you should see everything almost exactly as it would be were it the live article.

Also, you can visit the new articles (subarticles) on feminist movements and ideologies, feminism in culture, and feminist effects on society based, respectively, on the existing live feminism article's relevant sections and the corresponding sections in the already-abandoned prior draft of Feminism.

Fewer references appear in the new Feminism draft, largely because I don't have the sources they cite. I opted to be strict about what a reference was supposedly supporting. Thus, if I took out a phrase just before a reference, I probably took the reference out, too. Perhaps that reference was originally meant to support the longer passage preceding it, but I can't tell without reading the source. If you know a source supports a passage that remains, go ahead and cite it.

Responding to comments above:

  • Some of the comments posted about the draft apply equally to the live article prior to the draft. I often preserved wording but we can reconsider what was standing.
  • My understanding of the term women's liberation is that it meant feminism albeit with a somewhat more radical separatist tinge. What were "foreign" likely were men, very much including intranationally proximate men. In the years when the term arose, along with the term gay liberation and terms for other constituents' ". . . liberation" movements, Americans were at war in Viet Nam and opposition to that war was widespread and intensely controversial and publicly argued. In Viet Nam was the well-known National Liberation Front. That's probably the origin of the term. In the 1960s, feminism was very much a minority movement and its proponents probably were the women whose lives were very damaged by nonfeminist conditions, who were likeliest to fight back, and who had to be scrappier and more noticeable to get a toehold in popular discourse. The later feminists, being more numerous, seeking access to the mainstream of society, and needing societal respectability to achieve access, probably refused to have anything to do with the term women's liberation and so it faded, except for its use by opponents as an insult (along with women's libber, bra burner, etc.). It's tempting to fold almost all references to women's liberation more deeply into discussions of feminism, because its separate history was probably short-lived. If it really has more of a history than I think, please add it.
  • Most terminology that comes from feminism, including women's liberation, does not need attribution simply to use it in context. We don't need to attribute reproductive rights even though it has nothing to do with Xerox, first-wave even though the term didn't arise until the next wave and someone needed a distinction, or wave. We don't need to attribute negative terms such as bra-burner that now are used mainly by opponents. Attribution is useful for information about a term coming from one person and surprising information needing sourcing. Most of the words uncovered by Mary Daly would need attribution just to be understood, since only a few persisted in discourse far from her (see, e.g., her Wickedary).
  • The requirement for NPOV applies to Wikipedia, not to the people who are the subject of Wikipedia. It's NPOV to state their POV. Many feminists, especially early ones in the second wave, did have quite strong views that were offputting to men and intentionally so, just as many American colonists had views that were quite offputting to King George III and vast numbers of Tories, some of whom found Canada more congenial after Americans got done offputting George's soldiers into their eastward boats.
  • I rewrote about profeminism as a term for men. Respecting the comment above: Men rarely, in my experience, call themselves feminists. Some might within families and close friends, if their spouses or intimate partners essentially encourage them to. A few politicians and public figures probably do, but, in the U..S., very few. Even fewer who aren't serious activists call themselves profeminists in preference to calling themselves feminists. This kind of scarcity makes it almost meaningless to count majorities. Some feminist women refer to some men as feminists but that's controversial even within mainstreaming feminist organizations. Men as formal leaders of feminist organizations and chosen by feminist women to be their leaders are, as far as I know, almost nonexistent. So while some feminist women call some men feminists rather than profeminists the women's choice of leaders suggests they hold substantial doubts about how feminist such men are (cf. Warren Farrell). Either term applied to men is likely meant only to indicate that someone is supportive enough to do something or other right, like if you send a monetary donation to the local opera company you can be a Friend of the Opera but that doesn't mean they want you singing. A similar issue occurs with so-called "honorary (fill-in-the-blank)", such as men as honorary Lesbians or whites as honorary Blacks; any man or white actually self-referencing that way within range of an actual Lesbian or Black will rapidly encounter hostility and correction, as I think a former U.S. President discovered. There is John Stoltenberg referring to himself as a radical feminist when he is the widow of Andrea Dworkin who occasionally referred to some men as profeminists rather than as feminists. As far as I know, they were mutually supportive most of the time they worked together. But a sample of two is too small for determining standard practice in any nation.
  • I kept the statement about not calling any male feminist but only profeminist at the end, not the beginning, of the paragraph about profeminism because the paragraph starts with a more general statement and finishes with a narrower one, the usual order for structuring a paragraph.
  • Names of men against feminism could be interesting. Please select a few. Warren Farrell is already cited. Writing up the opposition could easily take half the article, so, instead, there are links, such as to the men's rights movement. If there's more to add that wouldn't add much length to the article, which we're trying to keep somewhat short, go ahead.
  • I don't have the Kemp and Squires Feminisms book. If someone does, please edit accordingly.
  • Intergenderal is out.

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 09:54, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm no fan of the piped wikilink in the lead, where "greater, equal, or, some argue, superior rights" is piped to Women's rights. Ungainly and hard to read—at first glance I thought it was a bunch of separate links. I would rather see the honest and unadorned link arrive unpiped in due course in the second lead paragraph, as it already does.
"Feminist theory" does not do its own campaigning; it requires people to do that. The sentence "It [Feminist theory] campaigns for women's rights and interests" ought to be adjusted to mean people.
My first reaction is that the draft is looking very good. Binksternet (talk) 10:41, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Agreed.
  • You're right about who does campaigning. I fixed two sentences.
  • I redid the categories so they'd be visible in the draft but without adding the draft into the live categories.
  • Your rephrasing re NWP's dates and your removal of an unintended paragraph break (I think that's what you removed) are fine.
  • I took out a link you objected to (I had forgotten it's elsewhere) and added two others, for important books, and I think I added another link.
  • I accept all the dash edits. In publication titles, I prefer whatever the original titles had, but I don't have the publications, and it's plausible that other editors got those wrong and you got them right. Your other dash edits didn't involve titles and make sense; those text fragments likely were just copied as-is.
I restored the page-protection template (removed by a bot) but commented it out. I assume it belongs in the Feminism article if this draft goes live there.
I have no idea why your later edit to your own Talk post just above this one didn't take. It showed in the diff but not on the page with or without the diff. That's unusual. On the other hand, it seems okay in this edit field as I type this sentence into the edit field. Best wishes with fixing it, if you want to.
Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:19, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
My take on Wikipedia's WP:DASH guideline is that they should be homogeneous throughout an article, regardless of original usage. It's like casual misspellings, we correct them silently as a matter of course in quotes, unless the misspelling has its own relevance. That's why nearly all date and page ranges get the en dash, even date ranges in titles. The date ranges that do not get the treatment are file names, categories, interwikis and URLs where such correction would break the link. Binksternet (talk) 04:46, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
As for sentence interruptions, the article editors must agree to use either the unspaced em dash or the spaced en dash throughout, regardless of original usage, but I understand that choosing the em dash does not change how the spaced en dash is used to separate, for instance, artist and song title in lists, or two-part titles. Those titles I changed to em dashes could very well be swapped for spaced en dashes. In the title, To Be a Man, or Not to Be a Man—That Is the Feminist Question, the dash could well be a spaced en dash, but the thing that it was previously (an unspaced en dash) needed to be fixed one way or another. Similarly, the title, Feminine Fascism—Women in Britain's Fascist Movement, could certainly have a spaced en dash, but what was there when I got to it was a hyphen. Ugh.
The good news is that the small details are what's being discussed by you and I. The forest, the overview, the 30,000-foot-perspective—your draft is working well at that level. Binksternet (talk) 05:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Thank you kindly for your comments.
Good points on dashes and titles.
On quotations, WP leaves a gray area. I lean towards accuracy and insert brackets and intrabracket quotation marks. Thus, I'd bracket to say that "[a] penny saved is a penny earned" and I might write that an article appeared in "["The"] Times" if the source supported that. Where ligatures appear, I'd replace them with separated letters because people might not see ligatures, but in that case I'd note my substitution as part of the citation to let a reader reconstruct an exact original. At any rate, I've done such things with other articles, especially noticeable where other editors demand such lengthy quotation I think it risks infringement and so I cut short while trying to provide enough for credibility. However, I don't think any of that affects Feminism.
Tangent: Your talk post fixed itself when I saved the page with my post.
Best wishes and thanks again. Nick Levinson (talk) 07:05, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
The draft has gone live. The feminism article has now been revised accordingly. Future edits by anyone can now go directly into the article, as usual. Thank you very much. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:22, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Weasel words in first paragraph

First paragraph reads "Feminism refers to political, cultural, and economic movements aimed at establishing greater, equal, or, some argue, superior rights and participation in society for women and girls" (my bolding). The bolded section fits the definition of weasel words as stated at WP:WEASEL. I marked it with Template:Who, but my edit was reverted by Modernist with the comment "rv - how about some people - try common sense".

Link to the revision comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Feminism&action=historysubmit&diff=378349004&oldid=378344498

Weasel words or not? Is common sense an acceptable substitute for citations here?

F3nyx (talk) 23:35, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

See The Natural Superiority of Women, by Ashley Montagu, now in its 5th edition. I don't recall if he argued for political superiority; I think his argument was more about science. You can probably also find some articles that are political in off our backs, a feminist periodical. You may also find some pursuits of superiority within difference feminism's literature.
Feminism has long had a variety of definitions and arguments regarding just how much more power women should have relative to what men have, the best known balance being equality. Female superiority as an aspiration has been opposed by men and probably most U.S. feminists have stopped short of seeking to go beyond equality and into superiority, but that hasn't stopped a minority of feminists from believing in superiority, including in politics and leadership in society, even if they don't have a strategy for getting it.
Thanks for asking. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:07, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm wondering Nick if we're giving the 'superior rights' idea too much weight for line one. I think it's fine to mention it in the first paragraph but having it in line one makes our definition significantly different from dictionary definitions, other encyclopedic definitions, and all the reliable published definitions I know of. It just seems a bit undue and might be better as an alternative definition later in the first paragraph. What do you think?--Cailil talk 01:16, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
The effect would be the opposite: what is now just a few words would, by moving it to later in the paragraph, need a full sentence or close to it.
While relatively few feminists endorse having more power than men even when combining biological and cultural justifications, many men raise concerns about it, thus preserving the point's notability. Most dictionaries have only one or a very few definitions and do not distinguish definitions to fit culture, difference, equality, equity, having more power than foremothers had, and so on. This article being about feminism, feminism can be defined more articulately in it. Most definitions I've seen are vague enough to include most of the variants that otherwise should be separately stated at greater length. We don't need to go there, because the article covers the various ideologies, thus implying the definitions that support them
Nick Levinson (talk) 06:00, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I understand your point but I don't 100% agree. I think you're spot on about the other definitions being vague enough to cover " difference, equality, equity" etc. But I haven't seen one that includes the antifeminist definition. The way I see it the lede line is giving equal weight to the view that some argue feminism is about superiority etc, as those who define it as about equal rights - that's my point. And in relation to that as the rest of the lede is discussing equal rights I think one line saying something like "Anti-feminists argue feminism is about female supremacy." and then brief mention of Mary Daly and/or female separatism later in the lede is more due than the current first line. I know I'm nit-picking here but F3nyx does have a point.
Also, in my view, if we were to strictly adhere to the MOS (WP:LEDE) the first line would be much shorter. If we were to go down that road I'd suggest it look like this: Feminism refers to movements advocating women rights and/or the equality of the sexes. It can refer to political, cultural, and economic movements aimed at establishing women's rights and participation in society. This advocacy includes legal protection and inclusion in politics, business, and scholarship, as well as the recognition and building of women's cultures and power. Feminists are people who believe in feminism." Later in the lede the following line could be included: "Antifeminists argued that feminism has achieved its aims and is now seeking a higher status for women than for men.[1][2]"--Cailil talk 17:55, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Better sources on political superiority exist. We should not rely on antifeminists to define it if we can find some feminist sources who self-define in terms of superiority, thus much more reliable as sourcing. There are probably sources within separatist, difference, and radical feminisms and connected with gynocracy, gynecocracy, and gynarchy, if one digs. Mary Daly may be a good source but she was a book author and finding a statement like that in maybe a couple of thousand pages would take long time, especially since it might well not have been indexed in any obvious way. She tended to go well beyond that kind of argument and may never have stated it.
The antifeminist take should be useful for Feminism's antifeminism section and I added your two citations there.
One of them cited a possibly feminist source (it sounded feminist but I'm wary anytime one side cites an unheard-of source on the other side as typical or authoritative): Nancy Spain of SHE and The Guardian, whose writings I tried to look up to see if they're what they're cracked up to be. So far: no. The other mentions only Betty Friedan, who won't do for this purpose. Nancy Spain likely was a feminist who pushed some boundaries of her time and place but I doubt I'll find what we need in her material without a lot of digging, if at all.
The lede's first sentence was too long (I agree) and I divided it.
Lowering the superiority position's weight is legitimate and was the intent of the qualifier "some argue", so I replaced it with "among a minority". Political superiority was never achieved anywhere to my knowledge except in some small communities, probably populated by no more than a few dozen members each, but the concept was conceptually explored, probably in the fictional New Amazonia and the possibly satirical SCUM Manifesto and certainly elsewhere. The position should not disappear from the lede, since feminism is about more and superiority is one subset of more, so superiority is subsumed in a general definition anyway. To use the lede to criticize superiority is probably to give it undue weight since it's not widely endorsed among feminists. I think the best solution is simply a short qualifier, thus the edit.
Women's rights are part of feminism but I stayed away from that in the short definition of feminism. For example, a woman giving birth has a right to ask for assistance but that's no different from a firmly nonfeminist position because exercising that right (of asking) also advances a man's power and so both sides agree on the right. Where women's rights and feminism come together is where women's rights include a right to an increase in power relative to men's. For that reason, the U.S. protective laws were controversial on feminist grounds and remained so for decades after they became ineffective. So, rather than add women's rights to the definition of feminism, I added a separate sentence to the lede on the overlap.
Equality is not always agreed to among those who call themselves feminist. That is the point of equity feminism whose proponents argue that strict equality is about measurements, quotas, and the like that can't be applied to intangibles; also cf. difference feminism. Feminists who seek equality disagree. But the equity, difference, and related definitions are widely adhered to and thus have to be included, and in the lede. It is.
The distinction by gender between profeminism and feminism is an important part of feminism and should be preserved where we define feminists in the lede. It was discussed in another Talk topic. I left it in.
Antifeminists' assessment that feminists' work is done is more appropriately placed into the antifeminism article, if it's not there now, although I don't have a source for that assertion. That assessment is only part of the antifeminism arguments; some antis argue that feminists' work should never have been done in the first place and what has been done should be reversed. What's useful for Feminism's lede is that feminism is generally controversial, and I added that to the lede.
Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC) Corrected error (I had forgotten to italicize two literature titles): Nick Levinson (talk) 05:04, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

←In gerneral I think that's a good edit Nick! Yeah I think you'ev made a number of important points too (ie the overlap but not homogeniety of feminism and women's rights). There are a few nit picks that I'd have with some wording but overall it's good. I'm not sure that feminism is always widely controvertial. It maybe in North America but in Europe not so much (but then a number of European feminists such as Cixous, Kristeva et al have also criticized American feminists so the type of feminism is a bit different). I think that line is a good addition but whether "widely" is the best term or not is what's in my mind.
And although the lede is better I still think it's too long but otherwise good--Cailil talk 13:12, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

The wideness of the controversy generally includes the other continents. There are advocates and some concessions. While Islam is well known for antifeminist positions, there are Muslim nations that have enacted laws that move toward more feminist rights within a Muslim framework, such as something more resembling equal rights for wives other than the first wife (Islam's history allows up to four wives but I think with a founder's requirement of equal treatment). Some of the other most populous religions are, in other ways, very antifeminist and all of these religions have helped shaped laws and cultures in most nations. The result is two-way controversy by feminists against antifeminism and by antifeminists against feminism and the net result of that has varied by place but has often meant some rights but often not anything close to equality, antifeminists being partly successful in holding the line, and from that we can infer that controversy on feminism is widespread. The controversy includes Europe; when Germany was reformed from two Germanys, a big issue was the women's employment rights in former East Germany when industrialists from former West Germany moved in. I think other issues also arise in Europe. What may be different about Europe and North America compared to elsewhere is the level of feminist achievement and that using the labels "feminism" and "feminist" is not as controversial, but partly that only moves debate from labeling to fact and policy and partly that reflects efforts to redefine feminism so more people can claim the label, thus producing conservative branches that claim the label of feminism, though some of us may wonder whether the label is deserved in some cases but merely intended as cooptation, which they deny, thus another controversy.
I'll look at somewhat shortening the lede's second and third paragraphs (while keeping content).
Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:59, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I edited the lede accordingly and moved content downward within the article. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 21:44, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

getting this article to A class

so what needs to be done do get this article all the way up to A class? andyzweb (talk) 03:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete and start again without the propaganda. 94.168.151.49 (talk) 02:26, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Ditto Go to Male Studies for some sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.111.95.161 (talk) 02:23, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Go to "male studies"? Is it like the "white pride" meetings? Will they explain to us that white men are, and always have been, the oppressed group, that women liked being denied basic rights like voting and owning property, that religious texts are texts of female empowerment, that rape is a feminist myth or just surprise sex? Or perhaps they will teach us that statistics by the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI are fake and that we should do anything it takes to preserve male privilege? Hmm. No thanks. SantaClaus86 (talk) 22:44, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
Well said. Nissaxx (talk) 21:20, 6 July 2010 (UTC) Nissaxx

The definition of feminism is incorrect. Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines feminism as 1. "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes 2. organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests" In the first paragraph of your article you use the word, "superiority." I believe that this word is incorrect - it should not be used to define feminism. Feminism is about equality for all, not just for women. It is not about promoting women to be superior to men.---- Gflyd511. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gflyd511 (talk • contribs) 03:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Equality is by far the majority view, at least in that it's an acceptable label to most U.S. feminists and to many women who refuse to self-identify as feminists. However, it's not universal and Merriam-Webster's is too short a definition to encompass the range of feminisms. See feminism and equality and let us know what you think. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 07:32, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I disagree with Merrian-Webster's definition too, as it implies that sexual identity (or even biological sex) is a matter of 2 options, which is not the case anymore nowadays. There are people that consider themselves somewhere in between or different, and there is also the case in which biological sex of an individual is open to discussion, and the individual is happy to have this status. I do agree that including terms like 'superiority' or even mentioning that a minority of feminist women seek grater rights does nothing to clarify the concept, and simply adds up to the prejudices that many have against feminism "they want women to be superior blablabla". That is radical feminism, and should be described in the corresponding section, not in the definition. I wish I could contribute more, because it's one of the lowest quality entries in wikipedia that I've seen so far. But i am not konwledgeable enough for such a complex and fascinating topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.62.109.57 (talk) 14:20, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
The concept of there being three or more genders and that derived from biological ambiguity has not come up in feminist literature, to my knowledge. It does come up in the context of sexual orientation.
The objection that feminism is mainly about superiority has been an exaggeration by masculists for centuries. Feminists can't be responsible for that. But the superiority claim is a significant part of feminism. Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Phyllis Chesler, Jill Johnston, and Joreen are not a fringe. When just one of those authors sells millions of copies of the book that supports superiority and the others' works are widely read and known, this is significant, and WP should not avoid these in the appropriate place in the feminism article simply because there's a bias against feminism generally.
I've indented your reply one more step.
Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:26, 23 September 2010 (UTC) (Corrected my typo: 16:36, 23 September 2010 (UTC))
  1. ^ Pizzey, Erin (1999). "How The Women's Movement Taught Women to Hate Men". Fathers for Life. Retrieved 2006-09-30.
  2. ^ Janice Shaw Crouse (2006). "What Friedan Wrought". Concerned Women for America. Retrieved 2006-09-30.
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