Talk:Day-care sex-abuse hysteria

Article move.

To the contributor who moved the article and asked for one source which used this terminology. I did a quick hunt for a few. If you'd like, I could find more. All these use the terminology in the same context. This is the commonly accepted "terminology." It would be nice if you could put things back together like they're supposed to be, thanks,

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 02:51, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

You could just do a Google search to see how this is the commonly accepted name too, and thus in line with Wikipeida's naming policies...: "Sex abuse hysteria"

Title	Sex abuse hysteria
Author	Richard A. Gardner
Edition	2, illustrated
Publisher	Creative Therapeutics, 1991
(also film of the same name, Cited by 66 sources according to Google Scholar)

Title   Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act for Dealing with Sex Abuse Hysteria
Journal Issues in Child Abuse Accusations 
Author  RA Gardner
Year    IPT Forensics, 1993

Mass Hysteria in Oude Pekela. Benjamin Rossen, Vol 1, No 1, 1989

The Phenomenon of Child Sexual Abuse Hysteria as a Social Syndrome: A New Kind of Expert Testimony. Lawrence D. Spiegel, Vol 2, No 1, 1990

News Media Coverage and National Hysteria, Volume 7, 1995

Hysteria spreads, Volume 7, 1995

A Canadian Perspective on Child Sexual Abuse Accusations in the Gender War, Brian Hindmarch, Vol 3, 1991
"This phenomenon must be understood when examining the present child sexual abuse hysteria."

Chapter         Sex Abuse Hysteria (9)
Title	         Everyday irrationality: how pseudo-scientists, lunatics, and the rest of us systematically fail to think rationally
Author	        Robyn M. Dawes
Edition	Illustrated
Publisher	Westview Press, 2002

Title	        Making monsters: false memories, psychotherapy, and sexual hysteria
Authors        Richard Ofshe, Ethan Watters
Publisher	Charles Scribner's, 1994
Original from	the University of Michigan

Title:  	Witch Hunt: A True Story of Social Hysteria and Abused Justice  Positive Review Positive Review
Author: 	Kathryn Lyon
Publisher: 	Avon Books, 1998

Title:  	Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern About Child Victims   Positive Review Positive Review Positive Review
Author: 	Joel Best
Publisher: 	University of Chicago Press © 1990
Quote:         Dr. Best blames much of America's hysteria on the media, particularly the "ten second sound bites."

Title	        The abuse of innocence: the McMartin Preschool trial
               Notable trials library
Authors        Paul Eberle, Shirley Eberle
Edition        illustrated, braille
Publisher      Prometheus Books, 1993
Original from  the University of Michigan
Quote:         "The result was mass hysteria unlike anything experienced in America in decades."

I merely asked for one cite from a referred social science journal

As you may know, some of the cites you have provided are from people who have been accused by their own children of child sexual abuse. Sturunner (talk) 05:01, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

So? That doesn't necessarily make them unreliable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:43, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Regardless, Wikipedia's policy is to use the most commonly used term for an article title. If you read the history of this talk page, through much consensus building, "Sex abuse hysteria" was the decided as appropriate. This is why you see, for example, some chemicals which have a more proper scientific name going by a "colloquial" name. Whenever considering (or actually doing) moving an article, when that will obviously (or even may) produce contention, it would be good to discuss it on the talk page first.

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 00:44, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

You don't get to chose that WP:COMMONNAME will be defined by only your choice of sources. There are about 50 examples on the talk page (most of them now in the archives). But if you need one, I'll play along; this is another article has the term used in it (this one "social science reffd"):

bam! can you deal with that?

PS I'm assuming something (read:true Scotsman) about that ref is going to be unacceptable to you.

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 03:35, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

The opening comment suggests a stunning ignorance of why these people were accused in the first place. It also looks like an attempt to poison the well. Sturunner, there was certainly an attempt to put people in prison without trail based on accusations from manipulated children by social workers and do-gooders. Fortunately that didn't happen. There are a large number of books that deal precisely with this issue - I suggest starting with this one and this one to get a better sense of what was actually happening. There's a reason no-one went to trial during McMartin, and a bunch of other cases had the results overturned. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 12:27, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Move protection

I've just move protected this page after seeing it pop up on the IRC channel multiple times. Come to a consensus though WP:RM or similar process before moving this page again. Thank you. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Discussion regarding this protection and the version of the title that happened to be up at the time of protection is ongoing on my talk page at User talk:Hersfold#Locked a page on the non-consensus state :(. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:03, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Requested move restore

{{movereq|Day care sex abuse hysteria}}

Day care sex abuse allegations → Day care sex abuse hysteria — Reverting clearly inappropriate move, against a clear consensus, and locked here by an admin. WP:BRD suggests it should be moved back while the discussion is occuring. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:58, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Support: Per previously established consensuses (multiple times) and unacceptable behaviour (defying consensus and moving with no comment) by moving editor. See the list above of 12 uses of the term. See even higher up the page examples of thorough consideration of the article's title, including many tests on Google, Google Scholar, and Google Books to see what is the most commonly accepted term. I do so love having to beat dead horses... (especially when they suddenly come back to life, and, before you have time to react, are made invincible by "higher celestial powers").

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 06:13, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Always use the "double tap" to kill a zombie. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 10:05, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Richard Arthur Norton, as you seem to have been previously and at length involved in this issue, would you give a clearcut vote here so we can at least attempt to establish some sort of strawish "consensus?" Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 19:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Support: Sure, fine with me. De Young supports to a certain extent [1] but after reading a massive number of books on this and the related satanic ritual abuse hysteria, it's pretty clear that "hysteria" is the most appropriate name. Moral panic might work too, but it's a much more specific term. It's certainly more than a set of allegations, nor is it the page on false allegation of child sexual abuse, it's a coherent phenomenon in which people thought day care centres were being used as recruiting grounds and production centres for child pornography due to bogus questioning techniques by poorly trained social workers. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 00:53, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Support: as the creator of the article on December 22, 2005. Please move back to original name, this isn't an article on "allegations" but on the hysteria of the 1980s. We have been through this before, and Google scholar, Googe Books, and Google news support "hysteria" as the correct and most frequently used title. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 01:23, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Support moving back. "allegations" is far too inclusive. -- Avenue (talk) 02:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Support move back to consensus and correct title. Verbal chat 14:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I've been asked to take a look at this again, and agree that there is now a consensus to move the page back. I'll do so in just a moment, and remove the move protection while I do so. Thanks to everyone for your patience and understanding with this. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:40, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Is there even one cite in any referred professional journal of the existence of this issue?

Sturunner (talk) 09:49, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Irrelevant, and proved false above. But, is there a "refereed professional journal" which states that the topic doesn't exist, or gives it a different name than "hysteria". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:34, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

PLEASE read WP:COMMONNAME. If the article child sexual abuse was named "day care sex abuse hysteria," then we'd definitely have a problem, which is what you seem to be equivocating here. This is not the article for child sexual abuse. This is the article for a series of events in the 1980s and early 1990s that are colloquially (and in the media and a whole bunch of publications) known as "day care abuse hysteria" due to the particular speed and furor (and weak legality of some) of the accusations, convictions, as well as the borderline absurd nature and number (i.e., quality and quantity) of some of the accusations. Could this be any clearer?

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 19:24, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I would like to quote Richard A. Norton from above:

I am repeating this section, since the argument is coming up again. "Day care sex abuse hysteria" is the term used by the media. We don't call the My Lai Massacre, the "My Lai unpleasantness" or "My Lai allegations" or "My Lai naughtiness" just to be politically correct, we use the term of art used by the media.

Further, he goes on to give many examples of how this is the term used. This is also done in many other sections; Sturunner asked for one, was given 12—in addition to all the ones in the history—and moved again anyway. Then he does a bit of a true Scotsman and redefines asking for a very specific type of reference, and further implies some of the references are no good because they were written by pedophiles (while completely ignoring the spirit of WP:COMMONNAME; as I said above, this doesn't defy WP:NPOV—if child sexual abuse was named "hysteria" it would be egregiously POV).

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 23:18, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Undent. We don't have the luxury of titling the page the same way news stories and books do (i.e. "The wave of sexual abuse allegations that occurred in the mid-1980s to 1990s" or "The allegations made against day care workers, such as the McMartin preschool case", or "Rampant accusations of child abuse in day care"). I'd happily stick with hysteria, but I'm also happy with moral panic, the term Mary De Young chose for her wonderful book on the subject. We have to choose a title that's short, descriptive, easy to find and sensible. This isn't a page simply listing a set of allegations, it's trying to get at a phenomenon that occurred for a very short period of time in a very limited part of the world, that has now subsided. We don't use the "Salem Witch Allegations" because it's more than just a list of people killed or trials that occurred. The same thing works here. Part of the problem that existed previously was a single-purpose account kept bitching about the name because he thought every single accusation of child sexual abuse was true, even during the satanic panic that the scholarly majority now agree was bogus. Well, AbuseTruth is now permanently blocked and the question hasn't reoccurred since. "Hysteria" and "moral panic" both give a sense of the, well, unreasonable panic that existed over these cases and the beliefs behind them. It's short, sensible, nicely summarizes the phenomenon and tailors with past moral panics such as blood libel, the salem witch trials, millenialism, stranger-danger, etc. This wasn't a nice time, it's now over, it was very embarrassing and it's silly to treat it as an unrelated set of individual incidents with no connection to the overall gestalt of the time. Moral panic and hysteria both capture this much better than the deliberately neutral term 'allegations'. I invoke WP:UCS and suggest that these are the best choices for the page title even if an exact verbatim quote can't be found. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 12:22, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Non sequitor in the article

Why does this non sequitor appear in the article: "Some studies have shown that only a small percentage of child sexual abuse reports are fictitious.[52][53][54][55] Some studies have shown that children understate occurrences of abuse.[56][57][58]" It is verifiable, but what does it have to do with the causes of hysteria? It is stuck in the middle of information on anxiety and the unreliability of testimony of children. Why does it appear there, it belongs in an article on sex abuse, not hysteria. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:14, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Ask Jack-A-Roe. WLU removed it, and Jack restored it. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:22, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

It can be a footnote, but it is just stuck in the middle of the explanation of the phenomenon. Lets get some more comment on it. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:27, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I didn't write that text, and I agree the wording is awkward. I restored it though, because it's needed in the current context of that section, which gives undue weight to the idea that testimony of children is generally unreliable. While that may or may not be true in general, regarding reports of abuse (that is part of this topic), there is no wide consensus that children's reports are not reliable.

Maybe there were incorrect accusations by children in the day care sex abuse cases, but that's not discussed in that section as it's currently written. That section doesn't discuss the day care moral panic situation at all, it's a meandering sequence of statements about whether or not children can be believed. The whole section should be removed as original research, or rewritten from scratch using references that specifically discuss what happened when children were questioned in regards to the day care sexual abuse cases, and the associated publicity that resulted. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 09:31, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear that the scholarly consensus is the day care sex abuse hysteria (or moral panic, has a nice ring, doesn't it?) of the 80s and 90s was in large part due to incorrect preconceptions on the basis of investigators, combined with poor interviewing techniques. Ceci and Bruck actually do address not only many of these specific cases, but also what leads to the production of false and bizarre allegations (as well as being a very readable book). I could certainly see integrating some information from the sentence and sources, but I'd see it as more "there are some studies supporting the idea that only a small number of reports are fictitious", but I'd really like to see a comparison between the studies that found this out, and the interviewing techniques that were used. Overall, I see these sentences as quite valuable for false allegation of child sexual abuse, less so for here. I certainly think the second sentence "Some studies have shown that children understate occurrences of abuse" is totally inappropriate, and that the use of eight references is excessive and presents an undue weight issue. That many references on that short a set of sentences makes it far more prominent than it would be if nuanced summaries were scattered through a paragraph. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 14:34, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree, it should be in the "false allegations" article or the "child abuse" article. The appearance in this article make it a coatrack. Its trying to push a point of view that is tangential to the article. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:57, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind if those sources and statements are removed as part of focusing that section more on what happened with regards to the moral panic of the time, and the inappropriate questioning methods that were used. The only reason I added them back in was that the whole section is too general, going beyond the day care moral panic issues and into the general reliability of children's accusations of abuse - if that is the approach then both sides of the wider debate have to be included. But I think we agree that the article topic is more narrow, and therefore the information in that section should be narrowed to a tighter focus; if that is done, I would not oppose the removal of those statements because they won't be needed any more. I don't have enough knowledge of this topic to do the rewrite now, I would need time to do some more reading first. If WLU or others want to rewrite the section, I'm not going to randomly insist that those statements stay in, as long as the text itself is in accord with NPOV and does not diverge to a discussion of children's accusations of abuse in general rather than specifically regarding the historical day care moral panic events. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 22:49, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of coatracks, does anyone have an opinion on Alma Heights Christian Academy, I respect the editor, but he is using a coatrack to push a POV there. He starts off the article about the college by mentioning that the woman that started it was a member of the Klan. The article on the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park doesn't start off "...was created by Bill Clinton, who had sex in the Oval Office with Monica Lewinsky and stuck a cigar inside her ...", even though that fact is verifiable and notable. Does anyone have an opinion? If you do please contribute there. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:05, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

See also links

Regarding the see also links removed here and here. The DCSAH, the whole point of it, was that it was a moral panic. No child abuse ever happened. Child abuse is linked in the lead, making it inappropriate to include per WP:ALSO since it is a duplicate link of one in the body text. The exceptions are when there is a substantial overlap or relationship - and there isn't since no child abuse was actually proven to occur. The catholic sex abuse cases is actual child sexual abuse, and though it may be a moral panic as well (a substantial over-reaction to the actual scale of the problem) this isn't the moral panic page. The remaining links directly relate - they were false allegations, are believed to have produced false memories, it was a moral panic, allegations were made regarding repressed memories, the salem witch trials are believed to be a moral panic filled with false persecution, as was the SRA moral panic. Duplication of these links is appropriate, but inclusion and duplication of child abuse and the catholic cases is not. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:47, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

"developmentally delayed"

Come on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.126.111.131 (talk) 13:50, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

False allegations section in the wrong article

Doesn't "False allegations when interviewing children" belong in False allegation of child sexual abuse with a "see also" link from here back to to there? At present it's the other way around. It would make sense to move this section to the false allegations article.199.127.252.195 (talk) 09:09, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Do we really have to call this "hysteria"?

Seriously, hysteria is one of the most misogynist words in the English language, and given that many of the people bring these allegations forward are women, describing it as "hysteria" is in bad taste. Surely "panic" would suffice just as well as "hysteria" for the title? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.4.157.164 (talk) 18:59, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Did your eyes just skip over the extensive discussions about this very issue that dominate the talk page? Additionally, I think it's hyperbolic to say hysteria is one of the most misogynistic words in the English language. If the word in modern usage was only used to refer to women, then I would concur with you about it possessing a strong misogynistic connotation, however that is not the case. There are so many words that ARE misogynistic, why not focus your efforts on eradicating words such as the word sometimes used to refer to a cat, but more often used in modern English to mean "weak, ineffectual, and cowardly"? --Ella Plantagenet (talk) 16:26, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know whether it's "one of the most misogynist words," but it certainly is a word charged with unpleasant connotations, and something like "panic" might be preferable.

It's unreasonable to expect a (possibly novice) editor to necessarily know that a section called "article move" is gonna relate to the title.

In any case, the "article move" section was about whether the article should stay at a title which did not even imply that the sex abuse allegations were overblown, rather than one which used neutral and accomodative language.

Seriously, what's actually wrong with "Day-care sex-abuse panic?" TiC ^(talk) 13:49, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

This is an interesting point about the gendered history of the word hysteria, although i think it has come to be more of a gender-neutral term. I don't think that anyone is implying that the accusations are any less valid because they came from women here. I think that the word "hysteria" has a much stronger connotation than "panic" and would oppose renaming the article. Voyager640 (talk) 08:47, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Country Walk

An alternative view on Country Walk can be found at http://blogs.brown.edu/pols-1821t-2010fall-s01/files/2010/12/Country_Walk_Myths.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.236.111.98 (talk) 09:42, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

How can thousands of witness testimony from around the country be simply dismissed as "hysteria" ?

What you are really alleging is a conspiracy theory about therapists and prosecutors getting together with "hysterical" families and fabricating elaborate hoaxes of mass molestation and abuse to create a "witch hunt". Thinking that this was the case practically defies reality.

In each of these cases, dozens to hundreds of childrens' testimonies contained striking similarities. There is NO substantiation to the claim that they were all "false memories" or fabrications being induced by the interviewers.

Just because some witnesses reported fantastical events does NOT mean everything was made up. We are talking about very young children. This is a disgusting cheap shot at discrediting their testimonies.

Just because a witness claimed to have purposely fabricated something, does NOT automatically discount the THOUSANDS of other witnesses who did NOT retract their claims.

A lack of indictments does NOT mean this stuff is made up. In numerous cases, such as the McMartin Preschool case, a majority of the jurors were convinced that the children WERE molested and abused, but there was not enough evidence connecting to the defendant.

In numerous cases these children had PHYSICAL signs of sexual abuse. Again, a lack of convictions is unrelated to the fact that there was evidence that molestation/abuse had indeed occurred.

LACK OF EVIDENCE FOR CONVICTION DOES NOT EQUAL A LACK OF EVIDENCE OF MOLESTATION Editors of this article are pretending one equals the other and hiding behind legal rulings.

There is nothing far-fetched about the organized molestation claims Since the 1980's there have been numerous expositions of high-level, well-organized pedophile/child-abuse networks all over the world, usually connected in some way to public institutions. It is common. There is nothing "hysterical" or incredible about this subject.

It is completely biased and irresponsible to baldly assert that thousands of children were having "false memories" implanted, or propping up whatever prosecution conspiracy theory to attempt to convey the idea that nothing happened.

Whoever is controlling these types of articles is helping to perpetuate a situation where the probable victims of these incidents are afraid to come forward now that they are grown up, and can confirm what happened.

At the very least, the word "hysteria" needs to be dropped. You should replace it with "allegations", but I know that the editors controlling this article will not allow that to happen. 64.222.209.188 (talk) 12:51, 23 June 2014 (UTC)