Talk:Feminism

Moved the Feminist_Spirituality info intact to its own page 27 September 2001. Seemed more appropriate for it to have its own page.

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Camile Pagilia defines herself as a Feminist (who disagrees with other Feminists about philosophy and tactics). See quote from Vamps and Tramps page 246-247 -- "I'm a feminist" -- at http://www.dimensional.com/~randl/camille.htm

I have never thought of her as a feminist, regardless of what she chooses to call herself, but if we are going to put her on the list, then the name of the list ought to be changed from "prominent feminists" to "prominent people who consider themselves feminists".

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I'm not sure wheter I should laugh or cry about this.

Ed Poor is trying to compromise, but his compromise attempt is removed without comment. Of course the vandal is laughable, but heck, how long is this war gonna last?

It's over, as far as I'm concerned. I put the alternate text it Feminism Debate/Talk, and if that gets deleted, I'll find a better spot. If this strategy fails, I'll give up. (By the way I did get comments from Paul and LDC.) --Ed Poor

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Here's a quote (paraphrasing from memory) cited in an old Doonesbury strip:

When women start acting like people, they get accused of acting like men. --Simone de Beauvoir

The article's first paragraph reminded me of that quote. Ed Poor

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I've added a link at the top, inviting discussion here, hoping that will head off vandalism. That link keeps disappearing. If someone on the staff is doing this, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll just keep putting it back.

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Many people (most of the economists I'd presume) think that it was always "equal wages for equal work" because

free market wouldn't allow it to be otherwise and all differences that feminists show are due to diferences

in effictiveness of work between men and women. --Taw

I'd like to see more about this. Would you write it, please? Ed Poor

Details: Nobody in his right mind would pay more just because his employee is male. Even if majority would do so, say due to ideological reasons, those who wouldn't have major economical advantage, and mens' salaries would go down up to the point when they were equal to womens'. Of course this is assuming that woman and man are equally efficient workers. The fact is, they're not. The most obvious reasons are that women got pregnant, often take leave because of children and are less eager to take extra hours. (There are some more, but they are more controversive and aren't documented that well). Women are, on average and by purely economical criteria, worse workers. So they obviously earn less and this is RIGHT. --Taw

This is another topic on which there are probably quite a few books, which probably give a MUCH better education on the subject than a wikipedia talk page. GregLindahl

Yer both wrong (smacks heads together). Taw, you are disregarded the (possibly hypothetical case) where men demand more wages, because they support families, while women just want a little extra money; also, if we'll need to document the claim that women are worse workers. Greg, once again you are mistaking my questions as a sign of ignorance; if I misconstrue your sarcasm, perhaps you misconstrue my rhetorical questions. Ed Poor

Ed, I wasn't even really talking to you. However, if you wish to claim that your question was rhetorical and that you have read numerous books about this well researched topic, you aren't being convincing yet. GregLindahl

Your argument makes no economical no sense. Employer doesn't at all care what does his employee

need money for. It will hire whoever is cheaper at the same effectiveness.

Best available documentation is that they earn less on free market - so they have to be worse,

because if they weren't they would earn the same amount of money. And don't shout at me now because of this prove, as that's the standard way how things are proved in economics and evolutionary biology. --Taw

Taw, I think you have mistaken our economy for a free market. It isn't in all aspects. GregLindahl

It's not in 100% (as if there ever were such thing), but mainly a free market. The most important things to notice is that there is no legislation that could give men higher salaries, and that employers can choose who to hire almost freely (sacking employers on the other hand is way too much controlled). --Taw

Well, I'm glad you're so sure you're right, but you should realize that many people disagree with you. Yes, there IS legislation that could have the effect of giving men higher salaries, lots of it. And sacking of executives is generally not controlled, and guess what? Few women are executives. Yes, there's a lot of disagreement about all of this, so if you really want to write a NPOV article, I'd suggest learning about the other side. GregLindahl

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I'm glad that the article on Feminism is starting to look a bit more objective -- at least at the beginning. You should compare it with the tone of the article on Masculism, which is much more objective, because it was originally written for Nupedia, a refereed encyclopedia. Even so, it was rejected there (at least, no editor was found who would accept it), and the General Editor, Larry Sanger, said he was under pressure to be biased in favour of Feminism, because most of his contributors (academics) were "liberals" (i.e. totalitarian leftists). It would be extremely easy to write an article on Masculism that was as one-eyed as the one on Feminism started out being. Don't challenge me to write one, or I'll prove it to you.

Peter D. Zohrab

Thank you for participating in the /Talk discussion. As a collaborative project, this effort works a lot better if we try to discuss the issues involved and our reasons for writing what we write. It also works better if we make a serious effort at editing the articles instead of just throwing in deliberately abusive language in order to make an ideological point.

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The "masculinist" article isn't even remotely objective and needs serious rewriting. Let us hope that "feminist" article doesn't begin to resemble that one.

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The phrase, "promotes women's desire for legal and social parity with men" just doesn't work as a definition, as it glosses over a point of no little contention. Slightly better is, "the overarching goal has always been the promotion of equality for women both legally and socially" from a later paragraph. But there are significant currents within feminism with goals beyond or outside this.

It seems feminism promotes "what women want" for lack of a better phrase. Perhaps a list of the issues addressed by feminists and their positions on them is in order. Who can do this best?. Dmerrill, I guess. Ed Poor

How about this?

Feminism is a social and political movement that promotes the right of women to enjoy legal and social parity with men, as well as other issues seen as pertaining especially to women.

Ed Poor

Ed, do you really think a feminist would agree? After all, there is that quote: "Women's rights are HUMAN rights!" No, you're just plugging your "special rights" mantra, which is disagreed with by the other side. I guess NPOV hasn't sunk in yet. GregLindahl

Luckily for me, I did not insert my proposed change. Imagine my embarassment, if I had to take it out after an error like this! Ed Poor

Wait, don't tell me, apparently a statement with no content whatsoever... wait, I think I can get this... yeah, must be SARCASM! Or just meaningless. No, I can't tell. I give up, which one? GregLindahl

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I've changed it to "promotes a woman's right to legal..." It's clearer and more accurate. and removed Lesbianism because I can't for the life of me see why it got thrown there "just for now". All feminists are not lesbians. As a matter of fact Germaine Greer was known for making a point to get home from work in time to have dinner on the table for her husband...JHK

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The feminism article seems one sided, writen as a feminist would like to project an image of feminism. Isn't it best to record when a piece is presenting only an opinion which is contested? Compare "feminism is about XXX" with "feminists claim feminism is about XXX" --- David Byron

Whaddaya mean? I sweated bullets to make it more neutral! If there's something missing, add it to the article. Here some ideas, if you can support them:

• Feminists want to make little boys so "nice" that it amounts to turning them into girls.

• Feminists want more rights then men. Like the Palestinians, they'll never be satisfied until they have it all.

• Feminism equals lesbianism and is dedicated to destroying the family.

I have no support whatsoever for these claims, although they "ring true" to me. Until and unless I get something to back these ideas up, I choose to regard them as "opinion" and will restrain myself from injecting them into this encyclopedia. (Pats self on back for modesty and self-discipline.)

You might have better luck with this, although I'm not sure it's relevant:

• Feminists, by insisting on equality in all respects, fail to appreciate the differences between the sexes and how these differences can complement each other, especially in marriage.

Ed Poor

I'm not criticising it for what's not there. I happen to think most of the facts stated about feminism are false. Not just false but badly false. Not just false but the opposite of the facts in some cases. But I do recognise others disagree with my conclusions. All I'm saying is that in view of the controversy, (it doesn't appear to be just me), and the extreme distance between the two views, it would be better to state the case in terms of what is common ground. For example..... well Ok since I'm trying to be brave about Wiki I will just go ahead and make some changes and you can see for yourself. -- David Byron

<sigh> This is really sad. It might surprise you to know that there are tons of feminists ot there who don't think feminism has anything to do with being the same as men -- just with being equal under the law, in economic and social opportunity,etc. There are also feminists who think abortion is dead wrong -- but think that it is a matter of conscience and will defend other women's right to choose. Ed, I have to say that a lot of what you have been saying just rings plain hypocritical to me. You can't pat yourself on the back for being modest -- it's a contradiction in terms. ans you aren't being modest, just disingenuous. IMO, restraint would be not starting discussions (or articles) on subjects on which you hold opinions, but of which you have little understanding, just so you can ai hose opinions. David, I look forwwardd with interest to seeing your changes. JHK, happily married, very heterosexual, mother of one, Christian of the papist variety, and feminist.

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My personal interpretation of "feminism" is "advocating superiority of women over men." This is my first thought whenever I see the word. I am not saying, of course, that that is what feminists really want; I am saying that the term is very misleading, and that the "reflexive" associations formed in people's minds affect their understanding of the term. I hope that made sense, I'm not thinking too clearly at the moment. --KamikazeArchon

Unfortunately, it makes lots of sense. And feminism is threatening to a lot of people because of it. Susan Faludi's book, stiffed, deals with this, in a way -- or rather, with the betrayal of American men by society, which in turn makes feminism an easy target for those who have become to a certain extent disenfranchised (metaphorically). JHK

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Well in the end I couldn't think of a way to limit the entry to common ground so I simply added a balancing view. I disagree with a lot of the presentation in the remaining paragraphs too. Feminists certainly like to claim they have had a lot of good results, but then others claim they caused the virtual break down of society. Again because of the controversy perhaps better than claiming they "won" the vote would be to say they campaigned for it. Arguably feminists delayed the vote in the US by aligning themselves too closely with the temperance movement. In the UK they were often seen as to strident and un-ladylike to win support even among women. -- David Byron

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Un-ladylike! <gasp> Say it isn't so!

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I must say I'm extremely disappointed with the way this entry has been heading since about revision 25 or so. In the interests of supporting their views on the subject (under cover of NPOV), people are obscuring the facts of the matter. ("Mt. Everest is often considered to be the tallest mountain on Earth, although many people deny this.")

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Perhaps this isn't the appropriate place to ask this, but how do other sections of the wikipedia deal with this sort of thing? In particular two questions: (1) how do you present an article which has two view points so totally opposed?

Good question. You make the article an in-depth discussion of the controversy itself. Of course, since the topic is feminism, it is important to keep the discussion focused on feminism (its various possible tenets, its history, and its adherents, to name three main topics). But any good writer with experience in writing about political and philosophical debates will have no trouble first presenting the feminist view(s) of things, followed by various leadings commentaries thereupon. It's important, moreover, to keep the article focused on what feminists and their prominent and popular critics have actually said, rather than trying, ourselves, to construct de novo some sort of bogus version of feminism that never existed, or some new arguments against it that no one has ever advanced. In that way, we can keep the article focused on a clear question: what have feminists said and done and accomplished, and what have others said and done and accomplished in response?

The article is looking a little schizophrenic at the moment, although in a sense that is also a representation of the subject matter.... Would it be better to lump all the facts supporting one POV in one section, and then what amounts to a rebutal? or have this back and forth in each paragraph?

I think that totally depends on the context. In some cases, a quick back-and-forth, within one paragraph, is a good idea, when (for now) a more in-depth presentation of issues isn't forthcoming. But whenever a discussion leaves the surface level and starts exploring issues in depth, it's almost always necessary to let one side "have the stage" for a longer while.

(2) What determines what is a fact?

There are two ways of interpreting that question, one philosophical and one popular. I doubt anybody is interested in the dry metaphysical dispute over what facts are. The popular notion of a fact is, I take it, roughly this: a proposition p is a "fact" (in the loose and popular sense) if it is socially appropriate to speak as though we all ought to agree about p. As a rule of thumb, if it would be quite odd to say, "It is my opinion that p," because after-all-everybody-knows-that-p (and everybody knows that everybody knows that, etc.), then it's a fact that p. So: everybody knows that China is a country in Asia; that's a fact. Not everybody knows that feminism is correct, because not everyone believes it; so it's not a fact that feminism is correct. And so forth.

If some significant minority of experts, or even (in many cases) just the educated public, would deny that p, then we probably shouldn't treat p as a fact; we should probably attribute it to someone.

What I mean is that the articles themselves don't seem to include external links, as I would include to substantiate controversial statements,

External links are not needed to substantiate controversial statements; not all controversial statements could be substantiated with external links, since many journals and books and other media are not online. I think it's better simply to attribute controversial statements to people to hold them. Hey, our purpose here is not to convince each other of the truth; so we aren't in the business of substantiating controversial statements. But our purpose is to fairly represent the current state of human knowledge about just about everything, and therefore we are in the business of attributing controversial statements (as well as some non-controversial statements).

if I were writing in the form of a debate. On the other hand we have someone making a comment about Mt Everest, as if the facts of the matter were as black and white and admiting of no criticism as measuring altitude.

That's precisely the sort of statement that needs no attribution. But even some such ("uncontroversial") facts are useful to attribute, in the context of Wikipedia, simply in order to make our repeating them more credible: why should anybody believe us when we say that the population of Podunk is 93,620? If we say the U.S. Census Bureau says the population is that, though, then we're more credible.

(3) I noticed the Mary Wollstonecraft page mentions her book. Its now available on-line in its complete text in several places and I assume the copyright ran out long ago. Is linking to one of these sites appropriate? David Byron

Absolutely, completely appropriate--in the external links section. --LMS

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Here's an example. I would contest that "in many societies women could not own land". Has there ever been a society where women were denied the right to own land? Can anyone name one? If they exist, it would be better to name one. If they don't then the statement should be removed. Is it appropriate to say this here? Or should I simply delete the offending remark? Wikipedia newbie -- [David Byron]

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Excellent question, again. Yes, this sort of thing bothers me too. Some people on Wikipedia are rather too fond of writing stuff that sounds plausible, but which on reflection might actually be false. Such claims really do need to be backed up. What I sometimes do in such a case (although I wouldn't encourage us to make this a common practice) is write a parenthetical question, italicized to make it clear it's not part of the main text, like this: "(Er, examples? What societies have ever denied the right to own land?)" I'd be surprised if there were no such societies, of course, but in the interest of credibility we really do need examples and/or references. --LMS