Talk:Feminism/Archive 7

message: Just one random point to throw in about feminism: Did anybody ever notice that males (especially fathers) are generally portrayed in an unfavorable light? By unfavorable, I mean stupid or clumsy. Women, however, are NEVER shown to be either of the two in commercials, and are in fact portrayed to be far more intelligent. On the flip side, one could argue that women are portrayed as sex objects in some commercials. At least some food for thought.
The fathers that are shown as clumsy are inept at housework and shopping. This naturalizes the women's lot as "housewife" due to their super-human ability to wield a vacuum cleaner or bottle of windex. This portrayal of man as retarded when it comes to house cleaning further subjugates women. These stereotypes keep us cleaning & shopping for 'da man' and enrage men like my husband who seem to know how to operate a vacuum just fine. My favorite is the one where the boys and dad hide the carpet spots and the woman not only has to discover the spots, but also clean them. I mean, men are smart enough to be scientists and engineers, but fall inferior to the almighty high-school educated Merry Maid.
In 1987 in Ontario Canada, child abuse was based on the model, "men who abuse, women and children victims'.  You will note the obvious polarized nature of the model.  Why ?
A polarizing nature to a social model, based on a deceptive half-truth.
So if the 'model of men' can be corrupted why not the image of women.  You INFER that portraying women as sex objects is a bad thing.  Is it ? and where are the many faces of feminism on this issue ?
--Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 14:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Commercials 

message: I think this section is very problematic. Most of the article emphasises how there are many different strands of feminism, and then this section is just about outlining the concerns of one of them. It mentions no organisations and cites no sources.  Personally I think it wouldn't harm the article is the whole section was just removed, but I don't want to do that without discussing it here first. 
Maybe it could be replaced with a description of the major current Women's organisations and their programs? Ashmoo 23:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur completely. By the way, thanks for all your work removing questionable content from this article. Catamorphism 23:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Catamorphism. I removed the whole section. I think anything I took out should be re-included under the sections devoted to each branch of feminism. Ashmoo 04:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Feminism today and its issues

message: The wiki page Political_emancipation could use some attention. Currently it is only a stub. Particularly the explanation of the term 'political emancipation' entailing 'equal status of individual citizens in relation to the state, equality before the law, regardless of religion, property, or other “private” characteristics of individual persons' is construed to be an 'opinion' and 'not delivering a neutral point of view.' Does anyone have more expert information on the word 'emancipation' also being used in the political context of establishing (or any step moving towards) equality in light of the law? When fewer than 1 in 7 US Senators and House of Representatives are women, [], and the United States comes in only as the 61st nation in the world in this respect, would you say that political emancipation has been achieved?
FredrickS 18:27, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The nameless responder has a point. I will add that if men continue to control the money which is to be donated in order to fund the many hundreds of millions of dollars ($2 billion this mid-term election, I believe) necessary to fund modern American election campaigns, it may be no accident that these men don't fund a lot of women candidates (and those they do fund are often right-wing, anti-feminist male-identified women like Helen Chenoweth).--Orange Mike 04:53, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Political Emancipation

message: A user has added the below
*However, critics of feminism often cite the following as evidence that a female bias also exists in western societies such as the United States: * For every woman who is murdered, three men are murdered. (US Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimisation in the United States) * Only 6% of occupational deaths in the United states occur to women. (US Department of Health and Human Services) * Men aged between 25 and 34 are four times more likely to commit suicide than a woman of the same age. Over the past 20 years, the suicide rate for 25-34 year old men has increased 26%, yet for 25-34 year old women, it has decreased 33%. (US Department of Health and Human Services) * Men die at a much higher rate from all 15 top causes of death. (United Nations Demographic Yearbook)''''
*Which critics of feminism cite the following evidence?
*What is a "female bias"?
*How are these statistics related to feminism / womens rights? --Zleitzen 19:47, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It sounds like Original Research to me. Notice how it cites primary sources, but no source for the anonymous 'critics'. But more importantly, this is the 'Feminism' article, not the 'Status of Men', 'Status of Women' or 'Are Men or Women better off?' article. So only discussions about Feminism itself should be included. Which this para is not. Ashmoo 23:04, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Addition to the world stats

message: Wouldn't the Venus/female symbol be a more appropriate lead image, given its strong public association with the feminist movement in general?  Or has this been discussed here before?  Kasreyn 19:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I know this hasn't been discussed.  I'd be fine with that as the lead image, though I think an even better choice would be to attach that image to a new section discussing its use within feminist movements.  -Smahoney 20:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead image? 

message: can we get some "opposing views" in here? You know, the type that is taking up over half of all the anti-feminist articles on this whole site?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.152.105.16 (talk • contribs) .
:There is no "National Organization of Women." Slrubenstein   |  Talk 09:54, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You ae wrong.  There is no National Organization of Women. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 20:55, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There isn't one called National Organization of Women, but there is an National Organization for Women though... -Localzuk (talk) 22:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  And a heckuva lot of the members thereof are men, and happy to be so. --Orange Mike 16:09, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

text: This is correct.  And the difference is not trivial - at stake in the wording is the very issue of ehther feminism is inclusive or exclusive. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 15:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  good lord, is this the National Organization of Women? 

message: Under the criticism section I think there needs to be a mention of the rampant Eurocentralism within the Feminist movement and how often the Feminist movement will use its (Western) standards as a 'one-size-fits-all' model for women everywhere, while ignoring their specific culture, customs and traditions which may appear repulsive to most Western Feminists. When talking to and reading about non-Western (Africans and Asians mainly) one of the biggest criticisms I've heard is that Western Feminists (i.e. the bulk of Feminists) come across as another load of White Foreigners telling them that X, Y and Z is wrong (becuase they say it's wrong) and that you should do A, B and C (because that's what we think you should do) in a way similar to how the European Colonists would tell them that their practices were backwards and barbaric (because they say so) and they should do what they do (because that's what we think you should, for your own good of course)
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by  203.114.182.17 (talk • contribs) .
:This is covered under postcolonial feminism. The article is still very small, if you have expertise in the topic, it would be great if you could add your input. Ashmoo 02:17, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eurocentralism 

message: There should be some sort of exchange between the contributors to this article and women artists; maybe also category additions at foot of both articles so there can be proper linkaging. Wimmin 11:03, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Women artists 

message: I have added a cite needed tag to the section which describes Barbara Ehrenreich, as well as other female authors, as anti-feminist.  Note that the article on Ehrenreich puts her in category: feminist scholars.  It needs to be made clear that Wikipedia is not engaging in original research, so whatever source is being used for the claim of anti-feminism must be cited.  Also, there is also an apparent paradox; how can Ehrenreich be both a "feminist" scholar, as well as anti-feminist?  If I understand correctly, "Feminist scholar" means "a feminist who is also a scholar"; if it was intended to mean "a scholar who studies feminism", the proper term would seem to be a "Feminism scholar".  Kasreyn 08:05, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anti-feminists? 

message: I have placed OR and "uncited" tags in the "Criticisms" section.  This is necessitated by the stereotyped sociological assertions made in the following paragraph which was just recently added: ... Kenosis 16:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Many who support masculism argue that because of both traditional gender roles and sexism infused into society by feminists, males are and have been oppressed. Marriage Rights advocates oppose feminist aspirations to replace the traditional family, as illustrated by statments made by a variety of feminist leaders such as Shelia Cronan's view that marriage constitutes slavery for women, and the women's movement must concentrate on attacking this institution and that freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage. Dr. Mary Jo Bane, associate director of Wellesley College's Center for Research on Woman suggested that to raise children with equality, they should be taken from families and communally raised. Men and Family rights groups oppose feminists such as Robin Morgan, the openly lesbian editor of Ms. Magazine, who advocated 'man-hating' as an honorable and viable political act and concludes the inequities between men and women can not be resolved until  marriage is destroyed. Family and Men's Rights groups are also critical of Feminist encouragment of Lesbian agendas which undermine the traditional role of men in the family, such as  Sheila Cronan's National NOW Times January 1988 interview statements declaring every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist. Many critics of feminism are alarmed by the prevalence of lesbians such as Patricia Ireland, the head of NOW, in feminist leadership roles.  Men's Rights advocates view much of contemporary feminist issues extremist and unreasonable now that all the reasonable demands such as equal rights has been achieved. Issues such as the Violence Against Women Act are viewed as discriminatory and funding radical feminist or feminazi villification, profiling and demogoguery of men. Father's Rights advocates are critical of feminist efforts to block shared parenting after divorce and especially advocating or instructing women to fabricate false domestic violence or abuse accusations to win greater child custody and child support. ... 16:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not to mention that the entire section was unsourced.  Good call.  Kasreyn 04:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:NOR]] and [[WP:VER]] in the "Criticisms" section

message: The table whose title is Female share of seats in elected national chambers in November 2004 (percent) looks wrong in both Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox 1.5. The table overlaps with some headings on the page. Andrew Moylan 10:33, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broken table 

message: I would like to request comments and suggestions for the following situation in Talk:List_of_major_opera_composers#Not_so_fast.__There_is_obvious_POV_gender_bias_here .  This is a very long, complicated situation involving whether women should be included on this list of Opera composers.  As a male musician who has done quite alot of research on women in music, I firmly believe that a representative sample should be on the list (I'm not suggesting 50/50 or even 30/70, just two or three representative women).  When I first noticed this article, it was completely unsourced, and the "important composers" were chosen by a collegial system ("I like that." "I don't like that") without any mention of sources.  I marked the article NPOV and Unsourced.  The article quickly became sourced, but I continued to bring up the issue of gender bias and brought three sources to the discussion after consulting the International Alliance of Women in Music [], all of which were dismissed because they only contained works by women.  However, when the list was finally completed (I was asked not to participate, as I was considered to be have a POV agenda towards women and living composers), six of the ten lists used only contained the names of men.  The other four only contained one woman (Judith Weir).  If lists of only women composers are unacceptable, why are lists of only men composers acceptable? And was are sources which could prove the importance of women in music dismissed as having a POV agenda. 
A colleague who is a teacher of Women's studies at an American University has suggested that this is a textbook case of "canon forming" or the creation of hierarchies using preconceived notions.  The process involves  making a hypothesis using the notions that one already has, such as "Important operas are only composed by dead, White, European males", using the sources already utilised for making the hypothesis for proving the statement and then dismissing contradictary sources or discrediting individuals who make statements which oppose the primary hypothesis. 
I am certainly not asking anyone to get directly involved here, as this is already become quite violent and an RfA is currently underway.  I would however appreciate any ideas concerning how to confront this sort of gender bias, any useful sources and other ideas, as well as general comments.  Thank you Jean-Thierry Boisseau 20:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe start your own Wiki page that is a List of Major Female Opera Composers?  However, I don't understand why, if you are listing truly major opera composers who happen to be female, that you should be considered POV.  Opera is not my thing, so my question is are the ones you are trying to list as "major" as the men listed?  Is it possible that the women you are trying to add are only considered "major" by other women and there is no male consensus?  Once again, I wouldn't know.  Finally, I'm not sure why you bring it up here, but should bring it up on the talk pages of the page on which you are trying to contribute.  --Lorraine LeBeau 18:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  asking for comments regarding the exclusion of women in [[List_of_major_opera_composers]] == 

message: This article does not cite its sources! It is the unsourced garbage. Jimbo said lets remove all this of the original research so if you wrote this please give your sources BEFORE Im removing the original research!Opiner 07:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree it needs sourcing, however I believe the problem is not lack of sources but, instead, lack of inline sources. We have a huge list of books at the bottom which are undoubtedly meant to be sources to some of the article. This article cannot gain even Good Article status without inline references, so someone with knowledge of the subject matter needs to go through and inline some references.-Localzuk(talk) 13:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm afraid the idea that sexes don't exist except in our heads is a very fringe view... Try saying that to the scientific community and see what they say.-Localzuk(talk) 21:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Ah, ok. I misunderstood what you wrote.-Localzuk(talk) 21:21, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The Garbage Without the Sources

message: Hi. Doing some categorization work, I fell upon the article The left and feminism. I categorized it under Feminism which I suppose is quite safe but the title of the article strikes me as odd and, although it's overall well written, the content seems to stray towards original research. Anyways, I thought people involved in the feminism article might want to look it up. Cheers, Pascal.Tesson 20:49, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually this was a topic I was just about to address under the History article, but was was going to list under 'socialism'--Mgoodyear 23:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  the left and feminism 

message: With some trepidation I added brassiere as a link, having been hammered over there for a feminist POV. It might not be a central issue in feminism but it acquired iconic status, which I discuss in the subarticle on history. It is certainly discussed a lot in women's groups, and links into beauty, glamour, self image, self esteem, body image etc.  Mgoodyear 13:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Icons

message: Incidentally it is very difficult to write an article on feminism without someone thinking it is lacking NPOV. A lesson I learned when I tackled the brassiere question, and tried to link it to its social and cultural roles. I am sure we can rephrase an sentences tagged as 'weasel' without losing the meaning, and eliminate that NPOV tag. Mgoodyear 15:39, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: In my humble opinion, we would all get on better together and learn from each other if we discuss the rationale for changes proposed or executed, here. Just a constructive suggestion. It also helps to have a master plan. Particiularly if the goal is to elevate the article through the Good and Featured categories Mgoodyear 15:39, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: One thing it needs is better citations, I will do what I can (I note this addressed above). There are also inconsistencies between the different language versions Mgoodyear 00:20, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Collaborative scholarship

message: IMHO Eowbotm2's contributions constitute vandalism  Mgoodyear 17:00, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks to UberCryxic for painstakingly reverting - the user has been warned Mgoodyear 22:51, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: well, alot of it was, but a good portion was legit, in MY humble opinion.  Whoever put that thing about "weasel words at the top was right on: I tried to make the wording more neutral in some places.Eowbotm2 01:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are a vandal by anybody's definition and you have been warned. Many people have spent hours tidying up the mess you left. This will not be tolerated. Mgoodyear 16:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To put things in perspective, the above then vandalised my userpage. Anyway - does this article need protection? Mgoodyear 20:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Plese remember to tag vandal's pages when you revert (and review their contributions) - otherwise we will never get rid of these people --Mgoodyear 14:10, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism alerts

message: The term is to refer to the reality that most people of either sex are concerned about the opposite sex.  They marry the opposite sex, benefit from their incomes and normally have children of either sex.
Cult-feminism, the focus on the reality of 'women only' suggests that women live in issolation of men and is therefor psychotic-feminism.
The complex reality and interrelationships of people is overly simplified through the use of deceptive generalized half-truths and brainwashing.
The feminist movemennt has succeeded in unifying all women against a perceived common enemy, which is again oversimplified and based on half-truths.
For example, the false comparisons of male verses female incomes, totally ignores the income of families, ie a woman married to a man.  Is there still not some women who are married to men ?
::Caesarjbsquitti - People of integrity sign their contributions, even if unhelpful Mgoodyear 22:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And don't some men benefit from the income of their wives? Saying that only the reverse happens is using a half-truth yourself (to use your own favourite term), isn't it? I don't even know why I'm trying to discuss this with someone who still believes in the "oversimplistic" and "psychotic" idea of feminism simply as an opposition to men... The aim of feminism never was and never will be to unify women, least of all against any "enemy". THAT's what's psychotic (and, as Mgoodyear points out, unhelpful; Wikipedia is not a place to discuss this kind of stuff, go and find a forum for that). IronChris  |  (talk) 01:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Psychotic-feminism