User:Bbachman23/sandbox

Article Evaluation: Women in Hawaii

• Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
  • The information in the article is repetitive and seems to lack a lot of substance. With only one source (which was cited at the very end of the article) this page needs a lot of work.
• Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
  • Pretty much the entire History of women in Hawaii could be added to their article. While it gives a general outline and some "facts" the article seems unreliable and biased against the Hawaiian women.
• What else could be improved?
  • Facts about the women, their origins, their practices, their beliefs, their historical background, their religion, their place and development in society, life changes when Hawaii became a state, and so on. This topic has lots of room for development and is rated as a C-class article with Top and High Importance for various WikiProjects.
  • Is the article neutral? Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
    • The article seems biased against the Hawaiian women. The article states, and I quote, "like Hawaiian men, women were people who have brown skin with straight or wavy black hair," "their physique was large," and the author claims the women were "described as 'lazy women'" by New Englanders. The article is biased both against the women and men of Hawaii and deserves a completely new page.
  • Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
    • The author at this point overrepresent the "idleness" and "laziness" of the Hawaiian women and undermines other aspects of their culture and traditions.
    • Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?
      • The only source on the article leads to an "Error 404, Object not found!" page. So, no, the source does not support the claim.
    • Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
      • Since I cannot access the page, I would assess that the current article is extremely lacking in valid facts and is likely abundant in personal biases and invalid comments on the part of the original author.
      • What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
        • There is nothing on the talk page.
      • How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
        • This article is rated by a number of WikiProjects:
        • Wikiproject Hawaii: B-class, Top-importance
        • " Polynesia: B-class, Top-importance
        • " United States: C-class, High-importance
        • " Feminism: C-class, Mid-importance
        • " Women's History: C-class, Mid-importance
        • " United States History: C-class, Mid-importance
      • How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?
        • Despite the discussion of several minorities, we have not had an opportunity to discuss Hawaiian women in depth in class. Though, what i know of women's history, this topic is another that is deserving of attention, to hear the voices that are not being heard from the women in Hawaii article whose source is an outdated website titled "The women of Hawaii -- Enjoying Hula and serving Historical records from early 19th century."

Article Selection

Women in United States juries ***

• Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
  • The content of the article is relevant to the topic. It includes specific court cases as well as specific years in which each state legalized the inclusion of women into the jury system. Despite the presence of accurate yet generalized information, this article could use additions to the reasoning behind why women were excluded from juries and some more information in relation to cases that promoted the inclusion of women jurors. This article is rated as a low-importance, stub article that could use a lot of work. Kerber's book would have plenty of good sources and vital information to add to the page.
• Is it written neutrally?
  • The article is written neutrally and does not hold biases.
• Does each claim have a citation?
  • Yes, most every claim does have a source linked to it, however, some sources are from websites and blogs which are typically avoided on Wikipedia due to potential biases within those sources.
• Are the citations reliable?
  • As stated above, many of the sources are from websites, but after further review, they do have a lot of valid and important information pertaining to the topic. The source URLs are often from sites that are .org or .edu, thus being seen as reliable at least in their own content.

My contributions: If I were to add more to this article, I would use Kerber's "'Woman is the Center of Home and Family Life' Gwendolyn Hoyt and Jury Service in the 20th Century" as a source as well as looking into her sources for further information. One observation made on the Talk page of this article was the lack of background as to why women were initially excluded from Jury service. This would be an interesting addition to the article that Kerber herself had researched and questioned. More additions, including the gradual addition of women and the origins/ development of women on the jury could be commented on.

Female slavery in the United States

• Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
  • The article's content is relevant to the topic, however has a more generalized perspective on slavery rather than an immediate focus on women. The article is divided into regional subheadings that describe the presence and difference of slavery based on location in the United States. Within each section there is a sort of timeline that follows the progression of slavery in the specified region. This article, though it has a lot of writing, is rated C-class due to the topic matter and the information that is not quite aligned with the goal of the page.
• Is it written neutrally?
  • As far as it seems, yes the article is written neutrally, giving statistics with and citing sources for their different claims. This page, as perceived through the talk page, seems to have multiple authors working together to create the most accurate and cohesive page as possible.
• Does each claim have a citation?
  • Yes, there are sources for almost every sentence, helping the reader trust that the information is as unbiased, true, and accurate as possible.
• Are the citations reliable?
  • Most of the citations and sources are books. It seems that most of the resources are secondary sources rather than primary sources, which would make sense in the context of the time period and the women being discussed. The books are scholarly sources and there is even one scholarly article.

Declaration of Sentiments

• Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
  • Yes, the article includes a brief overview describing the background and base of the Declaration of Sentiments, then it goes into the actual text and sentiments in the document. The page perhaps lacks key information on what events lead the Declaration of Sentiments to happen in the first place (resistance to coverture), why women felt that the public needed to be addressed (time for social change), and the aftermath of the article. This article is a C-class article of Low to Mid-Importance.
• Is it written neutrally?
  • The article is written neutrally and has no biases or claims arguing in favor or against the topic at hand.
• Does each claim have a citation?
  • Yes, all quotations and most claims do have citations. In addition, the whole Declaration is copied and pasted onto the page.
• Are the citations reliable?
  • Yes, all sources are either government documents, books, or primary sources.

Women's reproductive health in the United States

• Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
  • Yes, the article includes several subtopics and headings that help break up the subject into categories. Under "Issues" the articles discusses "Sexual health," "Contraception," and "Sexually Transmitted Diseases." Within each section there are further discussions, specifications, or examples of what those subtopics really are all in relation, of course, to women's reproduction. This article does seem to need a significant amount of work as it is rated a Start-class article with low-importance.
• Is it written neutrally?
  • The article is written in mostly neutral tones. It does use some articles to argue points, like the usage of certain products or procedures, but for the most part it is giving a general overview of various aspects under the umbrella topic of women's reproductive health.
• Does each claim have a citation?
  • Yes, at the very least every paragraph has at least one citation, but most paragraphs have several. The article is fairly well resourced with scholarly articles from the Department of Health and Human Services, the World Health Organization, and others.
• Are the citations reliable?
  • Yes, the citations come from reliable sources. Many are from books, scholarly articles, or even organizations that deal with the issues and promote screenings and solutions to women to avoid unhealthy sexual encounters.

Women in Hawaii

• View the evaluation above.

Women in United States juries (The most important aspects of the current article // copied and pasted from original article)

The representation of women in United States juries has increased during the last 100 years, due to legislation and court rulings. At times, women have been completely excluded, or allowed to opt out, from jury service.

History[edit]

As jury trial is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution by the phrase "a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury" and the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, gender representation in American juries have mainly been decided by Supreme court rulings.

In 1879, Strauder v. West Virginia supported state laws that completely excluded women from jury service. Utah became the first state which included women in jury service, from 1898. In 1942, Glasser v. United States struck down legislation that required women to take a jury class to serve as jurors. Hoyt v. Florida in 1961 upheld state laws that did not make women's jury service mandatory, but Taylor v. Louisiana in 1975 struck down such laws. In 1979, Duren v. Missouri ruled that women should not be permitted to opt out from jury service. J.E.B. v. Alabamawas a 1994 ruling which held that lawyers could not use peremptory challenges to influence the jury's gender ratio.

With current state legislation, all-female juries are possible. The jury of the State of Florida v. George Zimmerman got attention for its all-woman composition.

Women in United States juries (my contributions/ notes)

Women in United States Juries

Lead (my edit)

Women in United States juries have seen a steady growth in representation over the course of American History. From the onset of its creation, America's laws excluded women from legal rights and, as such, resulting obligations to the state; jury duty serves as one example of obligations that coincide with rights of American citizens. When women gained the right to vote, several states allowed women to participate as jurors, while other states either limited their right to participate or even excluded them completely from jury service. All women were permitted to participate as jurors as a result of Taylor v. Louisiana in 1975.

History of Women's Exclusion

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." This Amendment acts as one of the oldest laws of America and was adopted from the English Common Law. The English law immigrated to America with the continued exclusion of women in the jury system. William Blackstone spearheaded the idea of women's exclusion as a result of "propter defectum sexus" (based on the defect of sex), and his beliefs were integrated into the legal systems of the United States, including the ideals of coverture. Women's place on the jury would be challenged for decades with arguments including their lack of intelligence, emotional stability, and need to tend to home life. Women would find themselves in between the two ends of the spectrum: full legal right to participate on a jury or barred from participation.

Although some states allowed women to participate in juries as soon as they were out of the gate with their ballot, most women found themselves in states where they needed to fight for their right to participate on a jury. In the 1920s, elite white males were the favored samplings of the population to be included on juries. The Federal Grand Jury Association (FGJA) focused its energies on screening jurors, creating a jury pool of middle to upper class white males while excluding those whose race, class, intelligence, or gender seemed "unfit" for service on a jury. Although portrayed as a "mirror of society," juries were biased in their exclusion of minorities, including the female population. In the 1920s, common arguments revolved around the concept of sentiment and women were stereotyped to be unhelpful on a jury. A 1927 article from the New York Times claims that courts would have to tend to "fainting fits and outbursts of tears" if women were to be included as potential jurors. Furthermore, research from the past shows that the women were typically attributed toward "the tendency to be emotional, submissive, envious and passive," thus creating biased juries.

The Road to Female Jury Service

When the 1930s and 1940s rolled around, "middle class women demanded to serve on juries as a right of equal citizenship." When the Great Depression struck the nation in the 1930s, the intelligent and qualified men that the FGJA had sought out would be removed from their positions at work to help serve. With funds tight and the need for work vital, the FGJA began to expand their requirements for those who could serve on juries in order to keep working men in their positions and have enough jurors serving in the court. At this time, the League of Women Voters and the National Woman's Party demanded for the right to be considered for jury duty; although women had gained the right to vote in 1920, they were not given the same obligation to the state as men in serving on a jury. Woman began to demand service on the basis of "female equity and citizenship" and noticed that, though they were allowed to serve in similar governmental positions, they were not allowed to serve on the juries themselves. In 1937, woman federal jurors won official approval and in some states, including California, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania, participation on a jury was compulsory. In the late 1930s, the perspectives on women jurors transitioned from a place of sentiment to one of special competence. Women became "law abiding, attentive to detail, and less likely to be swayed by emotion than men," and they were able to see through lies because they had been "sifting truth from falsehood due to their years of dealing with children who try to escape punishment by fibbing." Rather than being seen as overly sensitive and emotional, women began to gain the identity as more "civilized" than men and they were placed on a pedestal of "moral superiority." However, despite the fact they women were allowed to participate on juries, the women who desired to serve had to do so through voluntary submission. This narrowed the female pool to middle class women who were strong activists in the women's movement; the women desired to exercise their minds and put their discernment to the test.

"Peer Representation" in Juries

Judge John C. Knox had advocated for the expansion of the qualifications for jurors and even promoted women to serve on the jury. He argued for the expansion of the juries to be "truly representative of the community"; however, he believed that jurors had to be able to complete a series of tests that proved their literacy and intelligence. His hope was for the federal courts to create a system of "hand-picked juries" that would ultimately be limited to educated, middle-class men. The tests given to potential jurors created rules and regulations that barred the unemployed as well as those who had different clothing, speech patterns or spelling than what was deemed acceptable to those who ran the screening process. In 1941, review page 993 of article for stats...

In 1975, the right to participate as a juror was formally extended to any person who was able to vote, thus including women.

Peer Review:

In our reading, there were some good cartoon pictures that represented some of the feelings towards women on juries. That might be an interesting addition to the page. Other than that it looks really good. I think this is information that all people need to hear, so I am glad you are writing about it.

Notable Court Cases

• United States v Ballard (1944) marked a time of social transition in the United States regarding women on juries. Justice William O. Douglass argued that "the systematic exclusion of any group destroyed the essential 'classlessness' of the jury system."
• Fay v New York (1947)
• Hoyt v Florida (1961)
• Taylor v Louisiana (1975)