Talk:Violence against men

Wiki Education assignment: Global LGBTQ Rights and Representation

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2022 and 29 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ryankirzner22 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Laurencraven.

Implementing RFC closure

Following S Marshall's closure of the RfC above (for which, many thanks), we should probably figure out how to modify the article based on the closure. As far as I understood (please correct me if I'm misinterpreting, S Marshall), the closure 1) does not find consensus for a removal of all circumcision content (this discussion doesn't quite reach a consensus) 2) finds that forced circumcision of adults especially in Sub-Saharan Africa is reasonable to discuss in the article, and 3) circumcision of infants should not be described as violence against men.

Based on this closure, I propose we keep the current first para of § Forced circumcision as-is:

Forced circumcision is the circumcision of men and children against their will. Forced circumcisions have occurred in a wide range of situations, most notably in the compulsory conversion of non-Muslims to Islam and more recently especially in Kenya. In South Africa, custom allows uncircumcised Xhosa-speaking men past the age of circumcision (i.e., 25 years or older) to be overpowered by other men and forcibly circumcised. While some scholars view forced adult male circumcision as (gendered) sexual violence, the International Criminal Court ruled in 2011 that such acts were not "sexual violence," but rather fell under the label of "other inhumane acts".

References

As for the second paragraph I'd propose cutting it down to something like the following, which could be appended to the end of the first para if it seems too short to stand alone:

While non-religious routine circumcision has been made illegal in some countries, religious circumcision of minors is legal in every polity. These practices are a subject of ethical debate.

References

The goal here would be to briefly cover both the existence of the ethical debate identified in the closure, while noting that religious circumcision of minors indeed remains legal everywhere.

As for the location of this text, I'd prefer to keep it as a distinct section: while it certainly touches on sexuality, some of the RS explicitly state it's not "sexual violence". Similarly, it appears to not be universally war-related. If a section on religious violence was to be written, there's probably an argument to be made to include it there, but having this as the only content of such a section seems not quite right. If kept as a separate section, I trust there's not objection to the {{main}}.

How does this strike others as a first step? Ljleppan (talk) 18:20, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I haven't rigorously dug through the history, but I believe the circumcision content was added within the past few months and has been under debate ever since. Per WP:NOCON, shouldn't it be removed? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:27, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I was under the opposite impression, but I haven't done a great survey of the history either. I'll take a look. Ljleppan (talk) 18:31, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

A quick check shows it being added in 2016 with this edit. As far as I can determine, the timeline is 1) added in 2016 2) removed a month or two ago, 3) removal discussed on talk 4) no clear consensus for removal, reinstated 5) the RFC above to more formally gauge consensus 6) the present. Ljleppan (talk) 18:33, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks like it was removed in August 2022 and that removal has been disputed ever since. I agree the content should stay per WP:NOCON. Hopefully we can refocus the content on wartime forced circumcision per the closer. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:40, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

• It is widely believed, but not necessarily always true, that WP:NOCON crystallizes disputed content in its current form. NOCON is policy, but so is verifiability, which says here that the onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. In other words, where there isn't consensus, policies conflict. In this case I would suggest a fudge. The disputed information could be presented more briefly and given less prominence, as for example a paragraph without its own heading.—S Marshall T/C 19:23, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

  I have no problem moving the content to another section in principle, but none of the other sections really seem like great fits. Certainly, that is an artifact of the article writing process at large: after all, if one of them was a great fit, someone would presumably have already moved it a long time ago. I wouldn't object to a larger restructuring of the content or if someone has a good idea of what that better structure would be, but in the interim I hope we can rather quickly do some initial edits to the prose itself (potentially along the lines I suggested above). Ljleppan (talk) 19:38, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

  S Marshall, I think you've gotten it massively wrong here. A total absence of verifiability runs in absolute contradiction of the most fundamental and basic requirement for material to be included in Wikipedia. Tambor de Tocino (talk) 22:36, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• This is all original research we are discussing here. You all ignore the fact that there are no reliable sources backing the claim and thus no grounds for inclusion. If unverified claims and original research are the order of the day, then Wikipedia is pretty much worthless. No reliable sources have been provided, but we're just going to include a whole heap of original research. And you guys probably wonder why Wikipedia struggles to attract editors these days. All this original research and opinion being included here has really made me question the value of contributing to Wikipedia. Best of luck with the article, no doubt it will be a load of unverifiable opinion at this rate - a list of violent acts involving men, things that Wikipedia editors have decided are gendered violence in their opinions, to hell with what reliable sources actually say - that is a farce. Tambor de Tocino (talk) 01:30, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

• This proposal is excellent; trims away the cruft, but keeps relevant stuff. I'd propose rewording the first sentence to:

Forced circumcision is the circumcision of men against their will, and of children without parental consent.

Or something along those lines. As an uninvolved editor, who never edited this page nor participated in the RfC above, but just came across it as a reader, I found this sentence confusing. I strongly oppose removal of the section, obviously, given the lack of consensus and the fact that comprehensive coverage of the topic IMO necessitates inclusion.

I also support the cut-down second paragraph as-proposed; quite a lot of readers likely expect the article to include routine circumcision as gender-based violence, and your proposal makes it clear most medical organizations do not include it. Here again, the article wouldn't be comprehensive without this. Going deeper into the specifics of the debate would be undue. DFlhb (talk) 02:17, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Ethical questions about circumcision ≠ circumcision as mutilation

A few editors have attempted to state that it's a mainstream view within the medical community that circumcised penises are "mutilated" — a term that implies sexual dysfunction. This seems WP: Undue. It's true that there's substantive ethical controversy over circumcision. But that's different than stating that circumcised penises are mutilated. The vast majority of reliable sources term the notion an example of WP: Fringe. Users can view the ethics of circumcision and circumcision articles for controversies specifically related to the topic. KlayCax (talk) 07:31, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits. I think a heading of some type is still required, since the forced circumcisions being discussed are not necessarily (at least always) sexual violence, as evidenced by the RS cited. Perhaps a subhead? That would also give us a place to tack on a {{main}} and {{see also}}.

The post-RfC discussion above also seemed to broadly support including a short blurb on other circumcision to explain to the reader that those types of acts are not included in what is discussed here. See the second (two-sentence) block-quote under § Implementing RFC closure. Optimally, we'd end that blurb with something like ... but are not considered forced circumcision by most medical practitioners, but I'm not sure what to cite that to. If you have any suggestions, or a good citation for that last bit, that would be great. Ljleppan (talk) 09:06, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see this until now @Ljleppan:.

"but are not considered forced circumcision by most medical practitioners" Do we have a quote to cite on this? What would the definition of "forced circumcision" in this be? Usually parents are referred as assenting to routine circumcision rather than consenting to circumcision. Thus, while not necessarily forced, the sentence is semi-problematic.

It's just that other factors than consent are believed to outweigh this loss of autonomy. KlayCax (talk) 20:59, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

More unverifiable claims about circumcision

Hi, another editor is trying to insert unverifiable claims that circumcision is "violence against men". I went through the entire citation, nowhere does it describe circumcision as violence against me, it is therefor an unverified claim. I've asked them to bring to talk, one can only hope. Here's the cite provided that does not verify the claim if anyone else wants to check: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22114254/ Tambor de Tocino (talk) 07:10, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

I used that citation as a way of specifically explaining and verifying how involuntary circumcision in children and infants can manifest emotional and psychological issues in men who did not want it performed on them and whom were not able to consent to it themselves; which was a part of the paragraph I was attempting to add. My updated citation in support of that is a medical journal from a .gov site as well.

I reverted things because another user (Dr vulpes) gave me the go-ahead on the IP user 50.50.253.201 when I wasnt logged in, so long as I found a better source, which I believed I did. I was using it to cite my point regarding psychological harm as stated above.

In the edit history I explained my reasoning behind adding the paragraph I wrote and why I thought it would make sense here as an example of violence against men with the fact that there is a page on the side bar here specifically linking to the page Forced Circumcision, a page which mentions routine infant circumcision as an example of nonconsensual forced circumcision. Forced circumcision is listed on the sidebar here as an example of violence against men. RadioHobbyist (talk) 07:37, 22 April 2023 (UTC)