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February 18, 2008Peer reviewReviewed

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Semi-protected edit request on 7 February 2023: "most sociologists"

The sentence: 'This viewpoint is denied by most sociologists,...' should be removed. The use of words such as 'most' should be supported by facts. Otherwise, it is a viewpoint expressed by the author designed to manipulate. A viewpoint is not a fact. Is Wikipedia supposed to be about facts? Where are the statistics and facts? There are numerous statistics and facts relating to family law, criminal law, tax law, military service, conscription, pensions etc. which show that men are and have been the subject to the most discrimination in many jurisdictions. None of this is mentioned on your page.

A comparison of the definitions of Misogyny and Misandry on Wikipedia shows a very weighted bias towards the prevalence of Misogyny over Misandry. Unsupported by proper facts, this should not be allowed. Provide the definitions and refer users to a comparison fact page, by jurisdiction and with facts and stats. Let data support the facts. There is also a problem here. In Ireland for example, there is evidence that 95pc of abuse against men is not being reported. A dedicated page, with links to proper data sources would be desirable. It might encourage more accurate reporting. 2A02:8084:D21:5180:711B:67B1:E034:4D32 (talk) 02:54, 7 February 2023 (UTC) military service,[reply]

Not done. The word "most" is actually not going far enough; just about every scholar who writes about these topics will tell you that misogyny is much, much worse in scope than misandry. Far worse. You are looking for a false balance in which the minor problems of men in society are made to seem equal to the huge problems of women. That's not going to happen. Binksternet (talk) 03:25, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
misandry is widespread, established in the preferential treatment of women, and shown by discrimination against men and misogyny is much, much worse in scope than misandry - there is no contradiction here.--Reprarina (talk) 04:29, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The word "most" can be original research. Especially by most sociologists, anthropologists and scholars of gender studies. I didn't see the source which says "the most of sociologists, anthropologists and scholars of gender studies say misandry isn't widespread". Reprarina (talk) 04:41, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You misunderstand. It's not our job to gather hundreds of sources to show that "most FUBARologists" say something. Rather we cite someone who says it. It's incorrect to say that we "only cite Gilmore" as if we need to connect more.
Gilmore says

The first question we must ask in addressing these others must be: "Is there a clear-cut female equivalent to misogyny?" Do women return the favor by hating men and inventing magical dangers? The answer seems to be a resounding no. Male-hating ... has never (at least not until recently) achieved apotheosis as a social fact, that is, it has never been reified into public...
...
But such neologisms as viriphobia and misandry refer, not to the hatred of men as men, but to the hatred of men's traditional male role, the obnoxious manly pose, a culture of machismo; that is, to an adopted sexual ideology or an affectation. They are therefore different from the intensely ad feminam aspect of misogyny that targets women no matter what they believe or do, whatever their sexual orientation, or however they comport themselves. Moreover, such antimale terms have little application in cultural anthropology for one other important reason: there are virtually no existing examples of culturally constituted antimale complexes in traditional cultures that can be designated by such terms.

EvergreenFir (talk) 05:45, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure most of cultural anthropoligists use the words misogyny and misandry the way Gilmore use it. He say misogyny as male malady but scholars also say about internalized misogyny (when both subjects and objects are females) because they use the mainstream definition of misogyny - hatred of women. Not men's hatred of women, and not the systemic oppression of women by men, but hatred of women. Women return the favor by hating men and inventing magical dangers is not about the maisntream definition of misandry. Until the reliable linguists publish dictionaries with such definitions as misandrist is a person who hates men (not woman), misandry is the hatred of men (not oppression), the most reliable sources are those sources who rely on these definitions. Not the sources as "we will say misogyny instead of institualized misogyny => misandry isn't istitutionalised => misandry doesn't exist". Reprarina (talk) 06:18, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your concern was about the most FUBARologists, not the definition. The Gilmore source supports the most part. EvergreenFir (talk) 15:57, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On the internatinal level? Reprarina (talk) 16:56, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The book Misogyny: The Male Malady doesn't seem to me superpopular during anthropologists on the internatinal level. Yes, there is this book, it's not the fringe book, but nothing more. There are lots of works which are also reliable but have some inconsistencies with this work. Reprarina (talk) 17:19, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The topic is primarily American, much less international. You didn't address EvergreenFir's argument, which stands. Binksternet (talk) 17:27, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The main topic of Misogyny: The Male Malady is obviously international. The level of reliableness of this book shouldn't be underestimated or overestimated.
Are you sure misandry isn't the international topic? It's the French feminist wrote the book "I hate men", not the American one. I can say the Finnish sociologist Pasi Malmi says nothing similar to "there is no misandry in Finland". He is reliable for Olga Savinskaya, the Russian sociologyst. And she also says nothing similar to "there is no misandry in Russia" using Malmi's model. (She also mentions Gilmore positively but prefers to use Malmi's model to check the existance of misandry in Russia). It's not the topic is American, Engish Wikipedia just haven't enough people with knowledge of non-English languages.
When Gimore writes "Do women return the favor by hating men and inventing magical dangers?", it's the contradiction with the term internalized misogyny which exist in RSs.
So we can see lots of scholars who use the term internalized misogyny but they don't quote Gilmore's book about misogyny! I don't see that Gilmore is perfectly reliable in his defining misogyny and misandry. In fact, he rather deviates from the mainstream (although less than Nathanson and Young). The mainstream studies around misogyny take the internalization into account. For Gilmore, it's the male malady.--Reprarina (talk) 19:12, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is deviating very far from the question at hand: is it appropriate to say "most"? Please keep discussion to discrete things and not the concept as a whole. EvergreenFir (talk) 21:17, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What do you think about this critical review on Gilmore's book? (written by Kimberly Hart) Hart argues that his work on misogyny is itself misogynistic; women are passive and voiceless, victims of the violence and hatred being directed at them and the subtext is clear: they are also the source of the problem... He argues that women do not have a ‘popular’ term for describing their hatred of men, which might cause the reader to raise an eyebrow. He insists that female expressions of hatred must be ‘institutionalized’ to be recognized. She also criticizes Gilmore for supporting gender essentialism: The weaknesses stem from Gilmore’s refusal to consider gender as a social and cultural construction, not as an essential, unchanging ‘fact’. I'm not sure his book Misogyny: The Male Malady is perfectly reliable for the article Misogyny, and all the more for the article Misandry. Reprarina (talk) 23:06, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What makes Kimberly Hart so much of an expert that she can fatally puncture Gilmore? Hart is a scholar of Turkish feminism. She's opining outside of her field. Binksternet (talk) 00:11, 18 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yeah Gilmore positions himself as a researcher of the world gender trouble, Hart positions herself as a reseacher of Turkish gender trouble, so Gilmore is reliable for the thesis about non-exsisting something in the world, and Hart's critical review on the Gilmore's book can't be reliable. I got how it works. Reprarina (talk) 02:53, 18 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Gilmore re-defines misogyny from the dictionary and still the most reliable definition hatred of women to an unreasonable fear or hatred of women that takes on some palpable form in any given society. That's the problem. There is no evidence that his definitions of the terms misogyny and misandry are supported by the scientific consensus. So we can use Gilmore, but we should consider and report that the Gimore's definitions are not the WP:MAINSTREAM.--Reprarina (talk) 03:11, 18 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Allan G. Johnson in his book The Gender Knot: Unraveling our Patriarchal Legacy re-defines the term sexism the same way, using the prejudice plus power model. It's not the international academic mainstream. Lots of dictionaries on many languages include anti-male prejudices and discrimination against men in the definition of the word sexism, still. Reprarina (talk) 01:57, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll also add that I find it notable that the Oxford Dictionary of Sociology (Scott & Marshall, 2009; 978-0-19-953300-8) has an entry on misogyny but not misandry. EvergreenFir (talk) 16:16, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then misandry has the less notability than misogyny. However, misandry is still, in its definitions in the RSs, the hatred of men, not oppression. Just like misanthropy is not the oppression of humans by dwarfs and elves but the hatred of human being. Reprarina (talk) 17:05, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Irrelevant. Binksternet (talk) 17:27, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that the equivalants of some of the senses misogyny are called "Benevolent sexism" or "ambivalence towards men" within social sciences might be a factor here as well. Talpedia (talk) 18:38, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Most anthropologists

Most anthropologists is really shouldn't be written. I see only Gilmore in the article. And in the RSs.--Reprarina (talk) 04:53, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This should not be a new discussion topic. You've already been informed in the above discussion that Gilmore supports a larger statement about the issue. Binksternet (talk) 17:24, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"been informed" eh? I quite like to read sources myself and come to a conclusion, should we not offer Reprarina the same opportunity to read the literature for themself and come to an informed understanding such that they can test the nuances of our understandings (in a way that is relevant to improving wikipedia of course)? Do we think sociologists and anthropologists are the same people. Also does Gilmore specifically support "most anthropologists"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Talpedia (talkcontribs) 11:22, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding "most anthropologists", it really should be "most scholars", because the scholars who write about misandry study a variety of related subjects including sociology, criminology, gender studies, etc. Many of the authors cite and agree with groundbreaking work by Ging or Marwick and Caplan. A mainstream consensus exists. A summary of the best sources gives us "most scholars". Binksternet (talk) 02:45, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting what scholars in men's health issues say about the topic... Reprarina (talk) 04:33, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pluckrose: No relevant experience

I'm inclined to agree that a single magazine opinion piece by Pluckrose without much citation is not WP:DUE, but I'm also nervous about these "expertise" type arguments that are popping up here. Pluckrose is a history scholar who has published, I believe on the topic of ideologies surrounding gender. That feels like it should be enough, and I'm not sure about a sort of "purity checking" where only scholars who worked in women's studies are allowed to write on the topic - I assume we can all see the issue with that.

By all means we should focus on deep scholarly work that has some measure of "academic sway" in preference to magazine articles from notable persons, but we need to be careful not to fall into "expertyism" Talpedia 01:41, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Helen Pluckrose has a degree in early modern studies, but to my knowledge has never published a legitimate paper in a peer-reviewed academic journal. She co-authored a polemic (not published by a mainstream academic publisher) against something called "applied postmodernism" after submitting hoax papers to various journals, but that appears to be the extent of her experience with academia. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:24, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting - doing a search on google scholar you appear correct. Still I'd like to focus on literature rather than individuals. In this case I agree that the literature is not WP:DUE.Talpedia 12:00, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps in the future it would save everyone time to do the publication search before claiming someone is a history scholar. Just a thought. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 17:20, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but I don't care a jot for this instance of wasting your time. And it is only your time I have wasted there is no "us", just you and I will decide for myself what I think is worth posting about. You'll also note in the above conversation there is an awful lot of "this is not a real scholar", "this person studied the wrong degree", "this person is not an anthropologist" regarding fairly legitimate people, which makes me highly suspicious of the discourse, additionally it took me, perhaps 20 minutes of reading to validate this claim. Did it take you 20 minutes write the message? Talpedia 00:24, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No one is questioning anyone's legitimacy as a person. But scholars publishing their opinions in non-academic sources needn't be given any weight outside their field of expertise. I wouldn't cite Freeman Dyson on climatology, for instance. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:55, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

But scholars publishing their opinions in non-academic sources needn't be given any weight outside their field of expertise

I agree, unless they are publish a *lot* and other people are reading and responding in academic sources. What I see in this article is sort of... academy ignoring misandry apart from in order to analyse correlated political views and then the actual research into what might be considered misandry ("ambivalence towards men" or "gender differences in in-group bias") happening in other unrelated parts of the literature. Talpedia 08:19, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merger from reverse sexism article

The article on reverse sexism is essentially a WP:POVFORK. Most of the content is a duplicate of what has already said, where this article seems to have the worst WP:NPOV as it talks more about criticism of the people who use the concept more than what the concept actually is in itself.

I think we should focus on the general discrimination/prejudice/sexism against men rather than the word "misandry" which means we'd have to de-emphasize on the men's rights and talk more about the sociologists, anthropologists etc who use the terms sexism against men or reverse sexism. Panamitsu (talk) 00:01, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You alone pulled the trigger on this unwarranted merger without any community discussion. The topic of reverse sexism was redirected to reverse discrimination back in 2004, in the only community discussion about it. If you want to get rid of the reverse sexism article again, you must initiate a community discussion. Reverting.
Finally, none of the cited sources in your merge-dump is about misandry, which is a giant problem. Binksternet (talk) 00:16, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reverse sexism from 2004. Binksternet (talk) 00:17, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just piping up to thank Binksternet for their words and actions here. 100% support. Noting also the odd synchronicity with these edits as well. Is there off-Wiki canvassing going on here? Generalrelative (talk) 00:23, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Generalrelative What I'm confused about is why the sexism against men page was merged into the reverse sexism page, I can't find the discussion myself. Could you link it? At this point we have 3 pages on the same topic. Panamitsu (talk) 00:43, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Found it, new to Wikipedia. Panamitsu (talk) 00:47, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

MRAs and masculists speak about sexism towards men and boys using the term sexism without adjectives. They don't say reverse sexism and don't mean sexism towards men and boys is reverse. There are some sources which put this term in their mouths, but it's always looks like "MRAs argue men face reverse sexism" without any quotating. Also, there are feminist sources which recognize that sexism towards males isn't reverse. For example, Julia Serano argues that men face non-revese sexism.--Reprarina (talk) 07:12, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lower protection

(Redacted)

Allow people to edit with sources so the true meaning of the word can be known rather than people who are opponents outright blocking the access.

I ask, would this be okay if people denied misogyny, alluded to anyone claiming it exists as whining, and blocked the voice of those who felt marginalized? Or would we rightfully allow that voice, with factual sources, to edit the article without calling it vandalism? RandallInc (talk) 17:36, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Try posting at WP:RFPP. The answer will be "no", though EvergreenFir (talk) 17:45, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, not sure I see the point redacting. Deleting entirely WP:FORUM'y content with no content relevant to editing - fine, removing some content but not other gives the impression of WP:POV. I'm sure we can put up with with a little baseless criticism can we not? Talpedia 19:09, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:TALKNO, talk pages are for discussing how to improve the article, not venting [users'] feelings about it. Readers wishing to use the talk page in the future should not have to wade through a bunch of invective to reach an actual, productive discussion. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:18, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but there is fuzzy threshold between venting feelings and critique that might be accurate. I would argue that it is entirely accurate to say that the article explores the type of people who use the term rather than the actually incidence of the concept. It's just this bias exists in the literature as well so is WP:DUE. Talpedia 21:03, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merger?

I'd like to mention a discussion I started at Talk:Reverse sexism about either merging the articles together or moving Reverse sexism to Discrimination against men.

My reasoning is that these two articles describe how the terms are used instead of discrimination as a whole. It seems quite a lot like erasure to not have a page on the entire Wikipedia to reasonably write about discrimination without the WP:POV pushing of both editors and the media always "silencing" by using hate groups (manosphere, etc) to connect with the terms.

Now, what I propose is to have an article about discrimination as a whole and then use sections for the specific terms and how they're used (misandry, reverse sexism etc). Panamitsu (talk) 10:00, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is going to happen. The distinction between "misandry" and measures of gendered experiences of men in the literature. In fact people don't even call sexism that affects men "sexism" they call if "ambivalence towards men", there just doesn't seem to be a linked up literature on the topic. I think the best hope is that we ensure that the pages are well linked together (WP:WEB) Talpedia 11:58, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Talpedia So what happens with the discrimination against men page as misandry and reverse sexism are terms used? There are quite a number of uses of these terms describing discrimination as a whole, but I'm not too sure how to approach writing about these examples with the current state of Wikipedia. Panamitsu (talk) 10:32, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would say that Reverse sexism gets renamed to discrimination against men and gutted. I don't think misandry gets used that much in discussion of men in society, so we can probably just have a couple of sentences discussing the term and linking here, and the top of this page links to discrimination against men. But maybe we even want an article along the lines of "male social world". Talpedia 10:41, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Talpedia I agree with your first point, but I'm too sure about the one about creating an article about the "male social world". Could you elaborate on what this would be? Is there an equivalent article for women? Although this discussion may be starting to go out of scope for this talk page.
I'll create a move request for the reverse sexism page tomorrow. Panamitsu (talk) 11:28, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know why you are looking for equivalence between the sexes where it doesn't exist. Misandry and misogyny are hugely different topics. Whatever merge request you make I will vote against. Binksternet (talk) 14:56, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the aim is related to equating discrimination against men and women, but rather discussing unique aspects of "male" social interactions. At the moment a reader interested in the topic might find this article, which does not really address the social reality of being male. Talpedia 16:17, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On "male social world", I'm probably imposing my thinking a bit. But I sort of view many gendered related topics as to do with working working out the details of how being male actually plays out in society, so that your interventions (individual and societal) actually work. As an example, there seem to be a strong desire on the part of men in certain commmunities for maintaining agency, such that inteventions that don't respect won't work. I don't really see understanding discrimation, understanding "gendered interactions", understanding the social and increasing individual agency as distinct things. Perhaps this is too strong an interpretation for wikipedia, but when I write about gendered effects on wikipedia my motive is partly to allow for effective interventions. I guess something like Feminist existentialism or Women's studies might address the topic through a female lens: how does one find meaning and purpose within the constraints of being female. Should we rearrane of wikipedia along this line? No - but I think it's a good thing to have in your mind when you are writing about these topics - how must interventions be altered to be effective for someone who happens to be male or female. All a little forum'y but I guess it's relevant because it addresses the sort of things one might write about rather trying to discuss what misandry means and whether it exists. Talpedia 16:32, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just add a social interaction section to the male article.
The problem with a merge is that it assumes misandry is a discrimination. Of course, most scholars tell us that misandry is a backlash to feminism. Discrimination that is experienced by males is largely a result of the male-dominated world. Binksternet (talk) 16:38, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think that might be a good starting point, or expanding men's studies. I think sometimes edits here are motivated by a desire to accurately discuss gendered social effects.
I agree that scholars of discourse tell us that the concept of misandry is often as part of argumentation on gendered issues in response to feminist arguments. As to whether it may actually exist is a different question. I suspect we would stray in WP:FORUM territory is we were to try to discuss all the reasons why discrimination against men take place, but I agree that structure of society will be a factor and men are overrepresented in decision making positions (as to whether male interests are is a different matter). Talpedia 16:53, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Binksternet I think you're right. We should keep the two separate because misandry is a term that is often incorrectly used, and is described as a backlash against feminism etc, but discrimination as a whole certainly does exist, which has been studied.
I'm not too sure where you're getting the idea from that I think they're equivalent, though, but it does make a good point about how discrimination against men and misandry should be kept separate. Panamitsu (talk) 21:51, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to create an article at Discrimination against men, go ahead. That's assuming significant coverage of the topic in published, reliable sources. Please also note that Wikipedia is not the place to right perceived wrongs ("erasure", "silencing", etc.) If reliable sources don't cover a topic, neither do we. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 05:13, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Sangdeboeuf Thank you for educating me about WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS Panamitsu (talk) 06:50, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]