The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Happy to userfy to be worked on prior to a mainspace return under the usual conditions, but consensus at this time is that this article is not suitable for Wikipedia Fritzpoll (talk) 20:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of patriarchal cultures that have been claimed to be matriarchal[edit]

AfDs for this article:
List of patriarchal cultures that have been claimed to be matriarchal (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Unencyclopedic original research and synthesis. Most of the quotes do not explicitly claim that that these cultures are patriarchal. They offer one ethnographer's (quite possibly biased, but that's a different issue) observations on practical actions. Furthermore, there are no references citing who claimed these cultures were matriarchal. (The Iban, Iroquois & Tlingit descriptions cite Wikipedia as a source?!)

So this article could more aptly be titled "List of cultures we have claimed are patriarchal and which we claim have been claimed to be matriachal"

Even if one ethnographer has claimed explicitly that they were patriarchal, a better title would be List of disputes about the patriarchal or matriarchal nature of certain cultures. Why would the first ethnographer to record details automatically be correct? Ethnographers can and do make mistakes... see Social Darwinism.

TheMightyQuill (talk) 14:29, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe you are mistaken. The article was originally a template, and I think the name List of patriarchal societies was only used due to a misunderstanding of the purpose of the template by the person who originally moved it from template namespace to article namespace. I think the purpose of the template/article has always been to list societies that were claimed to be matriarchal. Calathan (talk) 17:21, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I saw that, but I agreed with moving it from a template into the article space. The point I wanted to wind back to was the moment when it was renamed to List of patriarchal societies.

My basic point is that a list of patriarchal societies seems encyclopaedic to me, and the current article title just isn't. I feel that we need to WP:PRESERVE the sourced content here, but to do it in an encyclopaedic way, so I remain convinced that a rename is the way forward.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 18:51, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I still think you are mistaken. My understanding from reading the templates for deletion discussion, article talk page discussion, and edit summaries, is that the original template was created from a list or table used in the articles patriarchy and patriarchy (anthropology) (which have apparently since been merged), and that the point of the template/article is to help show that no society has ever really been matriarchal and every society has been patriarchal. Naming the article List of patriarchal societies suggests that not all societies are patriarchal (otherwise the article would just be named "List of societies"), when the whole point of the article is to show that all known societies in human history have been patriarchal. While I think this current article is misguided, if it is true that all societies have been patriarchal, I don't think an encyclopedic article on List of patriarchal societies could be written, as it would either need to include all societies, or select the "most patriarchal" societies by some arbitrary criteria on what makes a society patriarchal enough for inclusion. Furthermore, I don't think the rename would help preserve the content as you suggest, as the societies listed in the article seem to have been selected based on being mistaken for a matriarchal society, not based on being any more patriarchal than any other society. Calathan (talk) 19:34, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If that's true (and I'm far from qualified to decide if it is), then I certainly agree with you that it's hard to justify this article at all. Wikipedia shouldn't be trying to "show" anything; encyclopaedias report sources, they don't present proof.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 20:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
All societies, including current ones, are patriarchal according to anthropology (and form the rock solid raison de être of feminist theory: men will rule everywhere unless something is done about it). However, of thousands of known societies, only a couple of dozen have ever been proposed to be anything other than patriarchal. These societies are important in documenting the criticism of the empirical datum of the universality of patriarchy (and of the criticism of the criticism). The now well established consensus is this universality of patriarchy (and hence, a raft of legislations in the contemporary West to redress the "glass ceiling" by "positive discrimination").
It seems odd to attempt to remove the empirical basis of feminism and of objections to the universality of patriarchy. Is the proposer suggestion there is no glass ceiling and no doctrine of positive discrimination? Should those articles be deleted also? Or is the POV nomenclature a redeeming feature of those ideas?
The proposal can be thrown out, since it is simply unencyclopedic and original research: the proposer's inexpert opinion of ethnographers and the reliable secondary sources that evaluate them. However, presumably the proposer is left in ignorance because the list has been moved out of the context of the patriarchy article, where the major secondary sources that cited the works listed (and identified the quotes) used to form part of the text. These too have been repeatedly removed by editors unilaterally and over protests.
I think there really is a problem here. The data is notable, neutral, reliable and relevant: we need to place it somewhere. However, the problem is: where? It is absolutely notable even in its own right, but needs to be readily accessible from the patriarchy article. But if added to the patriarchy article, it takes up space and makes that article long. A long-time stable solution was having a collapsible table at the patriarchy article. That way, all the people who don't want to read or see it don't have to, but anyone who wants to doesn't even need to leave the page they're on.
We've tried it as raw text in the article, we've tried it as a template, we've tried it as a list. In all three cases people object both to the content (which has been established to be an invalid objection already) and the placement. I don't think there is a perfect placement, we've given everyone's alternatives a run. Let's decide, once and for all, which location the list lives at: mainspace, list space or template space. I recommend the last: collapsible and collapsed. Alastair Haines (talk) 02:22, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some extra sources for the skeptical (there are hundreds or thousands of sources, but these are just a few of those that are online):
  • Feminism says: "If patriarchy is defined as male control of women's economics, legal status, and sexuality, and matriarchy is the opposite of patriarchy, then it appears that there has never been a matriarchy."
— Winnie Tomm, Bodied mindfulness: women's spirits, bodies and places, (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1995), p. 289.
  • and Lerner, Cantarella and Hoberman agree: "Lerner writes that there is no evidence of any society where women as a group ruled men, suggesting that in the strictest sense, there has never been a matriarchy, and Cantarella concurs."
— Ruth Hoberman, Gendering Classicism: The Ancient World in Twentieth-century Women's Historical Fiction, SUNY Press, 1997), p. 24.
  • Psychology says: "In his book, The Inevitability of Patriarchy (1973), Dr Steven Goldberg marshals much persuasive evidence to support his thesis that male dominance is a manifestation of the 'psychophysiological reality' of our species. In addition to advancing the genetic and neurophysiological evidence relating to the biology of sexual differentiation [see also Gender taxonomy] already summarised above, he observes that 'authority and leadership are, and always have been, associated with the male in every society, and I refer to this when I way that patriarchy is universal and that there has never been a matriarchy.' Patriarchy, it seems, is the natural condition of mankind. 'There is not, nor has there ever been, any society that even remotely failed to associate authority and leadership in suprafamilial areas with the male."
— Anthony Stevens, Archetype: a natural history of the self, (Routledge, 1990), p. 188.
Then there are endless refs like: The Persistence of Patriarchy: Class, Gender, and Ideology in Twentieth Century Algeria. These things do not form the basis of what is reported in popular media or education, except in so far as individual or collective achievements by women, that seem to suggest something new or different to the norm to this point in history, are considered newsworthy. In fifty years time we may achieve our goal, but at this point the sources say it is a work in progress. Given that our aims do not yet meet reality, reader surprise in engaging with sources on this topic is something of a given, certainly editors (like the proposer) seem surprised. It is quite understandable. Alastair Haines (talk) 03:12, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
User talk at patriarchy frequently has people dropping by to say such and such a society was matriarchal. They typically mention one or another of the societies on this list. The mandate for having the list at that article is also already well established, not just from the talk page, but from the previous deletion discussion.
The only final suggestion I'd have, though, is that there's nothing to stop us retaining the list in list, template and article space. Diskspace is no concern. The list is frequently cited in literature regarding patriarchy, which is relevant to many top-level articles: patriarchy, matriarchy, feminism (and many lower level ones). By having list, template and article space covered, those articles can take their pick of which way they give access to interested readers. We put power of choice in the hands of other editors and of readers.
While the MightyQuill clearly cares a lot about keeping this information off Wikipedia, we're not in the business of censoring the consensus of reliable scholars on topics of significant interest to readers. Alastair Haines (talk) 02:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Userfy" means the page would be moved from being an article to being a subpage of your user page (i.e. it would be at User:Alastair Haines/List of patriarchal cultures that have been claimed to be matriarchal). If the page is deleted, it becomes unaccessable to non-administrators, which would make it hard to reuse any content from it in other articles without retyping it. Having the page be userfied makes it no longer an article in the article space, but keeps the content around so that it can be accessed and improved or used elsewhere. Calathan (talk) 02:51, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, userfy is obviously not the solution then. It's just an attempt to remove standard material on the topic from Wikipedia. You'd need a valid reason to do that, which to this point hasn't been offered. On the other hand, given the wide relevance of the material, a range of different ways of providing access to it give a lot of people control over just how they make it available: text, template or link.
The decision here seems pretty clear. The proposer simply asked if the material was backed by reliable secondary sources, it's clear there are endless such sources available from all points of view. There are no grounds for deletion, and many for providing multiple versions of the material. I think we have an outcome: keep as list and template for ease and flexibility of access depending on the needs of the many articles that can use the information.
The proposal needs something like either of the following to stand a chance:
  • an example of a matriarchal society claimed by sufficient reliable secondary sources to represent a not-unduly weighted scholastic point of view OR
  • an example of a reliable secondary source that offers a different argument, other than the key evidence in the list, for the universality of patriarchy
Last time this was done, the proposer (and all observers at TfD) were offered a month to find such sources. I think it's fair Calathan and MightyQuill have the same opportunity.
Good luck. :)
Unless the above can be found, I've changed my mind to the following:

edit break[edit]

Question: Are there only two alternatives for a culture (i.e. patriarchal or matriarchal)? It seems to me that what Editor:Haines is conveying is the third option...cultures that were thought to be one but in actuality were the other. His inclusion of referenced works should also discourage any further comments about un-encyclopaedic or levels of scholarship. We are editors. Lets work at renaming the article, if that is the consensus, rather than destroying it. It is sourced, notable, relevant to the pat/mat discussion, informative to our reader, and is certainly superior to many other Wikipedia articles. Keep......--Buster7 (talk) 06:11, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry man, you missed the info above, don't know what you're smoking ;) most of this list was published 35 years ago. It belongs together, that's what the sources cite. I'm not convinced lists have to be as pure as you suggest (see List of sovereign states, List of United Nations resolutions concerning Israel, there are other, more complex lists). But I like your main point: the info should be in all the society articles as well. Looks like we have an addition to the solution. The list needs an article, a template and a collapsible table in the patriarchy article. Plus the relevant source material should be added to each respective culture. That way we get all the reliable info out to all the places that can use it, with maximum flexibility for ease of use across a range of articles. What we're looking for now is the best name for the list. How about List of alleged matriarchies? Alastair Haines (talk) 09:01, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The topic is clearly notable, it is useful in a single place, and the research appears sound (I'm not an expert and haven't chased down the source material) if not—as claimed—obviously from a single source where it lies together. However, I maintain that the need for extensive citations and explanations merely to demonstrate list membership makes the items not well-suited to list format. Rather, I would think a full-blown article (a companion to the matriarchy article) entitled something like The myth of matriarchy (if that doesn't sound too essay-like) explaining the origins and debunking of claims to matriarchy general, and then, using the citations from this list, going through each alleged matriarchy in detail. If a list is still deemed useful, it can be a single unreferenced list with a few columns (possibly fewer than now, perhaps by grouping by region and eliminating that column), without the need for the "List of ethnographic references for the table" section as those would have been adequately covered in the article. Bongomatic 12:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Great minds (not mine) think alike. In this case you seem uncannily like many published reliable sources:
Sample text @ New York Times site, with pay-to-view review link.
I do take your point about complicated lists, once again. Yes, when there is too much information on members, especially proving inclusion, we might as well cross the line into a simple article, with subsections indexing what would otherwise be a list. Taking your advice here would mean renaming the current list and expanding it to be an article, cross referenced to patriarchy, matriarchy and various articles on books like The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory and The Inevitability of Patriarchy. The sources to cover this are endless, but the core work has already been done. Phew!
So, yet another change of mind on my part:
But I want both courses of action to occur. They aren't mutually exclusive. Calathan (talk) 15:16, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
<tongue in cheek> I'm not sure Calathan's "voted" twice, cause this isn't democracy is it? He's multiple-strands-of-advice-to-consider-incorporating-into-consensus-outcome-ed, not voted as such. But I'd like to see the userfy struck. That can't be done (at my user space anyway) without my consent, and I've not been bribed enough yet to give it. ;)
Name options please friends! Alastair Haines (talk) 13:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, in that case, we probably go back to very close to your first suggestion, based on the word patriarchy rather than matriarchy: the sources speak of the "universality of patriarchy". It's listed in Donald Brown's Human universals (cited in Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate). Steven Goldberg appears to have coined the term in The Inevitability of Patriarchy (though he doesn't actually believe patriarchy is inevitable, just empirically universal). Many ideological books (and a host of websites) bemoan or celebrate "the universality of patriarchy" (36,200 hits at Google, 23,800 at Scholar), many (if not most) of these are feminist sources working on exposure and practical solutions.
There are other relevant terms in the literature, but all things considered, I think Marshall's original "list of patriarchies" is, translated into "source speak", "universality of patriarchy". The article simply addresses the counter-examples that have been offered, those who proposed them, and the consensus that has rejected them. Done. Alastair Haines (talk) 14:33, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, after hearing back from Calathan and Bongomatic, should they support us, I'll volunteer to execute a draft of our decision. I've access to a host of sources and have read a fair few too. I think a couple of societies are currently missing, and a couple have rather more interesting discussions associated with them than others. It is very well that we have come to this decision, because we can do more justice to something readers have been demanding. Thank you all.
Rename to Universality of patriarchy. Alastair Haines (talk) 14:58, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Universality of patriarchy sounds like a fine name to me. I'm against any name with "myth" in the title. Calathan (talk) 15:19, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Universality of patriarchy.--Buster7 (talk) 20:13, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Alastair Haines seems to be stating that:
  • there is authority on the proposition that all claimed matriarchies are in fact patriarchies (not just one-by-one); and
  • that there is uncontroversial authority that every originally-claimed matriarchy has been commonly agreed to be a patriarchy within the profession
If this is so, then I don't see the OR/SYNTH/POV problem. I'm not an expert in the field (perhaps you are) but without seeing the article (which should obviously include alternative viewpoints, even if outside the mainstream), I don't think it is ripe for a deletion opinion. Bongomatic 04:38, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"AH seems": Bongo has understood and represented my summary of hundreds of sources precisely and concisely. Alastair Haines (talk) 16:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Alastair, I suggest (a) making sure that the authorities are clearly identified as supporting the propositions in the first bullet point above; (b) making sure to give airtime (not UNDUE, but due, anyway) to dissenting views; and (c) getting to work in the article! Bongomatic 16:09, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

An article without WP:SYN would rely primarily on sources trying to make that general point. Instead, this article pieces together bits of information from a very wide variety of sources to counter unsourced claims to matriarchy. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 17:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It looks as though we all agree then. The problem is that the list should not be a free standing list, it needs to have the context of an article. (I have argued the same for two years now.) Freestanding, the list is a "trap for mature players": immaculately sourced as it is, the criterion for inclusion is obscure and convoluted, and there is no space for adequate presentation of the reliable sources that compiled (and add to) the list. The experienced Wikipedian's instinct sees the tell tale potential for synthetic original research. A subject area expert may be able to verify, but how can the general community verify, fresh additions from anyone-can-editors?
Listifying introduced potential for Synth OR, agreed by all (I think). Solution: delistify, articlify and renamify. Oh! And deletify the evidence of the original listification to protect the well intentioned but guilty: i.e. good-faithify. Hmmm, all this ifying seems a bit ify to me, but it's fun. I'm learning Wikipediese. :) Err, not 'pedifying myself though. <blush for that one> Alastair Haines (talk) 00:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As mentioned above, I've declined to host userfication. However, what I can do is accommodate this proposal into our consensus by accepting nomination to take responsibility for maintaining the article on our behalf. I'll add the maintenance tag to Universality of patriarchy, so parties interested in expanding the article can contact me for sources. Alastair Haines (talk) 04:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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