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Conscription Version 4

Please see below. User Nøkkenbuer has done a pretty substantial rewrite of V3 posted above. The only thing I have changed is to remove the sub-heading for selective service as that was suggested above. Since this version is a bit longer, the sub-heading might make more sense now, or it may just give undue attention to the US as a special case, an attention not given in the section to other countries who only get a passing mention. (also adding pics is forthcoming)Timothyjosephwood (talk) 18:33, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Main article: Conscription

Conscription, or compulsory military service, has been criticized as sexist. Historically, only men have been subjected to conscription, and only in the late 20th century has this begun to change, though most countries still require only men to serve in the military. The integration of women into militaries, and especially into combat forces, did not begin on a large scale until late in the 20th century. In his book The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys (2012), philosopher David Benatar states that the theoretical arguments are immaterial to those who are pressed into service: "Some women are excluded from combat, but many more women are exempt. While some men are excluded from combat (because they fail the relevant tests), many more are pressured or forced into combat." According to Benatar, "[t]he prevailing assumption is that where conscription is necessary, it is only men who should be conscripted and, similarly, that only males should be forced into combat". This, he believes, "is a sexist assumption".

Israeli female soldiers

Currently, only nine countries conscript women into their armed forces: China, Eritrea, Israel, Libya, Malaysia, North Korea, Peru and Taiwan. Other countries—such as Finland, Turkey, and Singapore—still use a system of conscription which requires military service from only men, although women are permitted to serve voluntarily. In 2014, Norway became the first NATO country to introduce obligatory military service for women as an act of gender equality. The gender selective draft has been challenged in Switzerland, but the case was rejected by the Federal Supreme Court on the grounds that the specific law requiring service takes precedent over the general law forbidding sex discrimination. Chantal Galladé, former president of the Swiss Defence Committee calls the conscription of men a discrimination against both men and women, cementing the stereotypical gender roles of men and women.

The practice of conscription has been criticized by various men's rights groups, such as the National Coalition for Men, which claims that "no gender oppression is comparable". These groups have been joined on occasion by certain feminist activists. According to Joshua S. Goldstein, beginning in the 1970s "liberal feminists" have argued in favor of extending conscription to women, taking the position that "the best way to insure women's equal treatment with men is to render them equally vulnerable with men to the political will of the state". Others have disagreed, however, contending that "by integrating into existing power structures including military forces and the war system without changing them, women merely prop up a male-dominated world instead of transforming it".

Anthropologist Ayse Gül Altinay has commented that "given equal suffrage rights, there is no other citizenship practice that differentiates as radically between men and women as compulsory male conscription" and continues elsewhere, stating that "any attempt to de-gender nationalism and citizenship needs to incorporate a discussion of universal male conscription". She goes on to quote feminist writer Cynthia Enloe, who argues that "there is a reason that so many states in the world have implemented military conscription laws for young men: most of those men would not join the state's military if it were left up to them to choose".

Congressman Alexander Pirnie (R-NY) drawing the first capsule for the Selective Service draft, Dec 1, 1969.

In the United States, all men must register with the Selective Service System within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Those who fail to register may be punished by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. They may also be ineligible for federal student financial aid, federal job training and federal employment. As of 2014, transgender females who are born biologically male are required to register for selective service, but may file for a exemption in the event they are drafted. Transgender males who are born female are not required to register but may face difficulties in receiving benefits which require registration. Currently, women are exempted from the Selective Service System as only males are required to register; this cannot be changed without Congress amending the law.

The selective service has been challenged in court in Rostker v. Goldberg in 1981, Elgin v. Department of Treasury in 2012, and a lawsuit is currently pending appeal in the case of National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System. All have argued in small or large part on the grounds of equal protection and due process on the basis of gender. Thus far all rulings have upheld the program, though on differing grounds. Professor Stephanie M. Wildman of Santa Clara Law called the decision in Rostker v. Goldberg "chilling to any advocate of full societal participation". In the ensuing congressional debate, Senator Mark Hatfield argued that:

The paternalistic attitude inherent in exclusion of women from past draft registration requirements not only relieved women of the burden of military service, it also deprived them of one of the hallmarks of citizenship. Until women and men share both the rights and the obligations of citizenship, they will not be equal.

References

I like this version better, but it still gives undue weight to Benetar and the NCFM's perspective. I am working on some quotations & citations to bring a bit more balance and give a better idea of what the prevailing view is among academics, hope to have it ready later today. Fyddlestix (talk) 14:04, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Awesome. Thanks for contributing. This is what we need. Less debate over the philosophical and more debate over proposed edits. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 17:53, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

@Fyddlestix: How's the progress going? Timothyjosephwood (talk) 23:58, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm interested in this as well. Is "conscription is sexist" the mainstream view with no notable rebuttals? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:48, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Either way, I appreciate your open mindedness. I understand now that your objection was not pro forma blocking of an apparently dissenting point of view, but based on the proposal itself. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 03:34, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's a mainstream view, even among academics, but I couldn't find any RS which claim that it is not or arguing that it is not. There's some WordPress feminist blogs and various forum discussions wherein users claim it isn't, but we all know that doesn't count for crap when it comes to RS. ―Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 07:20, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed response, I'm still reading up on this and trying to get my hands on more/better sources. I think I have good evidence already though that the version above gives undue weight to Benetar and the NCFM, and to the notion that conscription is sexist against men when this is far from the most common or mainstream view, especially among academics. Here are some examples of how other academics look at this:

Kenneth Clatterbaugh: "It is true that some men die, are wounded, suffer permanent psychological harm, or are coerced. It is true that in times of world war this number can be very large." But these costs accrue to men "because of a complex, competitive system that ensures that men hold onto the most important positions of power and influence." Benatar's argument "is unconvincing in the face of the overwhelming advantages of military service and the relatively few men who are disadvantaged by it" According to Clatterbaugh, collectively men "have everything to gain and little to lose by playing the game." The case for men "seems to be a case of discrimination for their collective advantage; the case for women seems to be a clear case of discrimination for their collective disadvantage, where advantage and disadvantage are spelled out in terms of controlling and occupying positions of power and influence, and that amounts to a very serious social injustice."

James Sterba: "The restriction of combat to men is a clear example of discrimination against women, not one of discrimination against men." Sterba argues that while some men are disadvantaged by conscription, "it doesn't follow that they have suffered from discrimination," and certainly not "in the same way that women have been discriminated against in a partriachal society." According to Sterba, "the men who become 'cannon fodder' in a patriarchal society are not discriminated against on the basis of their sex. This is because the overall design of a patriarchal society is to benefit men generally, not to discriminate against any of them." While some are disadvantaged, that disadvantage is really just the "cost of dominance" for men more generally - one that your average man has very little chance of bearing. According to sterba, we can't and shouldn't compare "the regrettable side-effect of a system designed to generally benefit all men" with "the foreseeable and/or intended direct effect of a system designed to generally harm or deny benefits to all women." The exclusion of women from conscription and combat is thus "really a form of discrimination against women."

Tom Digby: Restriction of conscription and combat to men-only has "given men control over important institutions like government and religion, and control over resources in general."

Linda K. Kerber agrees, saying that this system has allowed men "to monopolize the agencies of state violence." Kerber notes that liberal feminists have wanted to include women in both combat and conscription since the 80s, when "virtually all liberal women's advocacy organizations" began to link "military service with first-class citizenship." Kerber's basic argument is that women will never be equal to men as long as they're unable to fulfill all of the obligations of "first-class" citizens, in addition to being granted the same rights as men. So she agrees with the scholars above, that the exclusion of women from combat and conscription is actually a form of discrimination against women, which upholds and justifies treating women differently (and un-equally) in other areas of law as well. This, btw is the exact same argument made by Sarah MacDwyer in the citation you already linked above. So this is a very common view among academics. It has also been common among feminist activists, and Kerber gives tons of evidence of that, quoting NOW spokespeople as saying that conscripting men but not women is "an unconstitutional denial of rights" for women rather than for men. Kerber's book is very highly regarded by historians btw, and won several major prizes.

TL:DR: The fact that ""women, gay men, and lesbian women have long sought to gain access" to military service is significant - it means that male-only conscription and military service supports the dominance of heatero men over those groups, rather than disadvantaging men in general. This is the "mainstream" view among academics, although I recognize that it's probably not going to be a popular one here, and might be difficult to explain/outline in the article concisely

Final note: Goldstein's War and Gender, which is also cited above, also seems to support this view of things, based on book reviews. I haven't actually managed to get my hands on a full, non-google-books version of it yet though so can't totally confirm that.

References

@Nøkkenbuer: Actually I've spotted a problem. We list Norway as a nation who conscripts women but only list eight counties while claiming nine. The ninth is Norway and that's why there were two citations in my version: one to establish the eight and another more recent to establish Norway as the ninth. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 04:10, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm fine with you changing that if you want, or for me to change it above. We could simply reuse Reference 9. Sorry about that. Thanks for considering my work, however, and I really do appreciate your well-reception. I was concerned that you would consider my edit worse, so I was preparing for disappointment. ―Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 07:20, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

@Fyddlestix:

• Citation 1: Cited three times according to scholar, and all of them are pieces by Benatar.
• Citation 2: Cited twice, both by Benatar.
• Citation 3: Cited thrice, once by Benatar
• Citation 4: Is totally legit and we've already included this type of opinion in the section. More than happy to include more.
• Citation 5: Already cited in the proposed V4.
• Citations 6-7: Repeats of above addressed citations.

I hardly think this constitutes a "mainstream" view. Benatar's book is cited more than citations 1-3 put together times three, and he himself makes up the majority of their own respective citations. I don't think we can, in good faith, say that these apparently fringe, largely uncited and unnoticed papers can out weigh the scholarly sources cited in V4, plus the supreme court cases of two nations, plus a US senator, plus the Swedish minister of defense, plus...you know...the entire country of Norway. I'm more than willing to include more in the opposition paragraph, but I in no way think that these sources constitute the "mainstream".

edit: As to citation 3, how you can connect conscription to power over religion...I think this alone on its face lends itself to the value of this piece. Also, he seems to be on the other side. From the abstract: "Cynthia Enloe addresses military sexism but ignores the greater disadvantage suffered by vast numbers of men who are forced into combat against their wills."Timothyjosephwood (talk) 19:18, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

edit2: Citation 3 appears to have been pulled from Benatar himself, as he quotes exactly the same quote on page 164. The article itself is behind a paywall.Timothyjosephwood (talk) 19:36, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I wouldn't have expected those articles to get a ton of citations. They're a direct response to Benetar, and Benetar himself has not been taken all that seriously by a lot of academics. That's why his book only has 28 citations in scholar. Compare that Clatterbaugh's other, main work on gender issues, which has has 193, or Kerber's book, which has 376. Those are the kind of citation numbers you'd expect for a book to be given the kind of weight that the above passage gives Benetar. A search for Benetar's book in JSTOR yields exactly one scholarly review. This is not the sign of a book that should be given a great deal of weight.

I'm not just making this up, here's another review that specifically states that:

many scholars do not wish to characterize discrimination against men as sexism. Marilyn Frye arguesthat sexism exists only when discrimination on the basis of one’s sex is systemic, and Catharine MacKinnon maintains thatthe primary feature of systemic sexism is that the meaning of being classified as a member of one sex is that one exists ina relation of subordination to another group of human beings.Kenneth Clatterbaugh, James Sterba, and Tom Digby denied intheir 2003 responses that discrimination against men constitutessexism.

To be clear: I'm not saying that Benetar needs to be removed altogether or anything. Simply that both perspectives need to be discussed and given at least equal weight (though I'd argue that the many scholars who've disagreed with Benetar should get significantly more weight than he does). Fyddlestix (talk) 00:52, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

"Benetar himself has not been taken all that seriously by a lot of academics." Do a scholar search: 203 citations, 115 citations, 56 citations. If we want to compare citations in books and articles that are not at all involved in this discussion we can do that for days.

From the conclusion of your own cited review of Benatar stating that "many scholars do not wish to characterize discrimination against men as sexism": "I urge academic feminists to take Benatar’s thesis seriously and to respond to it with respect rather than with disbelief or derision." (p. 24) This is cherry picking to the extreme. The author is citing them as a counter-example to be debunked.

I'm more than willing to include dissenting views, but including them as dissenting views, not the mainstream, which this is apparently not given the sources. I think this discussion would probably be more productive if you proposed an edit rather than arguing a position. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 04:46, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the main stream, in most countries where I was searching for evidence, most press articles were about men trying to get out of service, not men in. Women now have the option of joining, but are not obliged. Maybe historically military service was seen as a privilege, but that is certainly not mainstream any longer.Lucentcalendar (talk) 08:13, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Here are some other sources:

From a basic, introductory Textbook, Sharon Hartman Strom's, Women's Rights (Greenwood, 2003). "From the founding of the nation under the Constitution in 1789, male citizenship and certain obligations were assumed to go hand in hand. Men were to represent dependents and wives in the courtroom and in government, to carry the onerous duty of serving on juries, and in times of war, to be drafted into the armed forces. Women, by virtue of their supposedly more delicate physical constitutions, susceptibility to rape and assault, and sole responsibility for childbearing, were to be protected from these obligations. In its beneficence and respect for womanhood, then, the government protected women from conflict on the battlefield, in the coatroom, in the legislature, and at the polling place. Because women did not serve their country as soldiers, they were not, as any number of social conservatives would repeat, therefore entitled to full rights as citizens. voting was a right balanced by obligations, obligations that women did not have. This quid pro quo argument was usually accompanied by more subjective assertions having to do with sexual difference." "Women's rights activists have countered these conservative arguments with demands for women's liberation from dependency and their full incorporation into the body politic and the economy. They have assured critics that women are ready to assume the obligations of voting, supporting families, holding political office, serving on juries, and, in modern times - joining the military - and that society will not fall apart as a result."

From Dorit Geva, Conscription, Family and the Modern State: A Comparative Study of France and the United States. Cambridge, 2013. Geva argues that US and French conscription policy "designated men as the primary figures of authority within their families," creating "a distinctly modern form of patriarchal authority," which "placed familial [patriachal] authority at the heart of their respective states." (page 3) "In the United States, women's second-class citizenship throughout the nineteenth century likewise placed men in a position of authority over their families. Conscription rules during the Civil War, particularly for the Union Army, made this crystal clear, and as will be shown with greater detail, so did the formation and operation of the US Selective Service System during World War I and its subsequent operation during World War II." 4.

From RC Clatterbaugh, "Are Men Oppressed?" In Larry May, Robert Strikwerda, and Patrick D. Hopkins, eds, Rethinking Masculinity: Philosophical Explorations in Light of Feminism. (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996).

"Is the fact that only men are drafted and used in combat the result of valuing men's lives less or the result of a patriarchal society that through its institutions holds that only men are capable of being soldiers, that only men have the courage, strength and military intelligence to defend their country." "Women, other the other hand, are the property and spoils of war that victors take along with the roads, homes, farms, and factories of the vanquished." "The history of trying to bring women into the military suggests that it is not because men are valued less than women that only men are drafted, but that men are valued more. Add to this male privilege the fact that the military has provided a primary road of upward mobility for men through elaborate subsidizations in insurance, home loans, educational opportunities, preferential hiring, and tax benefits and the fact that very few men who serve see combat, and that those who do are often poor or men of color and the military looks more like a structure for the advancement of male privilege than a source of male oppression." p 302. This article has 26 citations in scholar.

Hopefully a picture is forming here - I'm sure I could find many other scholars who come from this perspective if needed, but I don't really see the point. The point here is that both of these views bear representing in the article. There are also plenty of scholars who take a middle ground, similar to the perspective taken by Judith Lorber in Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics (2005) (a book that has 407 citations in scholar. This is Lorber's take:

• "Although we speak of gender inequality, it is usually women who are disadvantaged relative to similarly situated men." 5.
• "Gender inequality can also disadvantage men. In many countries, only men serve in the armed forces, and in most countries, only men are sent into direct combat."
• "the gender arrangements of most societies assume that women will do the work of bearing and caring for children while men will do the work of protecting and supporting them economically" (7). "This gendered division of labor is rooted in the survival of small groups living at the substance level."
• But those distinctions become discriminatory in modern society: "The modern forms of gender inequality are not a complementary exchange of responsibilities but an elaborate system within which, it was estimated by a UN report in 1980, women do two-thirds of the world's work, receive 10 percent of the world's income, and own 1 percent of the world's property." 7.

So there you have both an acknowledgement of the fact that men can and do face discrimination, an acknowledgement that men do a lot more fighting than women, and an acknowledgement that this is all tied up with a system that disadvantages women far far more than it disadvantages men. Fyddlestix (talk) 18:08, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are arguing, or to whom. You seem to be bleeding over into the debate above as to the generally inane question of who is worst off for having suffered sexism. I give zero shits about whatever sources you can cite. Propose an edit. I have said this before and yet you continue to debate. I have no care for debating to you. Whatever it is you say...fine...you're right...whatever. Propose an edit. If you can't propose an edit then go away; you're no use to me.Timothyjosephwood (talk) 19:57, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

To be clear: propose an edit or this conversation is over. You are not being productive. You are being obstructionist and too lazy to make a meaningful contribution to the proposed section. I am trying, despite the odds, to unfuck this article that has been completely marred by undergraduates trying to earn their grade on a school project. This is not a forum for general discussion about sexism. Please limit discussion to improvement to the article. See the template at the top of the talk page. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 20:01, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I also find it very hard to find anything concrete enough for further debate in the writing of Fyddlestix. Yes, we get it, women face a lot of sexism, the whole article is about it. But here we are talking about a very specific men topic. Either you can contribute directly to that, or you let it be.Lucentcalendar (talk) 09:35, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Lucentcalendar - you're wrong, and obviously so, as it's clear from the cites above that conscription and sexism is not a "very specific men topic". Timothyjosephwood, a little more civility please. I believe that Fyddlestix is saying a balance to "no gender oppression is comparable" is needed. Fyddlestix, can changes be made to the existing proposed text or does it require a rewrite in your opinion? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 13:30, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Conscription is not a commonly cited form of sexism (of which there are countless) and I don't think it makes sense to include it in the article per WP:UNDUE. If you want to convince people otherwise, you'll need to show high quality secondary sources about sexism in general (such as sociology textbooks) that devote significant attention to conscription. A section that does need to be added to the article, however, is sexism in sports, which we currently don't mention at all, but is commonly discussed in works about sex discrimination. Kaldari (talk) 20:43, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

@Timothyjosephwood and Lucentcalendar: apologies if you found the barrage of sources obstructive - @NeilN: is correct, I was simply trying to convince you that this draft has a balance/weight problem as written. I've actually been trying (offline) to figure out how to word this better, but am having difficulties making it concise and clear. This isn't an easy subject to explain, assuming you want to do it justice, and it's hard to avoid going off on tangents about women's historical participation in the military, the relationship between rights & obligations, etc. Kaldari may be correct here, maybe we're having trouble drafting this because we're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, and this isn't really a salient example of sexism at all. I'd love for more people to weigh in and let us know what they think. Fyddlestix (talk) 14:42, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

More generally, I think @Kaldari: raises an excellent point, which is that the way to fix up this article is to let the most authoritative sources guide the structure and the drafting of the article. Unfortunately some of the proposed revisions above (and arguably much of the article as it is) have been drafted in the opposite way, where sources that support what's already there (or what some editors think should be there) are sought out. Unfortunately this is pretty common on wikipedia, but it's emphatically not the way to fix up an article that's already in poor shape. Fyddlestix (talk) 14:47, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

@ Fyddlestix and NeilN: You are trying to balance sexism against men with sexism against women. That is not how it works, we have to look at each issue separately. If one sex is selected and forced to do something and the other is not, that is discrimination based on sex a.k.a. sexism. You can't balance the sexism of conscription against the sexism of social status/role. That is sythesis.Lucentcalendar (talk) 09:07, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

No, there's greater nuance here than that here. Forced by who? Is it women discriminating against men or men discriminating against men or men discriminating against women? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:19, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Who is discriminating whom is plainly not relevant. My guess is that most discrimination is commented by the vague conglomerate we call society. It is not men, who explicitly want women to earn less. It just happens, although it should not and there are many many causes. It is the same with forced military service. There are many many causes. If you would want to make this artificial separation, then the discrimination could be split by gender frequency in the government and parliament, which is nonsense. Or you would need to find small events, like the white feather movement where women explicitly discriminated against men refusing service. But that is also not a sensible way to go.Lucentcalendar (talk) 08:14, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

This discussion is going nowhere. Could we now finaly have that section back in the article? It used to be in there, evergreenfire took it out because it was short and confusing, Timothyjosephwood did a lot of great work to improve it, it is time to put it back in! We can shake in the details later on.Lucentcalendar (talk) 08:16, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

@ FyddlestixNeilNLucentcalendarKaldari Alright. Well. I've been out of town all weekend with no internet access, and it looks like there has been zero productivity here in the interim. Even worse, it seems that the argument has devolved even more so into a general discussion about sexism. Most importantly, there has still not been any proposed edits. So here are what I see as the high points of the discussion:

• The sources cited by Fyddle are exceptionally weak: they are mostly narrow rebuttals to Benatar, and are not prominent and widely cited pieces. There are no independent sources cited which feel the need to address conscription as sexism against women, without having read (or perhaps failing to read) Benatar with the exception of: one piece by a women's studies professor (which may be used as a counterpoint to the NCFM, as they appear equally biased), one piece by a law professor (no issues with this as stated above, although she herself sees conscription as an obligation, not a privilege) and one piece by a sociologist (see parenthetical comment at end of bullet). There are no similarly narrow rebuttals to any of the other sources cited. There are no sources rebutting Altanay, Enloe, Galladé, or Goldstein (except one misquoted by Fyddle which criticizes Enloe for not going far enough). There are no supreme court cases or prominent political figures arguing the other side here. Further, the supreme court cases in the US, Rostker and Elgin, were ruled against by saying in no uncertain terms that it is discriminatory, but that the need for defense supersedes the desire for equality. For NeilN to assert that "that conscription and sexism is not a 'very specific men topic'" is to flatly ignore the weakness of the sources provided in opposition. At best the (two reliable) sources in opposition compose a hypothetical mechanism for sexism against women in conscription with zero evidentiary backing. (Even while citing Geva as a RS, it is important to note that the book addressed state recognition of men's supposed authority over their families precisely because conscription laws often only drafted unmarried childless men, and left those with families behind. Thus the piece does not suggest any causal link that the draft gives men familial authority, but rather that the state recognizes familial authority and thus exempts certain men from the draft.)

• As explained ad nauseum, the sources provided more than meet the standards set forth by WP:RS. They represent scholarly works, books, court cases, activists groups, and prominent political figures. Demanding that one of these sources be a sociology book to be a RS, because apparently the philosophy, political science, and anthropology books cited do not suffice, is entirely arbitrary. Again and again the claim is made in this discussion that sexism against women in conscription is mainstream and that the sources provided are not reliable; you cannot assert this by fiat. I have addressed every source provided in opposition, and disposed of nearly all as either obscure, reactionary, biased, or flatly saying the opposite of what they are supposed to have said. (The source cited in the section that Fyddle seems to think argues against the position of the section, seems to do so because Fyddle has not read the source and has cherry picked a quote completely out of context, and I have explained this above. One of Fyddle's sources which seems to argue against, actually argues for, again, as I have explained above.) There has been no similar criticism of the sources provided in support other than to provide weak easily dismissed or misquoted sources, or to mount a WP:SOAPBOX that they must necessarily be WP:FRINGE or WP:UNDUE because users personally disagree with them.

• As to citing sources in general to establish sexism, (a) the sources in opposition have not been held to this standard, and as explained repeatedly, are mostly rebuttals against Benatar. (b) this has been provided. For example, Altanay's book is a general piece on warfare in the Middle East. I would say this is much more general than citing a book entitled Women's Rights by (unsurprisingly) a professor of Women's Studies and finding exactly what this books was sought out to find.

• These sources are not cherry picked. In fact it has been quite easy to find sources. Conversely, it seems so apparently difficult to find opposing sources that you have to resort to contest of comparing scars regarding who is more affected by sexism generally.

• Everything cited is a secondary source (I don't know why this is even an issue) with the exception of prominent political figures. These are cited to comply with the "prominent figure" guidance in WP:UNDUE. As mentioned above, I have intentionally left out sources like Louis Barthas because, as compelling as his writing is, he is a primary source and not a prominent figure.

• Nothing in the section is SYNTH. Everything is quoted and well sourced. The fact that RSs reach a conclusion you personally disagree with does not make it SYNTH.

• Whether or not this section is "balanced" is a red herring. There is no need to balance it for balance's sake. The section on suffrage does not need to mention males for balance, because the issue is not a balanced one. The C4 section should be balanced if RSs say that the issue is balanced. Sufficient such sources have not been provided. Two reliable sources, does not make a mainstream view balanced against the many and variety of sources provided. Other sources have been provided to establish that there is a minority reactionary view that it is sexist against women and this can be represented in the section if the people arguing that here can be bothered to actually propose an edit.

• Whether men or women are affected more by sexism in the grand scheme of the universe is a red herring. This is not the lead, and this is not a section on sexism generally; it is a section on conscription. Please confine discussion to the topic at hand.

• Whether men are discriminated against by women, men, or some mythical societal construct is a red herring. This is not a section on the social etymology of sexism. This is a section about how states and societies have disproportionately forced men into service and combat on the basis of their sex, and how this affects the fact that men represent the vast majority of combat casualties (both mentally and physically). This is incontrovertible fact. Flatly, I believe it is a subtle form of sexism on this page that many sections in the article simply point out that "in area X we have evidence that outcomes favor men over women" and it is held as self-evidently sexist, while the statement that "men are forced more than women to fight and die in combat" must somehow be argued. There is no debate as to "it is really more subtle than that, we have to look at what proportion of designers are women to really understand the covert sexism in fashion."

I do not at all feel that this section is "trying to fit a square peg in a round hole", and as stated above, sources supporting the position that conscription is sexist are plentiful. Perhaps Fyddle "is having difficulties making it concise and clear" because you have taken it as a given that "this isn't really a salient example of sexism at all". To assert that this must surely be the case if I can only but find something agreeing with my preconceptions is a WP:SOAPBOX. I suspect that this assumption is grounded in a background of reading women's rights pieces by women's rights activist arguing explicitly for women's rights. May I suggest reading books on war written by those who have fought in war and studied war. To me (and to the sources provided) it seems that the square peg is trying to stack some supposed status symbol against Barthas:

"Who knows, maybe one day in this corner of Artois they will raise a monument to commemorate this spirit of fraternity among men who shared a horror of war and who were forced to kill each other against their wills." (Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker. P. 144. Available on books.google)

I do not at all find it difficult "to avoid going off on tangents" because I have plenty of reliable sources that say plainly and in no uncertain terms that it is sexist. This relieves me of the need to try to SYNTH multiple tangents into a conclusion not explicitly stated in the sources. I completely agree that we should let the "most authoritative sources guide the structure and the drafting". The difference though is that I have provided authoritative sources and have proposed a draft, while Fyddle has done nothing but provide weak sources and assume that authoritative sources must certainly exist, and then go on to divine what these mythical sources must necessarily say. This is exactly the same thing Kaldari does when simply asserting that it isn't sexism, while providing no sources and making no comment on the large number of sources provided which says exactly the opposite.

So, I have come up with a list of three things those here can do to move this discussion along:

1. Propose an edit. 2. Propose an edit. 3. Propose an edit.

If the best that can be done is general discussion on sexism (which this talk page is not), then we should move forward in adding the section and the detractors should propose your edits in the article whenever they feel that it is a better use of their time than endless debate. If this leads to an edit war then I suppose we'll have to go to arbitration, because the responsible thing to do is not to remove something you feel is insufficient, but to edit it to improve it. I have tried for pages to have this done in the talk page and those who disagree with the proposed section have been unable. I have said my peace and will no longer respond to any argument that does not include a proposed edit of the section. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 12:43, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, conscription is sexist and this can be shown by reliable sources, but so is wolf-whistling. There's no way it would make sense to have a section devoted to wolf-whistling though. According to WP:BALASPS, each article should "strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to the weight of that aspect in the body of reliable sources on the subject." There is a HUGE body of writing about sexism and sex discrimination. Only a tiny, tiny fraction of that writing even mentions conscription. Personally, I don't think it even warrants being mentioned in the article. And it certainly doesn't warrant being one of the largest sections. While some may argue that conscription isn't sexist, I definitely think that it is. For me, the sole issue is balance of coverage, per WP:NPOV. Kaldari (talk) 18:00, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, I suppose "away with it all" is an edit suggestion. I'll simply suffice it to say that if you believe that the conscription of tens of millions of people is akin to a whistle, well WP:CIR. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 19:27, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to say they were equivalent. I was just pointing out an example of where it would be absurd to include a topic in this article (wolf-whistling) despite the fact that it is widely acknowledged to be sexist, even by reliable sources. Conscription may be more discussed in the body of sources about sexism (or not), but I still don't think it meets the threshold of deserving a section in the article. Kaldari (talk) 19:58, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, then your argument boils down to "I just don't much fancy it". You'll forgive me if that is not particularly convincing, when editors including myself have put a good deal of work into documenting this discrimination. For what it's worth, I think sports would be a fine addition, and should you decide to put in some work of your own, I'd be happy to read it. Despite the fact that, I'm sure, given the "HUGE body of writing about sexism", the work on sports will be a "tiny tiny fraction" of that work. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 20:59, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

@Timothyjosephwood: If you take a look at standard sociology textbooks such as Jon Shepard's Sociology or Diana Kendall's Sociology in Our Times, you'll see that both include significant discussion of sexism in sports, but not sexism in conscription. We actually have a couple articles related to sexism in sports already, Misogyny in sports and Gender in youth sports, but nothing mentioned here. You could use your research to create a new separate article, like Gender in conscription or even Sexism in conscription. That way it would only have to meet the notability requirements, not WP:BALASPS for sexism. There's also an existing section for Conscription#Sexism, although I have no idea if the editors there think it should be expanded or not. Kaldari (talk) 22:19, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Per WP:DUE, "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents". This standard has been met in spades. There is only a balance issue is there is a majority of sources saying that conscription is sexist against women, or not sexist at all. This has not been presented. What has been presented (that has not been shown to have been taken out of context, not making the claim it is supposed to be making, or flatly making a claim in support of the section rather than against) is one Women's rights text (Strom), one law text (Kerber), and three rebuttals to one book (Clatterbaugh, Sterba, and Digby).

The fact that the majority of scholarship on sexism is about topics other than conscription is meaningless. Pick any section in the article and stack up the scholarship on that particular subject (Education, Fashion, Transgender Discrimination), and stack it up against the entire scholarship on sexism and it is always going to be a "tiny tiny fraction". If you are talking about education what matters is the scholarship that has been done concerning education. That it makes up 0.715% of all papers published on sexism means nothing if the majority of RSs on the topic agree. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 02:53, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

@ Kaldari if you want to discuss if some content should be placed in an original article, or in a similar article, we would need to take apart the whole expample section, because all of them have their own articles or large sections in other articles. So that is no argument against this section. And again, this section was already part of the article, it was temporarily removed because it was not written well enough, Timothyjosephwood improved it significantly so now it can go back in.Lucentcalendar (talk) 13:18, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

BTW. also try to see the feminist standpoint, which is also reflected in that section, women where fighting against being denied the right to serve...Lucentcalendar (talk) 13:20, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

If everyone else thinks the section is appropriate, I'm not going to block consensus, but I do think the proposed wording is far too verbose for an overview article like this. What about something like the following... Kaldari (talk) 15:52, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Trimmed Proposal

Main article: Conscription

Conscription, or compulsory military service, has been criticized as sexist. Historically, only men have been subjected to conscription, and only in the late 20th century has this begun to change, though most countries still require only men to serve in the military. The integration of women into militaries, and especially into combat forces, did not begin on a large scale until late in the 20th century. In his book The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys (2012), philosopher David Benatar states that "[t]he prevailing assumption is that where conscription is necessary, it is only men who should be conscripted and, similarly, that only males should be forced into combat". This, he believes, "is a sexist assumption".

Israeli female soldiers

Currently, only nine countries conscript women into their armed forces: China, Eritrea, Israel, Libya, Malaysia, North Korea, Peru and Taiwan. Other countries—such as Finland, Turkey, and Singapore—still use a system of conscription which requires military service from only men, although women are permitted to serve voluntarily. In 2014, Norway became the first NATO country to introduce obligatory military service for women as an act of gender equality. The gender selective draft has been challenged in Switzerland and the United States.

References

I can get on board with a reduct, and try to fit in the rest on the main article on conscription. I would like to include something on Altinay. She is the one prominent non-western source in the section. I also don't want to give the impression that Benatar is the only or even the leading scholar on the subject. He has simply drawn the most fire because he is publishing in the West. How about this? Timothyjosephwood (talk) 16:09, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Main article: Conscription

Israeli female soldiers

Conscription, or compulsory military service, has been criticized as sexist. Historically, only men have been subjected to conscription, and only in the late 20th century has this begun to change, though most countries still require only men to serve in the military. The integration of women into militaries, and especially into combat forces, did not begin on a large scale until late in the 20th century.

In his book The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys (2012), philosopher David Benatar states that "[t]he prevailing assumption is that where conscription is necessary, it is only men who should be conscripted and, similarly, that only males should be forced into combat". This, he believes, "is a sexist assumption".Anthropologist Ayse Gül Altinay has commented that "given equal suffrage rights, there is no other citizenship practice that differentiates as radically between men and women as compulsory male conscription"

Currently, only nine countries conscript women into their armed forces: China, Eritrea, Israel, Libya, Malaysia, North Korea, Peru and Taiwan. Other countries—such as Finland, Turkey, and Singapore—still use a system of conscription which requires military service from only men, although women are permitted to serve voluntarily. In 2014, Norway became the first NATO country to introduce obligatory military service for women as an act of gender equality. The gender selective draft has been challenged in Switzerland and the United States.

References

Both versions OK with me, I understand the remark and change of talk above, but I can't judge the scope.Lucentcalendar (talk) 17:14, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I suppose adding Altinay doesn't hurt. Kaldari (talk) 01:40, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Fantastic. This moves along swimmingly when people propose edits reflecting their abstract arguments rather than making the abstract argument. @ NeilN, @ Flyer22, @ Fyddlestix, any detractors on adding this? I will probably try to work in something similar on conscription (the current section there is in bad shape), and then expand the section as first posted in C4 into it's own article on the topic, as it seems too lengthy for either sexism or conscription to swallow. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 02:55, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

(Made minor change, paragraph break before mentioning Benatar. The change in picture placement made the paragraph seem unwieldy.)Timothyjosephwood (talk) 03:04, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

If you look at my comment from a couple weeks ago it seems both my concerns have been addressed so I have no issues with this. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 22:18, 14 May 2015 (UTC)