Talk:Robert Peary

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External links modified
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First to reach pole
What does this mean? (in "1989 National Geographic Society studies") Herbert, who reached the Pole in 1969, is recognized as the first man leading a team to reach it." All of the other expeditions between 1909 and 1969 didn't exist?

Apparently this means he was the first to reach it on foot (assuming that Peary's accomplishment is discarded). That's a big difference.

I will note that this fact gives him a conflict of interest: he has a vested interest in stating Peary did not make the pole. Skepticalgiraffe (talk) 19:16, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrator - please remove naked photo of Innuit woman Aleqasina
There is plenty of recent academic evidence accusing Peary of exploiting and seriously abusing Innuit women. This photograph should be removed immediately. [Ref Alnayah's People: Archival Photographs from West Greenland, 1908-1909 by Renée Hulan, Department of English Language and Literature, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada -  Renée Hulan (2023) Alnayah’s People: Archival Photographs from West Greenland, 1908–1909, Interventions, 25:8, 1088-1109, DOI: 10.1080/1369801X.2023.2169621 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2023.2169621] my name is Penelope Middelboe] 83.151.203.12 (talk) 13:36, 11 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The nude photograph of Aleqasina on this page must be removed as a matter of urgency. Posting it brings the Wikipedia community into very considerable disrepute.
 * The known historical facts are these. Robert Peary took Aleqasina, supposedly as his Inughuit ‘wife’, when she was 14 and she had a son by him. Peary however abandoned Aleqasina when he returned to the States. She became an Inughuit man’s wife. But each time Peary returned to the Arctic he took Aleqasina as his mistress and eventually she had a second child by him.
 * Research in the Peary archives reveals that the members of his expeditions were in the habit of taking openly pornographic photographs of Inughuit women, who had been taken from their community in NW Greenland and housed for many months on the expedition ship. Some particularly shocking photographs show a naked woman tied to the mast of the ship. We know that their treatment by Peary and his crew caused psychological damage to the women, almost all of whom were married. Many took refuge in shacks constructed of packing cases on the shore – the traces of which have recently been rediscovered by archeologists.
 * This exploitation of Inughuit women belongs to the eugenicist nineteenth-century discourse of treating first peoples as ‘savages’, who could be exploited at will by white American men. (Let us note that Matthew Henson, the sole American person of colour on the team, was an exception, speaking Inuktun fluently and forming loving relationships with two Inughuit women.)
 * This photograph is therefore an example of overtly exploitative pornography. Indeed, it was understood as such at the time it was taken. It further betrays the racist attitudes of Peary and his white male team.
 * I note that Penelope Middelboe asked for its removal some days ago but her request was ignored. I have removed it several times, adding a brief explanation, but each time ThaddeusSholto has reinstated it.
 * Let us be clear: to reinstate this image is a statement that Wikipedia endorses exploitative and racist pornography, targeted particularly at the first peoples of the northern Americas. This contribution is intended to remove any doubt about what such an action signifies.
 * Dr Jon Rosebank MA (Oxon), Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
 * Renée Hulan (2023) Alnayah’s People: Archival Photographs from West
 * Greenland, 1908–1909, Interventions, 25 (8), pp. 1088-1109.
 * Dick, Lyle (1995). "'"Pibloktoq"(Arctic Hysteria): A Construction of European-Inuit Relations?'", Arctic Anthropology 32 (2), pp. 1–42.
 * Susan A Kaplan and Genevieve M Le Moine, Peary’s Arctic Quest. Untold Stories from Robert E. Peary’s North Pole Expeditions (Camden, Maine 2019), pp. 60, 111-13. Jon Rosebank (talk) 10:19, 18 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm honestly not sure why we need to keep the photograph up here. What is the significance and importance of this particular picture depicting an obviously exploited child? Do we depict all children victims who are sexually exploited in a photograph with them nude in a suggestive posture. Wikipedia is not censored but Wikipedia is also not an indiscriminate collection of everything. It comes down to purpose. What purpose does the picture have for being included? Can the article make it's point about the controversy surrounding Robert Peary without the picture? What weight does the picture even carry? I maintain the onus is on the ones wanting it's inclusion to prove why it belongs. -- A Rose Wolf  12:44, 26 March 2024 (UTC)


 * It's also just a poor quality image compared to the other photos in the article, which already almost has too many images in it. I removed it per MOS:IMAGEQUALITY.
 * oncamera (talk page) 14:51, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you and I agree with removal on those grounds. -- A Rose Wolf  14:52, 26 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I support the removal of this image. There isn't a lot of reliable sources online regarding the background of this photo, but what I have found supports the comments above, and there is a possibility this woman is underage and coercion/exploitation was involved in her relationship with Peary. Magnolia677 (talk) 14:53, 26 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Remove - As an editor who primarily works in the Visual Arts, I have seen a lot nudity in paintings, sculptures and photographs. I have no problem with that nor with public nudity in certain situations. However, the use of this image within this context strikes me as creepy. Creepy in the same way as when I have seen editors add photos of nude people to articles on hot springs without their consent, or for exhibitionist purposes.


 * We do not know if this is an image of a girl in puberty, or an underage female, or an adult woman, and we have no way of knowing whether they gave their consent to be photographed in this way or if she was coerced or intimidated or even understood what the uses of a photographic image were, or had ever seen a photograph.


 * We do know the intentions of Peary, who, ahem, by-the-way, was in an inappropriate adult-child sexual relationship with the Indigenous girl depicted. Additionally, this girl likely has living decendents, have you thought,, how her family may feel about her exploitation by Peary and his cronies, or how the family may feel about her being exploited again on the pages of an encyclopedia? What if they do not want their great, grand auntie depicted this way? This was a real living human being, caught in the net of empire-building, and a victim of imbalanced power dynamics.


 * WP is not censored, however there are ethical dimensions in this particular situation that I think are not well considered by ThaddeusSholto. Is the photo’s use here against policy or best use practices? Maybe or maybe not. Is it ethical to use the image? No, and there actually is a code of ethics for photographers and visual journalists in the real world. Is it necessary for encyclopedia improvement? No.


 * Photographic exploitation and inappropriate sexual relationships are in fact harmful to children. When in doubt, do no harm. Netherzone (talk) 15:07, 26 March 2024 (UTC)


 * This discussion seems to be happening in multiple places but I already said I have no problem with the removal of the photo. My issue with the initial edits was a new editor logging in and out and claiming to be multiple people with the same IP to call things pornography and insinuate that other editors are racists and pornographers. ThaddeusSholto (talk) 15:21, 26 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Seriously, there are several points to challenge in the claim made by Netherzone.
 * * Very simply, we shouldn't be applying current notions of age-appropriate relations (between married or unmarried persons) from another culture, much less from another timeframe.
 * * The appropriateness of such a relationship should be in the context of the Inuit society. According to Inuit culture, marriage of the female commonly would have occurred at ages 14-15.
 * * Please provide support for the claim that displaying such photographs after a person has died is harmful to them (which is evidently the claim that is being made).
 * If someone comes to Wikipedia for the titillation provided by naked pictures of young children, I think they're going to be pretty disappointed; acquiescing to demands such as this one sets a bad precedent. Fabrickator (talk) 22:21, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Except Peary wasn't Inuk, or within her age group and already married, so the issue of it being OK in Inuit culture is irrelevant. I see the claim being made is that it may cause harm to her family and not so to her. Looking at thus thread it would appear that consensus is in favour of the image removal. And as the image does not add anything to a person's knowledge of Peary I agree with the removal. The image is un-encyclopedic in this article. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 17:04, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Fabrickator, I stand by my comments above. Based on what Oncamera, CambridgeBayWeather, ARoseWolf, Magnolia677, Jon Rosenbank, Penelope Middleboe and I have stated above, it is clear there is  no consensus to use the image. 
 * In addition to quality and consent issues, its use is UNDUE. The image was used to illustrate two sentences in an article. The article already has 18 photos in it, this one has no encyclopedic value. It only has shock value. Policy states the purpose of an image is to increase readers’ understanding of the article’s subject matter. It does not increase reader’s understanding of what a “sexually exploited Inuit” girl looks like, nor is it necessary to illustrate the abuse in the first place. The image is unacceptable per all three criteria of “Moral issues” of the WP image use policy: it demeans the subject, was likely unfairly obtained, and it (potentially) intrudes upon the subject’s family. Netherzone (talk) 23:57, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * In addition to quality and consent issues, its use is UNDUE. The image was used to illustrate two sentences in an article. The article already has 18 photos in it, this one has no encyclopedic value. It only has shock value. Policy states the purpose of an image is to increase readers’ understanding of the article’s subject matter. It does not increase reader’s understanding of what a “sexually exploited Inuit” girl looks like, nor is it necessary to illustrate the abuse in the first place. The image is unacceptable per all three criteria of “Moral issues” of the WP image use policy: it demeans the subject, was likely unfairly obtained, and it (potentially) intrudes upon the subject’s family. Netherzone (talk) 23:57, 31 March 2024 (UTC)