This is an archive of past discussions about List of common misconceptions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I'm new to this, apologies.
In the law, crime and military, a misconception is listed "It is not systemic bias that causes sole custody of children to be granted more often to women than men". This points to no other article, the single source for this is [122] which appears to be a paywalled article and some author's book. Shouldn't sources be at least accessible? This seems like a book plug rather than a citation.
Furthermore, the abstract linked doesn't mention anything about custody, or put forth any numbers, rather it promises a delve into the idea that women hold power over men.
If this is a list of misconceptions, perhaps some solid citation about why this is false? Other misconceptions have attached files or articles proving movies have been made before or links to laws in effect. This looks like an opinion.
This exact set has been added to a stub called "sole custody" where citation 8 and a throwaway phrase has been added to add legitimacy to these papers. It's also a line and citation that deals with modern politics (abstract) despite the article being about custody, a practice that is not new in law.
Google seems to only list this book, this paper and these 2 wikipedia entries when looking for more info on the citations, making it circular. IMTheNdi (talk) 09:22, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
I used Google Books to get an excerpt of the book and the excerpt unfortunately doesn't include the claims around sole custody. Also, custody is not my area of expertise. However, the excerpt included claims in my area of expertise: False rape accusations.
The source is clearly **not** high quality.
It misrepresents the research on false rape allegations like this:
> Many MRA propagate the notion that a large number (or even the majority) of rape reports are false. This is despite studies indicating that the prevalence of false rape claims falls between 2-10% (Lisak et al 2010).
Lisak says that the number of **provably false** accusations falls between 2 and 10% (though he use "false allegation" as a shortcut for "provably false accusation"). Using the same logic as Lisak, the number of true rape allegations falls between 2-4%. And in his own research in that paper, Lisak choose to include cases where only a case number and a classification exists in the denominator. No information *at all* if it's true or false, and Lisak lets it decrease the the "false accusation rate".
I agree this assertion is problematic. The current version makes a broad and controversial assertion about the cause of a legal phenomenon (custody judgements). However, it cites just one source -- a book about pop-culture internet studies. I scoured many WP:RS and found plenty of evidence that more authoritatively contextualizes/analyzes the phenomenon.
"Determinants of Child Custody Arrangements at Divorce", Journal of Marriage and Family, https://www.jstor.org/stable/353924). Identifying many policy, legal, and personal considerations, including bias, that render higher sole custody granted to women than men.
Gardner, Richard A. "Recent trends in divorce and custody litigation." Academy forum. Vol. 29. No. 2. 1985. http://fact.on.ca/Info/pas/gardnr85.pdf. Establishing that in the development of child custody common law, the "tender years presumption" was an instance of systemic statutory bias in favor of granting child custody to women over men. Mihir.pethe1 (talk) 03:58, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Indeed, it also looks like WP:OR interpretation of those old sources. If there are more sources on this topic which are pertinent, then the place to air them is the target article: Sole custody. Bon courage (talk) 06:56, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Good call on finding recent research. I found this journal article focussed directly on the topic in contention. It was published in 2020. This academic journal article disputes the assertion in the current version of this wp article, which rests on a single reference to gender bias in a book about gamergate, a far cry from the topic of legal custody disputes.
From the abstract:
"the institutions follow an essentialist discourse when granting fathers child custody" ... "In institutions, policies and everyday practices, men are perceived and treated as the secondary parent."
Humer, Živa. "MEN'S EXPERIENCES OF GENDER (IN) EQUALITY AS A PRIMARY OR SINGLE PARENT." Teorija in praksa 56.4 (2020).
Seems like a 2019 publication from a men's rights periodical in Slovenia(n). Not sure how that's relevant unless it dwells particularly on popular misconceptions. Is there an extract that does?. It's possible it's just aping the misconception itself. Bon courage (talk) 17:24, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
im being cheeky, of course, but the onus is on the addition to the page (asserting gender bias doesn't exist in custody disputes) to substantiate itself with reliable sources. so far it has one tenuous source, as others pointed out here. i point to three academic journal articles suggesting the opposite is true, and the response sound a bit like a nitpicking suggsstive of a WP:NPOV problem.... Mihir.pethe1 (talk) 23:27, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
suggesting the opposite is true ← so it's WP:OR. The misconception observation is WP:Verified by RS. We would expect to see the misconception in some publications I'm sure. I suggest making a case at Sole custody and if that changes, it can change here. Bon courage (talk) 03:59, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
@Bon courage not OR. I am literally quoting from academic journals. by the way, I havent seen a direct quotation from the only source that supposedly supports the assertion that no gender bias exists. Mihir.pethe1 (talk) 17:08, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
I see three issues with this entry:
1) The cited source is about US behavior, but the entry tacitly extrapolates that to a broader geographic distribution.
2) The topic article, Sole_custody, states that "...it is a popular misconception common in the men's rights movement...". Is this a sufficiently broad category of people to qualify as "common misconception"?
3) It appears that the sole source is written from a distinctive point of view. That's not to say it is wrong, but it would be better to find a more disinterested source for the assertion.
Also, looking at the articles cited above, it appears that in the not too distant past custody of younger children was preferentially given to the mother. If that's the case - that is, things have changed - we should probably include some language to that effect. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:54, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Some replies:
I agree that it should be clarified.
Determining what constitutes a "common" belief is beyond our purview, but it should be clarified as common among MRA.
I agree, per WP:EXCEPTIONAL. It should probably be removed until this is met.
