Talk:Clare Stevenson/Archive 1

Photo
The current photos are great, and there doesn't seem to be room for an additional one, but AWM photo P00775.001 is really useful - it shows all the heads of the female branches of the military together. I think that I might add Women in the Australian military to my to-do list... Nick-D (talk) 10:14, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Uploaded to: File:Leaders of Australian Womens Services 1942.jpg Nick-D (talk) 10:41, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, there's two or three in that series and I did seriously consider using one of them but in the end I just went for the ones you see - but perfect for your suggested article, which I look fwd to...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Seriously?
Unmarried, Clare Stevenson died in Sydney on 22 October 1988.[4] Does the word unmarried really need to be there? WookMuff (talk) 19:48, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Seriously, why not? Do you have a source that says she secretly was married...?! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:29, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer something like the AWM's wording of "Stevenson never married. She died in Sydney on 22 October 1988". The current sentence structure is a little unfortunate as it could be seen to imply a value judgement on a woman who, given attitudes at the time, must have chosen to pursue a career rather than stick to a more 'conventional' role (eg, that her life was somehow not complete at the time of death). How about tweaking the last few sentences to read: "Her hobbies included reading, classical music and, in her younger days, surfing. She did not marry. Clare Stevenson died in Sydney on 22 October 1988"? Nick-D (talk) 23:08, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, really being serious now, I can't see that the sentence implies a negative judgement in its current form, and splitting it up looks a bit contrived. If there's anything to be interpreted in the current structure, it could just as easily be seen as saying she was independent throughout her life - bit of a 'glass half full' thing perhaps. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:23, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not a big deal, but I do think that it's a sensitivity. That said, some FAs on unmarried military blokes use the same wording (eg, Edgar Towner, which actually includes it in the lead) so I may be being overly sensitive... As you allude to, a further issue here is that there aren't any sources which say why she didn't marry (which, to speculate a little, could be anything from being too busy to being in a de-facto relationship before this became socially acceptable; she appears to have been socially progressive and not a traditionalist in any sense). Nick-D (talk) 23:36, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I suspect the original question was more about whether it should be mentioned at all rather than how it's worded. I don't think there's any question there, however, as pretty well every source makes mention of it (without, as you've pointed out, saying why it was the case). Funnily enough, I used to leave marital status out of all my military bios in the early days until reviewers pointed out that well-rounded articles deserve those personal details where available, hence me putting in the fact that Air Vice Marshal Bill Anderson was unmarried and lived with his sister, for instance... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:44, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Was she a lesbian?
The article says she never married. Was she a lesbian then?--Adûnâi (talk) 17:56, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
 * That's a pretty sexist question. Nick-D (talk) 10:21, 25 February 2020 (UTC)