Talk:Woman

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Template:WP1.0

Why so much about veils?

This article is not so big, but has lots of info about the history of veils. This feels malplaced. Will someone clean that up, I don't think there needs to be more than a sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.249.23.112 (talk) 15:06, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and cleaned that up. I agree, it feels awkward, too long for such a small aspect of the entire article, and we have an entire separate article on gender roles if anyone wants to delve into greater detail on specific aspects of how specific cultures define femininity. I also cleaned up a lot of that section, much of it doesn't have an encyclopedic tone, was redundant, there's been a "citations needed" banner on it for 2 years, and the little that has been cited seems to be pulling info out of an opinion piece and presenting it as fact. Perspectives on the history of women in labor are as numerous as the snowflakes in the Yukon, I think it best if we stick to the basics and use this as a portal to more detailed articles on feminism, gender roles, female studies, etc. CaptainManacles (talk) 08:59, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Helen clack first female prime minister of NZ ?

I think it was jenny shipley?

you are correct Purdonkurt 07:13, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Jenny Shipley was the first female PM in New Zealand by overthrowing Jim Bolger, she was never elected as PM. Helen Clark was(and is) the first elected PM in New Zealand, although the list down the page is incorrect in saying it was Shipley.Trumpy 09:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

National leaders and other very high status positions

Taking a cue/ or inspiration from the Polish version of this page http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobieta , I added well-known (women) national leaders and Dr. Condoleezza Rice, and as on their page, a photo of her. (Photo is directly from her English wikipedia bio)Dogru144 02:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't adding a picture of Condoleeza Rice unavoidably add a political element to this article? What would happen if someone also added Che or Bill Clinton to the man article? Rintrah 22:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The photo was not added in a political context; it was added in a civics class manner. If this were 1997 I'd upload Madeline Albright's photo instead. The point is this: in 2007 women are not always, everywhere, bound to traditional roles. This section was added to provide balance to the more traditional, more limiting, roles implied by the photos and discussion in much of the remainder of the article.Dogru144 00:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Who knows how to put a caption under these photos, without making them giant?Dogru144 00:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[[Image:name of image|thumb|220px|here is a caption]]

Replace 220px with the width in pixels you want. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

As Rice has been replaced by Pelosi and Thatcher was demoted with a "burn burn Thatcher" comment, it is obvious that the political wars have already begun. I'd actually say that the whole last two sections should be moved to another article, meriting about a paragraph here and a much deeper treatment somewhere else. If there's a page for Status of women in Pakistan, why not a page for Modern status of women? Please comment if you can find a better title for such an article, or an existing article that covers this subject matter. --Homunq 19:08, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Great idea to have status of women article. Let's keep the order of premiers alphabetical. Why not keep Thatcher? Like her or not, she was the first premier of a European nation; this is an encyclopedia not a [partisan or an ideological] fan club.Dogru144 00:49, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I like the chrono order Dogru44 put it into. A separate article is a nice aim if there are editors who could expand it. But at the moment, with the current content (i.e. just a list) I think both this article and any separate one would be poorer for the split. This article isn't that big and the premiers adds some current perspective to the status of women as it's talked about in the article. The daughter article would be a short list on its own (which tends to be less informative than one in context). Could we try adding detail here until there's something more substantial? (Also agreed that partisan comments and edits are entirely inappropriate). -- Siobhan Hansa 01:52, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

As a Canadian, I request that the Rt Hon Kim Campbell's, the former prime minister of Canada, picture be displayed on this page. What about the Queen of England (and Canada), Queen Elizabeth II? Aside from being the head of state for the commonwealth countries, she is the wealthiest woman on the planet (I believe). Surely she is worth having her photo up. I would do it myself but I'm a wiki-newbie and haven't figured out how to do it or whether it would be polite of me to stomp in and just add pictures of people without obtaining permission or consensus. CWPappas 07:15, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

MUST ADD: A listing of the percentage of women in governance positions with at least national legislatures and also heads of state like kings, premiers, prime ministers or presidents (wherever the power may reside). Along with this listing should be historical numbers which should include a table or graph of the changing percentage figures. Also included should be a listing of all of the separate governments in the United Nations (and without, separately) with their respective figures as mentioned previously. Besides displaying the progress of women over the years what I think we will see is that those with the lower or no women numbers tend to be more violent. What rising percentages may mean toward more peaceful international relations or standard of living will be quite interesting. unsigned comment added by Pugetkid 04:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

It is a corrective to place a section on women aside from traditional (pre-20th Century) roles. The bulk of the article's images concerning work deal with women in traditional roles --weaver, food preparer. This is slanted. The alleged consensus is based on a small tally. I contest the consensus presumption. Secondly, as to the image of who is in the photos, I would be content with a rotating selection of premiers. In fact, before the list was struck down, there were a number on non-Americans and non-whites: Benazir Bhutto for one. Dogru144 (talk) 00:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

No point in a list of female leaders

Is there any point in a long list of all the female leaders there have ever been? it just takes up a long amount of article space and is just as pointless as a long list of all the male leaders there have been. Lists of politicians belong on political articles not articles on gender. 212.139.85.56 (talk) 04:22, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

It does seem a bit arbitrary. We do have Category:Lists of women, but that category doesn't seem to have a main article that would serve as a perfect "See also" link in place of the current list here. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I do think a See Also link would serve better than a long written out list on the article. 212.139.85.56 (talk) 04:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The list on this page is a good corrective to the idea women have no role in public life and that their importance is only or mainly just in the domestic sphere. Women are not merely the reproducing fraction of humanity.Dogru144 (talk) 16:59, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I remind you this is not a forum of discussion on women's issues but a place to discuss the content of this article. Your edit contravened consensus and has been reverted. Signsolid (talk) 23:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the current consensus. If anyone wants to re-add pertinent information relating to female leaders, they should write it in prose. Wrad (talk) 00:32, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

See (the above section) comments about presentation of women leaders. If we have weavers and food preparers, we ought to have political representatives for balance. Dogru144 (talk) 00:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Girl as used to describe adult women

The article said that there was no male analogue of this sense of the word girl in American English; however this is certainly not true: guy is the male parallel to girl in this sense of youthful adult.[1] Accordingly, I removed that phrase. JudahH (talk) 15:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

i thought is was boy..... Cilstr (talk) 18:26, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

For the lead Image. How about a morph

You know where several different images are averaged together. Why not do that and create an image of a sort of world wide woman?--Hfarmer (talk) 01:22, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

No. Something made up would not be more true. --Flyingember (talk) 03:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

• Original research! Funkynusayri (talk) 03:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Dude wikipedia should be censored!!!!!! not nice to kiddies

First sentence

The first sentence of the article (A woman is a female human), with a link to female, takes party against theses of social construction of gender, as shown below in the article. It should be fixed. 08:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Irrelevant fact about women

Puffy Amiyumi isn't a woman. It's two women. 204.52.215.107 (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily irrelevant fact about women

Hillary Clinton is a woman. This is playing a role in the dynamics of the 2008 United States presidential election. 204.52.215.107 (talk) 19:36, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

common sense is useful, my friend. Earthere (talk) 20:32, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Archive 5 created

FYI I created Archive 5. Also another change that I forgot to mention in my edit summary was a request to add new images to the sandbox page rather than here, in the section at the top. Ciotog (talk) 16:09, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Pictures always from one perspective

I think we ought to have a picture of a woman as seen from all four angles. Even mobile phone articles show back and front and I think we will all agree that women are more complex than mobile phones...--Cameron (t/c) 17:49, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

There's nude pictures at Man, but none at this article? Why? GoodDay (talk) 21:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Female wikipedians must be shier than males = ) --Cameron (t|p|c) 16:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully, the possible 'double standard' here, will be fixed. Sexism on these articles can't be tolerated. GoodDay (talk) 16:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Let's fix it! Wrad (talk) 16:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

yes, it is rather wierd. But where to get the pic from. I really am an image noob...Besides, as mentioned..it is rather hard to get hold of a picture from more than one perspective.--Cameron (t|p|c) 14:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I really don't like the main picture of this article because it's in black and white and only shows the torso and above. I find it very sexist that the man page has a statue of a naked man and there is no uproar about it unlike here. Women need to be proud that they are blessed with not only female minds and motherly intuition but are given glorious bodies that can have babies and breast feed them and give them motherly love after they are born. The fact that women's beautiful and nurturing bodies are actually what make them women should not be a shameful concept nor censored here.64.158.143.6 (talk) 21:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I think a picture of a nude, grown up woman that isn't blatantly erotic should be used. People who complain should just deal with it. All encyclopedias have nude humans of both sexes in them. Wrad (talk) 22:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Childrens biology books contain nude pics also. But i really would like one from all four perspectives (at the very least two). I posted the same comment on the man page.--Cameron (t|p|c) 16:59, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

A selection of pictures being considered is here. I think row 2 number 4 is the best by far.--Knulclunk (talk) 00:51, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

If we want to be consistent with Man, I'd vote for the Birth of Venus for the lead, then including the studio nude elsewhere in the article. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 15:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

A++ for your taste in classical art, but I have to disagree. Birth of Venus is too busy, with way too many figures milling about the central figure. It doesn't balance the photo of the David well, as David is presented alone, commanding the viewer's attention. I would vote for Bouguereau's After the Bath instead, not because it's a superior artwork (it isn't), but it displays a single woman, essentially nude, and especially because she is presented in a matter-of-fact, uneroticized, and dispassionate manner. In the tricky waters of picking a nude picture for an encyclopedia, these would be the highest priorities I would choose. What do you think, sirs? Kasreyn (talk) 08:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

For now I agree with this that User:Knulclunk said.--Taranet (talk) 15:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree re: the need for suitable (not overtly erotic) frontal nudes (I would say one work of classical art and one modern photograph would be sufficient), but more is needed. Look at the article on man - most of the photographs of modern men are of men in positions of power: President Putin of Russia, Pope Benedict XVI. And in this article we have basket-weavers, etc. While it's true that in many places around the world today women still have no more options than they ever did, in some countries at least they have the ability to rise to positions of power, or to pursue highly demanding careers that were once open only to men. Ie., we should indicate both the traditional roles of many women around the world, as well as the changed roles that have arisen in more recent times. What is more annoying, this article once had such photos before a deletionist happened along. To balance the photos of figures of power and self-determination in the article on man, photos of female professionals and politicians would be appropriate here. Perhaps Hillary Clinton would be too topical to do well in such a general article, but Margaret Thatcher could work well, or perhaps Indira Gandhi. And my vote for photo of a professional woman goes to one whose picture was once in this article, Dr. Mae Jemison, who is an M.D. as well as an astronaut, both highly demanding professions. Are there any objections to the inclusion of these suggestions? Kasreyn (talk) 08:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. The vast majority of males are not in positions of power. Wouldn't it make sense to limit such pictures to, say, one per article? Wrad (talk) 15:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, having returned after a long Wikibreak, it appears there has been little attention paid to my proposal. I disagree with Wrad's argument, which would effectively lead us rather to delete photos of powerful men from man rather than to make any substantial change here. The larger the wikiservers become and the greater the average reader's bandwidth with the march of time and technology, the fewer legs the deletionists have to stand on, in my opinion. I feel adding content is entirely justifiable, and deleting for the purpose of parity makes little sense.

To be more specific, let's go down a list of the photos we currently have:

• Birth of Venus. This one isn't my ideal, but if support for it were strong I could be talked into supporting it. It has the advantages of being a full frontal nude to match David on Man, as well as being demonstrably a timeless work of art (dodging claims of trashiness or prurience), and is not highly eroticized, though I still feel that After the Bath is ideally unerotic. (But perhaps David balances this with an erotic aspect all its own? I must confess my own perspective renders me unable to judge. Opinions from those attracted to males would be helpful to me here.)
• Feminine symbol. Balances masculine symbol in Man. Great.
• "A young woman". Well... the caption isn't the problem, it's the fact that the photo is prominently placed across from the header, Womanhood. So, it appears to me, the article is making an implicit statement that womanhood == that (I will admit, quite attractive) young lady in the tank top and miniskirt. I imagine the original reasoning for this was that the section was intended to describe the significance, in the female experience, of the transition from girlhood into womanhood by representing the "flower" of that state. For one thing, this lends itself to a reader's mistaken interpretation (which I can easily understand since this was my 'first' interpretation) that womanhood means being a sexual symbol rather than a complete person. Additionally, aesthetics vary and that woman is by no means universally attractive; no woman could be. Therefore, it would be a mistake to use a single image to somehow try to transmit an idealized image of feminine attractiveness. A See Also linking to the paragraph on Waist-Hip Ratio in Female body shape is far more illuminative than any such groping attempt here.
• Diagram of female sexual anatomy. No problems here, matches Man.
• Karotype of XX chromosomes. Cool science stuff, nothing to worry about.
• Weaver woman. She's been on WP longer than me, and I've been here for some years now. I suppose it's true that she does aptly display a historical, and in many places modern, traditional female social role. Sure. So, we can consider her to be matching the construction worker image in Man.
• Turkish women with hookah. This would be an interesting image if it were possible to see clearly exactly what we're looking at. Unfortunately, the image is horribly grainy and poor quality. Is it possible to find a painting or artwork which is along similar lines and which we can display cleanly and clearly, so no squinting is required? From a feminist perspective, this one seems o.k., since it shows women engaging in a leisure activity that, unlike most other depictions, doesn't seem to be occurring for the ultimate benefit of a man. A photo of a girl's night out at a bar-n-grill would serve the same purpose and would be visually easier to comprehend. I like the concept of this picture, just not the poor physical quality of it.
• Roundhouse wipers - this image required me to read an article in order to understand what a "roundhouse wiper" is, and I won't explain it here because it would do a disservice to others. Go, read, and learn! And I thank whoever caused me to need to do that. But, if we want to clearly demonstrate the historical transition of women into the world of previously male-only jobs, wouldn't this iconic lady do a much clearer job?

And going over what we *don't* have here, what is still clearly apparent is:

• We still don't have an image of a woman employed in a profession requiring higher education, scientific or mathematic capability, or artistic talent. A well-known scientist, professor, artist, or teacher would work well here. Some of my favorite suggestions for this position would be Mae Jemison, Joyce Carol Oates, Nichelle Nichols, or Maya Angelou. (If I seem to be adding a lot of African-American names here, I suggest the reason may lie in my frustration at the lily-whiteness of the photos existing in this article, which seem to focus almost solely on western european / caucasian women, with our long-serving Bangladeshi weaver photo still trucking along by herself.)
• We still don't have an image of a woman who is in a position of political authority, ie., a woman who could at least theoretically hold power over a male. This would balance Man's ongoing flirtation with photos of male political figures, currently whittled down, confusingly, to simply the Pope (possibly due to the defining and prerequisite maleness of the position?). A photo of a well-known and recognizable female politician would suffice here. Some suggestions could include Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Condoleezza Rice, Margaret Thatcher, or Indira Gandhi.

In fact, given her scientific pedigree, Dr. Rice could conceivably serve both roles. Ideally I would prefer to have two photos - both a scientist and a politician. Bandwidth is cheap, servers are large, and it seems pointlessly miserly and petty to set some arbitrary limit on the number of pictures we can add. The argument that it forces too many pictures on readers who don't like pictures is ludicrous, as any browser can be set to display no pictures. I would still prefer to reverse this article's trend towards poverty of information.

Inclusionism solves problems, while deletionism ignores them. Deletionism says, "It's not our fault that the rarity of photos leads to high granularity of content and thus edges out photos of notable minorities". Of course it's the deletionist's fault, since nothing is preventing us from adding more photos except ourselves. The same can be said of every other issue I've raised here. If you look at WP's competition, such as a modern Britannica (or even, heaven help us, Encarta), you'll find that multimedia including pictures and videos have been embraced and litter their articles, while WP, partially due to the difficulty in finding free content, but also partially due to a stubborn insistence on minimalism, lags behind in making the best use of the internet as a medium.

OK, ending inclusionist rant. Comments are eagerly awaited. -Kasreyn (talk) 11:03, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Kill the lists

A list of famous women is much less effective than a prose explanation of why they are famous and what they did to change things for women in the world. As it is, the list communicates almost nothing about the subject that can't be said by merely typing "There are lots of famous women in history who have held lots of important positions." I really come off wanting to know more. Wrad (talk) 00:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the massively space consuming pointless lists. Was about as useful as putting a massive list on a country's page stating every single leader, politician, inventor, sports person, war hero, legendary figures, etc... that just puts people off reading the article because of huge chunk of the article required to write such lists and get on for being longer than the article itself. If people want to see specialised subjects they can go to the see also section or the numerous links throughout the article leading to relevent subjects. Signsolid (talk) 17:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Image needed badly

Yes, I'm aware of Talk:Woman/sandbox, but discussion is basically non-existent. We should get some image up in the lead, even if it's temporary until a clearer consensus develops. For now, we have an article on Woman where the only images of actual women are a profile shot of a basketweaver and a small, grainy group image from 1910. That's just blatantly inadequate. Powers ^T 12:26, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've said what I'm in favor of. I wouldn't object to having it put up. With so little discussion, two or three supports makes a consensus. Wrad (talk) 20:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Aren't you the one who reverted someone else's addition on the grounds that it hadn't been discussed enough? Powers ^T 22:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

human -> human being

I have not changed the text predisposed by religion. If you can propose an improvement, the way is yours. "Human" is not a word in common use; it is scientific or particular to the style of science fiction, neither of which befits a general encyclopedia. --VKokielov (talk) 17:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Why is it that you put a naked women image as your big picture?? ---- Dark_wizzie

New images

I think this article is low on pictures. im adding some from wikimedia commons.EryZ (talk) 02:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Gender and Feminism

“This question of being a woman is more difficult that it perhaps originally appeared, for we refer not only to women as a social category but also as a felt sense of self, a culturally conditioned or constructed subjective identity.” (Butler, 1990)The term "woman" has chronically been used as a reference to and for the female body; however there is much controversy to the usage and refinement of "woman." What we fail to do is see the qualitative analysis that explores and presents the representations of gender; what feminists challenge is the dominant ideologies concerning gender roles and sex. Social identity refers to the common identification with a collectivity or social category which creates a common culture among participants concerned (Snow and Oliver, 1995). According to social identity theory (Tajfel 1981; Tajfel and Turner, 1979, 1986), an important component of the self-concept is derived from memberships in social groups and categories and it postulates that group processes and inter-group relationships impact significantly on individuals' self perception and behaviors. The groups to which people belong will therefore provide their members with the definition of who they are and how they should behave (Hogg, Terry, & White, 1995) in the social sphere. The problem with categorizing is that it creates binaries, in which an individual has to be on one end of the linear spectrum, one must be male or female, thus implying that they have to identify themselves as man or woman. Globally, communities interpret biological differences between women and men to create a set of social expectations that define the behaviors that are appropriate for women and men and that determine women’s and men’s differential access to rights, resources, and power in society. Although the specific nature and degree of these differences vary from one society to the next, they typically favor men, creating an imbalance in power and gender inequalities in all countries. (Byanyima, 2004) Western philosopher Michel Foucault claimed that as sexual subjects, we are the object of power, which is not a institution or structure, rather it is signifier or name we attribute to “complex strategical situation.”(Tong, 2009) Thus, because “power” is what determines our attributes, behaviors, etc. we are a part of an ontologically and epistemologically constructed set of names and labels. Such as, being female characterizes one as a woman, and that this “women” is weak, emotional, and irrational, thus she is incapable of actions attributed to a “man.” Gender and sex, said Butler, are more like verbs than nouns. But my actions are limited. I am not permitted to construct my gender and sex willy-nilly, according to Butler; this is so because gender is politically and therefore socially controlled. Rather than woman being something one is, it is something one does… —Preceding unsigned comment added by Olivera (talk • contribs)

Welcome to Wikipedia! This appears to be a short essay reflecting your personal opinion which is not appropriate for a Wikipedia article so I have removed the edit request tag for now. It also seems to be more on the subject of Gender (of which there is much overlap with this article obviously, but we generally try to keep concepts separate to help with things like ease of reading and upkeep). If you could suggest some wording or exact change more in keeping with our neutral point of view policy that fits in with the current article might be more useful. For instance if there is a particular point backed up by citations from your essay that is missing from the article could you succinctly suggest that? -- SiobhanHansa 12:17, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Ancient gender roles

Newer research among the worlds most prominent experts in ancient history (I'm aiming at hunter/gatherer ancient) has shown that it is untrue that women generally "only" hunted for small animals and gathered berries and fruit, while men hunted for large animals. In a small group, it is imperative that all able individuals have the knowledge and skill to survive independently in case one "key" member dies. This can be seen still in inuit culture, where both genders have knowledge and skill to replace the other, should one individual die, either from illness or animal. 81.191.146.33 (talk) 02:31, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

So that's what a young woman looks like...

Why is there a picture of a woman in a short skirt and high heels standing in a country road?

There's nothing particularly wrong with it except the arguably sexualized nature of it, but it seems pretty out of place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.36.68.234 (talk) 19:34, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

This. It's a nice picture to look at, but there's no need to have a picture of "a young woman". Wait till I've saved it to my desktop before removing though please.

213.68.15.100 (talk) 17:46, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

How about changing the picture every once and while, to show all types of women. gioto (talk) 22:40, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I do object to the image of the women, I don't think it's relevant or necessary, and is too sexual for the article. Any women care to offer their input, as I feel in this instance it's reasonable to ask the subject of this article for their input!--82.32.57.173 (talk) 13:20, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I would welcome a real image of a young woman, i.e. unobscured by clothes, rather than a clothes-rack. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.127.36.229 (talk) 15:54, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Nothing about the fact that they start to be more "intelligent" earlier than boys ?

I missed it, or it's an urban legend, but if so, something like "contrary to common belief, they don't..." should be added. But I don't think it's one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rex4 (talk • contribs) 11:14, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Older English, Older English language, or Older English : to correct this red link

cf. ( you could see ): at the section (Etymology), at the link: Older English language

• Older English language --- Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name

I think is better this way ( a solution ): older English language / Old English. I've just done it. Ciao! --PLA y Grande Covián (talk) 17:07, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Use of the word Woman

In the UK the word woman has traditionally been used to refer to females of the middle and working classes, with the term lady being used for those in society's higher echelons. I know many ladies who would be greatly offended to be described as a woman. I think the article should reflect the fact that the term woman does not universally apply to all adult females. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.145.139.130 (talk) 10:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Culture and Gender Roles section too U.S. oriented

It's not supposed to be about U.S. culture only. This section really needs to be fleshed out more in general and with more mention of other cultures.24.74.1.139 (talk) 11:52, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

New Lead Image

I honestly think we should use an anatomy picture for the lead. It would serve to educate much better than a picture of a nude women or a drawing. I certainly would appreciate finding a good one. YVNP (talk) 00:47, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Before we continue, note that I'm assuming you're talking about some sort of anatomical diagram or illustration, rather than a photo of a dissected woman, which would be needlessly shocking. For such a diagram or illustration to vary from a drawing of a nude woman, it would have to either display only part of the body, or else display internal anatomy typically hidden by the skin.

That being the case, I disagree. The articles on other physical objects have a lead image which shows an external view of the thing under discussion. Ie., in the article on Skyscraper, one wouldn't expect the lead image to be a floorplan, a fire escape route drawing, or a diagram explaining how a tuned mass damper works. Those, after all, aren't the most important and immediately obvious visible details of a skyscraper. One would instead expect an exterior photo of a skyscraper, preferably with other objects to provide scale since a defining feature of a skyscraper is its size and height. Similarly with an "object" like a human being, such as a Woman or Man, the relevant lead image is one of that specific thing, preferably showing it to scale, but also - and this is the important thing for this article - showing its significant or defining features. Since for Man and Woman the defining features would be those aspects of the body which display sexual dimorphism, a nude is required in order to be fully informative. The lead image of any article referring to a commonly encountered object should show that object as it may appear if/when encountered.

Now, whether the lead image should be a work of art, a photo, or a photo of a work of art, or even a diagram, is open for debate, and each of these two articles has varied over the past 3-4 years between those types of image, iirc. At one point each article was using the Voyager probe diagrams of man and woman. But what seems settled is that the lead image for each should display a full body nude. The internal anatomy is important, and does have its image - but internal anatomy is not sufficiently descriptive of the differences between the two most common human sexes, as the reader is likely to encounter them. -Kasreyn (talk) 18:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I think we definitely need a new image. Imagine a school child opening up the "woman" page at school, and then seeing this image. In many places it would be "not safe for work". I'm not arguing for censorship or anything, but at the very least, this picture could be moved down, and a picture of a woman wearing clothes could be added. This is one of the articles where you wouldn't expect to find such an image, especially at the front, and there are many more suitable images. This image doesn't add anything to the article that another might not. Can we get some kind of discussion or consensus on this? If not, I will go ahead and replace it if it's apparently no one cares. (npcserver) (talk) 05:35, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay to have list of women

I find it useful to see a list. Lois Guardener (talk) 18:24, 21 August 2009 (UTC)