Talk:Feminism/Archive 14

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Edit request from Fantastikfizz, 20 August 2010

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refers to political, cultural, and economic movements aimed at establishing equal rights and participation in society for women and girls.

Fantastikfizz (talk) 23:05, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I take it you're requesting we remove "or, among a minority, superior" from the lede sentence - am I correct?--Cailil talk 23:17, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
The leading feminist advocacy organizations in the U.S., such as NOW and NWPC, advocate for equality. Most feminists advocate for no more than that (only a small minority wants more and we acknowledge that). But many feminists argue for less and may or may not call it equality. Many feminists take positions that contradict those of other feminists: that is, they take feminist positions on some issues and nonfeminist positions on other issues and thus disagree with feminists on the latter. The result is that they seek feminist advances but not necessarily all the way to equality. (If someone says that mixed-position feminists are seeking equality then those adhering to entirely feminist positions on all issues are seeking superiority and are far more numerous than some of us thought.) The equity position is one version of that: they tend to assume that equality means that 250 of the Fortune 500 CEOs should be women and they disagree with that. Equality feminists don't argue for quotas across the board, although many support affirmative action to overcome male-only quotas. Both seek equality of opportunity although at different places. In general, equity and equality feminists don't agree on their goals and on their perceptions of each other's goals.
In a sense, I'm sympathetic to narrowing the article to what would advance political organizing, but that's not Wikipedia's purpose, because it would lose the many readers who seek neutrality, not advocacy. The groups themselves can advocate and you're free to contact them directly.
Nick Levinson (talk) 01:12, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Just to clarify I had to ask Fantastikfizz that because they didn't use the template right but I could be wrong about their position and what they want changed.
I think you've made a good point Nick about the plurality of feminist positions (although I think that view focusses on American feminism over much - that's just my opinion). And again for clarity my own reasons (as expressed above) for wanting to shorten the lede are source based - I just haven't seen one that includes the superiority thing in a definition with this prominence. My problem with it is that our definition line is a unique definition. I'm happy to leave it though unless consensus forms to change or until a sourced wording for it can be found.
Just as a side note Fantastikfizz may not be seeking to advocate feminism so I'd suggest redacting that part of your comment - it could get taken the wrong way--Cailil talk 01:27, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't want to redact what was already read or likely may have been (it's not an accidentally released secret, libel, copyright violation, etc.) and your and my responses to Fantastikfizz likely gave the two sides of response to the edit request, yours that it was the one clause and mine that it was that feminism is always for equality. As I read the proposal, Fantastikfizz's concern was likely one or the other or close to it.
Fantastikfizz, if we both misunderstand your desire entirely, please tell us what you're thinking of or proposing.
My analysis probably does overemphasize American views but my impression is that in many nations feminism is even less popular among women and therefore less diverse and at the same time many women will say they're already powerful without feminism. An example was in a radio phone call from a woman in the U.S. who identified as Jewish and objected to being called Orthodox because she said non-Orthodox Jews are not Jewish (thus I think she was essentially Orthodox and I won't argue here about who is a Jew); she said that she is "a doctor", "a lawyer", and "a rabbi", and then she paused, and then she said, "in the home". Usually, an Orthodox Jewish man is not both a licensed doctor and a lawyer admitted to the bar and also a rabbi ministering anywhere. So, she, in effect, was saying that she has plenty of power, thank you. Christina Hoff Sommers' Who Stole Feminism? argues for equity feminism but also tells of an American academics' conference at which a Russian woman commented against feminism altogether, a comment of which Ms. Sommers appeared to approve, suggesting that feminism was unnecessary outside of the U.S. and that the feminism appropriate for the U.S. was of a more conservative bent than most national feminist leaders were supporting. There are feminisms around the world and diversity in them, but the more traditional societies probably have proportionately fewer advocates of feminism and "fewer" tends to correlate with less internal diversity. (That is separate from the diversity that occurs in the worldwide discourse of feminism because of the contributions by feminists in the more traditional societies, many of which tend to be of color, low in per-capita income, or non-Western.)
I'm planning more research to support the superiority point. I'll likely be rereading a book from years ago,. so it'll be a while.
I think I understand why the proposal was technically incomplete. With the template were two comments that may confuse most editors. The box the template displays is not visible to the editor during editing. Where the comments came from I don't know, but they seem to have been copied as procedural advice. If I knew where that advice appeared, I might suggest clarifying it.
Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 03:29, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Good points all round Nick. I don't think, personally, that Hoff Sommers view is necessarily that widely held globally - but I don't think you're saying that it is either.
Re; the template - yes it looks overly complicated for a new user--Cailil talk 11:04, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Critique of feminism

Feminism must be debated. Could somebody please review the following article of mine to see if it qualifies in the 'external links' section, and please insert it there. http://home7.swipnet.se/~w-73784/feminismcrit.htm Matswin (talk) 08:15, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so. Almost certainly thousands of essays critical of feminism have been published, some of them more or less along the lines of yours, and major critiques of feminism are already discussed or referenced in the Feminism article. To add another, it should be notable in both content and probably being recognized elsewhere, and books generally are likelier to qualify than essays. The sources you cited in your essay might or might not fit other Wikipedia articles; that I don't know and I don't recall reading them (I assume they're books). If you believe you've cited a source that itself should be cited in the Feminism article, please point it out. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 14:37, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
No. Like Nick says, there are millions of critiques of feminism out there already, thousands of them are much more notable that yours. Sorry to be harsh, but WP isn't a self-publishing agent. Ashmoo (talk) 14:23, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

picture in article

Theres penises on the main picture, I'm not sure if that's intentional or vandalism.

That was vandalism, and not so easy for a Wikipedia first-timer to fix since it was in a template that's supplied to multiple articles, but it was reverted each time and someone using the computer where it came from was given a warning. Thanks for letting us know. If you want to revert vandalism in articles yourself, use the history tab link at the top of the article and click the Undo link on the latest version, if that's the one vandalized.
I added the title to your topic and thereby separated your comment from the previous topic. Whenever you'd like to discuss an article, to start a new discussion, click the New Section link at the top of the talk page you want.
Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:33, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

superiority

This follows the foregoing discussions at 2d draft is up & thanks for waiting, Weasel words in first paragraph, and Edit request from Fantastikfizz, 20 August 2010.

So far, I have two citations and am looking at another book. My plan is to create a new article and link to it from this one.

I looked at an edition (I forgot the year) of Ashley Montagu's The Natural Superiority of Women and he does not support political superiority since the title was probably an exaggeration from his content. If we preserve the title, it appears that his argument is that women are naturally superior to what we thought were women's capabilities, and so, e.g., he lists women who had become political leaders when he was writing. On a quick skim, his book is more a marshalling of evidence against female inferiority. Useful; but I'm not planning to cite it for this purpose.

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:11, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

That's interesting. I was reading back through some old discussions here (in the archives) and through Nancy Cott's book. I think the its really an issue of female difference. Cott talks about this (and how it's a contradictory to the equality definition) in the first couple of chapters of the book. I have seen definitions of feminism that highlight women's difference and perhaps that's the wording we should use--Cailil talk 17:14, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Which book by Nancy Cott do you suggest for the purpose? She's written a few and I don't recall reading any of them, but I can look for one and consider what you're referring to.
If anyone's arguing that there's a feminism in which neither equality nor inequality are relevant, that's news to me and I'm very interested in what that concept is.
You removed difference feminism from your comment. Difference feminism is not what the clause in the lede is referring to, since difference feminism emphasizes differences and then argues that women and men can be equal or that, relative to men, women can have more power than they do without feminism; and I see no reason why difference feminism could not argue for women to be politically superior to men, although I don't recall whether anyone does. The old concept of separate spheres emphasized difference but conceptually lacked feminism. In feminism, the scale of subequal ascendancy vs. equality vs. superiority is separate from other distinctions among feminist ideologies, e.g., the role of the type of government or economy in female oppression as an analytical starting point.
I'm also planning to look for sources supporting subequal ascendancy as sufficient for feminism, although I suspect it was even more rarely stated in feminist argument.
Nick Levinson (talk) 00:33, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
The book is 'The GRounding of Modern Feminism' - it wasn't that I was suggesting that there's an argument that "neither equality nor inequality are relevant" more that rather than superiority the term 'difference maybe more sourcable. I do recall that there's an argument about difference and identity (but not in the difference feminism we have listed here - what I'm thinking of is probably conflated with what's called radical feminism in the US) which is related to the idea of "feminine difference" from french feminism about 'femininity being beyond Patriarchal structures' - I've found an essay in my library by Luisa Muraro that might be useful - I'll let you know--Cailil talk 01:08, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
There is no discussion of essentialist feminism in this article, which only states that anti-essentialist views exist within feminism. "Positing dichotomous gender differences that are treated as transcultural and transhistorical is termed “essentialism,” a view that has substantial currency among feminists in a variety of disciplines [...]."[1] Another speaks of "feminists' widespread rejection of essentialism [...]"[2] Another source: "Essentialist feminism considers complaints of women's inequality spurious, and extols a separate but equal, or even superior, domestic sphere of female dominance."[3] "Superior" is sourceable, you just have to be willing to look for it or to admit it may exist. Blackworm (talk) 01:29, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
(ec)Thank you Blackworm 'Essentialist feminism' is another name for what I was talking about - Cultural feminism (which is referred to as difference feminism over here in Europe - rather than the difference feminism in the US) is centered on theories of feminine difference and feminine identity. Also the work of Spivak and Fuss from the late C20th are along this same lines.
Over all my point about the current lede line (line 1) is that, superiority is not used in other definitions but "difference" or "female difference" is (and didn't I see you make an argument elsewhere Blackworm, that wikipedia should sticking to what sources say rather than changing words to suit editor's points of view?). Also as I've said before using "superiority" breaks WP:GEVAL by giving equal weight to the female supremacists who just aren't included in other sources definitions of feminism. I'm not saying (nor have I ever said) that female supremacists don't exist - I'm just saying other sources don't give them this kind of weight - here's a list of some of the sources to which I'm referring
And additionally, as above, Nancy Cott deals with both equality and difference and the inter-play between these two attitudes and definitions in 'The Grounding of Modern feminism'. There needs to sources found for the superiority claim that trump the whole panoply of current literature. Until that can be done I suggest using what can be sourced to mainstream reliable sources and use the term "difference"--Cailil talk 02:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)


Cailil, I'll look for Nancy's book. I'll probably have to get it through interlibrary loan, which can take a few weeks to a few months, since neither of my local public library systems has it circulating (one has it offsite for pre-ordered reference only). I look forward to word on the essay.
Blackworm, I'll look for the two sources you cited (you cited the first one twice, probably in error).
Thank you both. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:06, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Yeah interlibrary loan is a bit sticky over here as well. If I find anything interesting I'll post it here and we can talk about it. And I'll try to pick up that essay tomorrow (if not I'll have it on Thursday)--Cailil talk 02:22, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
I already have three authorities advocating feminist superiority, so having reliable sources won't be a problem. I can probably have that article ready in a few days if I just offer that side, but I'd like to take longer so I can represent the other side (subequal ascendancy) from its proponents' sources, lest stating only the one side be a POV violation.
I'm relying, so far, on two feminist books and a well-known feminist essay, one by an author you cited in your list above, rather than dictionaries, because primary-source dictionaries (such as OED and Merriam-Webster's Third New International) generally write their definitions on the basis of edited and well-known literature and your list seems to include derivative dictionaries, which draw on the authoritative primary-source dictionaries and thus are even less reliable for the purpose (and you acknowledge their unreliability). (I have about 20 dictionaries and I use others.) Thus, feminist literature, not general-language dictionaries, is more authoritative for Wikipedia.
Equality is by far the most popular goal in this realm among feminists, and the article reflects that arrangement of priorities, but one may reasonably wonder how masculism is grounded in male supremacy but feminism could never have even sought female supremacy, until one notices that some feminists and some nonfeminist women do indeed seek supremacy, and occasionally achieve it. It isn't so rare as to be unmentionable in a lede's second line (the clause is not in the first line in my laptop's browser so I assume you use a very small text size in your display).
Cultural feminism and superiority are conceptually different. Neither is another word for the other. They are not fungible and they are not merely different in degree.
Four words in the second displayed line aren't "[g]iving 'equal validity'" considering the weight accorded to equality and to pragmatically doing the best one can short of achieving equality. An alternative of writing ". . . aimed at establishing usually equal rights and participation . . ." seems weaselish. And if we were to omit "usually", we'd need a longer explanation after the lede and then the lede would contradict it.
Hang in a bit and I think we'll have an article up and then the lede linking to it on point.
Nick Levinson (talk) 07:09, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
'Four words in the second displayed line aren't "[g]iving 'equal validity'"'. That is our point of substantive disagreement Nick. It is fair to say that female supremacism is the extreme wing of a minority of feminists. If you have sources that do contradict this I would be eager to read them - let me know what they are. Personally, from reading sources about feminism it would be accurate to say supremacism is not reflected in the majority of other reliable definitions that I know of (perhaps my reading is limited to just over a hundred academic books - so feel free to contradict me). And just to clear up the ambiguity about my use of the word 'line' I'm using it interchangeably with 'sentence'. I disagree that we should mention a fringe view in the lede line and so does site policy. It's quite serious when wikipedia says something different to widely available mainstream sources and it is my concern that these four words in line 1 do just that.
I also think the line is still far too long and should be broken up. I disagree that there is a problem in giving a sentence to the supremacist view point later in the lede paragraph - I don't think that would contradict anything if line one was much shorter and closer to what's sourced. <br?>Let me expand a little on difference - yes Cultural feminism et al are NOT the same as female superiority advocates or female separatists they are however all from the same root the women's liberation movement which ran parallel to the women's rights movement (although with a lot of cross over), Cott covers this really well in her first and last chapters. This is a crude analogy but it's a bit like nationalism. Some nationalists just want to celebrate their identity and culture while others believe they are the superior race. That's very much the difference (excuse the pun) between cultural feminism and female supremacism.
Drawing on the sources I would suggest the following for the lede paragraph:

Feminism refers to political, cultural, and economic movements for women's rights and women's liberation. It comprises many forms, some aimed at establishing equal rights and participation in society for women and girls in law, government, business, and scholarship.[7] Feminism is sometimes controversial for challenging traditions and for supporting shifts in the political balance toward women. Feminists are persons of either sex, or females only (in which case males may be profeminists), who believe in feminism. Some feminists are focused upon recognizing and building of women's cultures and power in celebration of women's difference and identity.[8] A minority are advocates of female separatism or female supremacy.

To be clear lines 1, 2 and 5 are sourced to Cott and page references are included in the ref tag (line 3 could be sourced to her too but from other pages). The wording above isn't perfect. And I changed 'is widely' to 'is sometimes' in the line about controversy but it could equally be 'has been' or 'can be'. In many ways I'm as unhappy with 'is sometimes' as I am with 'is widely' - but that's a separate issue.--Cailil talk 13:55, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to post a note to the task force to attract wider views on this--Cailil talk 13:58, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Cailil wrote: "and didn't I see you make an argument elsewhere Blackworm, that wikipedia should sticking to what sources say rather than changing words to suit editor's points of view?" The source I cited said "superior." Quote, superior, endquote. You point to other sources that say something else instead of addressing the sources brought, then make some insinuating comment about editors' points of view? Whatever. Let the Feminist Task Force decide how best the feminism article be written. Blackworm (talk) 06:00, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you found anything I wrote above insulting Blackworm. That remark was not an insuinuation but rather an attempt to paraphrase very good point that you made here. And although I did not expand on my point I thought it was implict that I was weighing the 2 essays you reference to a sampling of the library of books that say something else--Cailil talk 13:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
The lede's link to women's liberation redirects to feminist movement, so if we're going to refer to the former we'd better be able to refer to the latter. Women's rights are not necessarily feminist, although there's an overlap. Even Camille Paglia opposed rape, although her view that rape was wrong only if men would object is not feminist (the feminist view being that women decide if rape is wrong, which rapes are wrong, and what to do about them), and so safety from rape can be a women's right without recognition as a feminist right, and that's because in the prevailing nonfeminist worldview rape raises a doubt about whether a child is the husband's and therefore knowledge that a woman was raped challenges the husband's property interest.
Essential to feminism is the relationship between the genders. What females do on their own is interesting but not enough for feminism. Even feminist separatism is more than about a female doing for herself, since it is motivated by and describes a relationship to males, and thus a relationship between the genders. That's usually expressed as an aspiration for equality. But not always, and that's what needs recognition as soon as we state that essence. To state only equality and not the obvious variances from equality is to omit a critically essential part of the theory of feminism. To leave the bigenderal relationship entirely out of the lede's first sentence works only if we leave out the definition of feminism entirely, and we shouldn't do that.
Linking to equal rights hints at a more subtle problem with focusing on equality and why it's unfair to women to claim that nearly every feminist and profeminist (male supporter of feminism) supports equality. That article defines gender equality so that "'all children have equal opportunity to develop their talents.'" So once a child turns 21 it's all over. If a little girl didn't want to develop her talent as a rabbi, priest, or medicine man she should shut up. Never mind that she was busy taking care of her baby brother because her parents told her to. No; feminism recognizes that women who are hundredsomething or twentysomething can start pursuing equality, too. Equality subsumes many shades of meaning.
Mary Daly critiqued equality per se in Gyn/Ecology.
Supremacy in a feminist sense, while practiced by extremely few, is as theory so well known that it grounds one of the most common critiques of feminism as a whole: that the objector "is not anti-male". So far, I have citations supporting superiority from Jill Johnston, Joreen, and Mary Daly, and if I thought more were needed I could see if Sonia Johnson and Valerie Solanas qualify. I'm reading a history book by Alice Echols and I may find something there attributable to someone else. The first three alone are enough for notability in another article, now being drafted.
To keep that article from toppling to one side, I'm trying to think of other authors I should read or re-read, but since the other side, as it were, is grounded in pragmatic feminism and feminist books were largely inspired by ideals, recalling titles, authors, or other markers is challenging. There are pragmatic books on diet but I'm having difficulty remembering a pragmatic take on feminism. If you can suggest some readings, I'm interested.
Very few people, I imagine, have read 100 academic books on feminism. I've probably borrowed from libraries and read a few hundred and likely a thousand-plus, including academic, journalistic, and personal, including feminist, antifeminist, and silent on feminism, the last generally women's (semi-)autobiographical or experiential books which I absorbed and analyzed feministically. Just judging from a hint or two, I think you might be focusing too much on other writers' definitions rather than relying on their larger passages from which definitions may be deduced. Outside of dictionaries and glossaries, most writers rarely write definitions that are even somewhat demarcated as such.
The lede's first sentence, even as it now stands in the article, is 27 words, and I think the U.S. newspaper journalistic standard for first sentences is 25. I can cut two words by editing "aimed at establishing" to "seeking".
The definition of feminism should be one sentence, because the purpose of a definition is substitution. E.g., for the sentence "Go to the store.", if store needs to be defined, you'd need to be able to write something like "Go to the place where you can buy things.", thus the meaning of store has to be expressed like 'place where you can buy things' and not as two sentences or two nonjoinable clauses. We need that kind of substitutability for feminism, thus the single sentence opening the lede.
While superiority is associated with some feminist ideologies more than others, and your nationalism analogy is not bad, both being about societal or communitarian dynamics, I draw another analogy: Someone can build a house of logs or bricks and that's a separate matter from whether one builds it small or large. Someone can build feminism from economic or political grounds and that's separate from whether one seeks more power or all of it. Building a large house may be so extremely expensive as to be beyond almost anyone's means. Seeking so much power, either feministically or nationalistically, may be so extremely expensive as to be beyond almost anyone's means. That may be good or bad, but that's yet another matter altogether. Several feminist ideologies each theoretically support either equality or superiority.
The nationalism analogy is useful in another sense: Most nations have large percentages of their populations being nationalistic; international relations work better when that's understood as coloring national decision-making even though it's rarely acknowledged in public discourse except when it gets so visibly extreme on a large scale it's responded to by other nations, such as with the Nazis' invasions of several nations responded to in World War II and aferwards. I suspect most Americans don't care one way or the other about Canadians' nationalism but U.S. diplomats, generals, and exporters, among others, will have to note it or soon stumble.
Feminism has one critical distinction from nationalism: While nations, neighborhoods, and many kinds of community in between are geographically defined with relatively little overlap (the overlap being in migrants, traders, diplomats, warriors, et al., all of whom are quantity- or time-limited), so that nationalism is about people who start out being separate and planning to stay that way, feminism is about people who start out integrated and planning to stay together, fluidly moving between nearby families, maintaining cultural ties including common language, music, religious faith, etc., with the people of both genders being interdependent (albeit unequally) and therefore vested in maintaining commonalities, while people of different nations very often make a point of differentiating languages, musics, religious faiths, etc., and fostering national independence (masking cross-border inequality), therefore destroying commonalities. Ukrainians denied speaking a Russian dialect and insisted it was their own language and Norway gained independence from Sweden partly by evolving a Norwegian language and I haven't heard that either is planning to overrun any foreign peoples.
The comment on the degree of controversy was astonishing, unless I misunderstand. Please name any nation (out of some 200 in the world) where feminism is not seriously challenged. To say "sometimes" is a gross understatement; to say "can be" is to render the controversy merely hypothetical; to say "has been" is to say feminists are past it and, except for an occasional hiccup, sailing to equality. A woman who recently authored on Muslim feminism has been threatened with death, and her home is not in Iran but in Canada. Word about feminism has traveled far and wide (e.g., the American Andrea Dworkin's death was news on the BBC before I heard it on a US broadcaster) and yet, decades after the second wave started, most of the planet's national political leaders, religious leaders, business leaders, and family breadwinners are, by far, men. Women are paid less or not at all, often denied the choice of whether to prevent or end a pregnancy even if raped unless they have a lot of money and women have less of that, punished for having been raped, denied mobility (only men may drive cars in Saudi Arabia) and housing (homeowners refusing to rent to single women), and enslaved into prostitution (at least more of their male counterparts do nonstigmatized work). Women's objections to many of these problems are well known in most of the world, so these occurrences are not because men haven't gotten around to reading the feminism checklist. Men are usually objecting. Not totally; some of the most rabid concede that women are good for something that feminism recognizes, they just don't personally know any women whom those men consider good enough. Controversy is the norm. There have been major achievements; but controversy continues to rage against feminism.
Nick Levinson (talk) 08:16, 25 August 2010 (UTC) Fixed a few wordings (visible in diff) but in the context no major rewrite: Nick Levinson (talk) 09:05, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Nick that is an extremely insightful response and I am sorry to have put you to the trouble to make it (but it is very valuable). First let me say I'm not arguing with you pre se I am nit picking to large degree. Except that I'm concerned about undue weight (ie WP:GEVAL) in line 1. My problem is I'm yet to see a source that puts female superiority as a headline definition of feminism that trumps all the ones that don't. Perhaps you are correct that I am focussing (in this sense) on the definitional writings (most of which tend after a certain point in the C20th to refer to feminisms - which would be nice if we coudl reflect - but as other mainstream definitions outside feminism don't use it I'm not sure that it'd be best practice to do so).
Just to answer some of the very good points made - controversy - yes I think we are both reading what the other wrote incorrectly. I didn't necessarily pick up on the very nuanced and thoughtful point you make here with the word 'widely'. Widely controvresial carries another connotation which doesn't match-up with the European experience. It's far more controvertial here to cut back on women's rights or women's equality issues than it is to implement them. BUT I agree 100% that my suggestion of sometimes isn't good enough. Perhaps just 'is controvertial' is the most neutral and accurate thing to say.
About the lede yes I agree the lede line should be one sentence but it should reflect how feminism is definied in mainstream reliable sources. (Ultimately what this article needs to do is reflect how other sources define feminism - not for us to do better as that would original research by synthesis.) The reason I shortened it further to just "women's lib and women's rights" is because they are wide categories and terms. Also becuase the mainstream sources do focus on this (admittedly) dyadic approach "women's rights" or "equal rights" and "women's issues / interests". Perhaps my above suggestion is too concise, but what I was attempting to do is stick to a sourcable definition that's hits all the points paragraph one needs to (and that summarizes the article) without having a multi clausal sentence.
Let me make a suggestion let's try to come up with what we each think would be the best and most sourcable defintion firts line and first paragraph (adhering to WP:LEAD) that we can find. If we can agree on one then fine but if we can't lets get the appropriate wikiprojects (scoiology, feminism, philosophy et al) in for outside comment and/or an ordinary RfC. What do you think?--Cailil talk 13:48, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure that I fully understand this debate, but I would like to make a few comments. First, I think Nick is right that equality is a compex issue and is NOT just about equal opportunity or the fact that children are allowed equal choices up to a certain point.
Second, I think the "superiority" issue is complex - I do believe some feminists have made superiority arguments but I also do not think this is a mainstram view among feminists and its meaning may have a lot to do with the specific context (when and where) in which it was produced. what follows is a suggestion that is meant to help resolve any conflicts, and not meant to over-complicate things: in social movements, it is amazing how fast a secondary source can become a primary source. What I mean is, it is amazing how fast a book that we read in order to learn about something (e.g. gender, sexuality, feminism) can itself become an object of study, so that all of the sudden there are many books about that book. Sorry, I know this sounds complicated. All i mean is that at a certai time in history (say 1975) book X is just a very useful guide to feminism. But tenty years later, book X IS taken to be an important statement of (not just about) feminism, and people start arguing over wheat it really means. I say it is now a primary source because now there are lots of other books that talk about it, and those newer books are the secondary source. I make this primary/secondary distinction to make a simple point: when WP editors start arguing over the meaning and importance of a certain passage in book X, in many cases, the way to resolve the dispute among editors is to find later books and articles that express views about book X, and just present those views in the article. So if Adrianne Rich for example write an article on compulsary heterosexuality, we can quote it and say "this is a form of feminism." But then we can argue - was she being deliberately polemical? Should we take her claims literally? maybe her intention was a, maybe her intention was be ... we could talk a lot about that essay. But by now there are books and articles on the history of feminism that discuss that essay's place and significance in feminism. My point is: instead of arguing among ourselves, we should find those secondary sources and quote them. Not dictionaries or other encyclopedieas, but recent, respected histories of feminism.
Like many social movements "feminism" exists within Academe, and also out in the streets. These lead to very different kinds of feminisms, and I think it is important to contextualize them. The Board of Directors of NOW, and other organizations, develop a set of priorities for political lobbying and for TV commercials and for protests and emonstrations and these exhibit one feminist agenda. Scholars in Women's Studies Programs in universities produce a body of knowledge in history, sociology, anthropology, film studies and so on that exhibits a very different feminism. I think there is a flaw in Wikipedia's NPOV policy. It suggests that views are competing and we need to distinguish between mainstream, majority, minority and fringe views. But sometimes views are not competing. Sometimes different views circulate in different environments, if you wish, they occupy different cultural niches, and are thus not competing. We need to include all major views in the introduction, and some views may be very different, but equally "majority" or "mainstream," they just occupy different cultural niches.
As long as I am commenting on this, I would like to introduce another point (if you guys think it belongs in a new section by al means refactor). I think the lead already says something to the effect that (many) feminists seated in the academy argue that gender roles are socially constructed. This view of course circulates outside of the academy. reaon this view is importnat is that it is one reason most feminists today agree that it is impossible to generalize women's experiences across cultures and histories (another reason is political pressure by Latinas and Black women in the US, and in other countries). But there is another reason that this view is important as it used to be in the first paragraph of the intro but it seems to have disappeared - but it is a VERY important form of feminism: the view that it is inequality that produces gender, not gender that then becomes unequal. This argument takes one form as a specific hypothesis: that in human societies the institution of marriage and a sexual division of labor developed before there was any notion of "gender" - people saw themsevles as husbands and wives and saw themselves as different, but did not think of these differences in terms of gender. It is only when some societies developed real inequalities between husbands and wives that gender emerged as an ideology to explain the inequality. Social scientists have formulated many other hypothesis. Conversely, Lacquer haas a very provocative book, Making Sex that argues that in the 18th century Europeans thought men and women were socially different, but biologically the same, and the idea of biological difference only emerged in the 19th century. There is a lot of research that goes in many directions but it all involves a questioning of the reality or naturalness of "gender" and this movement in the academy is the result of and a form of feminism. And this intellectual approach has a very important political consequence: since feminism is attacking gender itself, it is calling into question not only the gendered identity of women but of men as well. The argument is that the whole gender system is oppressive, i.e. that it is not men who oppress women (yes, I acknowledge this is a major form of feminism) but rather that gender opproesses men and women, albeit in different ways. These feminists who would eradicate the entire gender system believe they would be liberating not only women but men as well. I thin it is crucial that somewhere in the lead, it be acknowleged that one ofrm of feminism questions the category of "gender" itself, not only as a social construction but as a system of oppression, and seeks to help men as well as women. This may not be part of NOW's main agenda, but that is because they are a political organization. From my experience many members of NOW nevertheless believe that feminism is good for men, and not just woman. I haven't done the research but it shouldn't be too hard to find some article in Ms. magazine making this claim, even many articles (or you could just go to bell hooks) Slrubenstein | Talk 13:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
That's another great point SLR and thanks for commenting. Yes I think that idea that gender is a social construction is probably well sourcable to any (or lots of) histories of marxist, post-structual, black or even post-modern(but I'm not sure about this one) feminisms. Perhaps even before we started to make our suggestions for the lede maybe we should create a sort of hit-list for what should be in there and what sources verify this?--Cailil talk 13:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, I am really not sure about an explicit source. Definitely Kaja Silverman and bel hooks are examples. But Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique suggests that the forms of women's alienation and exploitation she sees in the 1950s is a result of men coming back from WWII feeling traumatized and in need of nurturing (much later, Kaja Silverman makes this argument about men explicit in Male Subjectivity at the Margins). If you consider Engle's Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State feminist (as many feminists do), he seems to be linking the various forms of treatment of women as property to a system of class exploitation of men. So even if the argument wa not made explicitly until post-structuralists, I think it is implicit in a good deal of more conventional feminism. But of course we'd need a good secondary source to confirm this and I do not know. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:19, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Well while looking for that Mauro article in my libarary i found a more useful one, which is also in Jstor by Karen Offen that is all about the definition of feminism, its history and multiplicity. I think it hits all the marks we're all talking about. Perhaps we should all read it and see if we find it useful for making that hit list. It is in many ways doing the same job as Nancy Cott's book just in a more concise way. Otherwise yes, Friedan is probably a good source for that social construction idea as would de Beauvoir's Second Sex ("one is not born a woman...")--Cailil talk 14:52, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
How could I have forgotten Beauvoir!!! The article you mention sounds great. I think the critical thing is to show that there are multiple streams of feminism and while some may be in complete conflict (women can occupy distinct spheres and be separate but equal vs. distinct spheres always subordinate; "women's views" reflect a distinct female essence versus "women's views" reflect their position in society; feminism is good versus feminism is bad; feminism is an exhausted project versus feminism still has many battles to fight and we hope win), other streams can run parallel or cross one another, merge and then diverge, but not necessarily be in conflict.
I also think that anxieties that this article is US-centric is like saying that the article on Renaissence art is Italian-centric. Feminism is not exclusively US (e.g. Mary Wollsotonecraft to Mrs. Pankhurst; Simone de Beauvoire) but there are historical reasons why certain movements begin in particular places, migrate to particular places, and so on. Almost any WP article can benefit from adding coverage from and about other countries, but we can't fetishize this. It is worth being clear in the narrative - to whatever extent historians have discussed this - why is it that at a particular moment in history feminism emerges in one place but not others; why it is that certain versions become hegemonic - even to the point that criticisms of' feminism are always criticisms of that (one specific form of) "feminism," or how attempts to globalize or de-class feminism nevertheless keep certain works as points of reference. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:59, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
I edited the lede per your suggestion on controversy and I cut the first sentence to 25 words.
I can't get the full JStor at home but I plan to access it at a library soon.
I'm drafting the article that'll have the references you're asking for. I haven't typed the Mary Daly quotes yet or finished the current chapter in the Alice Echols book and I'd rather post the article draft when it's ready to go, and not post piecemeal. I'd like to wait a little more before we go to a WikiProject so I can finish the draft, including the readings to be quoted or paraphrased.
Just on first-sentence length and without changing the superiority mention, here's a possible rearrangement of the lede's first paragraph:

Feminism refers to political, cultural, and economic movements seeking rights and participation in society for females relative to those of males. These movements seek rights and participation that are greater, equal, or, among a minority, superior. These rights and means of participation include legal protection and inclusion in politics, business, and scholarship, and recognition and building of women's cultures and power. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights. Feminism is controversial for challenging traditions in many fields and especially for supporting shifting the political balance toward women. Feminists are persons of either sex, or females only (in which case males may be profeminists), who believe in feminism.

I don't like it, but see if I'm wrong about that. What I did is edit the old first sentence to generate the new first two sentences. The rest of the paragraph is unchanged.
What I don't like is that the new first sentence is clunky. Almost every feminist will expect to see something about equality there and won't care for the vagueness in its place. And the second sentence overly weights a point we're debating; we'd both agree it's too much.
I also don't like the total length. The new first sentence is 22 words and the second is 15, so the old first sentence has effectively grown from 25 words to 37.
What follows is in response to Slrubenstein's comments (and so does the new section below, Social Constructionism of Gender).
Superiority is by no means a majority view among feminists but it is familiar through their rejection of it. It also is practiced almost nowhere large. However, it is discussed in several, mostly theoretical, feminist publications that have been influential. My plan is to write a new article for Wikipedia covering this and related aspects of feminism and then link to it from the feminism article, thus providing the needed sourcing.
We're not arguing over specific texts in books. We might later, that's possible, but now we're not. We're arguing, instead, from our general understanding of feminist literature and questions of due and undue weight in the wording of a Wikipedia article, but not over the words of a particular book.
A book that was secondary when published and that turns into an object of study does so because it influenced people who then have that influence in common and want to study what so many have in common. I'm not sure it's wise to rely simply on the later books about the earlier ones instead of relying on the earlier works; however, the later books help justify reliance on the earlier works, so the later books have a utility as a barometer of the importance of the earlier books. But quoting only the later books and not the earlier ones is problematic if the earlier ones are clearer, more accessible, more authoritative, or better known. E.g., consider whether it's better to quote Andrea Dworkin's Intercourse or to quote what someone says she said in her book; many misunderstood it.
Academic and politically organizational feminisms differ but don't conflict very often. Each informs the other. The feminism article reflects that; so does its feminism sidebar. I have no idea how "to include all major views in the introduction" except in the very brief way that we did. The article itself is 60 KiB long now; its upper limit is 100 KiB. I think the major views are in the body of the article now. Other Wikipedia articles have more material on them. The feminism sidebar in the feminism article and elsewhere links to them. So does the list of feminist topics. If more depth is needed on any topic, please add content, especially to the more specialized articles. The feminism article serves more as an overview and entry point to the others.
The disagreements that are central to this discussion are within political organizing. They're not about the various academic disciplines that you referred to.
Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:37, 26 August 2010 (UTC) Corrected (deleted one excess closing bracket): Nick Levinson (talk) 05:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Lots of times it is fine to rely on earlier works. The only time it is preferable to rely on later works is when editors have different interpretations over the mweaning of an earlier work. I have seen cases where some editors take a work literarlly, when it was not meant to be taken literally and most people knew that at the time. Of course, there is no particular reason people would know that later, which is why a good secondary source explaining the context of the early work and so on can be helpful. I hope this helps.
The new paragraph you crafted still seems to exclude the important feminist view that gener oppresses men ad well as women and that feminism is a struggle to improve the lives of men as well as weomen. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:51, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Just about the new paragraph Nick. While yes I think it is better shorter I don't see why (as you mention yourself) the line avoids saying 'equal rights for women' or 'equality of the sexes' (that after all is the wording the sources I'm aware of use) rather than the more convoluted form. I'd suggest something more like:

Feminism refers to political, cultural, and economic movements for women's rights and equality of the sexes. It comprises many forms, aimed at equal rights and participation in society for women in law, government, business, and scholarship.[7] Feminism is controversial for challenging traditions in many fields and especially for supporting shifting the political balance toward women. Feminists are persons who believe in feminism. Some feminists are focused upon recognizing and building of women's cultures and power in celebration of women's difference and identity.[7] Others consider the concept of gender to be an oppressive social construction.

It's not there yet either, but I think it's a little more direct. The very last line needs more work--Cailil talk 18:26, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Neither of the last rewrites is much good.
Mine doesn't say equality because I'm trying to finish typing up the quotes you keep saying you haven't seen. Plus I need to add the other side, the pragmatic feminism. Each time I say I'll have them and then you repeat you haven't seen them and I'm back to responding instead of typing quotes. Could time be a factor here? Do you really mind waiting a little bit? I already gave you authors. And I asked you for suggestions of pragmatism authors, and you didn't have them (you didn't have to), so I'll be at the library or online looking for them, reading them, and typing up those quotes, too, to maintain NPOV. Please be patient.
Nick Levinson (talk) 03:29, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Sorry if I'm coming off as impatient Nick - I think you are misinterpreting my attitude and what I'm saying. Of course I don't mind waiting as there is no time limit. However everyone gets input on wikipedia articles. Also, with due regard for BRD, consensus is required for changes - I am disputing the text that adds female supremacism to the lede line of this article. Not because I've never seen female supremacist writing and not because I think they don't exist but because the majority of mainstream reliable sources don't include it in their definition of feminism.
My disputation is based on sources and policy (WP:GEVAL which is a subset of WP:NPOV) all anyone needs to do is point me to sources (and page references) and show how the disputed text is backed up by policy. That doesn't automatically mean I'll agree but if consensus is found based on that then it's fine.
As it happens I have access to and have read Echols' and Daly's books but I would still dispute the inclusion of supremacism in the lede's first line definition of feminism based on WP:GEVAL (hence my putting forward of sources that are explicitly about defining feminism). That said I look forward to seeing your suggested lede with other sources. And my responses are not demands for you to capitulate just an alternative view which can be addressed at your leisure.
I have also put forward a number of collaborative suggestions that you haven't addressed (ie we all work together on a list of points for what should be included in the lede or that we all read & discuss Offen's article, or that we all make our own suggestions for the lede paragraph). I think these would be useful.
Please don't confuse my insistence for aggression - I prefer a direct method of communication on WP, that's all. And please don't mistake my swift(ish) replies for the demand of instant responses from you they are anything but. Take your time to respond in the best way you see fit - if that takes 3 days or 30 there's no problem as far as I'm concerned, as long as that response addresses the concerns visa vie sources and policy.
Also I missed the point where you asked for sources on pragmatic feminism and I can't find it - sorry if it seems I ignored that, I just didn't see your request--Cailil talk 19:36, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
I understand your objection. I'll have something posted soon. I got more typing done last night, I'll probably do some in a few minutes, and I expect to do more tomorrow at the library and at home. It won't be 30 days; it'll be a lot less, hopefully a few days to a week. Even allowing that I like to sit on a draft a few days to mull it over, my guess is that a week will do it.
I didn't read the JStor article by Karen Offen because I have to do that at a library because they have the subscription and I don't. That's encompassed in my earlier reply of Aug. 26 5:37a & corrected 5:50a UTC that "I can't get the full JStor at home but I plan to access it at a library soon."
I've been reflecting on each point as raised and answering or using them. I haven't made a list of points to write because the whole isn't that long that the draft can't be written and critiqued. It's more relevant to edit a draft than a predraft list. And anyone can post a list and we can respond to specific list items. In effect, Talk pages are like that all the time.
Input is fine. I look for it. Sometimes it's repetitive from the same person and that's not helpful, but most input is helpful.
The request re pragmatic feminism sources was in the post of Aug. 25 8:16a & fixed 9:05a UTC, in the paragraph "To keep that article from toppling to one side, . . . pragmatic feminism . . . . If you can suggest some readings, I'm interested."
By the way, I think the word you want is vis-à-vis (if the middle letter didn't reproduce correctly it's an "a" with an accent grave (the accent going up to the left)). It's French for 'face to face' and for many French words ending in a single "s" the "s" is silent, which I think is influencing your spelling.
Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 03:01, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Two edits:
The lede's first paragraph now has a sentence on who is oppressed (without using that word, which I recall being somewhat dense to non-movement readers).
Besides the short paragraph recently added into Feminism#Movements_and_ideologies, an expanded discussion is now in Feminist_movements_and_ideologies#Shared_perspectives.
Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 09:36, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the response Nick, and as regards my admittedly atrocious French spelling - you're just lucky I spell my English comments correctly ;)
But seriously - that's all fine. And re: the edit to the lede, I agree with what SLR's point about "harm" - it's not a major issue for me but perhaps something more like oppressed/effected/conditioned/impacted would be better. But I think (although I'm not 100% sure) 'harm' is what some sources use. So I'm happy enough to leave that one. As regards the shared perspectives section. I think this is good but Daly is given more weigh just by virtue of being quoted in that much detail - perhaps her view could be summarized as Freidan's is, or perhaps the others should be quoted?--Cailil talk 14:50, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Feminism and equality is now a live article.
I also substantially expanded the shared perspectives on men's part. You're right about the imbalance; at the time, right after posting to this topic, I thought of re-replying to acknowledge that it needed more balancing quotation/s, but didn't. At any rate, I've balanced it now.
I had a productive weekend.
If you want to question anything that's in the books I quoted, I'll hold the books a little while, but then I have to return them to the library so I don't get fined. I'd prefer to check using the same printing.
I'm still thinking about the "harm" language in feminism's lede. I think it fits and that some sources use stronger language. Of the choices you listed, maybe "impact" is a better verb than the others. I'll think about it.
I was surprised to find that The Feminine Mystique seems to have had nothing to the effect that men are oppressed along with women, even to a lesser extent. I skimmed it and didn't read every page, so I might have missed something, but I tried to be systematic about it and the index had nothing on men or husbands and what was on marriage didn't add much to this research I wanted for WP. The book was published at least three or four times, not counting simple reprints, starting in 1963. I got the oldest I could find so far, ca. 1974, a tenth anniversary edition, which was only for reference and couldn't be taken out of the library. There is material in the epilogue and I think in the front matter that were written for the 1974 release, but not in the 1963 body of the work, and it's the body that matters the most for assessing the book's and the author's contribution to the feminist thought and popularity. I didn't look at the later editions, since I thought it possible she might have made changes to a paragraph here or there (that can occur in any author's work not only in editions but even in printings of an edition but is likelier only for legally-influenced edits). The 1963 work is the most influential in forming the movement; the later editions are partly for movement development and partly for historical study in school, so the '63 edition is the most important. My hypothesis on why it seems to have been silent in its body is that she wrote mostly about women and so many readers took her content as radicalizing that only subsequently she attacked that branch of response and began emphasizing oppression of men and a greater role for men in a feminist future, beliefs she may have held while writing Mystique but didn't feel she needed to say at the time. Whatever the reason, I didn't find a passage I could quote or cite for our purposes. If necessary, I can quote form the 1974 material or from one of her other books, but the 1963 Mystique content is likely the preferable source, if it has what we need. If anyone knows a page I missed, please let us know.
I've requested Nancy Cott's book by interlibrary loan, so it'll take a while, and I've requested a book by bell hooks that should come sooner.
Relational feminism, as described in Karen Offen's article, or difference feminism (I'm not sure if they're the same thing) seems to present a problem for positing equality as central to feminism: There's no measure. If a woman feels equal, then maybe she is. Or if someone says she is, then maybe she is. But I need a source that speaks of this problem. Karen's article doesn't quite, at least not without quoting a lot of it for synthesis.
Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 07:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

(outdent)Indeed that was a productive session. Overall that article looks like an interesting (and necessary) sub article. I have had a read and don't have any problem with the quotes etc. My issues with that(which I'll raise on its talk page later and in more detail) are about framing and weighting rather than the book's content.
I don't know if you saw the new user who has a problem with the lede line here at the weekend - if not give the talk history a look. Basically as I have said there is a WP:GEVAL/WP:DUE weighting problem. The new article does not change that. Likewise with Offen's point about relational feminism it isn't what she highlights. If somebody can go pick-up a widely available reliable source that contradicts our article's definition - it's not the source that's wrong.
Fundamentally Nick a wikipedia article's definition needs to reflect the major mainstream reliable sources' definitions of that subject - by including 'supremacism' with so much weight this article is not. I am sorry if this is repetitive but this issue is not answered. I think it's time for outside input on that as I feel by belabouring that point I might be coming across as antagonistic when I am not meaning to at all.
As regards the Feminine Mystique give me a few days - perhaps there is a source that deals with men and gender oppression specifically (Butler does but there are earlier authros too)--Cailil talk 12:33, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I did not say that Freidan had an explicit theory of the oppression of men. I only said that she "suggests that the forms of women's alienation and exploitation she sees in the 1950s is a result of men coming back from WWII feeling traumatized and in need of nurturing." You will find this in any edition of the bok, Nick. That the index doesn't help just shows why sometimes it is important to read the whole book. This point probably appears on only one page, but when you try to sort out her argument - why is it that women were sold the whole bill of goods they were sold in the 1950s, their importance as home-maker, and why is it that they did not continue working in factories as they had during WWII - one of the rights Freidan and other feminists in the 1960s were fighting for, the right to return to the workplace, to be equal earners to men, why is it that feminists had to fight to go back to work when they had already proven their competence at a range of jobs during the war - she suggests that men who returned from the war not only needed jobs (those jobs occupied by women), they needed comfort and warmth and sympathy. I never claimed this was a fully developed theory - I think I even said it wasn't until later feminists like Kaja Silverman that this is developed. But it is not a huge leap from Freidan's speculation to the idea that there is a connection between the oppression of men and of women can be found in Freidan. This is not a jump I am making, it is a jump feminists began making, certainly by the 1980s. Nick, the point is not to cherry-pick a quote. I respectfully suggest that instead of skimming several different books you read a couple very carefully, and slowly get a fuller picture as to how feminist thought developed. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:32, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I respond here to both:
Cailil:
Karen Offen's definition is conceptually central in her article and she doesn't contradict it. She has much to say about history and about relational and many other feminisms and she offers a summary-paraphrase of typical dictionaries but her single definition that she synthesizes from her many sources speaks of balancing. If you think what I put into WP misrepresents her article, please let me know how.
The feminism and equality article has more length devoted to superiority simply to answer the anticipated claim that superiority isn't part of feminism. It would be very easy to overwhelm it by the cumulated length of equality-only writings so that the several sections of that article would each have to be broken out into its own subsubarticle. But the pro-equality position is already well known and well documented and I don't think we need to quote ten times as much. We could simply cite plenty of exact-equality sources with a dozen or more consecutive footnotes. At any rate, the article is phrased to make clear that equality is the predominant view, at least in the U.S., which it is.
The framing is simply that we need a place to discuss the kind of balance sought between the genders. The article limits itself to discussing just that fulcrum of feminism.
On Mystique, Slrubenstein offers a passage I'm planning to look up. There are many sources on men's oppression and some are feminist or about feminism (sources limited to a men's rights movement may not be much use here) and Betty Friedan herself elsewhere offered content suitable for quoting, but it would be nice if there's something on point right in the body of Mystique, because that would probably be the source with the greatest impact on feminism. Otherwise, she's written other books that will have more and even in various post-'63 editions of Mystique there'll be front and back matter that can be quoted or cited, but based on less impact, since I doubt any of her other books sold as much as Mystique or were as widely cited.
I did see the new comment that was posted about getting to class A. I had already responded to it before you mentioned it. It is a concern because of the widespread view among feminists and many feminist supporters that equality is the only type of balance sought in feminism but it simply is not the case, as the quotes now show. The quotes are not from minor writers who couldn't sell more than ten copies of a pamphlet. The writers were serious, feminist, and widely influential, including positively and negatively, and almost certainly can be added to. Equality has many variants and sometimes it is outright rejected within feminism.
We could rewrite the lede to replace "greater, equal, or, among a minority, superior" with a phrase only about balance, modeled on Karen Offen's, but I think that will get as much negative reaction as being specific does, plus maybe that balance is a weasel word, especially since the ancient male ruler who raped some 600 women also had a balance in his relationships with women, or 600 balances. If we keep the existing phrase but delete "among a minority" then it's all shorter but I think it'll have a new weighting problem. If we say just equality and then explain later in the article what's meant by equality including superiority when a part of feminism explicitly rejects equality the lede will contradict the body of the article. If we omit everything about the fulcrum, there'll be complaints about that. There may be no noncontroversial wording that's also accurate to the sources. Feminism itself was controversial precisely because in part it was widely seen by antifeminists as a pursuit of supremacy.
I don't know what to do with this one: "Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition." It's attributed posthumously to Timothy Leary. We probably can't use it because if it comes from someone not especially known for profeminist leadership it's trivial, but it's interesting.
Slrubenstein:
I've read hundreds and maybe well over a thousand books related to feminism over the last few decades. (My libraries don't keep records of counts of how many books I returned; I asked.) I'd like to read almost every book thoroughly but many are not that good in any sense of the word. Many books I do read thoroughly but many others I don't. Often a book I thought I'd skim becomes compelling enough to read thoroughly and I do. One way I select is that if a book is widely read by others in my area of interest, such as Mystique, I probably won't read it at all, because for me to read it is almost duplicative, so instead I read what fewer people will have read, so all of us will have more to contribute. Many books are fairly well organized so that, with topical knowledge, it's often (not always) easy to home in on the relevant chapters. And indexes and tables of contents are provided for us to use, even though some indexes are weak (e.g., name-only indexes). I guarantee that if you read every book thoroughly you read fewer books, all else equal. Some books would be better if they were just articles. And we don't refuse to read all articles on the ground that they should all be books.
I don't cherry pick a quote, if by that you mean that from "I said it won't kill you to go to the store and ask the owner for a favor" I extracted "kill . . . the owner". I didn't. There's no instance of misquotation or misrepresentation. If you think there's any instance of it, please point to it. I still have some of the books until I return them to the library, so I can even check the same printings.
I don't recall whether you said that she had an explicit theory of the oppression of men, but it was a logical thing to look for to use in WP in this general context and was surprised at not finding it in the body of her single most important book, since she became pretty clear in her later years on what she thought should be feminism's relationship to men and spent a lot of effort (she contended not enough) battling radicals and lesbians and trying to have them removed from supporting feminism, when her book probably unleashed many of them. Oppression of men is doubtless covered in her other works, two of which books I read. I wanted a more timeless statement than one that could be deemed applicable only to 1950s families, although if 1950s relevance is necessarily part of her theory maybe we'll use that absent anything less timebound. If we use a 1950s-specific theory and then claim ourselves that it's extensible into timelessness, even though the leap is indeed short, you can see how that'll be received in WP: as OR. So I'd like something she already extended and preferably from the body of Mystique. I'll check a reference you suggested in the Friedan topic on this page.
Thank you very much, both.
Nick Levinson (talk) 04:51, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Near the top of this topic is a collapsible navbox listing numerous sources as supporting equality. They're now cited in the feminism and equality article. Thank you for providing them. Nick Levinson (talk) 08:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Movements and ideologies

Why there is no link to the Sex-positive feminism article in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-positive_feminism where there is a link to every other type of feminism?

Done. (It was already linked elsewhere on the page but this was also apropos.) Nick Levinson (talk) 15:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Friedan

Okay, please bear in mind that the last time I looked at this book was about thirty years ago but I just spent a few minutes skimming through it and I discovered a section I had forgotten, altogether, on Friedan's theory of a "destructive symbiosis" through which (in chapter 12, 278-279 in my edition, but you only have to go 3-5 pages into the chapter, she has 4our stage numbered) by which the "feminine mystique" damages men, because they are reared by deformed women.

Anyway, I notice on the first page of the preface that WWII marks a "break" in history for her, Also, on the last page of the introduction she uses the word "torture" - metaphorically, but it indicates something stronger than "harm" I think.

Anyway, I noticed on page 174-175, the first pages of chapter eight, this:

There was, just before the feminine mystique took hold in America, a war, which folloed a depression and ended with the explosion of an atom bomb. After the loneliness of war and the unspeakableness of the bomb, against the frightening uncertainty, the cold immesnity of the changing world, women as well as men sought the comforting reality of home and children. In the foxholes, the GI's had pinned up pictures of Betty Grable, but the songs they asked to hear were lullabies. And when they got out of thearmy they were to old to go home to their mothers. The needs of sex and love are undeniably real in men and women, boys and girls, but why at this time did they seem to so many the only needs?
We were all vulnerable, homesick, lonely, frightened. A pent-up hunger for marriage, home, and children was felt simultaneously by several different generations; a hunger which, in the prosperity of pstwar America, everyone could suddenly satisfy. The yong GI, made older than his years by the war, could meet his lonely need for love and mother by re-creating his childhood home. Instead of dating many girls until college and profession were achieved, he would marry on the GI bill, and give his own babies the tender mother love he was no longer baby enough to seek for himself. Then there were the slightly older men: men of twenty-five whose marriages had been postponed by the war and who now felt they must make up for lost time; men in their thirties, kept first by depression and then by war from marrying, or if married, from enjoying the comforts of home.

This may well not be the passage I was thinking of. I mean, Nick, when you read the book, isn't the whole paradox of the post-war period, the material prosperity following the trauma of the war (and continued trauma of the Cold War) something that permeates the whole book, as the context in which Friedan is writing, as what defines the historical moment of the women whose lives she is writing about? I do not think that in these paragraph she is rationalizing or justifying the feminine mystique - when she compares it to torture (and to foot-binding, somewhere) she clearly thinks that the fantasy of domestic sex and love men and women are seeking - in these paragraphs I mean - is a terrible thing that has no redeeming merit for women and little for men. I think she is just trying to convey how traumatized people were, and why women were willing to surender to the fantasies of men for domestic comfort (Betty Grable singing the lullaby). She explains clearly that she thinks that women could only be brainwashed by the feminine mystique if it is initially presented to them as linked to something they genuinely want.

Now, this is the only point I was making about Friedan.

The point you were looking for - that she claims female oppression is linked to male oppression - is not a point I ever made, nor, I think, Cailil.

But anyone reading Friedan should notice that she is suggesting that those powerful warriors with their M-1 automatic rifles, the heroes who marched from Omaha Beach across France and into Germany, were also scared out of their minds and deeply traumatized. And this is why it is no surprise that Silverman's Male Subjectivity at the Margins opens with a chapter analyzing The Best Years of their Lives as a document of the frailty of masculinity under patriarchy. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:26, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll probably be at a library within a week or so. They're closed this weekend because of a holiday but I'll get there soon and get the noncirculating Mystique again. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:14, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I got ahold of the Mystique 1963/1974 edition. Thank you for the description; I found what you were referring to even though the pagination was different (probably introductions vary between editions). I didn't see the word "torture" where you found it but that's probably because I saw the '74 introduction and not the one you saw. Google Books doesn't see the word at all and Amazon found it once or twice but one wasn't relevant and the other probably wasn't (the snippet didn't match the page displayed); they likely used different editions. It appears she refers to women as tortured when discussing a subject with her, i.e., after the fact, and that's not useful for the lede.
Relying on the four stages (p. 290) is problematic, because it is a psychological analysis that depends on reasoning that is suspect. "Since the human organism has an intrinsic urge to grow, a woman . . . evades her own growth by clinging to the childlike protection of the housewife role" requires a lot more explaining by WP editors for it to make sense, because it conflates biological growth (that being mainly what's intrinsic) with culturally-dependent concepts of psychological growth, comes from a time when Freudian psychoanalysis prevailed (it no longer does), sidesteps the concept of situational response, and denies that the described archetypical woman may be growing but in a direction favored by men as prospective mates. To report that from Mystique would require reporting contrary sources and taking space better found in more specialized articles, e.g., on feminist psychology.
Her focus on WWII as a dividing line is historically interesting but not critical to the feminism article, once we extract that which is not especially dependent on the date of her research, for which her study sample wasn't large or random enough to meet generally accepted standards anyway. What matters is that her conclusions resonated and led to a rapid expansion of the feminist movement into the second wave, so the WWII connection is more or less coincidental, occurring less than a generation before she wrote, and the overarching themes and analysis of her book are more important.
(The edition: . . . (N.Y.: W.W. Norton, 10th Anniversary ed. [2d printing?] 1974, 1963 (ISBN 0 393 08685 2)).)
Thanks again. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:28, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

"tortured" ia on the last page of the original introduction - if not the last paragraph then the penultimate or ante-penultimate paragraph.

That her study was not random or large is irrelevant. The "normal standards" you refer to are in the sciences, and no one has ever claimed that Freidan was a scientist, she certainly does not claim she was a scientist. The humanities are another branch of human knowledge, also institutionalized in academe, and sample size and randomness is not important in the humanities. What matters is that enough people found her claims insightful enough that her book is still in print. That makes her views "significant" by WP standards. WP does not discriminate based on whether we think someone's pyschological reasoning is suspect or not, and it does not depend on whether we think someone's sample was sufficiently large or random, Nick. Nick, at Wikipedia these things are entirely irreelevant. What we do care about is, is the view significant? Is it mainstream, majority, minority, or fringe? My own sense is that while feminism is minority or in some places even fringe, within feminism Freidan's views were majority or even mainstream for much of the 1970s into the 1980s. They may still be mainstram, but no longer hegemonic because of the rise of feminisms coming from the Third World and women of color. We can debate this, but all we can debate Nick is how significant her work has been among feminists. Why do you even bring up psychological reasoning, sample size and randomness? They are outside of the scope of a talk-page discussion. (unless of course you have another reliable secondary source in which someone with a significant view makes these points, then perhaps they are worth discussing) Slrubenstein | Talk 11:47, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Whether I think her fours stage argument about motherhood, or her point about WWII, are persuasive is neither here nor there. It is simply a matter of representing Friedan's views accurately. It is clear that she thinks that the complex that does harm to women arose in part out of experiences that traumatized the whole nation but men especially, and that she thinks that the kind of women produced by this complex (I am not sure if she ever used the word patriarchy) does harm to men. I think this is the critical point about Friedan, in the current context of our discussion. Friedan is also linked to a "wave" of feminism that emerged in the 1960s and whether it is true or not, if other feminists (e.g. Gloria Steinam, others) agreed with Friedan that the form of patriarchy (or "feminine mystique") they were fighting against emerged after and in many ways in response to WWII, then WWII and to a lesser degree the Great Depression before it, and the Cold War after it, are important parts of the historical context for this 1960s "wave" of feminism. Not that it directly led to this form of feminism, but that it led to a particular cultural configuration this wave of feminists were fighting against.Slrubenstein | Talk 11:47, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know who has the '63 edition so I can't check its intro and later editions have their own intros, but I'll probably check one more library and then if necessary send for the '63 edition through interlibrary loan.
From your comments I deduce that we disagree less than you think, in that you started out in disagreement and then apparently didn't notice that you came around to a point I had made. "[U]nless of course you have another reliable secondary source in which someone with a significant view makes these points, then perhaps they are worth discussing": Precisely, and I think it'll be Betty Friedan, just not that passage because it is essentially a scientific argument and as such very weak for precisely the reasons I stated and with which you largely agree. Context matters in ensuring that we not misrepresent a quoted author's work. I'm also concerned with keeping the feminism article an overview of feminism so it doesn't outgrow browser limitations again anytime soon, so other articles may be better repositories for this information. For example, the influence of WWII on the start of the second wave probably belongs in the second-wave article.
Nick Levinson (talk) 04:37, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I've briefly mentioned the influence of WWII on the rise of feminism in the second-wave feminism's Overview section. I'm not sure I want to take the time to develop the theme in depth and I'll leave that to others.
I haven't found "torture" in a partial reading of the 1983 ed., which I chose since you mentioned not having read the book in "about thirty years". Specifically, I read the portions titled Twenty Years After (Feb., 1983) (1st published in N.Y. Times Mag. (© 1983)), Introduction to the Tenth Anniversary Edition (1973) (1st published in N.Y. Times Mag. (© 1973)), Epilogue (1st published in N.Y. Times Mag. (© 1973)), Preface and Acknowledgments, the last 6 paragraphs of ch. 1, and the last 6 paragraphs of Thoughts on Becoming a Grandmother (1st published as On Becoming a Grandmother in Ladies' Home Journal (© 1983)). (Citation: Friedan, Betty, The Feminine Mystique (20th Anniversary ed. [1st printing?] 1983 (ISBN 0-393-01775-5 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum), 1974, 1973, 1963) ("10-83" per id., dust jkt. front flap) (previous ed. 10th Anniversary ed.).)
At any rate, "torture" is too strong for the lede and it would likely be too much to rely on Betty Friedan as support for that word because she would not be associated with considering women generally tortured by men; if she said it once in that way, we'd likely have to qualify it by other statements of hers softening her use of that word, and I doubt it's worth the editorial effort for WP. I think other writers wrote of torture as a ground for feminism but I think we've covered the issue (the perception) adequately by referring generally to harm, unless we want to catalogue the many shades in some detail, ranging from the worst to sexism/gender being a mere annoyance, and that's certainly some hours of work if we're to compile at least a dozen citations.
Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 22:59, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
In context, the word is "torturing" (she is using torture in the past imperfect). Where did I suggest it belongs in the lead? I don't think I ever suggested that. You don't seem to understand my point although I thought it was plain. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:02, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

sexless (genderless) feminism, so to speak

Following discussion above, I've added to the postfeminism article about a 1919 journal arguing the irrelevance of sex. Since the journal considered itself postfeminist, it may simply have been descriptive of what, according to the journal's founders, has been achieved because feminism was then already behind them, thus the term postfeminism, or aspirational about what feminism would achieve sometime after the journal's launching. This is from Nancy Cott's book cited above. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 08:51, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Meaghers, 30 September 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} "Feminism" should not redirect to "Misandry". They are entirely different concepts and Feminism has a perfectly legitimate page with entirely different (and relevant) content. Meaghers (talk) 06:37, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Already done The redirect was vandalism and has already been reverted. Thanks, Stickee (talk) 08:35, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

rewriting history by mixing in present opinions.

I landed on this lemma from Europe, searching for the roots of the feminist movement in the 60's-70' in the USA. Reading the talk-pages, it seems only a very few people are running this lemma and some of them seem to use the lemma to publish personal biased opinions on feminism and the goals of its movements. Therefor I propose the following:

Proposal 1.: describe opinions of the movement Basic principle of a lemma on a social, religious, political etc. movement, or a social or economical way of thinking, should be to explain in the most possible objective way, what the thoughts, analyses, goals of this movements, philosophies were and are. It is not about mixing in present opinions. To write according to this principle, contributors should stick to sources that describe goals, thoughts etc of the movement at is was / is. Opinions on the way of thinking / acting that differ from the views and opinions that have to be described, belong in a section like: critics on the movement, of in a separate lemma - critical opinions on feminism.

Proposal 2.: create divisions in time and place The thoughts and theories on, and methods and goals of feminism are evolving through the years, because feminism caused and causes changes in societies all over the world, in all kind of fields. With that, the thoughts, theories, methods and goals of feminism are changing through the years. It also depends on the society and the region in which feminism 'happens', what the goals, methods, thoughts of feminism are. Objectivity and readabality of this lemma will gain when some divisions will be created in time, culture and / or region.

Maybe in a future fourth wave of feminist movements in western societies, feminist want to strive to dominate men, perhaps to equalize the long years-domination of males over women. But that certainly was not where suffragettes were striving for.

Proposal 3.: give room to people from within the movement to co-write I don't know what the reasons are, but Wikipedia-statistics tell that a relatively small group of white males is contributing for over 80 % to all Wikipedia-lemma's. Also in this lemma a few people seem to be overactive in relation to the hundred-thousands of people intersted in feminism, and the hundred-thousands that were and are active within the movement. The over-active contributors on this lemma, who have a lot of knowledge in how things on Wikipedia go, should teach others, and give them room, to become active, and publish on this topic. (talk) MichaelduBois EU —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.183.115.56 (talk) 11:06, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm probably one of the people you're referring to and I'm male and white. The issue you've raised is a good one; I agree with the basic point. It has also been raised by, among others, Robin Morgan, in her case in a book with a retrospection on her work in political activism (I forgot which book). When I've been in a feminist group, for example, I deferred on writing so others could develop their skills, specifically because women and women of color are often denied those opportunities, and without chances to initiate and to practice it becomes harder or impossible to achieve practical equality. We who are white men are likelier to have the time to edit Wikipedia and that is a product of sexism and racism, and the best way to use that product is supportively, and recessiveness is not always supportive. Wikipedia is primarily used by readers and to learn subjects, so for editors to wait until someone else edits is not always a good idea. Instead, how one edits is very important. I guess from your name that you are male and, if so, I hope you will apply that same consideration; I'm glad you knew enough to raise the point.
Wikipedia is different because who wrote something is hidden, mainly because it has no byline. It's possible to find out but it takes extra effort. So, one editor's identity, gender, and race has less chance to intimidate or discourage other editors or prospective editors. And Wikipedia is organized to permit almost anyone to plunge in and edit at will without asking permission. Some articles, such as this one, are semi-protected, but it doesn't take a lot to become an editor of a semi-protected article and if someone can't edit it yet they can do much as you did: propose a specific edit on the talk page. You proposed some ideas but you haven't proposed specific texts, and that's your choice.
I'm not sure how to go about "giv[ing] . . . ["others"] room" to co-write in any meaningful way in the context of how Wikipedia works. I have at times proposed edits even though I had the technical authority to do the editing myself. I have invited others to edit. If you have specific suggestions, please offer them.
This article is an overview. Links within it and the sidebar on the right side are designed to take interested visitors to more specific articles on any aspect of feminism that may be of interest. One article should not be too long or it will take too long to load it into a browser, so the length of any particular article is generally limited to between 30 and 100 KiB (30 is better for older browsers). It's now about 63KiB. Thus, content that is fairly specific may not appear in the feminism article itself but instead may appear in specific articles about parts of feminism, such as those in the sidebar and those in the index of feminism articles. When you'd like to add content, consider those articles as destinations.
Every position ascribed to feminism in the article has been sourced and the sources have been cited. The lede (opening section) of the article is a summary of the rest of the article, so generally the lede's sources are given in the rest of the article.
What you've proposed with respect to "opinions of the movement" is already in the main article, in the sections on movements and ideologies and on theoretical schools, for example, and they're sourced. And each of these sections links to other articles with fuller content.
Criticisms are covered in the sections on criticisms by women of color, with lower incomes, or not Western and antifeminism. It is also legitimate to incorporate criticisms within positive sections, such as was done with the fourth sentence of the lede ("Feminism is controversial for . . . .").
Divisions in time are briefly covered in the history section, where the three waves to date are outlined. Each of the waves has a longer article of its own, linked to from that section. Because the waves share essential similarities in aspirations women have for living in society, the feminism article, being an overview of the whole subject, devotes little space to the differences between waves, but does touch on them, leaving the in-depth discussion to the specific articles on the waves. What you were searching for, the origins dating from the 1960s–'70s, is in the second-wave article.
Divisions by place are even more briefly touched on. They are referenced, e.g., in the CEDAW map in the societal impact section, in the section on criticisms by women of color, with lower incomes, or not Western, and in the sidebar division "By country". However, to add, say, a table of feminist differences among nations would add a great deal of length to the article, probably much too much. Please feel free to add content to the nation-specific or other place-specific articles.
As far as I know, suffragettes did not strive for superiority. That would likely have defeated or delayed their practical movement. However, some other feminists did, some of them theoreticians. It was a minority, a significant one but still a minority, and the article notes that.
Thank you; and I look forward to your editing. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:11, 2 October 2010 (UTC) (Added one missing word: 20:23, 2 October 2010 (UTC))
  1. ^ DuBois, Ellen Carol (1999). Feminism and suffrage: the emergence of an independent women's movement in America, 1848-1869. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8641-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  2. ^ Smith, Harold Eugene (1990). British feminism in the twentieth century. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 0-87023-705-5. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ Whitney, Sharon (1984). The equal rights amendment: the history and the movement. New York: F. Watts. ISBN 0-531-04768-7. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ Voet, Maria Christine Bernadetta (1998). Feminism and citizenship. London: Sage Publications. ISBN 0-7619-5860-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  5. ^ Buechler, Steven M. (1990). Women's movements in the United States: woman suffrage, equal rights, and beyond. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-1558-0. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. ^ Chapman, Jenny L. (1993). Politics, feminism, and the reformation of gender. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-01698-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ a b c Cott, Nancy F. (1987). The Grounding of Modern Feminism. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 48–50, 282–283. ISBN 9780300042283.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference cott was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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