Talk:Sexism

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A nitpick re sexism and gender discrimination

I wouldn't say either one "encompasses" the other, rather that they overlap in significant ways. Not going to edit this, just sayin'... --Jhoughton1 (talk) 00:07, 17 June 2020‎ (UTC)

Primarily affects women

Let's see what happens if I kick a hornets nest then...

The second sentence of the article reads, "Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.[1]", however the citation only refers to the meaning of the sexism, rather than the prevalence. I believe this was due to the sentence being changed without regard for the footnote.

I suggest that either:

• The sentence be changed to "Sexism primarily refers to discrimination or prejuduce affecting women, though can refer more broadly to any discrimination based on sex."
• Or a citation that that shows that sexism priarily affects women is provided in the footnote (rather than the term merely primarily refering to discrimination against women).

I have searched the archives for the topic, and found various comments saying that the weight of reliable evidence shows that sexism mainly affects women, which is wonderful! We will easily be able to find a citation for the claim then.

I was distinctly tempted to at a "better citation needed" template here :P. We'll see if anyone replies here.

--Talpedia (talk) 15:44, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

We're not playing the WP:Undue game, which you should know since you state that you read the archives. Various reliable sources in the article and elsewhere are clear that sexism mainly affects women (and girls). They explicitly state it. No reliable sources state that sexism mainly affects men (and boys), or equally affects them. And we are not doing "refers to", as if this article is about the word; see WP:ISAWORDFOR and WP:Refers. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:09, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

The reference you point to is more than one reference. It is a WP:CITEBUNDLE setup that includes 12 citations. And multiple citations in that bundle go over more than just the definition of sexism, but also the fact that women (and girls) are usually the targets of sexism. They do address prevalence. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:21, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Awesome, find me a single source amongs the 12 sourceds that is not to do with the definition of the term. Perhaps it should be the first source in the list, rather than a dictionary. --Talpedia (talk) 04:13, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

You must have missed where I stated, "And multiple citations in that bundle go over more than just the definition of sexism, but also the fact that women (and girls) are usually the targets of sexism. They do address prevalence." Either that, or you are ignoring it. Either way, I'm telling you right now that we aren't doing this -- playing this silly game. If, on this matter, you want to go down the WP:Tendentious editing road, then be prepared to be taken to WP:ANI. Simple. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:25, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Nope. I'm challenging that claim. Point me at a single source amongst the bundle that looks at prevalence. Really simple. This isn't a silly game. Well I guess it is a game in the sense that I've found the second sentence on a major article where the soures clearly do not match the sentence while looking at a related article that I was interested in, and I'm seeing if it's actually possible to fix this. Anyway, I'm just looking doing a grep of the history now to show that the sentence was changed underneath the citation. Umm, I might suggest not threatening people and assuming bad faith? You don't really get to decide what we do and don't do - truth does and hopefully this truth is reflected in editor consensus --Talpedia (talk) 04:44, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Addressing your point about WP:Refers. I don't think this applies because the sentence is a statement of fact rather than a statement about the meaning of words. If we were talking about "Sexism is discrimiation or prejudice against women due to their gender [1]. Sexism can also be discriminator or prejudice against anyone." then WP:Refers would apply. The article is not about a word, but the citations for this sentence are. --Talpedia (talk) 05:23, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Going through the sources 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 are statements about the meaning of a word and have no factual content. 7 is a statement about the consensus of a field, however a dictionary probably isn't a good source for this claim, it is also a historic rather than a current quote. 9 is a direct statement about prevalence, so might be able to support the claim, as might be 12. --Talpedia (talk) 05:36, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Right, I've extracted the entire history of the article in a way that can be search on my computer, so I can understand what is going on. I can provide a git history upoon request. The reference with name Sexism (that is used in the lead) was originally added by and old version of you five years ago when you took a citation from the then "Etymology and definitions" section and used it as a reference https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Sexism&diff=next&oldid=647975285 attached to the sentence "Most sexism is expressed toward women.", the original citation at this point was attached to "Sexism is especially defined as discrimination, prejudice, or stereotyping against women, on the basis of their sex".

This reference has been used to cite various statements as the "[especially against women]" claim has been removed and added These statements include "Sexism is most often expressed toward girls and women.", in revision 648079099. "Sexism is historically associated with discrimination against females in particular".

The citation bundle was added by Fyddlestix in 664655780 and the three citations Sexism, Sexism2 were merged together by you in 666138274 and applied to the sentence "Sexism affects both men and women, but primarily women". This had twelve citations (which I assume are the sames as the one's now present). I wish they'd used academic papers rather than dictionaries for this task. --Talpedia (talk) 07:58, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Anyway, probably not worth spending more time chasing this. But I'd be nice if first 8 references weren't from dictionaries and if some of the citations came from review papers rather than encyclopedias! I've had problems myself trying to summarize the views of a field, I was trying to cite the claim. I'm pretty suspicious that claims like the one made here simply do not have any research covering them because they are so broad and literature concerns itself with specifics. I'm quite sure you'd be able to find citations for more specific claims about the rate of sexism.. --Talpedia (talk) 08:37, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

WP:TERTIARY sources are sometimes useful for providing a broad summary of complex subjects with lots of sources, which is how they are being used here. I don't think there's a problem with them here. If you're happy to leave it as is, then all is well. GirthSummit _(blether) 09:19, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't really like the citation bundle as it stands. The dictionary definitions sort of detract from the claim, and encourage the response I had ("why are you making factual claims using dictionaries"). I'd prefer it if the two factual citations (9 and 12) came first, and then maybe the claims about etymology where separated. So like "Sexism prodominantly affects women [9], [12]. Tthe definiton of the word that is often constrainted to women. [Other sources]." I might even arguing for fewer dictionary citations, but I guess if they are split like this and in a citation box volume doesn't matter.

Like, I'm suspicious that that factual claim is broad enough to be meaningless - you can just keep expanding the field and adding the factors, whereas the meta claim ("most of instance of sexism identified by research apply prodominently to women") and specific claims are more plausible, but I doubt that's an argument I'm going to win. --Talpedia (talk) 10:10, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Per what I stated above, this is my last reply to you on this matter in this section: The provided sources, and various others that are not in the article, for "primarily affects women and girls" obviously consist of more than just dictionary sources. And a dictionary of an academic field carries more weight than an ordinary dictionary. There is nothing to dispute regarding the current lead wording. Whether we use "primarily affects women and girls", "mostly directed at women", etc., it's all the same. And we are allowed to put the matter in our own words. In fact, per WP:LIMITED, putting it in our own words when we can is ideal. As for assuming good faith, I can't assume good faith when an editor is challenging the fact that women (and girls) are the main victims of sexism. Your above arguments are tendentious. Plain and simple. You are doing the same thing that others, including men's rights editors, have done by trying to challenge such an obvious fact, including suggestions to water it down by essentially saying, "Oh, sexism is just defined that way, but that doesn't mean that women actually face substantially more sexism than men do." If it weren't for editors being silly in this way, the bundle wouldn't be there.

You mentioned that Wikipedia goes by truth. Go ahead and read the WP:Truth essay. We go by the literature with WP:Due weight. And the literature on sexism couldn't be clearer that sexism mainly affects women (and girls).

You mentioned Fyddlestix, who added that entire bundle. In addition to what Fyddlestix added, the sources seen at Talk:Sexism/Archive 7#Is sexism typically defined as discrimination against women? are more than adequate for defining what sexism is and stating in Wikipedia's voice that sexism primarily affects women (and girls). And we do define topics in our Wikipedia articles. Like WP:Lead sentence states, "If its subject is definable, then the first sentence should give a concise definition: where possible, one that puts the article in context for the nonspecialist." It also states, "Keep the first sentence focused on the subject by avoiding constructions like '[Subject] refers to...' or '...is a word for...' – the article is about the subject, not a term for the subject." Your "WP:ISAWORDFOR and WP:Refers don't apply" argument makes no sense. The "but it is particularly documented as affecting women and girls" was changed per what is seen at Talk:Sexism/Archive 19#This sentence needs to be reworded....

Simply put, I see nothing to debate on this matter. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:22, 17 August 2020 (UTC) Tweaked posted. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:47, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Having reviewed the sources, you are in my estimation correct. Two of the sources are non-dictionary sources that may suppoort the claim. I incorrectly assumed, after perhaps only looking at the first 8 sources that all of the sources were dictionary sources. I think these two sources should appear earlier in the list and the dictionary source should be separted, and clarified to be about the meaning of the word rather than the factual or maybe philosophical claim that sexism mainly affcts women.

Hmm, I don't really understand your perspective. I don't understand why you don't seem to see the difference between factual claims and linguistics claims that I see. I don't see why you seem to be hostile to even the rearrangment or clarification of references, which would help the reader find the relevant material. And I don't understand why you aren't concerned that a reader would see the use of dictionaries as poor sourcing.

This is not the first sentence in the lead. The sentence isn't a definition of terms, but rather a statement of fact. The Manual of style states that the lead section must include citations. I think this addresses with the WP:Refers argument. Silly or not statements likely to be challenged must be verifiable (WP:Verifiability) and the verifiability of this claim is impaired by citations that are irrelevant to claim, so if would seem that the article would be improved by separating claims about the definition of a word from those about the term itself. On a pragmatic level good and relevant sourcing of claims that might be challenged increase the likelihood that someone will read a source and have their opinion updated.

Like, what I see happening in the talk so far is people come along, make potentially quite specific comments, that elsewhere would result in improved sourcing or a change or a tweak, just because it's easier to improve things than have an argument, and it probably improves things, and then they get pulled into a general discussion by accusations of bad faith, tendentious editting, intent, claims about the general verifiability, etc, and then they get pulled off topic.

--Talpedia (talk) 09:45, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Your counting of the sources is off when you say "Two of the sources are non-dictionary sources". There is only 1 general dictionary, but 3 dictionaries of an academic field (which are clearly describing how those fields use the term and what they consider sexism to be), 4 encyclopedias, and 4 other secondary or tertiary academic works. This is the most well-sourced statement I have ever seen on Wikipedia. And I believe that readers can see beyond the brief first dictionary source, and anyway it does support the definition we use here. Re-ordering the sources can be an endless debate and really serves no purpose. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:06, 17 August 2020 (UTC)j45

Ah yep, you're right, some of the definitions of sexism do come from sources other than dictionaries. I believe I am correct that 10 of the 12 for the factual claim are to do with the definition of the term sexism rather than statement being supported by the citation bundle. The definition of what a field considers the term to be is irrelvant to the claim. Is this actually the most well-souced statement you've seen on wikipedia? I think a statement with a single cochrane review is better source than a statement with 12 sources, 10 or which are irrelevant for the claim cited (perhaps see WP:Bombardment) The purpose of splitting the sources is distinguishing those that support the claim, from those that are to do with the definition of the term sexism. To be clear, this is not a citation for the definition used here: it is a citation for the sentence "Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls." It's like we have a "A [1]; [1] note A and B; citation 1 for B, citation 2 for B, citatation 3 for B, citatation 4 for B, citation 5 for B, citation 6 for B.... citation 9 for A.... citation 12 for A", yes B is very well sourced, however it does rather distract from the A tho.

--Talpedia (talk) 19:30, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Bringing up the topic of primarily affects women and girls

This is factually incorrect; the only sources brought up were dictionary definitions and not a single study. In fact, empirical research has suggested that in the majority of countries across the world, men and boys are disadvantaged to women and girls. Greglawl (talk) 20:19, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Per the discussion immediately above this one, that analysis is incorrect. And gender inequality, which is not the same topic as sexism, which is why we have two different articles for them, is noted in various academic sources as affecting girls and women more than boys and men. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 19:32, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

The analysis is correct. You have not provided a single empirical study or research paper which has found that sexism primarily affects women and girls. Dictionary definitions are not empirical research, they are definitions that people decide correctly apply. Unless you can provide a datapoint which proves your claim, it is still just a claim. Greglawl (talk) 20:20, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

I found this research paper, which gave hundreds of studies and empirical research to suggest that women are NOT the primary victims of sexism, and might actually be less likely to be the victims of sexism. You need actual academic papers and peer-reviewed studies that say that women and girls are more likely to be the victims of sexism than men and boys. Greglawl (talk) 20:32, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Speaking of peer review, I don't think Google Docs has any. Anyway, your claim, and the erroneous talking point about "dictionary definitions", was addressed in the section above. The sources for the article's statement are rock-solid per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:37, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

I never claimed that Google Docs has any. I'm saying that the paper I cited gave over a 100 peer-reviewed studies and papers. You gave absolutely none, and you don't get to make extraordinary claims without proper and adequate scientific and psychological evidence for it. Please add some empirical research that corroborates your assertion, otherwise, remove it. Greglawl (talk) 20:41, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

The statement is supported by 12 excellent sources, which are WP:Secondary and tertiary sources reviewing the research from many academic fields. Those hold far more weight than some cherry-picked stuff collected by some guy on Google Docs. Also, the article states that "Sexism can affect anyone" and that it primarily affects women and girls. It's not saying men never get discriminated against. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:11, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

None of which are peer-reviewed, empirical studies. The studies that the Google Docs mentioned were all peer-reviewed and factual; you have listed NONE of those. A dictionary definition is not an excellent source, it's intellectual laziness. Why can't you provide an actual study for your claim? Greglawl (talk) 22:23, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Are you talking about 'reverse sexism'? That is the same thing as 'reverse racism': it does not exist. Sexism, like racism, is a problem because the dominant, more powerful group of people suppress the group that has less power. It is clear that the more powerful group is the group of white men, not black, indigenous, and other people of color. Laurier (talk) 14:21, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

There is no 'reverse sexism,' it's just sexism. I gave you empirical studies and evidence that suggests that white females are the most privileged group in the United States. Don't assert things without backing them up with evidence. Greglawl (talk) 15:03, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Why would Women's suffrage (and Suffrage#Race) even have been needed if (white) men did not posess all the power? Laurier (talk) 20:07, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

You're talking about the past. Men are the majority of victims of police brutality, workplace fatalities, are more likely to receive corporal punishment as a child, have more health problems and yet women receieve more healthcare funding, the majority of combat fatalities, get 63% longer sentencing for the same crime, majority of homeless (men of color mostly), drug-addicted, suicide victims, more likely to receive capital punishment for the same crime, people are more willing to sacrifice men over women, etc... All of this affects black people, too (by the way). Please don't compare the plight of black people to a historically privileged group. Women had protections that men did not before suffrage as well. Greglawl (talk) 23:08, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

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