Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Feminism/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Feminism. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Bravo!

Well done, everyone, particularly Grrrlriot! This portal is really shaping up! --Phyesalis (talk) 21:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Phyesalis! :) Feel free to post about this on other talk pages or feel free to invite others. I will do the same. We are the only members of the force and I have posted about it on a few users talk pages. --Grrrlriot (talk) 17:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi all. I got your message too :) I'm way busy here but I'll see what I can do to help out - Alison ^❤ 17:07, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello Alison! :) Glad to know you got my message. Yay! I'm glad to hear that. We'd love to have your help! Add your name under "Participants". --Grrrlriot (talk) 17:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Needing References/Sources

Take a look at these 2 pages: User:Grrrlriot/to_do and User:Grrrlriot/create2. I need references and sources for ALL of them that are listed on those 2 pages. (Some aren't feminist related, but the 2nd link is feminist related.) I hope someone can help me out. If you can help me out, please post the references/sources on those 2 pages. Thanks! --Grrrlriot (talk) 17:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Can help on case by case basis

Hi, I'm reluctant to take on new commitments but occasionally have energy to help, message me on my talk page and I'll do what I can. Also I'm somewhat active with the Rescue project so if an article that is worthy and salvageable could potentially be tagged with {{rescue}} if put up for AfD. Benji boi 10:53, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello Benjiboi! :) We'd love to have your help! Sign your name under "participants". Thanks! --Grrrlriot (talk) 18:50, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Fat feminism and Amazon feminism

Can I put something on the agenda: Fat feminism and Amazon feminism. These two articles are a serious problem - I'm in the position that I think they should either be deleted or drastically reduced and merged to a section of Feminist theory in a sub-section about Body theory (the feminist uses of Bahktin, Foucault, Goffman etc). A part of me thinks the two pages in question border on hoaxes or cool ideas that cannot be properly sourced. I'd really appreciate a second, third and fourth opinion on them--Cailil ^talk 14:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Taking a quick look I would say keep both and develop. Fat feminism is intertwined with the lesbian movement with the group Fat!So being a prime example. Amazon feminism needs some good books sourced to help rewrite and refocus the lede but tying to examples of strong women olympians (and internationally known athletes) would seem to help add structure. Benji boi 12:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's the problem, there is a strand of Lesbian feminism that could be called Amazon feminism (see Feminism and the female body: liberating the Amazon within by Castelnuovo & Guthrie, and Amazon to Zami: Towards a Global Lesbian Feminism by Reinfelder) but the page is a synthesis based upon an online essay talking about popular culture representations/images of 'Amazons'. Right now the Amazon feminism article has a major truthiness problem. Simply put there are no relibale sources to back up what it says. Basically if the article is to be written properly it should be merged into Lesbian feminism and be properly sourced, rather than being an essay on pop culture and body-building. Fat feminism is not actually a distinct feminist movement either. I'm quite familiar with Bordo's work on eating disorders but I have not come across a single book describing, historicizing or explaining Fat Feminism's ideas, theories or activities. While I agree that the organization Fat! is important I don't see how Fat feminism is notable enough for its own article. I really see these pages as being in need of a fundamental re-think. Body theory has no WP page and is already a notable academic discipline within gender studies (the work of Foucault, Goffman, Bordo etc, see Feminist theory and the Body or The Body and Social Theory). Unless someone else can find reliable sources for Fat feminism and Amazon feminism they need to be questioned--Cailil ^talk 16:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I suggest a slow burn fix then. Post what you've put above on the relevant talk pages stating that sources may exist but none have been introduced as of yet. Also unsure why they can be sourced in the larger article and not separately but there ya go. I would clean-up tag each article with the biggest concerns synthesis, sourcing, whatever. Chillax for a few weeks and see if something turns up. If not then repost to talk and restate concerns and wonder aloud, "perhaps a merge to blah-de-blah article would be a good idea". See where that goes. If nothing then slap merge tags and ensue discussion keeping each discussion relevant to just the article at hand. Either you'll get much better articles or a merge. Benji boi 18:49, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry if I sound a bit frustrated above - I've been trying to do something with those 2 pages since Christmas. And just to clarify I actually don't think fat feminism can be sourced anywhere, but the kernel idea - weight issues and feminism and feminist theory - could be dealt with (using RS) elsewhere. Similarly with Amazon feminism, we'd have to scrap the whole article and start from scratch - that maybe the only thing to do in the circumstances unfortunately--Cailil ^talk 20:49, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

List of feminists

Hey folks, a worthy project would be finding citations for all the listings in this list. I've had to deal with deletion fights for couple anarchist-related lists that were only headed off by very vigilant citing. Murderbike (talk) 18:51, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey Murderbike! :) That's a pretty good idea for this project! Feel free to participate in this by signing your name under "participants". Thanks! --Grrrlriot (talk) 18:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

On a related issue could I ask for some ideas about the lists of persons of interest on Feminism. I'm opening a this thread here to specifically discuss how we deal with the lists. I realize that edits like IronAngelAlice's are good contributions but they are in breach of WP:LIST and they do not conform to the style for summary articles. What I'm proposing is we merge the lists into the see also sections of the appropriate sub-articles (where sub-articles exist). The other option is we prune them and use {{related}} to list the best (3-5) known figures, topics and/or organizations related to the specific feminist movement. What does anyone else think?--Cailil ^talk 21:47, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I've gone and made a "mock-up" in my sandbox here. I'd like to build some consensus before making these changes--Cailil ^talk 14:58, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

We could also list the feminists from the Feminism article on the List of feminists article. It would be good to use {{related}}. I like the "mock-up" on your sandbox page, Cailil. --Grrrlriot (talk) 18:45, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Adding the names to the list of feminists is probably the best thing to do. I promised some action on this at the "weekend" so I think I'll make the change in the early hours of Sunday--Cailil ^talk 19:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I will keep an eye out for updates to the Feminism article. --Grrrlriot (talk) 05:03, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I would be happy to contribute in any way - thanks Grrrlriot for bringing this to my attention. Mgoodyear (talk) 00:36, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Your welcome, Mgoodyear. --Grrrlriot (talk) 00:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Images

One of the real problems I've encountered in bringing the quality of various feminism and gender studies related article up to GA is lack of pictures. I'd like to put forward an idea that any images on flickr or similar sites published either with GDFL or Creative Commons licensing should be sought for addition to the commons. Anyone who undertook this would have to get to grips with wikimedia's licensing and image policies (which is an area I know little about) so that the images don't infringe copyright and are properly described. If anyone has any knowledge of this process it would benefit the project greatly--Cailil ^talk 21:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, There is a lack of pictures. I have no knowledge in this field either. --Grrrlriot (talk) 00:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe ask for advice at featured images. Also on biographies you can 1. modify the talk bio tag to indicate an image is needed and 2. add an image needed in the article infobox. There is also a talk page template for requesting images for non-bio articles. Benji boi 01:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. The info on requesting images will be a real help. I also found the link to the creative commons part of flickr from WP's resource exchange. Finding images for biographies shouldn't be too hard - it's the more abstract ideas like (domestic violence), (equal rights) etc that are harder to find appropriate images for. This will all be start--Cailil ^talk 13:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I have extensive experience with appropriating Flickr images for Commons, so if you see a Flickr image you like that has a free license, just drop me a line or comment here and I will arrange the upload. Skomorokh 12:49, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

That's great - thanks for that offer Skomorokh --Cailil ^talk 19:49, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggested rewording of scope

I've suggested a rewording of the task force's scope to depersonalize the "if you troll I will warn you". Like everything on WP this is a group effort, so if trolling occurs trolls will be warned as per normal WP procedure under WP:TALK, WP:SOAP, WP:NOT#FORUM and WP:EQ.

I've done some other rewords. I've removed the "who support feminism" from the the clause "open to men and women". The task force has to be open to everyone regardless of their views on feminism - so anyone can join as long as they respect WP:5P. In other words so long as their purpose is to work civilly, in good faith and by consensus to improve encyclopedic content on the subject of feminism, anyone can join--Cailil ^talk 13:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree with you, Cailil. That's great! Thanks for doing that. I'm not good at wording things sometimes. lol --Grrrlriot (talk) 00:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Gender equality is one of this project's central concepts. It was AWOL.

(reposted from Portal_talk:Feminism)

Essentially, variations on Gender equality had been hijacked six or so months ago by redirects to both Zygarchy and Equalism, and had actually begun to affect the conversation across the internet.

This is bad news, as these terms have nothing behind them but ill-defined assertions. I've rarely been embarrassed for Wikipedia, but this is one of those moments where the site's power was left in the hands of POV/OR mischief-makers.

"Zygarchy" is a made-up word that would never meet the WP:NEO standard if anyone had caught it. It has never meant "rule of two genders" before someone asserted it on Wikipedia. There are a couple hundred blogs out there crowing about the "new word they'd learned" while learning less than zero about notable, verifiable internationally-established gender policy. (Somewhat ominously, "zygarchy" is an obscure but genuine term for an ancient military formation involving two chariots. I think the chariots were used to run infantry over... or to cut them down with a chain between them...)

"Equalism" has been used by notable sources and scholars-- but never consistently. There was some effort to use it to refer to communism in the fifties, anarchism at various points, and some among the Facebook crowd seem to like it better than "feminism"; one news citation in Sweden counts it as a subset of feminism. That is to say, it's a semantic game: There is no "-ism" there, just a desire for one, a moving target without a developed philosophy behind it. I've redirected it to a far more notable article, Egalitarianism.

Nearly every instance of a wikilink to Gender equality had been piped to Equalism. That's what last night was all about for me: finding and removing the plumbing from this phantasm.

I've reestablished the Gender equality article with cites to the UN and an external link to the World Bank. I've added it to the various gender studies and feminism templates. This is one of this project's central concepts, and we really have to watch these pages. Cheers, Yamara ✉ 21:43, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up, Yamara! :) I just added Gender equality to my 'watchlist'. --Grrrlriot (talk) 00:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Feminism By Country

I think it would be a good idea to have feminism by countries. I noticed that a few countries already have their own feminism page. What do you think? Here is a sample of what I'm talking about: User:Grrrlriot/Sandbox --Grrrlriot (talk) 21:47, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Feminism Task Force Goals

I am wanting the task force to look something like this. However, I need everyone's help making the task force useful. --Grrrlriot (talk) 20:12, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Collaborative project?

Would anyone here be interested in working on the Mary Astell article together? I would like to create a series of articles on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century feminists (I've already done Mary Wollstonecraft) and Astell is one of the most important and her article is only start class right now. Awadewit (talk) 00:42, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I have 3 other projects at the moment, but I'll see if I can pitch in. Kaldari (talk) 00:57, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I gave it a quick once over and added a few references. Cheers! futurebird (talk) 01:04, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Moved to be a subpage off of WP:GS

I moved the Portal:Feminism/Feminism Task Force page (de-wikilinked on purpose) to Wikipedia:WikiProject Gender Studies/Feminism Task Force: as this is a subproject of WP:GS is should be a subpage off of Wikipedia:WikiProject Gender Studies, not the portal. Cirt (talk) 17:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Margaret Fuller

Just today, the article on Margaret Fuller reached Good Article status. I'd like to bring it up to Featured Article soon but I was wondering if a fresh set of eyes wanted to give it a once-over, either for copy-editing or to give some feedback. Many thanks. --Midnightdreary (talk) 22:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Great! Well done. I remember writing something in the Margaret Fuller page in 2006 when I wrote the initial History of Feminism page. I wish this project had been in existence then - I was continually defending against people who completely ignored the whole premise of feminist history. Mgoodyear (talk) 15:31, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Women's health

Greta, you are phenomenal. OK I just completely rewrote Female ejaculation - it is not perfect, but it was absolutely dreadful before (Skene's gland is worse), and completely Male Lens. That imbalance is now fixed. I am sure there are a number of other women's health articles in urgent need of attention. Are any other articles tagged yet as an example?

I then found there was not even a category for Women's health! - there is now. Maybe somebody thought Gynaecology covered it. I found a page with that title, which was woeful. I quote "Women's health refers to health issues specific to human female anatomy"! (I placed a more inclusive definition on the Category page of that title.) Michael. (not being one for anonymity I placed personal details on Talk page) Mgoodyear (talk) 15:31, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Feminism

Portal:Feminism has had a lot of changes and work recently and is currently up for portal peer review. Comments would be appreciated at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Feminism/archive1. Thank you, Cirt (talk) 23:36, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Feminism Task Force Page

Do you think that the FTF page is too crowded or does it look good how it is? Does any of the sections on the page need to be rearranged or does the page look good how it is? I want your feedback. Thanks! --Grrrlriot (♠ ♣ ♦ ♥ †) 21:48, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Sexism in Wikipedia?

I came across this project: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias. Since I've noticed that, just like on email lists, males seem to make a lot more WP:attacks on me as an obvious female editor than they do on obvious male editors, I made a new section "Sexism, especially in WP:Attadk" in that project, including recommendation for a survey of women wikipedia editors -- to no response. I don't know if this is subject or "project" appropriate for this task force, but (having endured yet another gratuitous attack for something I didn't even say today), thought I'd mention it. Carol Moore 15:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Hello Carol! Thanks for letting us know about this. I have to say that this task force hasn't endured any sexism...yet. It could be the fact that there are both women and men that are part of this task force. I'm sorry to hear about your situation and I will take a look at the page soon. --Grrrlriot (♠ ♣ ♦ ♥ †) 18:25, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Of course, one issue is that I do edit on political topics where people are more likely to be contentious, and where there tend not to be too many women at all, so that obviously is a factor. The guy is already in a bad mood that someone comes up with WP:RS sources disagreeing with his viewpoint - and then it turns out to be a female! Usually one is accused of having the most obnoxious view of the most extremist people who might have somewhat similar views, and various pejorative phrases or accusations often are thrown in. Being a libertarian, I've gotten it from both left and right! So maybe this would have to be a survey regarding if more women experience WP:Attack if they appear to be on some specific side of contentious topics. Of course, condescension can be another problem, but that's subjective and not wiki-illegal :-) Carol Moore 19:09, 24 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

PS. For an overview of/links to articles that deal with this issue see my page Internet Hatred Towards Women: If they don't ignore you, they attack you.... I'll have to review the feminist articles and see if there's one where some of those links would be appropriate :-) Carol Moore 14:42, 25 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Thanks for the link. I will check it out. --Grrrlriot (♠ ♣ ♦ ♥ †) 22:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Feminism

Portal:Feminism is now a featured portal. Great! :) Thanks everyone for making this happen! --Grrrlriot (♠ ♣ ♦ ♥ †) 17:54, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Update on The Feminism Portal

– Update: Portal:Feminism has recently become a Featured Portal. All of the articles at Portal:Feminism in the "Selected article" and "Selected biography" sections are of Featured Quality Status, and there are some great contributors who have churned out interesting WP:DYKs. Thanks to the efforts of folks from this project, for churning out such great high-quality material! Keep up the great work getting articles to Good Article and Featured Quality Status ! Cirt (talk) 22:17, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear this. This is exciting and thanks to everyone who has helped out on the portal. Yay!!! --Grrrlriot (♠ ♣ ♦ ♥ †) 01:29, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Anne Dallas Dudley

If anyone wants to do a quick copyedit on my new article for Anne Dallas Dudley, I would be much obliged. Or if you're feeling ambitious, it could certainly use expansion. Kaldari (talk) 23:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Makeover of Feminism Task Force Page

Does the Feminism Task Force page need a makeover or a better layout? If so, let me know what needs to be improved. If your willing to make a better layout for the task force, reply to this and I will let you do the layout. Thanks in advance! --Grrrlriot (♠ ♣ ♦ ♥ †) 01:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Domestic discipline

Please read the article carefully, and take a look at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Domestic_discipline. Posting this notice here is somewhat off-topic, but Wikipedia:WikiProject_Family_and_relationships, which lists domestic violence on the project page, seems dead. VG ☎ 02:03, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Category: Patriarchy??

Recently I was joking that terrorism was just one more variety of bad male behavior that should be under a grand category called Category:patriarchy. Then getting serious I looked and found there is no category called patriarchy, including under Category:Feminism. There isn't even an article on "male chauvinism" - just a chauvinism article that talks as much about female as male chauvinism! I think there are enough WP:RS to justify creating Category:patriarchy and putting lots of articles under it. And a lot of articles could have short sections on why certain behavior is patriarchal - like war, terrorism, rape, etc. Any thoughts? It certainly would be a consciousness raiser for the majority of editors :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:07, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

It would probably be more useful to work on improving the Patriarchy article. Right now it has several citation needed tags and strangely, a giant section devoted to Steven Goldberg. Kaldari (talk) 22:37, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Dang! And I thought patriarchy was only a curse word! :-) Ok, I'll start wikifying it, starting with Goldberg! CarolMooreDC (talk) 02:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Patriarchy in feminism could also use some work. Kaldari (talk) 16:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - that would be the most fun, of course. But at both Talk:Patriarchy and Talk:Matriarchy I suggested a more rational and complete re-organization of the articles which would undercut the strong POVs of both articles and encourage editing by other parties - and hopefully discourage any WP:OWN that might exist. Anyone reading this please feel free to check out and comment. CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

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Women's Strike for Equality

Women's Strike for Equality was recently expanded by User:JourdanM170. It needs a lot of clean-up and copy-editing though. I've fixed some of the significant problems, but it still needs help, mostly just grammar and wording fixes. (I suspect JourdanM170 is not a native English speaker.) Any help would be appreciated. Kaldari (talk) 17:01, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Ordination of United Methodist Women

This page has been brought to my attention as a bit of a subject of concern. Any help in the article would be greatly appreciated. John Carter (talk) 20:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The Woman's Bible

Heads up. The Woman's Bible has been nominated for Good Article status. If it passes, it will become our 2nd Good Article. Please help Binksternet polish this article up for the review. Kaldari (talk) 00:50, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Please let me know if I can help. Awadewit (talk) 08:55, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Request for help

An article I made a while back, American philosophy, has developed fairly well recently. It has a section on feminism, and, since I am not an expert on the subject (and my work has yet to be revised), I was wondering if someone versed in the subject matter of feminist philosophy in America could take a look at it and possibly improve it. Expansion, revision, or even a rewrite of that section would be accepted. I think the section should be no longer than three paragraphs or so. Here is the link American philosophy#Feminism. Thank You. Best, JEN9841 (talk) 07:12, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Category:Feminists at Categories for discussion

I can't see a specific place to flag CfD under your project pages? Anyway, participants in this WP may want to comment on the proposed deletion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_December_25#Category:Feminists. AllyD (talk) 15:19, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Jeannette Piccard

Hi. In case anyone would like to weigh in with comments or corrections, Jeannette Piccard is nominated at FAC. Piccard was the first woman in space and one of the first women to be ordained a priest. Also I am working on Simone de Beauvoir, while reading the very long biography by Dierdre Bair (this could take a while but I would like to see her article reach GA and then FA). -SusanLesch (talk) 20:25, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I bit off more than I can chew. So please ignore the above. -SusanLesch (talk) 22:55, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Assess; Gita Sahgal

If someone could assess Gita Sahgal, who has been in the news a lot this past month (feminist head of Amnesty's Gender Unit--she was just suspended), that would be great.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced living people articles bot

User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects provides a list, updated daily, of unreferenced living people articles (BLPs) related to your project. There has been a lot of discussion recently about deleting these unreferenced articles, so it is important that these articles are referenced.

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Thank you. Okip 02:48, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

We've got some BLPs to source. Who wants to earn a barnstar? :) Kaldari (talk) 00:37, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Womb veil

I wonder whether someone from the task force would take a look at womb veil, a form of barrier contraception in the 19th-century U.S. I happened upon this term when I was researching something else in the history of gynecology, and when I found no article in Wikipedia (but a mention, to my surprise, in Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln), I spent a week researching and writing one. I learned much that was new to me about contraception during the time, and the range of attitudes toward contraception in general and toward this particular device, from "It places conception entirely under the control of the wife, to whom it naturally belongs" to "womb-veils will exterminate the descendants of the Mayflower." So I was pretty disappointed when the first response to it was from an editor who found it pointless and uninteresting and rated it as a C. I'm hoping someone with a feel for social history and women's studies might bring a different perspective. Did I utterly miss the mark with this? (I most often write articles about antiquity.) Please glance at the talk page as well. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:22, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

History of medical malpractice against women?

Hi, anyone feels like writing about the dark ages of hysterectomy and other such subjects? Plenty of female health articles could also use help btw. Richiez (talk) 12:24, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Upgrade almost done

The upgrade from task force to WikiProject is almost complete. I'm waiting on some category caches to update and then I'll mass migrate all the artiles. In the meantime, some of the bot services might be broken for a little while. I'm reposting the Unreferenced BLPs here, in case they accidently get removed from the project page by the bot. These need to have citations added or they will probably get deleted at some point in the future:

Kaldari (talk) 00:29, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

The upgrade is done! We have a lot of articles that need importance assessment: Unknown-importance Feminism articles. Please help out if you have some time! Kaldari (talk) 00:16, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Circumcision

If you have a moment. Talk:Circumcision#Requested_move. --FormerIP (talk) 00:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Anti-pornography movement

The anti-pornography movement article has become a mess: it's recently been bent into a badly-written rehash of Feminist views on pornography, and completely erased all mention of either non-feminist or pre-1970's anti-pornography movements in the process. At the same time, I've noticed that there is ~~quite poor coverage~~ no coverage whatsoever of pre-1970s feminist opposition to pornography in Feminist views on pornography.

A few moments Googling finds Militant Discourse, Strange Bedfellows: Suffragettes and Vorticists Before the War, and Crying 'the horror' of Prostitution: Elizabeth Robins's 'Where Are You Going To … ?' and the Moral Crusade of the Women's Social and Political Union and Jeffreys, S. (1982). "'Free from all uninvited touch of man': Women's campaigns around sexuality, 1880–1914". Women's Studies International Forum. 5: 629–645. doi:10.1016/0277-5395(82)90104-2., so there's no shortage of sources.

Can anyone here please help with cleaning up and refactoring these two articles? -- The Anome (talk) 15:50, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Update: I've now reverted the anti-pornography movement article to the version as of 7th July, which address some of my major concerns above: it still needs a lot of improvement, though. However, the remarks about the Feminist views on pornography article still hold: it needs a lot more effort to be devoted to the suffragette-era and pre-suffragette-era periods, just for a start. -- The Anome (talk) 16:14, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Stalking

The section "Politics behind stalking laws and civil liberties" in the Stalking article refers to feminist politics, and might be of interest to this project. Although the current tone of the section definitely does not meet the NPOV criteria, I think it could be improved: the possibility of links between the creation of stalking offences in the 1970s and the increasing awareness of women's rights and violence against women during the same period is definitely interesting, and could do with a treatment from a feminist viewpoint. Is anyone interested in working on editing this for NPOV? -- The Anome (talk) 15:57, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I took a look at it, and nothing in the section seemed salvageable. It was basically just an anti-feminist rant against stalking laws. It was all original research and very POV. Even the cited parts were synthesized and cited to things like blogs and other wikipedia articles. I would suggest someone rewrite the section from scratch. Kaldari (talk) 16:51, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

This guy seems to be very persistent with his anti-feminist POV-pushing. Kaldari (talk) 19:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I've added it to my watchlist--Cailil ^talk 20:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 21:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Assess article going up on DYK

Perhaps someone can assess Raheel Raza, which is up in the DYK queue? Tx.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:33, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

The point being? It seems to have lots of WP:RS. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:14, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

At the time posted, it had not been rated for this project. Since then, someone has kindly rated it.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:19, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Not all of us know all the lingo for every facet of wikipedia. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:27, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Ahah. Understood. (Though you of all people, Carol, I presumed knew everything!) ;). Yes, the articles has lots of refs. I was simply asking if someone could provide an assessment of it for this project. As I had worked on the article, I didn't see it as appropriate to assess it myself (and good thing I didn't -- I might have rated it a notch higher).--Epeefleche (talk) 22:31, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Lede line of feminism

Just a note to say we're talking about the wording of the lede line of Feminism here and whether or not to include ideologies of female superiority in it--Cailil ^talk 14:01, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Feminists Fighting Pornography and OTRS disagreement

Can anyone assist with an OTRS dispute before I appeal within the OTRS system? I've made multiple efforts to resolve with the OTRS admin but he has already made two errors on point, tried to have the whole article deleted specifically because of it and then told me that the subject is insignificant, and has not answered specific questions about facts. It appears the email affirmatively states what should be in the article and therefore was meant to be public. I'd like to compare the two published sources with the unpublished email side-by-side, since it seems no one else has done so or will, and I want to resolve all three sources, since it is entirely possible that the different media are discussing multiple events, not just one, in which case there may be no conflict. Any suggestions prior to an OTRS appeal?

I'm going to try to address the tag-bombing soon. First, I'd like to address the OTRS issue.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:40, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

It seems a bit complex Nick. I don't have OTRS access - my suggestion would be that you contact a member of the ArbCom by email and ask them to look into it (they're extremely busy so I'd suggest giving them as much info as concisely as possible). It may not go the way you hope for though - Guy seems pretty definitive about it and in my experience he's usually correct. But asking an Arb can't hurt--Cailil ^talk 19:36, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I have OTRS access. What's the ticket number? Kaldari (talk) 19:47, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, I don't have permission to view that queue in OTRS. Kaldari (talk) 19:48, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I am reviewing the ticket now. Skomorokh 19:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The OTRS ticket claims to be from someone personally involved in the events described in the article. The matters disputed are the location of the arrest (80th and Broadway, not Grand Central Station), the defending legal team (Kuntzler, not ACLU), and a third which is too incoherent for me to decipher. No sources are cited beyond personal experience. I suggest that at most, the verified claims be attributed in-text to the sources used rather than stated as fact. Hope this helps, Skomorokh

Thank you, everyone. I'll apply the last suggestion first, probably within a week or so, and it's probably all that'll be needed. It's a good solution.

Are you able to say whether the emailer was Page Mellish herself or someone else? If the latter, I don't need the name (I probably wouldn't recognize it anyway), but the difference might influence phrasing. VRTS ticket # 2010042010031009.

Thanks again. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:21, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Glad to help. My suggestion was for the "reliably sourced" material the correspondent was contesting. Personally, I don't think the OTRS email ought to be used as a source if the claims are at all controversial. The correspondent does not claim to be Mellish, but another participant. Skomorokh 09:53, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I edited the article (a subsection and a subsubsection). I decided to include both locations because they're both plausible (I saw her tabling in many high-traffic locations in Manhattan and and other sources report or claim multiple tabling sites in Manhattan) and the one not in the email was reported in a third-party published source. The street intersection named in the email is unlikely to be contested by anyone. I included all attorneys per the third-party media including Kunstler but not the email-based spelling "Kunzler", as that's almost certainly a spelling error and not a different attorney. Even if all the legal defense work was in just one case, all of the attorneys could have participated, since all that would have been necessary is for one organization (NYCLU) to refer the case to one attorney (Kuby in Kunstler's office) or for the attorney to ask the NYCLU for assistance (e.g., research or trial prep) and then they all could say they did the case, so there's no conflict with the third-party publications. For good measure, I was extra explicit about naming all the supporting third-party media in the main text as well as in the inline references. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 07:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Main Page proposal

As related to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-06/News and notes, subsection: "Main page biases?"

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Today's_featured_article/requests#.2B1_for_women.

Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 21:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Article alerts

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:08, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Female archetypes/subcultures

I have been looking at different articles on archetypes/roles/slang terms/subcutures particular to women, such as these:

I was thinking of collecting these in a category or navigational template but wasn't sure of the scope or title. Any thoughts? Skomorokh 13:08, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure there's room for a category called female stereotypes/archetypes. Not sure about a nav template though. Also I'm not sure about "archetype" or indeed my use of "stereotype" for the title but something along these lines would be right--Cailil ^talk 13:13, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I was hoping there would already be a term in the literature for these sorts of thing; perhaps simply "Female lifestyles"? Skomorokh 13:39, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Note there is no Category:Female and only one list under Category:Male. But there are Category:Women and Category:Men. The former has a Category:Slang terms for women that includes some of these. Maybe discuss merging it with stereotypes to widen?? CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:55, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

That's one option, but given the wide range of subject types in the list of articles above, perhaps the best outcome would be several overlapping categories. Skomorokh 16:20, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

It's easy to see what is slang/stereotyping. In your edit summary you mention subcultures and social roles but not sure what you mean by those, either from above or from other articles/categories. CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:44, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

A more generic and less judgmental category name would be better, such as "terms for women", because I doubt all these terms are claimed by most of those whom they label. Some are and maybe all of them are claimed by a few members of each possible community but I'm not sure it's generally the case, especially if more such terms (that have or gain articles in WP) are identified later. Nick Levinson (talk) 21:18, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Terms sounds good. Whatever category we create under Category:Women also should be created under Category:Men. I see there are some terms in that category not under any larger category, which is a good place to start. I can see a few good ones are missing ;-) I'll put them in if category created. CarolMooreDC (talk) 12:59, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Should the categories be for adults only or age-irrelevant, viz., "terms for females" and "terms for males"? Nick Levinson (talk) 05:38, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Age irrelevant, esp. since women and men often called girls and boys. And Girls and boys called Young women and men. CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:30, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

They're ready: Category:Terms for females and Category:Terms for males are both ready to be populated (they're empty now). I think there's a bot for rapid entry of various titles but I'm not sure. I don't have the time to populate them. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 07:18, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Get busy, Skomorokh, who started this :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 12:52, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Feminism articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Feminism articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:01, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Raymond Lloyd

Raymond Lloyd has been nominated for deletion. Anyone feel like rescuing it? Kaldari (talk) 06:36, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

In the news - suggestion

Witt v. Department of the Air Force

Please see Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Witt_v._Department_of_the_Air_Force. -- Cirt (talk) 21:42, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Requesting popular pages list for WikiProject Feminism

I have made a request on the toolserver to have a list of the most popular pages for our WikiProject generated. This should help us figure out which pages are the most important to spend time on improving. Once the list is generated, it will live at Wikipedia:WikiProject Feminism/Popular pages. Our request key is mie8i2f. Kaldari (talk) 18:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Susan B. Anthony abortion dispute

Should the new article Susan B. Anthony abortion dispute carry the Feminism sidebar? The article, now undergoing expansion, was created from similar material that had been at the Susan B. Anthony, Feminists for Life and Susan B. Anthony List articles. The FFL article is the only one of these currently holding the Feminism sidebar. Binksternet (talk) 19:56, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Great, another POV fork for the Wikipedia abortion wars. Sigh. Kaldari (talk) 23:38, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

There was the choice of burying one's head in the sand, or not. :/

Binksternet (talk) 00:37, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 21:19, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Looks like the Domestic violence article really needs help. 15 clean-up tags! Kaldari (talk) 18:17, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Nomination of Werner Erhard vs. Columbia Broadcasting System for deletion

A discussion has begun about whether the article Werner Erhard vs. Columbia Broadcasting System, which is relevant to the subject of this WikiProject, should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Werner Erhard vs. Columbia Broadcasting System until a consensus is reached, and you are welcome to contribute to the discussion.

Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 18:33, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Without taking any side on the deletion debate, I don't see what that article has to do with this project. Kaldari (talk) 23:57, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree. If it was a sexual abuse case that led to some importent precedent against or for women, it would be one thing. But it's just an article about a libel suit about allegations of sexual that is considered to be an attack article, wrongly or rightly. CarolMooreDC (talk) 01:05, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

"not sexist, racist, biphobic, heterophobic, or homophobic"... but transphobic is OK then?

The word transphobic is rather glaring in its omission from that list. Oughtn't it be added? I searched the talk page archives, but found no discussion of this policy or its wording. Also, that paragraph could use a little editing for clarity. Nellie Kane (talk) 20:31, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Of course it should be added! futurebird (talk) 06:07, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Done. Kaldari (talk) 02:46, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, I don't think feminist criticism of the tactics and actions of some transgenders should be banned, should such things arise. (Same with other categories above.) I have vague memories of such writings in some publication(s) which did make a few good points about specific individuals and/or behaviors, but not interested in finding or entering such info. But just want to make that point. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:37, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Deborah Lippmann for deletion.

It's very telling that this page is empty and was deleted. Now it is nominated for deletion again! Anyone who cares about nail polish knows the name Deborah Lippman, she has designed nail polish for Lady Gaga. Her polishes are sold in stores like Sephora. The old page should not have been deleted, it should have been neutralized and expanded.

This is one of the reasons we have so few pages about women, anything outside of the experience of the rather geeky, mostly male wikipedia editors is removed quite quickly. This is an example of a larger trend. Would like to know hat other project members think. futurebird (talk) 06:07, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

You're so right. You touched on the larger issue of the disturbingly male-dominated WP editorship. I started to write a longer reply, but then it developed into material for a new talk section, something I've been wanting to say.

And clearly Lippman qualifies for notability. Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 21:33, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Atheist feminism

Hi. Atheist feminism seems to be written without sources. I looked in Google Books and Google Scholar and find almost nothing to support the article. I do think there have been some remarkable women who were both feminist and atheist but I don't like Wikipedia being the source for this term. I could easily be wrong because I don't know about the five or six living women mentioned in the article and so leave it to you to correct me. -SusanLesch (talk) 02:56, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Shyamala Rajender

I was surprised that there was no article about Shyamala Rajender, so I created a new stub. It needs work, both within the article and in other articles that should link to it. Michael Hardy (talk) 05:02, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I added a few bits to the article. Perhaps it should be moved to Shyamala Rajender v. University of Minnesota though since the article is mostly about the lawsuit. Thoughts? Kaldari (talk) 05:49, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

The page should probably be moved per guidelines regarding people notable for a single event. Unless Rajender is notable outside her participation in the lawsuit, an article about the suit would include pretty much any information a stand-alone article would about her anyhow. --Danger (talk) 06:49, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Feminism to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Feminism/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 00:54, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for this - it looks really interesting--Cailil ^talk 00:58, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Help needed: Regarding the Tone of a Wikipedia Article

I am currently reworking on an article titled "Conversation Analysis and Feminism" and it has been deleted as it sounds too much like a personal essay. I was wondering if anyone can give me pointers on sounding "encyclopedic"? I have attached a small paragraph from my original article. Critiques and suggestions are definitely welcome! Thank you! Trevgeley (talk) 23:29, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Conversation Analysis and Feminist Research

Feminist scholars have argued that the aims of CA are not incompatible with feminist studies. Schegloff, one of the founders of CA, argues that claims of gender relevance must be supported by participants’ orientations.[2] This has been challenged by several scholars, notably Wetherell, who contends that a complete scholarly analysis needs to be extended beyond what Schegloff proposed, and Billig, who challenges CA’s apparent stance of neutrality.[3] [4] Kitzinger observes that CA has also been left out in the classic work Doing Gender by West and Zimmerman, and “if it had been, those of us whose reading of Doing Gender was informed by a passionate commitment to social justice might have uncovered the value of CA for our research endeavours a decade earlier.”[5] Traditional feminists have typically eschewed CA because of its inability to advance political arguments.[6] CA is also criticized for its incompetence in “making the transitional links from micro-level observations to wider social structures and thus failing to produce effective political commentary”.[7] However, Stokoe (2000) argues that this is only true of feminist psychologists – other feminist scholars have employed CA in their research.[8] She cites the example of dominance theorists who have advanced political arguments by using CA to analyse and show dominance at the micro-level interactions. Also, Kitzinger and Wilkins argue that CA have contributed greatly to LGBT issues, such as the issue of “coming out”.[9] A recurring question is how far analysts can and should look beyond the data. To answer that question, Stokoe cites Kitzinger (2000), in drawing from Sack’s (1992) work on racism, argues that conversation analysts must consider what is “passed by, not said, and taken for granted in interaction”. [10][11]560).[12]'

It sounds like something that should be a paragraph in the Conversation analysis article. Probably too specific and detailed for the Women's studies article. CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:54, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi! Thank you for your response! However, the above is just a paragraph. I actually have a whole article written which will overwhelm the Conversation Analysis page and I am unsure if that is acceptable. Also, does the tone of the paragraph sound encyclopedic enough? Thanks, again! Trevgeley (talk) 00:00, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

How much material are we talking about? Like how many words? I would also agree with Carol that it probably belongs in the Conversation analysis article. Encyclopedia articles are not meant to be exhaustive, but merely to give a comprehensive overview of a topic. Unless there are several reliable sources devoted specifically to Conversation Analysis and Feminist Research, it probably won't be considered notable enough to warrant a separate article. Also keep in mind that your work will be seen by far more people at the Conversation analysis article than on an obscure sub-article. Perhaps the material should be edited down to the more essential bits so that it can be more easily integrated with Conversation analysis, Regardless, you'll want to have a summary there anyway - See Wikipedia:Summary Style. If you really do want to resurrect the entire Conversation Analysis and Feminist Research article, try submitting it to Wikipedia:Article Incubator. If it gets accepted, we can help you work on it there. Hope that helps. Kaldari (talk) 00:11, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Kaldari! That does help very much indeed! The current page I am working on is about 2200+ words, which is longer -- if not about the same length as -- than the current Conversation Analysis page. I actually did edit the existing original Conversation Analysis page before I started on this article -- in fact, that is what prompted me to start this article in the first place. There are reliable sources on Conversation Analysis and Feminist Research -- it is a relatively young field but it has been burgeoning in the past decade and many scholars have done research on this. I could give a longer and more extensive summary on the current Conversation Analysis page while working on an article that could be submitted to Wikipedia:Article Incubator. Once again, thank you very much for your help! Trevgeley (talk) 20:22, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, you may want to read Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable. Wikipedia generally eschews technical and academic jargon if possible. Kaldari (talk) 20:39, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Page up for deletion

List of women novelists before Jane Austen is currently up for deletion. Comments welcome.Dsp13 (talk) 01:59, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso

Good evening, Bonsoir, Shalom, I have worked on the Wiki page of Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso. The first woman to have been ordained a rabbi in the Reconstructionist movement of Judaism and also an author of eleven children's book. Also She soon became identified as one of the voices of feminist Judaism. But now this page is being considered for deletion . Please give yours opinions on this Discussion, Thank you so much for all yours contributions in this discussion , je vous remercie, אני תודה --Geneviève (talk) 01:09, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Nota bene: The nominator has withdrawn their nomination and no real arguments have been advanced for deletion. --Danger (talk) 03:28, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank --Geneviève (talk) 23:41, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

New Hot articles section

I added a new "Hot articles" section to the main page of the WikiProject. It shows the five articles that have been edited the most within the last three days. The list is automatically updated once a day by a bot I wrote. The underlying data is supplied by a script on the toolserver written by Tim1357. Hope you enjoy it. Let me know if you have any suggestions for improving it. And yes, I stole the original idea from Wikia. Kaldari (talk) 01:08, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Excellent idea.. Bravo, --Geneviève (talk) 15:26, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

merge Gynocracy into Matriarchy and Separatist feminism?

Proposals to merge the now-deleted Gynocracy article into the Matriarchy and Separatist feminism articles are under discussion, in the Gynocracy deletion review. The Gynocracy article was about women governing women and men, as described from the past or aspired to for the future. Some parts of the article discussed matriarchy, although none of the historical and aspirational descriptions were limited to mothers as the women governing, all being open to women generally. None were about feminist separatism, because men were among the governed, and not just briefly, and because this was not limited to separatism within the feminist movement or organizations, but were at a national level, although one possibility would be to include the content with an explanation that these cases are not strictly separatist or limited to feminist venues. There are prominent feminist advocates and several secondary sources. Thoughts on mergers? Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 19:51, 8 January 2011 (UTC) (Corrected a misspelling (it caused a redlink): 20:00, 8 January 2011 (UTC))

Article assessment

Hello everyone! Currently we have 61 feminism-related articles that are completely unassessed. Please help to go through these articles and add assessments to their talk page templates. More information about how to do assessments can be found here. Kaldari (talk) 22:23, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Knocked off about 20, but my eyes are starting to cross. Will try to finish either later today or tomorrow, depending on how effective a few episodes of Buffy are on my tired eyes. --Danger (talk) 23:32, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Down to 33 already! Kaldari (talk) 00:00, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Only "F"s are left. --Danger (talk) 23:33, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I took care of a few more, so only 10 left to go. Anyone else want to pitch in? Kaldari (talk) 00:38, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Done Oh, I love the look of a check mark. There are still articles which have not been assessed for importance, but I don't put much stock in the importance parameter. I think comparing C-class articles to the B-class criteria and identifying low hanging fruit for GA might be a better use of time. --Danger (talk) 19:27, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Women in Judaism

Shalom, Hello Everybody, a page mattering for me as woman and as Jew: Women in Judaism. This page approaches a complex subject. I did not want to work sections on the orthodox Judaism, conservative Judaism and reformist Judaism. I did not want to miss respect to my Jewish sisters of the others Affiliations. I respects others' affiliations (Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism) but I realises this page haven't a small place for Reconstructionist Jews. I wrote one section for Women in Reconstructionist Judaism: User:Genevieve2/sandbox08. Please can you help me. You can edit, put comments on this sandbox because it is only a draft for making a section of wikipage page on Women in Judaism.

I thing thought of putting the text draft in the following section 4.4:

   * 1 Biblical times
   * 2 Talmudic times
   * 3 Middle Ages
         o 3.1 Domestic law
         o 3.2 Religious developments
   * 4 Present day
         o 4.1 Orthodox Judaism
               + 4.1.1 Rules of modesty
               + 4.1.2 Rules of family purity
               + 4.1.3 Beis Yaakov
               + 4.1.4 Modern Orthodox Judaism
               + 4.1.5 Women's prayer groups
               + 4.1.6 Women as witnesses
               + 4.1.7 Debates within Orthodoxy
               + 4.1.8 Orthodox approaches to change
         o 4.2 Conservative Judaism
               + 4.2.1 Changes in the Conservative position
               + 4.2.2 Conservative approaches to change
         o 4.3 Reform Judaism
               + 4.3.1 Reform approaches to change

4.4 Reconstructionist Judaism

   * 5 Footnotes
   * 6 See also
   * 7 External links
   * 8 References
         o 8.1 Orthodox Judaism and women

Working together. I also put the same note in the Talk page of the project Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism. Because I want to be including my Jewish sisters. Your opinions, suggestions and advices are welcome. Thank, Merci Beaucoup,תודה --Geneviève (talk) 10:52, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Shalom, Hello Everybody, . I am going to join the part Reconstructionist Judaism on the page Women in Judaism . Thanks to all contributors have to participate. Special thanks for Kaldari for all corrections. --Geneviève (talk) 01:36, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Good article collaboration

Per Danger's suggestion above, I went through a large chunk of the B-class articles to see if there are any low-hanging fruit for Good Article status (since sadly, we only have 4 good articles). Of all the B-class articles I looked at, it seems that Gloria Steinem is the most mature. Perhaps we could work together to bring it to Good Article status and nominate it some time soon. Kaldari (talk) 23:43, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

A GA drive sounds like a great idea. The topic is outside the scope of my knowledge so I won't be able to contribute much to the research/content side, but I will try to help with the rudimentaries and responding to reviewer concerns. Skomorokh 00:15, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I started doing some clean-up of the article, so expect to see it on the Hot articles list tomorrow :) Kaldari (talk) 01:06, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll pick up some dead-tree sources when I head in to campus tomorrow. If anyone has a particular book/magazine that would be helpful, suggestions are very welcome. --Danger (talk) 01:14, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Been sick, the not moving thing seemed like a good idea. Now midterms are upon us and any research will have to wait for a while.--Danger (talk) 00:34, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

How mature is the article Feminism? Could we work on that next? --Aronoel (talk) 00:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

It's on the lower levels of B, in my opinion (the summary style is spotty, I didn't check fully for NPOV and the like). It's probably not low hanging fruit, but it is important. --Danger (talk) 00:33, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:DYK about 70 fellatios or heart-attack during 6th breast enlargment

There is a proposal at WP:DYK to describe a reality-star turned pornographic actress who

was hospitalized after 70 fellatios (trying to do 200 for a record, apparently, ... )
was having her 6th breast-enlargement but died of a heart-attack during surgery.

You can see the name at this diff. Nonplussedly, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 00:46, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

New WikiProject on women's history

Partially in response to the Wikipedia gender gap article, I've proposed WikiProject Women's History to expand Wikipedia's coverage of women's history from around the world. Please consider supporting the WikiProject proposal and/or contributing articles or WikiProject organizing help. Thanks. ---Shane Landrum (cliotropic) 05:38, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

New Wikipedia gender gap mailing list

Just discovered this looking at archives of https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l Maybe I'll give it a shot. https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:42, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Summary, one: The Wikimedia Foundation's Executive Director is interested in solutions. She already knows the problem, so please focus comments on how to fix it. They can include both gender-specific and -nonspecific suggestions that achieve the goal. Nick Levinson (talk) 21:18, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I did read the archives online, so joining not necessary to do that. There seems to be lots of additional commentary on the problems by women and men, so until sufficient numbers of women have shared various problems, perhaps not all solutions can be proposed. Also, note there is the WikiChix group and list which is all women and which I signed up on last night, but haven't checked mail to confirm membership. Not sure how active it is. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:01, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for advertising this. Just joined. Kaldari (talk) 19:45, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia "Proposals for increasing female editors"

Proposals for increasing female editors is another option for contributing to this discussion. Both proposals generated by mailing list and those from outside it. CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:21, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Collaboration for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Greetings, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution has been chosen as the U.S. Wikipedians Collaboration of the Month for February 2011. As a project who has identified this article to be in your scope we encourage you to edit this article and help to build it up to better explain the subject and to get it promoted. --Kumioko (talk) 20:49, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

New York Times article on Wikipedia gender bias

(Without asking, I copied the following post from the WikiProject Gender Studies Talk topic New York Times Article on Wikipedia Gender Bias (easier to read, perhaps, at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Gender_Studies#New_York_Times_article_on_Wikipedia_gender_bias)):

Project members might lke to note that The New York Times has publishedan article on the gender gap in Wikipedia's editor base and how it is affecting article quality. Written by Noam Cohen, it gives examples of how subjects dear to girls and women tend to be short while those dear to boys and men are voluminous. For example it points out that friendship bracelets likely to be of interest to teenage girls is limited to only four paragraphs , whereas baseball cards, more likely to be followed by boys is voluminous and includes a detailed chronological history of the subject. The entry on Sex and the City includes only a brief summary of each episode while the one on The Sopranos includes lengthy, detailed articles on each episode. It quotes Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia foundation, as saying how she has set a goal to raise the share of female contributors to 25 percent by 2015 from its present 13%. Lumos3 (talk) 08:38, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Nick Levinson (talk) 06:21, 1 February 2011 (UTC) (Corrected my opening paragraph by adding the missing parenthesis: 06:31, 1 February 2011 (UTC)) (Added "easier to read" parenthetical comment per intent behind user Dsp13's recent edit, albeit after CarolMooreDC's post below: 02:31, 3 February 2011 (UTC))

Criticism_of_wikipedia#Gender_bias has one sentence. Who wants to beef it up from the article? (OK, I just started doing it.)
Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/dispute_resolution currently is discussing ways to deal especially with hostility and insults on wikipedia. I've been discussing and am getting ready to put up a section proposing making more consistent policies on blocking people for WP:Personal attacks. From my experience these are more frequently launched on women, including because a woman is a good female editor whose edits are preferred over a male's edits and some males can't handle that.
This template has been beefed up. Feel free to throw it on any pages with insults against other editors, whether explicitly sexist or just used against women more frequently than men.
Put this template on talk pages if it looks like a pattern of insults developing.

Please remain civil to one another. If you are attacked, or someone is rude, please just ignore it. Uncivil messages will be deleted.

At this verision I just boldly put up a thanks to Sue Gardner for caring about this issue and for getting this in the media. (She also mentioned it recently on NPR). Lots of media picking it up.
Other thoughts? I'll add any I have. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:45, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Doing more research to improve the entry under criticism of wikipedia and realize there was hardly any female commentary on this story, including on blogs. So I have to wonder if I were to opine in general terms about the various commentary and my own opinions on sexism on wikipedia and how to stop it, would I "get in trouble again." (I remember somewhere reading Wikipedia editors who complain about it off wikipedia can get blocked, but I assume that's just if they talk about specific other editors, as I did last time.) Any thoughts? CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:23, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

New debate section even more hard core: Especially Prof. Justine Cassell's contribution. Other 3 link from there. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:12, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Are strategies for getting more female members being discussed anywhere? --Aronoel (talk) 17:42, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Good question. Unfortunately some women might now want to debate that here either because of fears about being associated with "feminism." I don't know if a separate project would be appropriate. Or some other forum. CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:47, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

It seems like the issue has been getting a lot of attention outside of Wikipedia, so I thought maybe there should be a separate project or a discussion at Wp:Centralized discussion or something. --Aronoel (talk) 17:55, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello Everybody, Shalom very interesting discussion: I believe that Wikipedia is the reflection of reports men and women in her really life. We do not escape it. It exceeds WikiProject Feminism. 2 Examples that I know well: in Wikipedia the pages of Women's Hockey isn't also elaborated because we are only 2 persons to work on it regularly (all the others persons prefer the male hockey). Furthermore there is a difficulty finding references: the information sources (books, newspapers, magazines) speak about many sports of the men ( not many references for Women's sports).Another example that I know well: In Wikipedia pages of Judaism, for a woman-contributor is more difficult for write a new page. Because the anothers persons (old members of WikiProject Judaism ) ask (...without saying it openly... )more a woman especially if she is young and no-orthodox. This is a very sad reality. And Wikipedia is very Human with all reality of human life. Thanks and courage, merci et courage à toutes, תודה ואומץ --Geneviève (talk) 18:41, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

{Insert]: The inability to find WP:RS certain does hold things back. Also that you are being actively discriminated against as a woman in religion articles; I hope that isn't also true on other religions or sects that put women in a subsidiary role. I can see women (feminist or not) do need more organized activity here. Where is the best place to bring such complaints, I wonder? CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:21, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Today the New York Times followed up their article with a forum that includes six columns about women and Wikipedia. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 22:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I support equalizing the power balance and I'm still trying to think up how. I don't accept the inadequate explanations such as that women are simply too busy with other things to do. The problem does have a lot to do with society as well as with Wikipedia; but changes within Wikipedia can redress both anyway, at least in part, and should. Nick Levinson (talk) 03:49, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Without disputing Cohen's basic point, she picks lousy examples. There are vast series of baseball cards on which books have been written, while I imagine there is only so much that can be said on friendship bracelets, which are a far newer phenomenon, aren't they, and one with far fewer RSs? Equally the Sopranos episodes are ? twice as long as S&tC & involve many times more characters each episode, with several complicated action plotlines. Being at least partly comedy, S&tC has far simpler plotlines & fewer characters, if only to leave room for the jokes. Johnbod (talk) 05:18, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Good; we agree on the basic point. On your narrower point, you may be right about the topics chosen for comparison, but there's a consistent or at least frequent pattern of sexist bias. A larger study would look at a wider range of facts, but some of us already have relevant experience and no other explanations that hold up. So, we're interested in solutions; and your suggestions for some are welcome. Thank you very much. Nick Levinson (talk) 06:14, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Good morning Everybody, another point: The sentences written with harshness by certain persons. Yesterday I made an big error. The error is very human and this morning I read on my Talk page, a tone of harshness by one person ( read Non-free images and your userspace). This hurts my sensibility. I know one women which have left Wikipedia for this harshness....Pass a good week-end with your family, Shabbat Shalom --Geneviève (talk) 13:27, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

FYI, my quote below was in regards to WP:incivility which you've probably experienced. Also, if any guys on any articles explicitly say you should NOT edit them because you are a woman and/or you are not of their preferred religious viewpoint, collect the "diffs" and complain that they are trying to force you out of the article for those reasons. It's probably a case for WP:ANI (follow links for details). CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:00, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I saw what Genevieve2 complained of, on her talk page, and I wonder if Wikipedia's many standard messages need re-editing for how they're likely to be understood by newbies. It's problematic, since a message simply describing the problem may be more likely to be ignored unless negative consequences of ignoring it are stated, and brief messages are likelier to be read than long ones. But perhaps we should take one message and try redrafting it just to see what would happen? Perhaps the message Genevieve2 complained of, as an experiment? Or perhaps a first caution should be preceded at the same time by a general message explaining that new editors may find complexities in editing Wikipedia and that sometimes advice is sent out in order to help maintain Wikipedia's standards and help editors meet those standards? Nick Levinson (talk) 04:41, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I think its exactly as Nick points out above. My gf used wikipedia to make a correction to a page once, and was hammered with a warning template immediately after from a huggle user. The issue was she corrected an case of vandalism manually, but wasnt able to get all the vandalism (one of these cases where several edits occurred in sequence to disrupt a page and she was the last editor editing). Because she didnt know how to roll a page back, another editor perceived her edits as unconstructive and vandalism and she was slapped automatically with a warning for vandalism. Why would she continue editing after that? She wont and refuses to today too. Wikipedia is such a complex beast, on Genevieves page there were 9 references to policies posted for her for essentially one mistake (one ref to policy was mine- Ive adopted her through the adopt program so was trying to help a bit). How is someone new to wikipedia expected to know every single policy by heart? Even after 3 years I dont know them by heart. Re-writing templates might be a start, perhaps making them sound more human and more adaptable to situations, But I think the key is small easily understandable custom messages that assume good faith in edits. No one wants to talk to a bot or automative script, its cold. If people really want to make a difference though and change things they need to make the consequences for biting/ nettiquette more crucial to the development of wikipedia-slow down he automation and up the human side. Alot of editors would like to be admins, make it an issue in the request for adminships, hold their behaviour to this standard when you vote for candidate. A great majority of our admins and candidates i think are already good with newcomers and new editors alike, but if its made to be more important at least a few more editors with their eye on this will keep good faith behaviour in mind when they warn users that made mistakes. I also think we need to push the adoption program. Why not in our templated welcome messages offer adoption? Why not actually use the welcome templates first when contacting a new editor that’s made a mistake and has no other messages on their talk page? Why not a manual welcome message instead of an automated one? Honestly I see exactly why the amount of new editors coming to wikipedia, or active editors is decreasing. I hope as a community some solutions actually go through. Sorry for all the text, but there were just some things id like to get off my chest. Ottawa4ever (talk) 09:45, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

That reminds me, I still haven't learned how to roll back! I think applications of policies are definitely uneven. I was a pretty unruly editor doing whatever I wanted the first year or so and no one seemed to notice much or give me any warnings on anything. And other editors get hammered for innocent mistakes. Sometimes it's the luck of the draw. Also, if you wander into an article where there's already controversy, esp. if it's been visited by lots of sock and meatpuppets, you also can get in trouble - especially if you are perceived as female and unlikely to "fight back." I now try hard to send the friendliest "new user" message to people, even if I'm convinced it's a sock, just to get into the habit. Not being sexist is a habit too!! CarolMooreDC (talk) 13:55, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Justine Cassell's on edit wars and women

Please read and consider this. In "A Culture of Editing Wars", part of the February 2, 2011 NY Times debate on Women in Wikipedia, Justine Cassell (professor/director of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University writes in part:

It’s worth distinguishing between two different kinds of gender imbalance in Wikipedia. One is the relative length of articles and the number of articles that concern “women’s interests” (the Times article cites friendship bracelets and “Sex and the City”) vs. articles that concern “men’s interests” ("The Simpsons" and Grand Theft Auto). The second is the number of women who contribute vs. men who contribute overall. ...As for the source of the gender imbalance....

From the inside, on the other hand, Wikipedia may feel like a fight to get one’s voice heard. One gets a sense of this insider view from looking at the “talk page” of many articles, which rather than seeming like collaborations around the construction of knowledge, are full of descriptions of “edit-warring” — where successive editors try to cancel each others’ contributions out — and bitter, contentious arguments about the accuracy of conflicting points of view...

However, it is still the case in American society that debate, contention, and vigorous defense of one’s position is often still seen as a male stance, and women’s use of these speech styles can call forth negative evaluations. Women may be negatively judged for speaking their mind in clear ways and defending their position. A woman who wishes to collaboratively construct knowledge and share it with others might not choose to do so as part of a forum where engaging in debate and deleting others’ words is key.

...Even Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikipedia Foundation, seems reticent about defending her perspective on gender in Wikipedia. As she says in the Times article: “Gender is a huge hot-button issue for lots of people who feel strongly about it. I am not interested in triggering those strong feelings.”

And of course there is the problem of Wikipedia's lack of willingness to punish insulting behavior, perhaps especially if a woman is accusing a male of it. (I guess a long research through WP:ANI and Wikquette complaints on incivility would have to be done to support a contention, to find instances of users who obviously are women complaining about obviously male editors and seeing if there complaints get less action that male complaints against males or females.) A lot of women just don't have the high testosterone to put up with such nonsense. I, infamously, do, and in fact I do have to control my editing behavior frequently because my assertive editing and arguing for my edits evidently gets males crazy (thus my many trips to Wikiquette about incivility). Where I believe my editing practices would be accepted with far less hostility if I was perceived as male. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:39, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

This article is tame compared to the (only barely on some articles) exaggerated and very funny article Independent Wikipedia: This is a man's world. Finally an article worth blogging about. hee hee hee CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:17, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

In my tour to empty my little heart

There is 13 % of wikipedia persons who would be women (I imagine that it is on Wikipedia of English language). The direction(management) of the Foundation would be informed about this situation and would want that in 2015: 25 % are women. I do not believe in it. It seems to me pious wishes: Last friday on my talk page, a person threatened me with penalties further to an error of my part. I have about it to speak here on the page of discussion of the Wikiproject Feminism. Who defended me on my talk page? No woman. No leader of the feminist project. No leader of these diverse Feminist groups. No leader of the Wikipedia foundation. The only one person who intervened is a man and is my parain Ottawa4ever.

The person: Hammersoft who has me to threaten with penalties, did not even mean apologizing on my talk page of discussion. Nobody has to communicate with him...

How many women on Wikipedia were threatened with penalties? How much suffered emotional and left definitively but that nobody intervenes?

I predict for my part that in 2015, there will be less than 3 or 5 % who will be women. I am pessimistic yes and I do not see how the situation will change from now on. Studies and groups of consultations. The governments make it for decades on the conditions of the women. Be what it really changes in the real life?

I also think of the women of the French-speaking Wikipedia where the intimidation is more present than on English Wikipeda. I frequented the french wikipedia. French is my first language. I definitively left the French Wikipedia. Are it the French culture or are it many men of these countries (France, Belgique, Québec)? I do not know but I know that the feminist project does not work any more for lack of participants and that the male members have to try by twice to abolish this feminist project. This is only my opinion. Bonne chance and courage. Thanks --Geneviève (talk) 23:05, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Apologies for not assisting. I was on vacation in Central America and not online for the past week. Has everything been settled now, or is further assistance necessary? It's sad to hear that the French feminism project is having such trouble. Kaldari (talk) 02:48, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Bonsoir Kaldari, for my personal case It would need can be to speak with Hammersoft : without hurting him to remind him that nothing scares potentially valuable contributors away faster than hostility (reference Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Please_do_not_bite_the_newcomers )

But for other cases where a man threatens a woman of penalty, it is too late. She has leave Wikipedia. --Geneviève (talk) 02:59, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

"Ada Initiative Supports Women in Open Source, Counters Sexism"

Article here. And it actually uses the "sexism" word and not the more euphemistic "gender gap." Reads in small part: Now, women's advocates Valerie Aurora and Mary Gardiner are determined to change this situation by the creation of The Ada Initiative, a non-profit organization to encourage women's participation in both FOSS and related groups such as the Free Culture Movement and Wikipedia. It's an ambitious effort, but one that the founders are determined to make, despite the inevitable hostility with which their efforts will be received in some circles. Here's there link: http://adainitiative.org/ Who wants to start the article? :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:06, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Relevant current debates

Per email I just posted on Gender gap email list, here are some issues (in addition to categories issue above) that women might want to look at:

Perhaps "WikiProjects Women" on all language Wikipedias are necessary to draw in women who for various reasons might not go to a "Wikiproject Feminism"??
Criticism_of_Wikipedia#Gender_bias: Needs expanding
Wikipedia_talk:Civility#Proposal: Someone else proposed language to WP:Civility to make slurs vs. homosexuals a no -no and I pointed out it wasn't clear that slurs against women as women are not sufficiently outlawed in the proposal (or now). And of course people are now saying adding one or two words to make both clear is just too much bureaucracy.
Wikipedia_talk:Username_policy#Need_more_warnings_on_using_real_names: Do we need stronger warnings to new users (esp women) that using real names (or sex) can lead to harassment? Or even a check mark box for them to check they've read about that possibility on registering ? (Obviously, using my real name, I've had problems!)
Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/dispute_resolution: Main relevant proposals are relating to easier blocks for bad behavior. (Elsewhere dealing with editors who gang up on others, whether from POV or just enjoy trashing females, has been discussed so that may yet be a related proposal on that page.) I was working on a proposal when the NT TImes articles came out and got sidetracked.

Anyway, we definitely need more female input on all these. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Pro-choice#move_2011

All input welcome. Thank you. ^walk victor falk^talk 20:44, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Women's Week

There has been a suggestion on the gendergap mailing list that the Foundation hold some kind of event around March 8 (International Women's Day) to encourage new women editors to sign up. A provisional page has been opened on Meta to discuss this. Please see Women on Wikipedia Week, and its talk page. Although it's being called a week for now, it could be for a month. All input welcome. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 21:39, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Rape Culture article

I was alerted by some folks that the rape culture article needs some serious work. It's missing a lot of context, and modern incidents like #MooreandMe / Julian Assange, Roman Polanski, and the Penny Arcade dickwolves controversy. It's going to be tricky, because most of the controversy has been on blogs and internet forums - not reliable sources - and "rape culture" is not a phrase most major media sources are willing to use. But, the subjects are definitely notable and it deserves some attention. Anyone willing to help? Pi.1415926535 (talk) 22:07, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Blogs are considered reliable sources if they are written by experts in the field or if they are used to source what the writer of the blog says. I think prominent feminist bloggers like Jessica Valenti and Amanda Marcotte could reasonably be considered expert bloggers, but that is up for debate. The place where most good sources will come from, I think, is academic feminist journals and books. --Danger (talk) 00:18, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I added a few possible book sources to the article talk page. Kaldari (talk) 00:53, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Moving from a taskforce to a child project

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaldari (talk • contribs) 20:03, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Discussion moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Feminism.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaldari (talk • contribs) 20:41, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Nineteenth Amendment article

The article Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is currently the 6th most popular article under our project. It is, however, barely more than a stub and needs some serious expansion. Towards this end, I have decided to unprotect the article in the hopes that it will receive some random kindness from strangers. Considering that most of the people viewing this article are students, however, I'm under no illusions that it will be free from vandalism. Please add this article to your watchlist so that we can quickly revert any vandalism that occurs. Thanks!

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaldari (talk • contribs) 22:17, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Feminism/Article alerts

There has been a recent spate of AfDs for feminism articles, probably a coincidence; but still, it looks bad for Wikipedia. Please comment at the respective AfDs. Bearian (talk) 23:14, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Maybe we should just list such things here; I'd prefer to. Otherwise, or as well, people should watch that page. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:53, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Couple interesting Articles for Deletion: WomanStats Project (has some problems mentioned in AfD, but some good references, could be saved). CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:53, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, I just found the alerts section on front page. Next time will put something there. Getting tired tonight. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:07, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

WP:Hardcore images

At the talk page of this essay discussing the use of hardcore pornography images in Wikipedia, there is currently a debate underway on whether certain pornographic genres (facials etc.) may properly be described as misogynistic in the essay, or whether this represents a culturally biased view. Input from knowledgeable editors would be welcome. See recent discussions at Wikipedia_talk:Hardcore_images#Reverted_userfication and following sections. Thanks, --JN 466 23:50, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The gist of it is, one editor wishes to remove all sexually explicit images from Wikipedia, labelling them generally as hardcore pornography. One of the arguments given is that pornography is misognyistic and abusive to women. So,the rationale that we should not alienate women is used to try to censor images that an editor does not like. Please contribute to the discussion. I have stated in the talk pages of that article that women can speak for themselves, and should not hide behin "protecting the delicate sensibilities" of women as an excuse or vehicle for their own opinions. Atom (talk) 00:16, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I would say that this is a gross mischaracterisation whose inaccuracy becomes apparent from just reading the essay. --JN 466 06:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that anyone who goes to read the essay can judge for themselves. Atom (talk) 02:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Images in two articles

Bukkake -- contains two quite similar drawings of several men ejaculating on a kneeling woman. Do editors feel both images should be kept, or should one or both be deleted?
Creampie (sexual act) -- contains an image of a woman's lower body that some editors felt was poorly drawn and not an asset to the article. The image was removed and reinserted, a discussion and subsequent RfC a few months ago ended with no consensus and the image kept. Two photographs are available in Commons; proposals to use these did not meet with broad support. What is the best solution -- no image, the drawing, a photograph?

Views welcomed on the articles' talk pages. --JN 466 06:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

There is also an open RfC on image use at Talk:Snowballing_(sexual_practice)#RfC_on_image. --JN 466 06:57, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

What seriously does tick me off is there is no Circle jerk article, even though Bukkake is clearly an example of that phenomena, with an object. I guess the guys find the concept too embarrassing. I'm really tempted... I just haven't created enough new articles. I left a message here also encouraging someone to fill in the blanks. Talk:Non-penetrative_sex#Circle_Jerks_Redirect.3F CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Bonjour, Shalom... Disturbed and shocked by the presence of these images on Wikipedia. Nothing surprises me on Wikipedia now. In when images of pedophilia? --Geneviève (talk) 16:56, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I would invite you to leave a brief message on the article talk pages concerned, if you haven't done so. It should be noted that these are some of our most frequently viewed articles. Creampie (sexual act) and Bukkake are viewed more often each day than the article on Hilary Clinton, for example; both are in the top 0.1% of articles by number of page views (numbers 1350 and 2000 in the ranking list, or thereabouts). So it is actually important that the way these articles look reflects community consensus, rather than consensus among a limited number of male editors. Articles with such viewing figures are calling cards -- they tell readers and potential new contributors out there what Wikipedia is about. --JN 466 22:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Jayen for your opinion but I already see the conflicts if I intervene. I have already made a similar intervention in the French Wikipedia and 2 or 3 men have me made a fool. Nobody of the French administration Wikipedia came to defend me. The men have the law of the number on Wikipedia: 13 % are women and 87 % are men. It is that the sad reality in Wikipedia. --Geneviève (talk) 23:39, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I understand. You shouldn't let it stop you from !voting at an RfC though, or just stating your opinion; there is no need to enter a discussion for your voice to count. And I'm sorry for your experience. Are you aware of the Gendergap list? It is a Wikimedia mailing list set up by Sue Gardner earlier this month to find ways to address this numerical imbalance between male and female editors. The February archive is here, and there is also a link at the bottom of the page ("More info on this list...") that enables you to join. Best, --JN 466 01:00, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

There is also a Facebook group, Wikipedia Women, here. --JN 466 06:13, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that accurately documenting the history of men humiliating women is appropriate, as is the case in the Bukkake article. I only wish there was more documentable history in that case. In the case of the creampie article, I am not sure what purpose there would be in bringing this up within Feminism. The topic is not corelated with Feminism. Atom (talk) 02:08, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

GoodMorning, bonjour, I wrote a message on the Talk page of Bukkae. --Geneviève (talk) 12:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Merci, Geneviève. :) --JN 466 12:48, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Category:Sexism -(wife selling)

I asked on that talk page and repeating here. I just noticed Wife selling on the featured article list on Women's History and first thing I thought was - is that under Category:Sexism? It wasn't. I put it there. Let's see how long it stays. Is getting this sort of thing in that (and other related appropriate categories, whatever they may be) something that is better addressed/fought on one or both projects?? Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:47, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Only took 1 hr 7 minutes for the category to be removed from Wife selling‎ because -- it's not not a sexist practice Oi. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:38, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

That wouldn't be wife selling as "a way of ending an unsatisfactory marriage by mutual agreement", would it? Actually, ending a marriage by mutual agreement sounds rather egalitarian to me. What's sexist about it, or did you rush to judgment based only on the article's title? You wouldn't be disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point, would you? — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 07:20, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

The reliable source Women, work and sexual politics in eighteenth-century England portrays wife-selling as a sexist and degrading practice. Just because the current article whitewashes it is no reason to start hurling accusations. I think there is room for differing opinions on this. Kaldari (talk) 07:50, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Have you taken the trouble to read the article, or are you simply going by the title? The article already states very clearly that "from a modern perspective, selling a wife like a chattel is degrading, even when considered as a form of divorce. Nevertheless, most contemporary reports stress the women's independence and vitality." At a time when divorce was a practical impossibility for all but the very wealthiest, one could very easily argue that the practice of wife selling was a welcome escape route for many women from an unhappy marriage. Indeed there are even reports of some women insisting that the sale be completed, even after the husband had changed his mind about the transaction. There was nothing sexist about wife selling, it was simply a pseudo-legal device to end an unsatisfactory marriage. That it was more common for wives to be sold than husbands is an artefact of English jurisprudence at that time, in particular the law surrounding coverture. Is it your intention to tag that as sexist as well? Malleus Fatuorum 14:44, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

The fact it was the wife and not the husband who was being sold to get around the law shows it was sexist, in the context of a sexist legal system. And it's not like the woman had a choice in who she was sold to. And that women "rescued" other women being sold shows women didn't like it. Also, as I put on the talk page before read all this: While the Sexism article needs beefing up to explicitly include forced marriage, wife selling, trafficking in women, etc., the section Sexism#Legal_status makes it clear women had few rights in that period. CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:30, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Why are you assuming that the women had no choice in who they were sold to? Doesn't the article make it clear enough that in very many cases the purchaser was the wife's lover, and that the transaction was prearranged? Husbands were in fact sold as well, just far less frequently than wives, because of the legal framework in place at that time and in particular the law of coverture. Malleus Fatuorum 17:50, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

If women largely agreed to it, that belongs in the lead - with a reference, which is as far as most people get. It certainly didn't stand out in a quick skim. Nevertheless, it still was a result of a sexist legal system and therefore is inherently sexist. Just like selling Jews was inherently antisemitic when done within the structure of an antisemtic legal system. (Ever read the book THE SLAVE by Isaac Bashevis Singer?) CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:52, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Please take this discussion to Talk:Wife selling (English custom). Thanks. Kaldari (talk) 17:55, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Meanwhile as to my original question, which project (Feminism v. Women's History) is the best place to list links to discussions in articles about categorizing (or anything else) articles which may overlap feminism and women's history, I now think either, since some people will be editing in one area and not in the other, and it may not occur to them to come here. Lost track of what the issue was in the discussion! Mea culpa. CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:42, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

However, additionally as I just wrote on that talk page, since it's not obvious to some that this practice came out of the broader category of sexism/patriarchy/misogyny, perhaps the article needs beefing up in that regard with WP:RS that make the point; perhaps there are some that have been ignored?? So I put in on articles that need attention on main page. CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:49, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

...which is inappropriate, given that this is a featured article. Surely it would be more productive to devote editor time to articles in need of more help, not to mention articles of greater importance to your project? Furthermore, I would suggest to you that your assumption that your view is the correct one will likely be less than productive in discussion of this article, especially as it has undergone the featured article process. If you can find relevant high-quality reliable sources to support your position, feel free to point them out, but your current approach (particularly your suggestion that editors may have deliberately overlooked sources) is not really helpful. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:46, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually I found - (added later: and added to the Talk:Wife selling (English custom) articel) - three overlooked references relating the general practice of wife selling and patriarchy to wife selling, though they are imperfect. But they do suggest also the limitations of Category:Sexism, more below. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:49, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

So let's see them. Malleus Fatuorum 04:41, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Just a note, that this category will probably get as far as Category:Homophobia, which never gets far anywhere. For good reason. --Moni3 (talk) 20:53, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Which means what? Practices, words, ideologies that are widely called "sexist" by WP:RS cannot be put in Category:sexism because there will be an organized attempt to veto it? Please explain ambiguous comment. CarolMooreDC (talk)

Women's association football

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Women's association football Bonjour, some males want to eliminate this sport page. Please Help me to preserve this page. Thanks, merci, תודה --Geneviève (talk) 16:17, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

And the result: the page is kept and preserved. Great!!! Thanks u so much for your support, Best regards --Geneviève (talk) 22:17, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Bonjour, Good Morning, An incident: yesterday I put my message in the talk page of the new WikiProject on women's history. Here is the answer of a member of this project: # 48 Notifying projects about deletion discussions ...My reaction was remove my message on talk page of the new project and after reflection, I withdrew me definitively from this new project. That let us have to be made here in our feminist project when Wikipages on the women are threatened to be deleted and eliminated. Please your opinions and advice, Thanks --Geneviève (talk) 14:13, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

The guideline against canvassing applies to all WikiProjects, talk pages, and other locations within English Wikipedia, so, if your only concern is that WikiProject Women's History objects, please stay in both WikiProjects, because the same concern will likely arise if you canvass elsewhere, but you may invite editors in a neutral way to look. It's in how you word your message. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 18:53, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I was trying to explain. I offered it as friendly advice from one editor to another. In my five years at Wikipedia, I've seen too many discussions derailed by accusations of canvassing, when a simple re-wording would avoid the problem. I wasn't speaking for the Women's History Project (I only joined it 5 days ago), but as an individual. Voceditenore (talk) 19:46, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank Nick and Voceditenore to express your opinions but I shall like know the opinion of Kaldari and the opinion of Carolmooredc. 2 importants persons in my little heart. I remember my first appeal to the Women solidarity it was for the page on Sandy Eisenberg Sasso . It was in last december 2010 , see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sandy Eisenberg Sasso. Yes the guideline exists but no person of the WikiProject Feminism had scolded me in december ( go to see in the archives of wikiproject Feminist in # 61 of the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Feminism/Archive_1#Rabbi_Sandy_Eisenberg_Sasso ). The law of the number discriminates all the women on Wikipedia and if we do not show solidarity, somes Women articles will be abolished. --Geneviève (talk) 21:02, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello Geneviève! If you want to publicize a debate or discussion at a WikiProject, especially if it is at all controversial, it is usually better to use neutral language in the advertisement so that you do not give the impression of trying to stack the vote. In other words, it may be better to explain that a deletion debate is happening in regard to an article without stating your personal opinion about the debate at the WikiProject. That way everyone coming to the debate can use their own judgement about the matter. Hope that helps! Glad to see that the article ended up being kept. Kaldari (talk) 22:12, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank Kaldari. Your opinion is a big deception for me. Just to bad for me. I wish good luck to you to bring more women on Wikipedia. Bye --Geneviève (talk) 22:32, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Please excuse me. I was not offering my opinion, just explaining Wikipedia:Canvassing. I apologize for the confusion. Kaldari (talk) 22:34, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

predeletion notice to a WikiProject

When something is nominated for deletion, are the relevant WikiProjects notified when contributing editors are? If not, they should be, and on the WikiProject's talk page: for an article, WikiProjects listed on the article's talk page; for a redirect, WikiProjects on the destination article's talk page; and so on. This should address a problem that can be implied from editor Genevieve's experience. Or is there disagreement on this notification being useful? Or is it up to each WikiProject to opt for notification? Nick Levinson (talk) 06:04, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Some WikiProjects have "Deletion sorting" pages (e.g., Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Judaism). I don't know how they get set up, but volunteer editors list new deletion discussions related to the WikiProject there. (User:Gene93k does a lot of deletion sorting; if there's interest, maybe Gene can tell us how to set up our own deletion sorting page.)

This WikiProject participates in Article Alerts. You can watchlist Wikipedia:WikiProject Feminism/Article alerts, which is updated daily by bot. It includes deletion discussions, requested moves, etc., related to pages that have our banner on their Talk pages. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 06:49, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I think such notifications can be very useful to projects, and WikiProject Opera reaches out to as many editors as we can about this. But in my experience, it's entirely random, and up to the nominating editor to notify. In fact, while encouraged, there's no requirement to even inform the article's creator that there's an AfD or PROD in progress, see here. AAlertBot, is useful but that only alerts re pages that are actually bannered with your project. It might be worth checking with Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting to see about creating a deletion-sort category for articles pertaining to women. Another point, when a particular project has been notified on their talk page, it's good practice to include this information as a note at the AfD discussion, example, here. Voceditenore (talk) 07:23, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

How do we work for better gender equity in the community of WP editors?

That's something I've been thinking is pertinent to this Feminism project-- work for more gender equity within the community of WP editors. Recruit more women to be editors. Fight back hard against any form of sexism toward female editors. Work to change the overall culture here to make it not so lopsidedly male-heavy.

Because it's a disgrace and a failure of the community when female editors are discouraged from contributing because the alpha male editors keep canceling out their work. Women's understandable unwillingness to submit themselves to that kind of treatment, keeping the proportion of women low, makes it harder for the rest of us. All I've been doing so far is fixing up articles, and occasionally creating new articles about notable women. I'm not acquainted with how things are run in the upper echelons of WP editorship, so I'm writing to ask for ideas.

Perhaps one way to begin would be by gathering stories giving concrete instances of sexism against women editors here, and how the dominantly male culture tends to suppress women's contributions. (see How to Suppress Women's Writing by Joanna Russ). I bet most of us, if not all of us, have stories like that to tell. Maybe by gathering these accounts, patterns will emerge from the data, and give a clearer focus to the direction of how to proceed from there.

I apologize if this is going over old ground. I'm a newcomer to WikiProject Feminism, and I'm sure this must have been already discussed (but it's hard to think of which search terms would find this specific issue in the talk archives). Please bring me (and other newcomers) up to date on what's been done so far. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johanna-Hypatia (talk Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 21:57, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

~~Ask and you shall receive: Wikipedia:WikiProject Feminism/Documenting on-wiki sexism.~~ Kaldari (talk) 22:12, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Coming soon to an MfD near you... Skomorokh 22:15, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Do you think that all MfDs are equally close to every editor or is there some non-trivial measure of wiki-distance? But seriously, Johanna-Hypatia, there is a listhost and wiki called WikiChix. The content and activity are limited, but that is an appropriate place for this sort of thing. WikiProject Countering systemic bias would also be something to look at. You almost certainly will not be able to collect data on sexism or accusations of sexism on-wiki without violating policy against attack pages.--Danger (talk) 00:59, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, that's cool. I agree that's probably a better venue. <reverting self...> Kaldari (talk) 02:28, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, WikiChix is women only. I'm not allowed :( Kaldari (talk) 02:31, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Kaldari, I would contact the list moderators anyway. You've built up a lot of fem-cred, if such a thing exists. :-) --Danger (talk) 02:36, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Sent a request, so we'll see what happens... Kaldari (talk) 02:43, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh that's right. That's exactly what I was thinking of. I had seen WikiChix once before and wanted to get back to it. I forgot how I'd found it the other time and didn't remember its name. Thank you so much!

The page on countering systemic bias did make one passing reference to the male predominance among WP editors. I had actually had that in mind as the one example I'd seen that acknowledged the problem.

By the way, what happened with that page, documenting on-wiki sexism? Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 05:20, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I would like to know what happened to the sexism page as well. I don't se how improving the wiki by working on this problem is an "attack" futurebird (talk) 13:54, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not a project member, but watch this page because I'm interested in the issue. Since I personally have never been subjected to any wiki-sexism, I was truly shocked to see the example that was on the now-deleted page. (I think that must've been where I saw it, as I can't find it again.) Could someone provide that diff here? Cynwolfe (talk) 16:43, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

The example I posted was from last year. The user has since left Wikipedia. Kaldari (talk) 00:43, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Well they both have left, over a year after that exchange, & him a couple of months before her. 87.194.52.251 (talk) 02:18, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Something like 87% of WP editors are male; there only needs to be a dozen or so that would take offence to perceived targeting of their identity group to cause massive drama. Presenting the events with the names anonymized might be ok, but naming and shaming on-wiki is a recipe for disaster. Skomorokh 16:49, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I created and then deleted the page since Skomorokh and Danger were of the opinion that it would violate policy against attack pages. I tried joining WikiChix myself, but my application was rejected :( And unfortunately you can't view or edit anything on WikiChix unless you have an account. Since I think it's important that documentation of the problem be publicly accessible, what do people think of moving this discussion to Geek Feminism Wiki instead of WikiChix? I don't think we should be "naming and shaming" people, but I think it's important that we have actual examples of problematic sexist behavior so that we can back up our arguments when people try to deny that the problem exists (which is the typical response), as well as to facilitate discussion of how to deal with such behavior. Thoughts? Kaldari (talk) 18:40, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I don't think such a page would necessarily constitute an attack page, just that enough editors would think so to make the exercise a disruptive failure. The approach I recommend is the one taken here, which was an analysis of misuse of powers based on actual events but – crucially – anonymised so as not to reveal those responsible in public. It lead to real and effective reform, although that was a matter of convincing the people in charge, whereas what we have here requires influencing the people at large, which is a little more difficult. Skomorokh 22:30, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Likewise, I also don't think such a page would actually violate wiki policy. I do think that it would paint a target on this project and the editors involved and make it much more difficult to make any progress. --Danger (talk) 00:13, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

When I read the remark, I wondered why the editor wasn't immediately blocked in accordance with WP:CIV — the remarks were uncivil in the same way that racist or homophobic remarks are not in compliance with the civility policy. Attacks on the person's gender just happened to be the mode. A report should've been made to the appropriate forum at the time, and perhaps there's no point in belaboring it now. (I didn't note the date at the time.) As for shaming: the person posted the remarks publicly. If he were capable of being shamed by them, or felt they were atypical and regrettable, he had the option of requesting an administrative deletion. (Again, no diff to follow the thread to see whether he recanted or apologized.) However, the real sexism here is within ourselves, if we think that we have to tolerate nasty personal attacks without "drama" because we're women. One way of shutting up women has traditionally been to tell us that we'd better be nice or the men won't like us. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:02, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Just to throw in 32 cents (inflation), the main way I've seen it expressed (besides unbridled machismo and p*ssing contests) is singling out the female for attack when there are several guys who have the same view. Having a female stand up to and defend their view evidently drives some guys crazy. While I didn't bother to mention the obviously sexist behavior, going to the civility noticeboard was of some help. If I had it all to do over I think I'd have given myself a name like User:BigD*ck or something macho just to see if I was treated differently. :-) Unfortunately, I would have to advise new female users NOT to have a user name making their sex obviously or mentioning it, even if they only were editing women-oriented articles! However, if there are other ways to deal with the issue, it would be great to make it clear on main page here. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:23, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I just added a new section to the Quick Help table on the project main page for dealing with "Sexist or harassing behavior". Coming up with a more comprehensive guide for how to avoid and/or deal with sexist behavior on Wikipedia would be a cool project if people have more ideas. Kaldari (talk) 22:49, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec)I've seen a lot of that too Carol. Unfortunately it's harder to deal with (i.e prove) than obvious/open sexism/racism etc. But seriousness making a list of sexist attacks (even if anonymized) on WP would be counter-productive. Report violations of civility and WP:NPA when they happen. Do not tolerate tendentiousness. Use the civility boards and if necessary ask for help when appropriate. Wikipedia is not a forum - talk pages aren't a space for expressions of opinion about others (whether sexist, racist, bigoted or in any way personal). My door is open for advice in this situation if anyone needs it--Cailil ^talk 22:51, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth – not much, I know – one doesn't have to identify one's self as a woman or girl or be one to be the target of sexist/misogynist attacks on Wikipedia. I don't know whether it would be counterproductive to recommend gender-neutral names to new female users. --Danger (talk) 00:13, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've found a proper forum for documenting problematic incidents on Wikipedia. Please add any incidents of sexist, misogynistic, or harassing behavior to http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Wikipedia#Incidents. Kaldari (talk) 18:32, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I was just wondering how you all know the gender percentages of editors on wikipedia? I mean, many of us have gender neutral user names and most users don't go around identifying themselves as either male or female. Is there some study that was done to collect this data? Best.4meter4 (talk) 06:17, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Link to off Wikipedia Wikia page

This is a discussion of an off wikilink. Please read carefully before deciding to use it.

I've added a few notable incidents to the Geek Feminism wiki. If anyone knows of others, let me know. Kaldari (talk) 01:57, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Since I'm sure we don't check there regularly (is there a way to get notices?) Just want you to know I put up something that might get me in trouble related to my asking a COI question of an editor who edits mostly on S&M harassing the heck out of me. See here - [1] CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:02, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I reject the accusation of harassment completely. The "COI question" was trolling. These allegations are not true. Please go to Wikipedia:An/i#Off-wiki_harassment_by_User:Carolmooredc. Kenilworth Terrace (talk) 21:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

This is an appropriate place to again apologize to Kenilworth Terrance for taking my anger at other s' harassment of me out on her/him by making assumptions about editing behavior and making an attack based on it. Of course, even worse I linked to the Wikia page above which it turns out is an off wiki link. That got me good and blocked, at least temporarily. (FYI, I thought "trouble" would mean more harassment, not a block.) Happily User:Kenilworth Terrace has accepted my apology and I am thankful. I'm taking a little vacation now, but this is one issue I think needs addressing ASAP.

User:Kaldari has been very accommodating about my questioning of the Wikia page and I'm sure will be willing to discuss it further here. The issues are: a) why User:Kaldari's links from the Wikia subpage to various editors' allegedly sexist comments are OK? Especially in light of the on Feminism Project page he created that was AfD'd. b) Does the link to the page belong? c) If so, what are the very specific explanations, guidelines for posting and type of formatting of links to the page that we need? Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:42, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the most important consideration is that the Wikia page is only used for documenting bad behavior, not attacking the editors who are behaving badly. As such, no editor names are used in the incident descriptions and incidents are only added well after they have played out on Wikipedia, not while they are actively developing. Kaldari (talk) 01:29, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

So you are saying if someone noticed their edited linked there - even if a year old - they could not complain to WP:ANI about who ever posted it going off wiki and criticizing them? I believe you are wrong. If you want to take the chance, fine, but others should be warned to proceed at their own risk, as I have done in italicized intro to this subsection. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:50, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Since I was the one who pointed out the linkage there, I suppose I should also point out here that the Wikia page is currently the subject of discussion at the Reference Desk talk page. Franamax (talk) 04:41, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Good to see a constructive discussion. :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:58, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Need more relevant categories

I think one thing the discussion above showed is that we do need more and better categories that Sexism. If there are good ones we should know about, maybe they should be listed on the main page. [Later note, I see Category:Women's rights exists. But that doesn't cover everything sufficiently. Check it out]

Some [new ones] might be Category:Patriarchy or Category:Patriarchal practices or maybe Category:Male dominance. Thoughts? CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Create them and they'll be deleted. Guaranteed. Way too subjective to be of any value. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 04:14, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what the best category name is; just opening discussion. They all have many scholarly papers written about them in some form, not to mention books. And I'm sure lots of articles talk about them or need to but the relevant material has been overlooked. This is the Wikiproject for getting more feminist articles/insights into wikipedia, isn't it?; not the one for expunging it :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:18, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm just saying, before you create Category:Every bad thing men have ever done to women, you should probably have in mind the purpose of the category. How does it benefit users of the encyclopedia? I'm trying to assume good faith, but I wonder whether you're just looking for a black flag to put on articles about subjects you don't like. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 04:34, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

And I'm saying I'm opening this for discussion. Immediately having editors come along and knock the idea of finding a proper category name for these phenomena doesn't encourage others to engage in the discussion.

Fyi: Here is a list of articles with the term "Male dominance." Most of them have significant refs about that as a sociological phenomena - perhaps most don't even mention feminism at all. This is the search for patriarchy, though many references are to religious patriarchs, not the ideology described as patriarchy.

Wikipedia:Categorization#What_categories_should_be_created: Categories should be useful for readers to find and navigate sets of related articles. They should be the categories under which readers would most likely look if they were not sure of where to find an article on a given subject.
Wikipedia:Categorization#Categorizing_pages: ... Each article should be placed in all of the most specific categories to which it logically belongs. It should be clear from verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories. (Not clear how many references to a topic make it clear; for example if one paragaph, 2 references, is about rape of women as a tool of male dominance, is that sufficient for it to be in that category? Or does it need 2 paragraphs and 5 references??) CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:51, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The referencing requirements vary, but in this case none would be required. Because Category:Tools of male dominance would be deleted almost immediately. If, by some chance, it survived CfD, I imagine that the bar for placing an article in such a category would be pretty high: editors would probably require considerable discussion of the subject in the article before they'd agree to have the category added to an article. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 05:38, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Putting together CarolMooreDC's suggestion for categories on practices of a type, which I like (it avoids a BLP issue with the Sexism category and moderate subjectivity is allowed), and Malik Shabazz's experience with category deletions, a possible solution is to, in the patriarchy article, add patriarchal practices and link them, and optionally add a few words of explanation (which is not possible with categories); and do likewise in other articles.

Note that, in general, a linked-to article must support that what it is about is a patriarchal practice with appropriate sourcing or the linking article must do that. For example, the article on wife selling, which, at least in its English customary form, is patriarchal, may now lack sourcing supporting that it is a patriarchal practice (and some editors seem dubious that it is), so that sourcing will have to be added first and the article stabilized with it; or the sourcing will have to be added to the patriarchy article.

It'll probably be a little less contentious if you can pretty much complete the research rather than send possibilities of journal articles that might be worth citing, since it's hard for people to evaluate possibilities fairly if they think they've already done the research and didn't see anything matching the proposed conclusions and they don't have the new research in front of them. It may still be contentious, but at least you'll be discussing what people can see: your write-up of the source/s and the citation/s.

Nick Levinson (talk) 05:50, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for constructive tips, Nick. Will continue waiting for other feedback as look for any other relevant existing categories and how they are organized and think about other categories that might be more appropriate. Re: Talk Page Wife Selling (english custom) I was more making the point that material on patriarchal/sexist aspect had been overlooked. But it's not a high enough priority for me to search out the universe of material not findable on google that would allow a paragraph on the topic, not to mention add some relevant see alsos. Sometimes one must control the urge to edit. I do it more than otherwise, in fact. :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 13:04, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd like some categories created:

Women's organizations

..............with sub-categories:

- Women's rights organizations
- Women's athletic organizations
- Women's charitable organizations
- Women's professional organizations
- Women's parenting organizations
- Women's educational organizations

Do I request this, or do I just go ahead and create them? (And if so, how would I do that?) OttawaAC (talk) 19:23, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Bias/bigotry categories discussion

I've been concerned about the issues of alleged bigots (antisemites, racists especially) being allowed to be categorized into those categories, but others like homophobia not. And I don't think anyone's tried to put people in category sexism but I think we know what would happen. In fact in Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_February_9#Bias_categories which is mean to spur debate on the issue of having a consistent policy, I responded re: use of Category:Sexism, rather like respondent before me: And he'd support adding about 2,000 male biographies to sexism too? (Over time lots of sexists not yet identified thusly yet could be added. I've got about 25 in mind off top of my head.) What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I think a lot of women would be really ticked if one kind of bigotry category was added to some pages but a bunch of guys flocked to category sexism to demand it not be allowed to be added to well known sexists ala sufficient numbers of WP:RS. It might get (more) national media attention. :-) Yup, I drank too much coffee this am. Anyway, feel free to opine if it's a concern of yours. CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Fyi, while a lot of people wanted a unified policy excluding individuals and to a less extent organizations/media, I also remembered a recent similar discussion on WP:BLP talk were a proposal like that got shot down, mostly by people who enthusiastically populate one category with individuals and group. If you can't beat em, join em. So that's why I now feel positive about adding sexism category, especially of course to to organizations and practices. CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:40, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Category Misogyny

Looking into this I gotta say I found it baffling that Category:Misogyny only has 1 entry, the article for Misogyny. Category:Misandry meanwhile has 8 entries. Siawase (talk) 13:52, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, should the difference (which I don't have energy to look up in relevant articles right now) be specified on the category page and then maybe someone could go through and recategorize a few Sexism ones that belong in Misogyny. Also, there's the fun of searching "misogyny" and "misogynist" with the search engine and adding the category to articles where appropriate. In fact, we probably need a systematic study of any other relevant categories that might exist. CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:40, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Image discussion (NSFW)

There is an image discussion on the talk page of Creampie (sexual act). Input welcome. --JN 466 13:37, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

WP Feminism in the Signpost

"WikiProject Report" would like to focus on WikiProject Feminism for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 20:15, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Two of us so far. Project members, please chime in!! CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:34, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Still just two of us have commented. go for it! CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:57, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

A-yup. I was just waiting for you all to post so that I didn't have to do much original thinking. :) --Danger (talk) 06:20, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

The article is up. I didn't realize they'd quote us verbatim! Check it out. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:05, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Gender issues noticeboard?

A proposal for a women's issues / gender issues noticeboard is being discussed on the Gendergap list. Is there a need for such a thing? Would it work, or would it be counterproductive? Views welcome. --JN 466 21:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Not necessary. Period. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 22:12, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Will there also be a men's issue noticeboard? Malleus Fatuorum 22:54, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes. The men's issues noticeboard will be created when only 13% of Wikipedia editors are men. At that point, we will also have a flying pig's noticeboard.

~~Although he was probably not intending to be helpful,~~ Malleus has illustrated why I think that a noticeboard is a terrible idea. There's already enough pushback against the idea that increasing women's participation in Wikipedia is necessary or even a good thing. Actually calling out or warning users making sexist slurs? Or openly and actively dealing with systemic bias in deletion and notability and framing that in terms of gender? That's just going to create a real backlash, rather than pushback. Danger (talk) 03:42, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Apologies, apologies, I should not have let myself get out of control. Must emulate the Weeble. Danger (talk) 04:08, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

True; a women's issues noticeboard where 87% of posters are male is a frightening prospect indeed. Then again, if African-Americans had thought that way, they'd still be sitting at the back of the bus today. YMMV. --JN 466 04:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd be very interested to see exactly what these issues are here on wikipedia that only affect women and not men. And I'm also curious as to why the NYT's estimate of 13% female participation is so uncritically accepted. I'd say that about half of the editors I regularly work with are female, and many others don't specify a gender in their preferences. Malleus Fatuorum 04:42, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not in favor of another noticeboard, but maybe I'm missing the point. What need would the proposed noticeboard serve that the existing forums don't satisfy? It seems to me the last thing we need, if we want to encourage new editors of any gender, is to invite them to participate in another one of Wikipedia's drama-fests. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 04:56, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I imagine it would be something similar to Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts, but where people actually responded to complaints instead of just making fun of the victims. Kaldari (talk) 05:20, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Until "the community" develops a consensus that civility blocks are okay, WQA (and anything similar) will continue to be a joke. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 05:38, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I know we have a lot of high-powered female editors who are highly respected, write FAs, hold positions of responsibility here, and are doing absolutely fine. At the same time, as Gimme Danger indicates, we have double standards when it comes to notability; we do get sexist slurs that the community does not always reliably deal with; and on issues touching on gender, women's opinions are often shouted down. This affects novice editors more than those who have toughed it out and learned the ropes; contributors to controversial B-class articles more than FA writers; and anecdotal evidence suggests it affects novice female editors creating new articles more than their male counterparts. The idea of a noticeboard would be to have a place where people knowledgeable about such systemic issues can look at them and correct any bias that has crept into our process. If we did this, it would be quite a mainstream thing to do; most democracies have governance structures set up to look at such issues. The 13% figure comes from a pretty reputable study, which is at http://www.wikipediastudy.org/ --JN 466 05:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

That sounds great in theory, but what makes you think that a new noticeboard will be free from the problems that plague the existing noticeboards? — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 05:38, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd firmly expect it to be plagued by the same problems, at least in the beginning. The two most likely outcomes I can see is that they would either overwhelm it, in which case the board would die, or that it would eventually be accepted as a valuable part of the project, in which case things would have changed. --JN 466 06:15, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I was ambivalent until I saw the first two responses, which highlighted the need. Democracies protect minorities against those majorities that otherwise are consistently exclusionary; simple majorities tend to be fine when most people win some and lose some, but when the same people repeatedly constitute a majority one needs to look at why the same people tend to be on the losing side: sometimes it's justified, sometimes not. When not, minority rights need to be defined and protected. It may be that the rights should be temporary so that they end when people will win some and lose some, but until then appropriate minorities need protection for the benefit, not just of the individuals in the minority, but of the larger readership and thus of the editors, admins, et al. who serve the readers.

I agree with the criticism that the system would often fail to achieve its purpose, maybe usually so. I think quite a few editors simply game the system and disregard policies, and I've often decided not to invoke established conflict-resolution procedures because I didn't want to devote hours to yet another likely-futile effort.

Blocking from editing Wikipedia may not be the only sanction. I wonder if another could be requiring that an editor get out of a particular article or talk topic and another editor be randomly chosen to replace the one lifted.

And to editors who said "Not necessary. Period." or who seemed to suggest that men equally face the same problems women do, please propose better remedies. There is a problem. Please address it with redress.

Nick Levinson (talk) 09:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Women's Cafe idea

As I opined on the "Gender Gap" List, the noticeboard IS too combative and won't have much positive effect *at this point. Even the feedback here on a defacto Feminism list lately has not been too supportive of feminist perspectives, so even though at least it has gotten a few of us to work on some common goals. "Just imagine a noticeboard where even more males would be watching" what the a tiny minority of women might post they are unhappy about.

My alternate suggestion is something like a WIKIPROJECT:WOMEN'S CAFE as an education, social and support area, one which could have a section on articles of interest, in addition to wikiproject feminism. If it was too newbie or touchy-feely for some guys, so be it. Of course, the real solution is flooding wikipedia with thousands of 60 something educated semi and retired women (uppity who don't give a damn about what men think??) with just enough computer skills - (thousands of CarolmooreDcs??) :-) And even enough money to help keep the servers running. If I had the money, I'd run the monthly AARP magazine advert myself. CarolMooreDC (talk) 11:09, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Believe it or not I think that wikipedia would benefit greatly from a flood of 60 something educated semi and retired women. Just as it would from a similar flood of men. Malleus Fatuorum 13:42, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I am promoting both, but I think that's the demographic more women would come from just because they aren't overly busy with work/kids/relationships/housework/etc. (Except elder care, of course, of spouses/parents.) CarolMooreDC (talk) 13:45, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

At least for the present, and at least in the UK, women retire earlier than men (60 vs. 65), so it's probably a good seam to mine. Malleus Fatuorum 13:54, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, the editor who cooly wrote "Not necessary. Period." is in fact a woman. A woman who, until the media picked up the story and ran with it, did not know or care whether Wikipedia has more men than women. I simply don't see the need for another noticeboard. At all. Ever. I think there's quite a lot of good that could be done with this project - in fact I can think of long lists of articles that can be developed or written, but the kneejerk reaction that we need a noticeboard is not something that jumps to mind immediately. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 19:33, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

That ("did not ... care") means you and I disagree on whether women participating matters. Women and men tend to have different experiences of the world and thus may offer different content and responses into Wikipedia, and frequently do in other media. Writing articles is a great idea, but if what interests women tends to get deleted more often than what interests men, the double standard skews what is offered to readers of either gender. That matters.

Shooting down proposed remedies favors men. If a certain remedy is a bad idea, and maybe that's the case with this noticeboard proposal, proposals for other remedies are welcome.

The Women's Cafe idea may be good. It will likely need an exemption from the ban on canvassing, because posting nonneutrally about a deletion discussion would be a sensible thing to do at the Cafe but would likely violate the ban on canvassing. I haven't checked whether that ban also applies to noticeboard pendencies, but, if it does and if no exemption is carved out, the Cafe will get much less use, probably limited to friendly introductions to Wikipedia process when difficulties arise but without referencing specific disputes, thus limiting usefulness.

Nick Levinson (talk) 02:28, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Women participating matters. Building content matters, as well. The did not know, did not care comment is a result of my experience here. I simply have not been aware that this is a snakepit of patriarchal sexism. I have on my watchlist many pages of women editors, as well as men editors. Most of the editors (whether male or female) with whom I interact I've found to be helpful, collegial and supportive. So, I guess, my point is that I haven't found a problem here, as a female editor. Bottom line is that we're building content for this encyclopedia which involves researching and writing. To suggest that women need special treatment to do so, I find particularly patronizing. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:05, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

As a woman editor here for five years, I'm so glad you said that. I too find the suggestion particularly patronizing. I'd also like some data to back up the suggestion that "what interests women tends to get deleted more often than what interests men" and if that indeed is the case (which I very much doubt) what proportion of those articles were deleted despite clearly conforming to Wikipedia's notability and verifiability criteria and its copyright policy. Voceditenore (talk) 13:41, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

And as a woman who has written a lot in controversial articles where I've gotten lots of double standard flack, I'm against it as a potential "flack attractor," as opposed to a needed and more supportive wikiproject. But we all have same conclusion - not a good idea. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:52, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

From what I have seen, it's not that "female" articles get "deleted despite clearly conforming to Wikipedia's notability and verifiability criteria and its copyright policy," it's that "male" articles get kept despite not conforming. Siawase (talk) 17:43, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Cany you put some flesh on those bones? What kinds of articles would you call "male" or "female"? Malleus Fatuorum 19:34, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I have posted about this at length before and I don't have time to reiterate it in an apropos manner right now, but here are some of my earlier posts about this:[2][3][4] But the gist of the answer to your question is that I spend a lot of time editing toy articles and related kids culture like cartoons, which are often very clearly targeted/marketed to one gender. Siawase (talk) 20:11, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

In what way are those kinds of articles "clearly targeted/marketed to one gender"? I've also worked on cartoon articles, notably Roy of the Rovers, and I've started a number of articles on girls' comics. So what's the problem here? Malleus Fatuorum 03:35, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I was saying the toys are clearly marketed to one gender, not that the Wikipedia articles are. From your tone I get the impression that you don't think any sort of systemic solutions would be helpful here (please correct me if I'm wrong) but just to clarify my postion, my hypothetical suggestion would be to prioritize the quality and quantity issues with the "male" toy articles, not to, for example, create separate articles for every Bratz and My Little Pony character to outweigh the sprawl of Category:Transformers characters and Category:G.I. Joe characters. Siawase (talk) 12:32, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

"Systemic solution" to what problem? I've yet to see any evidence of one. Malleus Fatuorum 13:19, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Did you read the diffs I posted above of my previous comments? Siawase (talk) 14:40, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Malleus Fatuorum 18:06, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok. Siawase (talk) 18:34, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I want to make 2 points here.

This proposal is not helpful because we already protect everyone from all types of ad hominem - making women a 'special case' will IMHO reinforce sexist attitudes and unfortunately encourage sexist behaviour (WP:BEANS).
This is the wrong place to bring such a discussion (see WP:CONLIMITED). This wikiproject is just for the discussion of improvements to articles in the feminism - this is not a collective of feminists on wikipedia.

Such debates should happen on meta (as they are already) or at the village pump.--Cailil ^talk 03:08, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

FYI. This issue was put here: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Gender_issues Where people recommended it go to village pump. If it does could anyone who watches that post link here? Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:02, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Four subtopics are infusing this topic. Separating them will help us focus. These continue the above.

forum for discussion

No existing policy or guideline is being rejected. It is permissible under WP:CONLIMITED for a WikiProject to "convince the broader community that ... [an] action [to "decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope"] is right", and it is therefore appropriate to discuss that first within the WikiProject. And we're not, I think, seeking to make a policy or guideline inapplicable other than to add an option and adapt policies and guidelines to a solution that retains more women as editors.

Adding to Meta and going to Village Pump may be apropos later, if this WikiProject develops a consensus of what to suggest.

If people on the WikiProject page are disagreeing on whether sexism even exists in Wikipedia, the disagreement will likely be even more severe in the other fora. Those of us who agree on the problem can at least focus on a solution without as much noise.

Nick Levinson (talk) 04:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm hoping no one takes it to Village pump, for reasons you stated; but we should know if they do. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

It's a good idea to discuss this here first, and then decide whether a village pump proposal should in fact be made. --JN 466 14:44, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Editor Cailil has posted the following: "Since ... [Esperanza's] time the position wrt balancing WP:NOT & outreach proposals has hardened - anything that looks like Esperanza (even some of its better apects) will not fly. That's why this IS a Meta-Wiki issue - it's bigger than English wikipedia, and in fact bigger than attitudes to women on EnWP. Any plans/proposals need discussion at the level of the foundation & global volunteer community (where there are resources and spaces for this work) ... 03:11, 27 February 2011 (UTC)" and "If a 'working-group' for promoting diversity in the user-base was established at the Meta-Wiki (after the discussion there about the gender-gap has closed) this wikiproject could link to it (as would others) and as would noticeboards like AN and policies like AGF but beyond that I'm afraid I don't think we can actually do anything on wikipedia ... 03:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)"

My response: The Foundation's Executive Director has expressed an interest in solutions as a priority over being told that there's a problem. She agrees there's a problem. I don't think she has forbidden projects from discussing within themselves what solutions they think would be good, bad, or other. Insofar as projects have different editor communities, it may be wiser to rely on having ideas percolate upward. It would also be more efficient, because if most editors across all of the projects combined are male (not an unreasonable assumption) and if most of them think gender discrimination is minor, historical, irrelevant, or justified (that seems to be the thinking outside of Wikimedia), then each user bringing an idea directly to the Meta level first with no prior discussion almost guarantees that they'll be shot down as unnecessary and there won't be an inch of progress, and then only the California office will be able to develop anything, which, while they're smart, experienced, and dedicated, is inefficient and insufficient. Between 91,000 editors on English Wikipedia or whatever the number is, we ought to be able to think of something and say it.

Nick Levinson (talk) 05:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I gather that, of the Foundation's projects, the English and German Wikipedias have by far the largest editor communities and, I guess, if proportionate, admin communities. So, these two WPs could be the best positioned to design a program to be run under Foundation's aegis, unless a third or others have been particularly active with internal discussions. People from all projects could constitute the people who run many of these efforts for meta.wikimedia, supplementing on a large scale the people from the Foundation's management. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:47, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

whether sexism is significant in Wikipedia

One concession: Sexism here is probably not worse than in society at large. It's just not better, either.

Editors who leave are hardly monitored via talk pages, which get updated much less often, if at all. The 13 percent (give or take) refers to the lack of women, not their lesser activity per woman. Lesser activity probably applies, too, but I don't think I've seen that figure.

On deletions: We can't canvass including for others and I don't have statistics, but I have noticed that many porn models who appear in one well-known magazine for one month are considered notable, while a feminist topic with eight sources was challenged as nonnotable and irreparably nonneutral (ignoring that neutrality is for the subject's write-up and not the subject itself) and tag-bombing was applied. The article survived. Another feminist article was challenged for alleged lack of sourcing but not the criticisms in the same article, although the criticisms were then absolutely lacking sourcing (since corrected but not because anyone suggested anything about the criticisms). Unreasonable challenges occupy time, hours of it re-researching and restating what's already known. I was tempted to nominate the porn model articles for deletion except for those who had achieved something else as well, but wasn't sure I should and saw that someone tried that en masse and failed.

Maybe someone can say whether ad hominem attacks have virtually stopped. Irrelevant and groundless charges are made and persist despite corrective efforts and they can, in my opinion, be just as damaging. Existing protective systems seem to have been gamed by editors who don't care.

If Wikipedia articles have very little showing that sexism is widespread in the world, that helps illustrate the problem. If it does show that for the world, it's no less widespread in Wikipedia.

Nick Levinson (talk) 04:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

It's best to compare it to on the internet, where it actually isn't quite as bad only because editors know they can get blocked for really serious slurs, attacks, nasty graphics, etc. that one sees on the internet. In general, the internet does tend to bring out hostility more quickly than in person relations, and I think that's also true on Wikipedia. And it's still enough to discourage many but those who luck out in noncontroversial topics or are themselves fairly aggressive (like me) from editing. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:55, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Obviously ad hominem attacks still go on here. But is this relevant because the chance of receiving one is greater simply because you are a woman? Or is it that the attackers them dish them out quite even-handedly, but women are more easily deterred from editing because of it? I'd say no to the first—I don't think your chances are greater of receiving such an attack simply because you are a woman or thought to be one. In one instance I was attacked for being man who was clearly betraying my sex. ;-) A possible yes to the second, or it may deter them from editing in controversial areas. But it deters a lot of men from editing in those areas too. Voceditenore (talk) 15:02, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Assume good faith that women who complain about double standards (being dissed or accused of being aggressive or other nasty things for doing far less provacative things than males are not just making it up. Just like we assume you are being truthful when you say you were being attacked for betraying your sex. Yes, women may ALSO be oversensitive to the same kinds of attacks that men get, but maybe the problem is with the culture of making such attacks, not with the human sensitivity to them. CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:05, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Um... I am a woman and he thought I was a "feminized man" betraying my "fellow men" and attacked me for it. Oh the irony of it all. Also I'm not saying that women are making it up. I was just saying that in my experience as a woman here over the last five years, I haven't seen ad hominem attacks directed at women per se, nor have I ever been attacked in that way. But maybe I don't hang out in the right places.;-) The only controversial places I participate in are AfDs. Likewise, I don't think people who dislike ad hominem attacks and avoid situations where they are likely to arise are being "over-sensitive". I'd say they're being sensible. Again that goes for both men and women. But yes I agree, if attack culture is perceived as a problem, it ought to be tackled across the board. Civil discourse should be the goal for everybody. Voceditenore (talk) 17:30, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

See [5] for the tip of the iceberg, or just put Carol's talk page on your watchlist. Kaldari (talk) 17:45, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Well those diffs are pretty dated, with the exception of one from 2010 by an editor who makes bad jokes about everything. My experience mirrors Voceditenore's. Editors who don't know me often think I'm a man and can often be fairly combative. Editors who do know me are without a doubt nice. I've seen male editors attacked ruthlessly on talk pages - something I've never experienced. But maybe I'm hanging out in the wrong places. Who knows. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 20:21, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Even if experienced editors are combative to both genders equally, if the result is that women more than men conclude that they needn't bother being inside Wikipedia, more women than men leave. Some of the negative attitudes are probably due to brevity, speed, and impatience with common occurrences and likely not personal, but they come across as personally hostile. For new editors to use procedures to get editors to reconsider is asking a lot from newbies who haven't decided to stay, probably asking too much since we want newbies to stay. That's true of many websites, not just Wikimedia's. The effect alone may be sexist. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:26, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Discussions on the Gendergap list bore this out. --JN 466 14:53, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

There's no doubt different women have different experiences depending on what articles they edit, if they are perceived as a woman, if they are perceived as an "overly assertive" women, and just plain serendipity. Similarly some women are more sensitive to combativeness than others. When provoked, I can go into a good knock down drag out myself, but since I notice that it's not tolerated when I punch as hard as guys do, I'm quite aware of the double standard on that. Therefore I do pull my punches. More importantly, like most women brought up to be "nice girls," I'd prefer things be more civil and I think civility will both bring more women in and increase even further civility. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:00, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

whether redress is worth doing

It's not patronizing when solutions are voluntary. Mentoring is voluntary and would become patronizing if we were forced to be mentored. If some editors are competitive and want to defeat other editors, then sexism is one of their tools of choice, but we can oppose that option. Not every woman has to use the solutions we develop in order for Wikipedia to gain more good content or raise content quality.

I don't think we need to worry about whether a solution will lead some people to add to the problem because they decided to by reverse-engineering the solution. The 13 percent suggests they won't get much more inspiration from us anyway.

Some men certainly help. The 13 percent suggests more help is in order.

Nick Levinson (talk) 04:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

redress proposals

We already agreed that the noticeboard probably wouldn't be good. Unless someone wants the noticeboard, let's stop that discussion and let's discuss what's open. That's the Cafe, among other possibilities. Please address those. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Cafe Idea. Here's what I wrote on Women's list, plus some additions. I assume it technically would have to be a Wikiproject; probably will have more ideas after read the Wikipedia Women facebook page which has lots of contributors, all women. [Later note: as I said else where, it would be open to men, but those invalidating the purpose of the project probably would not feel too comfortable.]In fact can pass this by them, after get any opinions here:

Quick help box like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Feminism
List of relevant articles about women in wikipedia, including some gender gap ones, so they can understand context. (See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_Gap)
And Editors assistance feature, including when women are having problems they feel may be more gender related (double standards, extra hostility, ganging up)
Links to training videos that show women how to edit on wikipedia and quickly deal with issues.
An "Is there bias here?" type list articles where women would like uninvolved editors' (especially womens') opinion on bias vs either the subject or the woman editor's edits.
An "Articles of interest" box/page to list articles that whose subject women might be more interested in .

CarolMooreDC (talk) 05:02, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

For any matter being contested elsewhere partly because of sexism (explicitly or not), the Cafe will likely need an exemption from the ban on canvassing, because posting nonneutrally about anything subject to the ban would be a sensible thing to do at the Cafe but would likely violate the ban. If no exemption is carved out, the Cafe will get much less use.

Nick Levinson (talk) 06:43, 25 February 2011 (UTC) (Also, I corrected the first URL in CarolMooreDC's post and I hope she (you) doesn't mind.)

The ban on canvassing -Wikipedia:Canvassing - doesn't apply to posting things to wikiprojects, thought one is supposed to use neutral language. Of course, sometimes people don't, and need reminding (including me), but even another project page I help moderate (which has people on both sides of a hot nationalistic issue) seems to keep language fairly non-neutral so there haven't been complaints about canvassing per se. So it's a matter of making sure talk page guidelines make it clear to posters how to phrase calls for help so we're all reminded. (I need a monthly reminder myself :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:17, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

But that leaves a dilemma: whether to locate the URL neutrally or describe what's wrong without saying where. An exemption would allow saying both at once. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:35, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

This is a dicey issue. On the one hand, for the Café to fulfil its function of providing social support, it should be okay to let off steam there about an on-wiki issue. On the other hand, if a non-neutral post at the café about an on-wiki issue results in editors from the café appearing en masse at the relevant talk page to take the original poster's side, this will lay you open to charges of canvassing. Even the Café -- if you decide to create one -- should have a strictly enforced policy that any original post first drawing attention to an on-wiki issue should be scrupulously neutral. Any subsequent discussion in response to that initial post however would not be bound by WP:Canvassing. It would still be bound by WP:NPA though. Any editor in the Café who is lulled by sympathetic comments into a feeling that they are among friends, and who lets their guard down to the extent that they really say how they feel about another editor, and what kind of person that editor is in their eyes, thereby becomes vulnerable to sanctions. The fact is that you cannot make an unguarded comment about another editor anywhere on Wikipedia. This is in many ways a sad fact, because it is part of human nature that it's often helpful to get things out of your system, and have someone listen and support you. But an on-wiki café would always be fundamentally different from a real-life one in that words spoken in anger or despair in a real-life café are heard only by those present at whom they are directed, and they disappear into thin air, without trace, as soon as they are uttered. Anything typed on Wikipedia however is and remains visible to anyone forever. So while the person who wrote something personal about another editor may well have needed to say that, to be able to move past that and gain perspective on how they should handle the situation, if it falls foul of the letter of NPA policy, it can still be brought up to get the editor blocked a day later. --JN 466 15:38, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I think Carol has put together a useful list of features such a WikiProject could and should have. --JN 466 15:51, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

It's a good set. On an exemption for canvassing, if that's a bad idea (and the policy against canvassing has good reasoning), we should keep in mind as a caution that the ban applies to third-party editors, too. At least while a matter is pending, we can't give both the URL and a nonneutral assertion about it even if we're not a directly involved editor. Nick Levinson (talk) 18:06, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I just want to make sure that we aren't envisioning a standard that's "higher" than other projects. Do other projects posting guidelines specify how to write? I know I've see lots of less than neutral things posted without any big complaints - though I've somehow gotten the clue that very POV comments are unacceptable. Look at the 3 projects in the Israel-Palestine issue where you theoretically might have some editors who literally would like to see the others and all their friends and relatives dead. If they can control their POVs in posting problematic articles, I'm sure women can too :-)

For example I think the following would be acceptable: a) link to an article where there is not yet a specific talk page discussion and write "I think there are some real POV and WP:RS issues related to the allegation that Ms. Tolstoy poisoned Leo Tolstoy in 1910 if anyone wants to take a look." (one I might put on women's history!) b) link to specific talk page discussion and, depending on whether it makes clear there's a problem comment, i.e., "Hmmm, what is this??" if link clear or "Is this guy saying women aren't smart enough to do physics, or is that my imagination?"

More problematic are behavioral issues, of course, like a) Could someone take a look at this talk page where at these three diffs it is alleged I am editing too aggressively aby two editors who disagree with my take on WP:RS. Are they right? Please reply to my talk page. b) "I went to Wikiquette alerts here with my complaint about three comments which I think are extremely condescending to the point of being sexist and hostile; I was totally ignored except one guy who told me to "suck it up." Am I being oversensitive or what? Please reply at Wikiquette alerts." Are such things currently brought up at any existing wikiprojects? Let's do some research before imposing too strict a standard. If not, then perhaps it could be a separate report page where it is made very clear that all reports should be neutral and discussions directed as appropriate - though sometimes that would be that report page. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:32, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Carol - sometimes it's better to go straight to an admin with problems rather than WQA (there's no vetting of who responds and of their interpretation of policy at WQA). While I think the first half (the article subject / topic issues) of your suggestions are fine for project posts - the latter half (the behavioural ones) are not. Let me explain, if an English editor goes to wikiproject:English and says they're being attacked for being English - they are making a personal call for help based on an identity group. That is very likely to be seen by a majority of ppl as canvassing. Wikiprojects just are not support groups. Wikipedia is not a battleground and that kind of posting (and yes I know it happens - but it) is always inappropriate becuase it promotes (and to be honest looks for) an 'us and them' attitude which is contrary to WP:5--Cailil ^talk 11:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

On a side note - please leave me a note if you are in fact experiencing such issues. I am after all one of the few admins know for (and infamous for) taking WP:CIVIL very seriously--Cailil ^talk 11:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I can see the canvassing issue related to behavioral issues. How about a list of admins more likely to be sympathetic to women attacked either explicitly as females, or in a fairly obvious double standard way (more hostility; higher standards of editing; more condescension, etc.? I know even now I'm reluctant to approach admins male or female about these issues (before or after being ignored at Wikiequette or WP:ANI), never knowing what the reaction will be - and sometimes having bad reactions in the past. (Not to mention being attacked and insulted by a few admins, at least one of whom I reported to Wikiquette to no avail.) That would be fine with me. And I know some sort of lists have existed in past somewhere; didn't get much help from them when first tried and now have forgotten where the list is. CarolMooreDC (talk) 01:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

This sounds like a really good idea to me. BTW, Gimme_danger just got promoted to admin! Kaldari (talk) 03:02, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

What what? Ah, that's why my ears were burning. It's true, however I consider myself involved when it comes to sexism/feminism/women's issues so I'm afraid I can only provide moral support. --Danger (talk) 03:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Congrats. But advice from an experienced editor is usually all that's necessary to build confidence. By the way, I found the list of editors at Wikipedia:Editor_assistance but it's below the place where you open a new question, so if you don't read the TOC, it's not as obvious. Also I don't know if it is actively updated or not. CarolMooreDC (talk)

The individualist solution is good. However, if something about Wikipedia is discouraging new women from participating, then we also need systemic solutions that come earlier than after-the-fact remedies.

I suspect different projects already differ in how welcome women feel. Is there a way to gather reports on this and figure out what's different? Is it that the formal systems are identical but who happen to be the admins encountered makes the difference? Do the formal systems have significant differences?

Lists of sympathetic admins have utility but also problems we should anticipate: (1) It would lead to pressure on them not to be too one-sided, risking their permission to stay admins. (2) The reason for apparent non-self-declared sympathy may be unrelated, leading to expectations that are not fulfilled. (3) Any such list would be good for no more than perhaps six months, but would tend to float around and be used for much longer, leading to problems with the reputation of the remedy. But maybe, on balance, they're worth listing anyway.

What may work would be a self-declaration-based list that thus can be continually updated. One way to do that would be at all the WikiProjects; as they already list members who are editors, those who are admins could say so, either manually or automatically (probably manually would be better, to give admins a choice about why they're in a WikiProject's member list). That has a drawback, too: admins who think WikiProject-affined editors go too far and especially need to be reigned in could declare themselves for that list.

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "self-declaration-based list" - since that seems to be what all such lists are. But it should be "Editors willing to help," not just admins, and then whether or not they are an admin is not as important. But its all theoretical til a few people are willing to take on creating such a project. And that probably shouldn't be til there are a few more women, including on this page. Chicken or egg issues. CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:38, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Compare to Esperanza

I'm sorry but there will be massive and correct resistance to this due to the community's experience with WP:Esperanza (which began as a very well intentioned and on paper reasonable idea). Perhaps that was before your time but it has had a lasting impact on how we do 'community' on WP--Cailil ^talk 20:24, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

The possibly most authoritative statement on Esperanza's founding purpose is in the Signpost, from 2005. It was twice nominated for deletion; the second resulted in closing. What happened to its parts is listed in part and in a longer list.

The main objection to Esperanza seemed to be that users were in touch with each other more than with the rest of Wikipedia's users, especially because of a chat system and off-Wiki communications. If that's excluded from the Cafe and the Cafe renamed, is something like it then doable?

Whether the Cafe or the like survives or not, we need proposals. For one branch of solutions, in general, proposals that are about recruiting and that help retaining by precluding and smoothing problems before they arise don't require newbies to apply a remedial process after the fact. That's beneficial, because many people won't apply remedies, they'll simply leave because they have better things to do. What can we offer to assist before users have problems?

Nick Levinson (talk) 23:29, 26 February 2011 (UTC) (Deleted text that doesn't especially belong in this subsection and conformed other text editorially: 23:42, 26 February 2011 (UTC))

Nick the fallout from Esperanza was more complex. The project itself was closed becuase its work was percieved to be contrary to wikipedia's core goals of building an encyclopedia in a neutral and source based manner. It was about making friends and doing all sorts of other web 2.0 stuff, which although well inentioned is just not about being an encyclopedia. Esperanza being a group, degenerated into a sub-community with a hierarchy - a 'cabal' in WP-speak.
Since that time the position wrt balancing WP:NOT & outreach proposals has hardened - anything that looks like Esperanza (even some of its better apects) will not fly. That's why this IS a Meta-Wiki issue - it's bigger than English wikipedia, and in fact bigger than attitudes to women on EnWP. Any plans/proposals need discussion at the level of the foundation & global volunteer community (where there are resources and spaces for this work)--Cailil ^talk 03:11, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

If a "working-group" for promoting diversity in the user-base was established at the Meta-Wiki (after the discussion there about the gender-gap has closed) this wikiproject could link to it (as would others) and as would noticeboards like AN and policies like AGF but beyond that I'm afraid I don't think we can actually do anything on wikipedia--Cailil ^talk 03:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay, editors, please keep in mind that Esperanza-like proposals will likely be rejected. And that what we get consensus on here can't be implemented just here but has to be something that will work across at least the English Wikipedia and is portable to other Wikimedia projects, not limited to a WikiProject.

I read the Esperanza proposal and its too vague to figure out what it was about or what the objections were. I see the proposal as being basically a wikiproject feminism without the F word and with more educational aspects or a Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration style effort to encourage editors to deal with editing conflict and other issues. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Other issues

Two points by Cailil raise special concerns: Is all outreach forbidden? My impression is that ambassador/college program/s are intended by the Foundation as outreach and that the December fundraising banners implied outreach (e.g., profiles of editors from around the world). If the Foundation can do outreach but Wikipedia editors will forbid it, something's amiss. I hope that doesn't mean the future deleting of articles on the ground that they were written by people who were found through outreach rather than just happening to luck into Wikipedia. Does anyone know about outreach restrictions beyond the Esperanza result?

The other is whether English Wikipedia can do anything unless all of Wikimedia does. For some kinds of initiatives, that's true. And projects being in conflict with each other is probably not a good idea. But if different projects mostly have different editors, they may arrive at different priorities and therefore develop different programs. The N.Y. Times article was about Wikipedia and maybe only about English Wikipedia, so while it's a fair assumption that most projects have a substantial gender imbalance there may be an exception. A well-balanced project wouldn't need to do anything about it and should concentrate on everything else. But certainly English Wikipedia does have a problem and its editors, admins, et al. ought to be able to develop at least one solution and check to see if the Foundation concurs (or use standing authority) so at least English Wikipedia can go ahead with solving its problem, once there's consensus.

Let's keep thinking. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:26, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

This out reach issue has been discussed on the Gender Gap email list. Sue Gardner specifically encouraged letters to friends and email lists of women to get them to start editing and become familiar with Wiki Foundations out reach on women. Women telling other women they run into on wikipedia about the project would be find, just like it would be any other relevant wikiproject. As for which wikipedias should do it, obviously that can be decided on case by case basis, even as the foundation keeps promoting it, including at this page. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Carol I have to say I have a BIG problem with this (the idea of the cafe wikiproject feminism with the F word etc, for outreach to women) as a sysop. Bear in mind I am sympathetic to this but cannot support it. Basically you're suggesting a forum on English Wikipedia for a defined and exclusive group - that is not going to happen. I can see this causing rather than solving problems. You need to understand why I am saying this is a Meta-Wiki issue. Wikipedia is basically a library. English Wikipedia is one section of that. Wikiprojects in EnWP are like the To Do lists for the shelves in that section. Creating an agenda driven Wikiproject is not on. No matter how luadible.
Wikiproject feminism is not a feminist collective, or a women's group, it's a place to come to in order to discuss improvements to articles on the topic of feminism. That is all any wikiproject on a WP is allowed to be.
Look if this is done wrong it will lead to more women leaving WP than encouraging them to come to it. If a cabal is created - and that is how such a proposal will be seen - it will be shut down hard and fast. A women's working group on Meta-Wiki would be a different thing all together - being off EnWp and coming under the Aegis of the foundation it could do outreach, as well as research, advertising etc. A wikiproject on EnWP attempting to do same will draw increasing fire for meat-puppetry, cabalism and such drama will lead to a worse situation.
The core principles of wikipedia's editing policy a) need to be understood and b) need to be respected. Wikipedia is not biased in policy terms against women (in fact anecodtally I've met more female sysops by a multiple of 3 or 4 than I have ordinary female editors); indeed in policy WP is absolutely racially/gender/ethnically neutral and supports immediate sanction on attempting to out an editor's personal identity; it also provides for immediate sanction on anyone attacking/remarking/making assumptions based on one's identity. Wikipedia's structures aren't the problem per se it's an issue of:
a) patrol (admin's looking for these problems)
b) enforcement (policies already exist and sysops need to be given more directives to use them to correct abusive editors regardless of how personally offensive they find a remark)
c) encouragement (women need to be asked to volunteer in order to get women to come to WP).
A wikiproject on EnWP can't do that - a convention from the foundation as discussed and tested on Meta-Wiki can--Cailil ^talk 10:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

*Before I address your main points, I do want to say you have misinterpreted three things:

Wikiproject Women's cafe (or more likely "Wikiproject Women" to give it a more neutral name) would be totally separate from Wikiproject feminism (see details above);
it would not necessarily do outreach, except as individual women told other individual women about it, on or off wikipedia. The main outreach effort evidently is at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_Gap However I do note the existence of Wikipedia:WikiProject_LGBT_studies#Community_department which specifically promotes outreach and community building, and if they can do it, we can do it. If that is problematic to you, you should tell WikiProject_LGBT_studies so and say you have spoken out against it here also.
the feminism wikiproject is not for just any issue about women, but one's more directly about women's rights and feminism; that's why women's history was created. This would be an even wider project dealing with, say fashion, celebrities, BLPs of contemporary women who would not be of interest to either project, etc.

RE: " A women's working group on Meta-Wiki would be a different thing all together - being off EnWp and coming under the Aegis of the foundation it could do outreach, as well as research, advertising etc." A wikiproject on EnWP attempting to do same will draw increasing fire for meat-puppetry, cabalism and such drama will lead to a worse situation.
I think the main thing that you fear will bring drama is the behaviorial isse I see you address elsewhere, so will reply on that there. CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Outreach and brick-and-mortar parallels: In some institutions with in-crowds, like some bars, the owner/manager and the loyal regular customers often have opposing agendas for new customers: the owner wants them but the regulars don't want strangers breaking up what's familiar. If Wikipedia editors object to outreach, maybe that's why. I wonder if the objections are excessive or not and, if so, what to do about it. I wonder if large online social networks have similar conflicts. In other words, perhaps the objections are nothing unusual for any institution of the type and should be constrained if only to ensure general growth of Wikimedia. Thoughts? What are reasonable constraints either way?

Off-wiki fora: At least one off-wiki forum exists already; I imagine they're used mainly by experienced editors and those who have left. I suppose they can be restrained somewhat by sanctioning editors who participate, but I suspect that organized outreach into campuses already produces mini-cabals on campuses (one per campus, without intercampus) which is difficult to control through sanctions, because that would shoot the outreach in the feet while the Foundation is trying to build it. Are there implications here for our thinking?

Volunteerism language: Asking people to volunteer is bad phrasing even though it's precisely what we want and need. The word has baggage in implying not being paid what you're worth while others are. I've published off-wiki magazine/journal articles on volunteer management and I've volunteered a lot. I did a small-scale experiment at a political campaign, in which I phoned and asked people to volunteer and got a one-in-three acceptance rate and then switched to asking if they could help the campaign or the candidate or asking if they could offer a couple of hours during the week unpaid, at which point acceptance went up to half the people I asked, a fifty percent increase in success just by removing the v-word. My experiment was not scientific. I read of a museum that designed a larger volunteer program in which they carefully omitted the word. Training was replaced with seminars. The director had a different title. The museum reported that it worked there. Other places deal with the language by welcoming interns, activists, et al., and not using the dreaded v-word.

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:20, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

New Commons category: Feminist demonstrations

I've just created a new category on Commons: commons:Category:Feminist demonstrations. Wikipedians and Commons editors are invited to help populate it with relevant photographs and link it into relevant articles on feminism. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Individuals-organizations removed!

I gave up hope they would do it, but they did. See decision here. Well, that saves me a lot of work of putting certain PEOPLE in the categories where they belong, reasoning that what's good for the goose in some categories is good for the gander in Category:Sexism. :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:33, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Feminism and bias issue

An editor has been continually accusing me of having a feminist bias in all the discussions we are both involved in. I've notified them of AGF and I've filed a Wikiquette alert, but the editor hasn't seemed to have stopped. Honestly it's been really wearing me down, so I was hoping someone here could give me some advice. --Aronoel (talk) 18:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Three points of advice (since I had to deal with a very similar situation at patriarchy):

Get other editors involved. This may be difficult and may require lots of patience and persistence, but it's usually the best way to solve these problems.
Keep an off-wiki log of problematic behavior by the other user, especially behavior in violation of policy. Hopefully you won't need to use it, but if the dispute gets out of hand, you'll need to be able to present evidence, not just vague claims.
Whatever happens, keep your cool! As soon as you start acting out of frustration, you've lost the dispute. Try to kill them with kindness and keep seeking to build consensus, even if the other party is acting unilaterally. If things get heated, step away from the article for a day or two. Keep your eye on the long-term quality of the article, not the instant gratification of a few reverts.

Kaldari (talk) 19:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

This makes a lot of sense, thanks so much for your advice. --Aronoel (talk) 19:34, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

hoping for a feminist science overview article

An article on feminist science is not present. The Feminism article has a section on the subject. Several articles exist on specific feminist sciences. But there's no bringing-together of the range of feminist science. I noticed this after someone complained that feminist science is a philosophy and not a science, and that is not the case; and perhaps that point in particular should be addressed in an article. Is anyone interested in (and does anyone have the time for) writing on feminist science generally? Nick Levinson (talk) 07:30, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

That's because there is no such thing as "feminist science" anymore than there's a such thing as "capitalist science" or "socialist science". On the other hand, there are certainly feminist philosophies of science and feminist science studies. Its certainly a big enough subject that if someone wants to make a breakout Feminism and science article that expands beyond what's already in the Feminism article, they can and should go for it. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 07:55, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

There is feminist science. A feminist who is a scientist who applies feminism to produce new scientific discoveries through science is a feminist scientist practicing feminist science. Feminism can be applied to science by including women as scientists and as subjects, by testing hypotheses developed by women as readily as those by men, by developing methodologies that test what had been earlier deemed untestable because it was relevant to women (e.g., that which is subjective), by developing experiment ethics that reflect women's more frequent concerns for relationships, by gathering women's data as readily as men's, and by facilitating, financing, refereeing, and publishing women's studies as are men's, all without double standards. These may also incur the development of new philosophies of science without making the relevant science any less feminist. A result being valid as science regardless of feminism does not make it any less feminist science. What may be particularly confusing may be cooptation by nonfeminists or by people who seek to emphasize objectivity by removing feminist claims, but that doesn't make feminist science any less feminist when performed. It can be contrasted with masculist science, which some feminists would contend was already widely practiced, although that term might not have been in much use (I haven't checked). Whether there is capitalist or socialist science is something I haven't checked, but I suspect some sources would contend there is, albeit probably as a way of criticizing it. There is Egyptology, essentially archaeology performed in Egypt. There are military science and library science, and those fields probably have a few valid scientific studies in them, but I suspect the majority of what is studied in those fields is not science. Feminist science is on far surer footing. One editor found many books on feminist science through Google (Talk topic, 2d post). As the denial of feminist science has traction, it probably should be sourced as a criticism, and probably can be.

Feminism and science is an even wider scope and no less interesting. It could include, for example, girls' education in early elementary school when they are taught by female teachers who weren't very good in math and science as children themselves and later reproduce that deprioritization of science in their girl students. It could include different distributions of genders in various branches of science. I'm not sure what's meant by feminist science studies as distinct.

Choosing between the titles, feminist science and feminism and science, is probably not necessary. I think both scopes are notable.

Nick Levinson (talk) 09:51, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

A perfect example from my perspective is the trouble that even male scientists like Alexander Chizhevsky and Edward R. Dewey (most prominently) have had in getting the scientific community to take seriously the idea that solar variation during the minimums and maximums of the sunspot cycle affect human behavior, increasing human excitability. (Even though they will admit Geomagnetic storms from solar flares can knock out satellites and even big electrical generators.)

The massive protests and revolutions of 1968, 1979, 1989, 2000, 2011 - in the year leading up to the solar maximum? JUST COINCIDENCE. The fact that most major revolutions since sunspots first tracked in 1700s during those periods? Meaningless, not statistically relevant. blah blah. Read: We science/political/military/revolutionary guys aren't emotionally motivated by mere massive increases in negative ionization due to increased sunspot activity. We control our own destiny!!) I feel much better about all the insults I've taken from guys about this since first read of the phenomena in the 1970s and started tracking it in my own experience in political activist groups.

I'm working on beefing up my personal web page article on the topic and will see how much energy I have for fighting with Wikipedia's science guys (i.e., over adding a small section in solar variation article) after I get my WP:RS lined up. (Revisiting some of my old personal articles is now just embarrassing after a few years on Wikipedia. Talk about WP:OR!! :-)

Reminds me of Nightlighting (menstrual cycle) - the idea that the moon can affect menstrual cycles. Kaldari (talk) 18:19, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

At least Biorhythm survived, even if labeled "pseudoscientific theory." Wonder if it's been updated with any later findings. It's made my physical ups and downs much easier to deal with; plus I know what days to avoid root canals, if I can help it :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:40, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Citation templates now support more identifiers

Recent changes were made to citations templates (such as {{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}...). In addition to what was previously supported (bibcode, doi, jstor, isbn, ...), templates now support arXiv, ASIN, JFM, LCCN, MR, OL, OSTI, RFC, SSRN and Zbl. Before, you needed to place |id={{arxiv|0123.4567}} (or worse |url=http://arxiv.org/abs/0123.4567), now you can simply use |arxiv=0123.4567, likewise for |id={{JSTOR|0123456789}} and |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/0123456789 → |jstor=0123456789.

The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):

{{cite journal |author=John Smith |year=2000 |title=How to Put Things into Other Things |journal=Journal of Foobar |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=3–4 |arxiv=0123456789 |asin=0123456789 |bibcode=0123456789 |doi=0123456789 |jfm=0123456789 |jstor=0123456789 |lccn=0123456789 |isbn=0123456789 |issn=0123456789 |mr=0123456789 |oclc=0123456789 |ol=0123456789 |osti=0123456789 |rfc=0123456789 |pmc=0123456789 |pmid=0123456789 |ssrn=0123456789 |zbl=0123456789 |id={{para|id|____}} }}

Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:49, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Filipino/Filipina writers

Today being International Women's Day, there is a discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_March_7#Category:Filipina_poets concerning the naming of categories for people from the Philippines. Input welcome, --JN 466 03:19, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Ack, what a dilemma. Do you segregate all the categories by gender or use the "gender-neutral" male adjective. Both options seem terrible. Whoever invented gendered adjectives should be shot. Kaldari (talk) 18:23, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thinking about how I've heard individuals that I know referred to by their families, I think Filipino is the adjective used even for women in the singular (eg, my aunt is Filipino). Whether this is a good thing or not is debatable, but at least it makes this case much less complicated. --Danger (talk) 21:40, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems that's common among expat Philippine women, but not so in the Philippines, where Filipina is preferred. My idea was to use "Philippine" as the adjective for the categories, as that is gender-neutral, but that seemed to clash with the Philippine MoS. Anyway, the whole thing led to a useful discussion at the Philippine MoS talk page. --JN 466 00:38, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Abolition of Prostitution

A recently created article Abolition of Prostitution is up for AfD. WikiProject Feminism members may wish to participate in the deletion discussion. —Tom Morris (talk) 16:31, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Related effort: WikiProject Women's History

Thanks to all of you who've worked on improving Wikipedia's coverage of historical women. I'm a relative novice to Wikipedia, but about a month ago, in response to the NYT article on the WP gender gap, I started WikiProject Women's History in hopes of bringing more women into Wikipedia. (I'm a US historian by training, and I'm doing outreach to educators about assigning Wikipedia writing as part of their women's/gender history courses.)

As we try to get our project rolling, we'd very much appreciate the help of WikiProject Feminism members with project-organizing tasks, assessment, task-force leadership, marking pages for cleanup, and editing. We've identified over 6,500 articles relevant to women's history, and we're also maintaining a list of requested articles. Read our talk page and if you want to join us, please do.

Thanks! ---Shane Landrum (cliotropic | talk | contribs) 18:54, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

"Domestic violence has little to do with sexism"

Sorry if I made you spit your coffee across the table. Important debate at Talk:Sexism#Domestic_Violence. Kaldari (talk) 17:00, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I've also decided to be bold and have rewritten the first few paragraphs of Domestic violence#Gender aspects of abuse. The previous version was quite misleading and did not reflect the consensus of secondary sources. Kaldari (talk) 22:48, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for jumping in and improving the article. Nice work! Binksternet (talk) 23:11, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

*Sigh* Turns out the user who started that discussion, User:Zimbazumba was disrupting wikipedia by sock- and meat- puppetry and is now blocked--Cailil ^talk 19:29, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Women's sport wikiproject

I have proposed that we create a WikiProject devoted to Women's sport: Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Women's Sport. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:40, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Free Credo accounts in 24 hours

Hey guys, in 24 hours, the queue at Wikipedia:Credo accounts will open. Credo is an online commercial reference service that is normally only available through libraries and universities. The list will probably only take a few hours to fill up, so set an alarm or something so you don't forgot. Kaldari (talk) 20:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Credo includes the following reference works that may be of interest to participants here:

The Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women
Notable American Women: 1607-1950
Notable American Women: The Modern Period
Notable American Women: Completing the Twentieth Century
Encyclopedic Dictionary of Women in Early American Films: 1895-1930
A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists
The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography
First Ladies of the United States

Kaldari (talk) 20:57, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Credo sign-ups are now open. They won't last long. Kaldari (talk) 22:12, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

They've actually lasted longer than I thought they would so now tempted to sign up. One problem with writing on controversial/contentious articles and NOT being taken seriously by the guys on talk pages (so you have to say the same thing 3 times and run to noticeboards to get things corrected) is you do not do as much constructive editing (especially in last year) as you'd like to display. AH! I know, I'll emphasize I do controversial/contentious articles and therefore it IS important to have access to best sources. :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:58, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Labor Force

I propose to improve the Wikipedia page titled Labor force. At the moment it does not present a global prespective, and to a great extent, it does not mention where women stand in the labor force. I want to discuss the overall topic of who is in the labor force and who is not. When considering arigultural versus non-agricultural work, informal and formal labor, paid and unpaid labor, there any many loop holes in which workers in other countries, specifically women, are misrepresented. Currently, there are many discussions about whether these various forms of labor should be included in the labor force, and if so, if the definition of the labor force should be changed into a definition that encompasses a greater majority of the world's workers. I think the presentation of these arguments (in a non-biased way) is important to remind people where women and workers outside the United States stand. I do not want to post a feminist contribution that will be taken down, but by including the arguments and facts I stated above, I will subtly be making a statement as to why it seems that there are fewer women in the labor force. If the definition of the labor force were to be changed into one that encompassed informal labor and unpaid labor, then women would be better represented (because after all, though they may not receive compensation, the work they do is just as demanding as any other work). Any comments or suggestions? MariaNunez (talk) 18:30, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

This sounds like a great idea. I would suggest presenting some of your thoughts at Talk:Labor force as a first step. Other editors may have suggestions for refining your ideas further. Kaldari (talk) 01:52, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

And definitely line up some really goo Verifiable and WP:Reliable sources and present them showing these are in fact notable concepts in economic definitions. Especially if they aren't used much or prominently in the most mainstream economics publications. Have some quotes from the sources that define them, briefly outline what information they provide. As long as they are in a enough reliable sources to be seen as a minority viewpoint, you should be able to argue against any opposition. See WP:dispute resolution about the various steps you can take to get outside opinion on your information if the regular editors are strongly opposed. Often 3 or 4 neutral editors coming in and siding with you makes all the difference. CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:04, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Bodily Integrity and feminism

I am attempting to create a new entry for "Bodily Integrity", but struggling to incorporate all definitions and perspectives. There is a large body of literature from ant-circumcision advocates, but I'd also like to include a section on feminist theory (freedom from sexual assault, personal autonomy, etc.) With the hopes of avoiding overgeneralization, can I get some feedback on feminist scholars or scholarly sources that address the issue of bodily integrity? Or is it even worth it to include feminism on the page? Keb838 (talk) 19:54, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Welcome! First, note that I am not an expert on the topic, so if someone more knowledgeable wants to chip in, please do.

From a quick look at Google Scholar, the term seems to be used in two contexts: the general medical one, and the feminist one. Long-term, it would probably make sense to have a generic article (which would include a subsection on women's issues), and a specialised article titled something like Bodily integrity (women's issues). There are certainly tons of literature on the latter: [6] But there is nothing to prevent you from creating an article on the narrower topic now, focusing on women's issues. It's a notable topic in its own right.

It would make sense to start with the most widely cited books on the topic; this Google Scholar listing may be of use to you. It includes books only, and indicates the number of citations each has received.

This is a useful utility for creating book references based on a Google Books URL. You just paste the URL in, and it creates a fully formatted citation for you. Sorry I can't be of more definite help. Good luck with the article! --JN 466 13:50, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Books.google also will have a lot of material not in google scholar and vice versa; but there also are overlaps. CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:06, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Exciting new project

Georgetown University Professor Robin Kelley is teaching Women and Human Rights, and has decided to integrate Wikipedia editing into the course after reading about the gendergap issue. She is seeking the assistance of other editors to watch and aid her students' progress. You can find out about her course and the new student editors at Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Policy/Courses/Spring_2011/Women_and_Human_Rights_(Robin_Kelley). The list of articles they're going to be working on is still developing, but already includes:

Let's help these women learn the ropes and develop their articles into something they can be proud of. Who knows, they may even stick around! Kaldari (talk) 23:56, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

--Anabuiles8 (talk) 02:02, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Feminization of Poverty

Hello everybody,

I am interested in adding and revising the content of the Feminization of Poverty page. Although the current article discusses the basic concepts of the issue, we want to expand and link the issue to the deprivation of human capabilities, specifically health and education. Impoverished women lack the resources to obtain and secure health for both themselves and their children. Gender inequality and poverty increase women's risk of poor health, and reduce their access to health care and education. Education is especially important for women who hope to lift themselves and their families out of poverty, and to increase women's independence. We want to stress the need for a multidimensional perspective on feminization of poverty, and to consider how critical this phenomenon is to women's rights and capabilities. Please take a look at the Feminization of Poverty page, and any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks! --Yk12 (talk) 20:27, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest rewriting the first couple sentences of the article so that it is easier to understand what the article is about. Right now, the wording is a bit confusing, in my opinion. Kaldari (talk) 02:00, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Domestic Violence and Pregnancy

I’m interested in creating a new page on Domestic Violence and Pregnancy. Pregnancy-related violence is a serious public health issue and although there are a plethora of scholarly articles and resources on the interrelationship between pregnancy and domestic violence, there is currently no Wikipedia page on it. The Birth control sabotage article covers part of the topic but is by no means all-inclusive. The incidence rates of domestic violence in pregnancies are also discussed in the Epidemiology of domestic violence article. However, there is currently no page synthesizing this information or bringing in the copious amounts of outside research. In fact, pregnancy is only mentioned once in the main Domestic Violence article. There is a growing body of research on this topic and it would be important to have a separate article to highlight the importance of this issue.

I have two questions for the Feminism WikiProject Members. First, are there any suggestions on how to make this page as complete and as meaningful as it can be? Also, I originally planned on making this a separate page but do you think it would be better as a subsection as part of the Domestic Violence article as a whole? There is enough information to make a separate page but since it is a contentious issue would it be better as part of the larger page? WikiProject Feminism currently lists the Domestic Violence article as C-Class, High-Importance so the imput of the Feminism members will be very important for the future of the Domestic Violence and Pregnancy addition. Cshaase (talk) 00:57, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that it would be best to add to the Domestic violence article first, especially if there is minimal information there currently. That way you'll get more eyes (both for reading and editing). If it ends up being a huge section, it should be fairly easy to spin it off into a separate article. Starting it as a separate article first is more risky, as there is a chance it would be deleted on notability concerns. Kaldari (talk) 01:18, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank You for your input! Cshaase (talk) 03:12, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree for starters. Then once any objections or good advice is heard, you can see if you have sufficient information for a couple of sections and supporting reliable sources to make a larger article. CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:26, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Household Bargaining

I am creating an entry on “Household Bargaining,” which will specifically explore the subject of gender relations in intra-household bargaining and decision-making. Wikipedia currently has articles on Bargaining and Inequality of Bargaining Power but these articles only address bargaining in terms of the economic, labor and/or global market, and they fail to acknowledge the role bargaining plays within a household. The existing articles also fail to acknowledge the traditional inequality between men and women in household decision-making, which is why I thought this addition might fall under the WikiProject Feminism umbrella.Bina_Agarwal

The inspiration for this entry comes from Bina Agarwal's work in feminist economics and her study on intra-household bargaining[7], yet the existing entry for Agarwal does not substantially address this important subject.

Do any Feminism WikiProject members have thoughts on this subject or suggestions for related sources? I was planning on making an entirely new entry instead of including it in the more market and economics oriented "Bargaining" and "Inequality of Bargaining Power" pages, but does anyone think I should do otherwise? Mfandersen (talk) 01:29, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

As mentioned above, it's often useful to start in a relevant article, including possibly her bio. However, searching Household Bargaining - books google and and scholar google it seems there are a lot of mentions of the term (or is it similar but different terms). If it's used differently by different people and in different context, either all have to be included or there has to be some means of disambiguation, even if an article doesn't exist. (More experienced editors might address that issue.) CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:32, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

It looks like the term is significantly used enough to merit its own article. It would also be great to add some information about it to the article on Bina Agarwal. If you'd like, you can create the article first in a user sandbox, like User:Mfandersen/Household bargaining, and we can help you clean it up before it is moved into the regular article-space. Kaldari (talk) 01:16, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Request to remove unverified statistic

I am not familiar with Wikipedia policy so please excuse me if there is some mistake in my post.

I am referring to the page "Feminist movement". On that page it states that "At the UN's Pan Pacific Southeast Asia Women's Association 21st International Conference in 2001 it was stated that "in the world as a whole, women comprise 51 percent of the population, do 66 percent of the work, receive 10 percent of the income and own less than one percent of the property"

It goes on to provide a citation. I accessed the citation, which of course repeats the often stated claim that "women do 66% of the world's work". However, like all of the other websites which make this claim, it provides no evidence, research or study for this statement.

I have searched significantly on the internet to try to find the original research, but I cannot find any evidence to support this claim. All of the websites merely make this claim without any backup reference.

I think that this statement and the citation should be removed since it is unverified information. There is no evidence to suggest that women do 66% of the world's work. Continuing to keep it in this article is disinformation/ misinformation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.100.127.66 (talk) 13:33, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

The article doesn't claim the statistic is true, it merely states that someone at the Conference stated this statistic, which is verifiable. Kaldari (talk) 16:45, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

The statistic is probably approximately (or exactly) correct. I don't have a recent source, but the book If Women Counted (1980s?) by an economist has much discussion of the underlying problem (and much feminist economics discussion has addressed these issues since): survey administrators in many nations refused to ask about most of the work done by women but did ask about most of the work done by men; much that is not paid for is not considered work and women do a lot of something for which they are not paid any money; and for some work women are paid less than men are for doing comparable work (e.g., farming different crops). Mothering, for example, is work and fathers who do it hands-on often readily agree. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:34, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

USer: Nick Levinson- You said "the statistic is probably approximately, (or exactly) correct". Can you please explain why you think it is correct- except having read it a hundred times? All of the other points that you mentioned are valid- about women's work not being recognized, etc. However, this DOES NOT mean that the statistic "66% of the world's work is done by women" is true. I cannot find any evidence to support that statement. Can you? I challenge you to find it anywhere. I encourage you to make your other points women's work, provided that you provide sources. However, to claim that women do 66% of the world's work, when there is no evidence to indicate that, is disinformation and/or misinformation. It is discriminatory towards men to claim that women to twice as much work as they do, when there is absolutely no evidence. Women readers: how would you feel if there was a statistic that women do 1/2 as much work as men do, which was repeatedly stated over and over again, without any evidence whatsoever? Kaldari, I hope you won't mind then if I change the post to say that it was "alleged" at that conference (not stated), and that I further add that no evidence to prove that statement has ever been produced. I hope you won't mind then?

I think this raises a major issue about what wikipedia should do when a factual claim is made, which has no evidence to support it. Women readers, feminists, etc., I challenge you to find any study which proves this claim. 175.100.127.66 (talk) 08:18, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Is this statement misinformation, disinformation, or counterknowledge ("misinformation packaged to look like fact")? I would say that according to these wikipedia links, placing this claim in a wikipedia article is "counterknowledge"- i.e. it presents that information as if it were fact. Except that it isn't a fact. Hmmm... 175.100.127.66 (talk) 08:48, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

In case anyone is interested, the 66% estimate reported by the UN[8] appears to be based on the large amount of statistical data on women collected by UNICEF. The raw data can be downloaded from UNICEF's website. --Aronoel (talk) 15:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

@Anonymous editor: Wikipedia is not responsible for what the UN says. If you think the UN is spreading misinformation, take it up with the UN. Wikipedia is merely reporting the fact of what was stated by a UN representative. If a UN representative had said "The Earth is flat", I'm sure Wikipedia would mention that in the Flat Earth article. Kaldari (talk) 16:47, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow, I'm glad you mentioned about the UN... I kept asking myself why you were mentioning the UN, until I realized that the organization in the link is not the UN. It is an NGO/ non- profit organization. So the text of the article is actually incorrect. I think I'm going to go edit that now. @Aronoel- could you provide more detail, or which data fields to check in the UNICEF database? I looked at that briefly but that data on men and women's labor is not one of the indicators available under "women". I will check it again. Anyone else had more luck finding a study or data showing the "66%" figure? 175.100.127.94 (talk) 20:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

You should be able to download all of the labor data from DevInfo. Please note that your own interpretation of the data would be original research. --Aronoel (talk) 21:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Ooops some how I lost my last comment! Anyway, I was saying that the HDR 04 reported, as cited above in the same paragraph, was the only relevant data that I could find on the internet, and I also realized that the original writer had miscalculated or mistakenly mis-explained the data. The author said that women worked 20% more than men in rural area of developing country, and 5% more in industrialized countries surveyed. But this is actually false, due to bad math and misinterpreting the data. The correct way to do it is like this: Male value=100, female value= for example, 120 (as in rural developing country example). 100 + (Women's labor value) = (220). 100/220= male labor percentage. 120/220= female labor percentage. In this example, the percentages are 54.54% for women ,and 45.45% for men. (Note: compare to 66%) To get "how many more percent women work", take the female percentage, and subtract the male percentage. Or else, 9.1% in this example. I already edited it to reflect the real values- not 20% more as the original author said, which is a gross oversight. The data also showed that men work slightly more in Canada, Denmark, Hungary, Israel, and the Netherlands. Please do make a survey of the data yourself, in the HDR report, and I think you will soon conclude that none of the values reported there approach 66%. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.100.127.94 (talk) 22:45, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

@Aronoel I will check that as well, but it will have to wait a bit. Have you by any chance checked it? I'm not sure if I would agree that taking raw data about women's and men's labor participation would be "original research". Do you consider my computation of the HDR 04 data to be original research, or is it just showing the data? I might have to make a Request for Comment in that case...175.100.127.94 (talk) 23:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Quoting from WP:RS: "When relying on primary sources, extreme caution is advised: Wikipedians should never interpret the content of primary sources for themselves. See Wikipedia:No original research." Kaldari (talk) 23:12, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I think there must be some mistake with your calculations from the HDR, they report "120% of male work time." 120 is 20% more than 100. And I think the sentence you added "although UN Women did not provide any primary reference for that statement," is original research, maybe other editors can comment. --Aronoel (talk) 23:26, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Aronoel, did you not read my previous post? I am afraid that you do not understand math very well. Why have you changed it again? 20 more than men would be 60% work for women and 40% for men, right? However the chart on page 233 of UNDP report, refers to women as a percentage of men's work, for example, 120%. It is not a basic percentage (which must be computed as part of a total of 100%). Or to make it easier for you, take the minutes worked per day for men and women, and add them together. 515 + 617= 1132. To get the male work percentage, divide 515 by 1132= 45.5%. For women, 617/1132= 54.5%. To find out how many more percent, women worked than men, subtract the male percent from the female percent.= 9% For OECD, 403+423= 826. Male percent=403/826= 48.79% Women percent- 423/826=51.21%. 51.21%-48.79%= 2.42%. Satisfied? I am changing it again. Please do not change it again until you have understood the math. Your claim of 20% and 5% are false- they are not supported by the data.175.100.127.94 (talk) 23:43, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Aronoel, the link you provided, to the UN Women website, cites as its source a UNICEF website. That UNICEF website, does exist, but it no longer contains the 66% claim. So I would say that the UN Women page is an unreliable source.175.100.127.94 (talk) 00:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:EA 175.100.127.94 (talk) 00:12, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

@Anon: You seem to have your math confused. 617 minutes is 120% of 515 minutes (617 / 515 = 1.2). Thus women's total work equals 120% of men's total work, or 20% more. You are correct that women's work only represents 54.5% of the total amount of work, but we're calculating percent differences, not differences of percentages. They are two different mathematical operations (although commonly confused). Plus, "Wikipedians should never interpret the content of primary sources for themselves". Kaldari (talk) 01:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll agree in another way. When you want to know how much more work women do than men do and if the relevant percentages are 54.5% and 45.5%, then you calculate how much more 54.5% is than 45.5% is. It's about 20% more. An IEEE standard precision calculator program in your computer can tell you the percentage with enough exactitude, but with that question and those data you won't get anywhere near 9%. What 9% would be is the work difference between the genders, but that's not the same question; 9% is relevant to the total work done by both genders together, which, in this context, is a confounding question, whereas the first question is clearer for determinations of genderal economic equity. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

This is absolutely shocking, I can't believe that an entire group of people are trying to allow this blatant mis-representation of fact to be kept in the article.

@Kaldari, no you're wrong. I understood that clearly. It's the way the data is represented in the report, which allows the data to be stated as in the post. So I think, that if you refuse to change it to a calculation based on a total percent of 100, then it will have to be made more clear, because now it is misleading, as it would most commonly be interpreted to mean that women work 60%, and men 40%, which would be a difference of 20%. So what it comes down to is that it must be expanded, stated even more clearly, and explained in detail, so that everyone will know that if men are kept as a standard 100%, that in selected rural developing countries, women did 120% (vis a vis 100%). and in OECD countries, when men are held constant at 100%, women did 105% (vis a vis men's 105%). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.100.127.94 (talk) 06:32, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

@Nick-OK I understand what you mean that it is different than a measure of each gender's total work as part of whole. It attempts to ask, what percentage more is the average work for women, than the average work for men? SO I think the way it is written now is misleading- it must be made clear to the reader what kind of statistic this is. Can you explain why that is a confounding question? I think the statistics- Women's and men's work as a percentage of whole- is quite valid when considering gender work differences. Why do you think that statistic is not not worthy of mentioning?

Do all of you deny that the way it is written now is unclear and could easily lead readers to think that women do 60% of whole, and men do 40% of whole? (or 52.5% and 47.5% of whole in OECD countries)?

As for the 66% figure, that is clearly stated as if it is 66% of the whole. That is a different kind of statement than "what is the percent difference between men and women's work, when men's work is held at a constant 100%?" I have written to two UN agencies and they have not provided any source for the claim. Since they do not have any data or solid research about women's work as a total percentage of 100% on a global scale, I would say that they have no competency in that area. Unreliable source, in that specific context and in relation to that subject matter.

I must say, as a kind of feedback, that it appears that the editors on this board are deliberately presenting the data in a certain way in order to pursue an agenda. Excuse me if that is inappropriate in the Wikipedia "sphere". It does appear to be that way.175.100.127.94 (talk) 07:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

As soon as I have time, regarding this issue, I intend to post an NRS- not reliable source- notice with regards to UN Women in relation to the "women do 66% of the world's work" claim. As UN Women has no data or study to refer to, they are not a reliable source on the issue of women and men's work as a proportion of 100.64.25.27.130 (talk) 00:52, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Bravo!

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