User:Amloper/sandbox

300 word Contribution to the Article "Passing (sociology)" : 4/21/18
I know of three things I wish to do for my article. First stick with the stigma word edit. Then add a section called "Intersectional" which can help to explain how passing can occur in the intersection of multiple marginal identities. In that section, place the following text with some minor edits maybe to make it flow better and actually implement the citation system in a more effortless way:

''Though passing may occur on the basis of a single subordinate identity such as race, other times people’s intersectional locations involve multiple marginalized identities. Intersectionality, as originally described by Kimberly Crenshaw, is a concept which helps to provide a framework for seeing the interconnected nature of oppressive systems and how they interact with people based on the intersection of all their individual identities. In Han and Choi’s “I Know a Lot of Gay Asian Men Who Are Actually Tops: Managing and Negotiating Gay Racial Stigma”, the authors explain how cisgender, gay, Asian men sometimes employ passing online as being non-Asian or white to avoid the disinterest or fetishization they often encounter upon revealing their Asian identities. As Yen Le Espiritu explains in “Ideological Racism and Cultural Resistance” stereotypes about Asian men are buttressed by and cannot be understood without oppressive gender stereotypes. ''

''Espiritu shows how Asian men are characterized by stereotypes as being either too sexual (overly masculine) or too feminine (hypo-masculine) or even both, highlighting how racial stereotypes are often gendered. Kristen Schilt’s work on transgender men transitioning in the workplace - learning to “pass” as male - revealed that for one black man transitioning female-to-male had noticed he’d gone from “being an obnoxious Black woman to a scary Black man”, and therefore had to adapt his behavior to gendered scripts to pass. For gay Asian men, not only might they need to pass as straight in everyday situations to avoid stigma, but also amongst other gay men. Thus, even though cisgender, gay, Asian men may benefit from some privilege of being male, their masculinity and gender performance is coded as inadequate due to the gendered nature of racial and heteronormative stereotypes. As many racial stereotypes are intertwined with gender, class, and other identities, passing in general is an intersectional act, rarely limiting itself to the management of a single identity.''

Amloper (talk) 03:48, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Initial Contribution Ideation: 3/21/2018
Reviewing the article "Passing (sociology)" I found several places I'm eager to edit. The introduction blurb uses the phrase "difference anxiety" when I feel the word stigma is more appropriate. I couldn't find the awkward phrase in any scholarly work so I feel this is a better way to express that sentence. Stigma is also referenced as a motivation to pass in all the articles I reviewed. Additionally, I am considering enriching some of the text with hyperlinks to other relevant pages.

The other two key contributions I wish to make are expanding the descriptions of passing in reference to race and also sexuality. Racially, the article hints at a reduced need to pass as white if needed by those with darker skin since the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s. However, it fails to explore the logical end to this pattern: the emergence of reverse passing. It also fails to mention the fluidity of passing and range of motivations for biracial to pass in a variety of ways in different contexts. As for sexuality, I believe the article could use a sentence to explain some of the methods employed by lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men to pass as heterosexual which are described in one of my research articles.

Article Selection: Passing <- add link to page soon 1/31/18

 * Think back to when you did an article critique. What can you add? Post some of your ideas to the article's talk page.
 * Start compiling a list of relevant, reliable books, journal articles, or other sources. Post that bibliography to the talk page of the article you'll be working on, and in your sandbox. Make sure to check in on the Talk page to see if anyone has advice on your bibliography.

The reason I've chosen the page Passing is because I've spent a large portion of my life attempting to pass as straight man. I understand that original research is not appropriate, however, I know that my experience will help to inform my research process. I know at least some of the kinds of experiences involved in passing or attempting to pass, and certainly about the motivations to pass. I noticed the subsection of the article which deals with sexuality is flagged for needed expansion. Though the article does mention requirements for work I know from experience that merely the uncertainty of being outed in a right to work state is sufficient to inspire attempts at passing and so I may explore research related to this idea. The talk page includes very little about gender and sexuality, and there seemed to be an issue which might be solved by referring to cultural reactions about Rachel Dolezhal so there is plenty of work to be done.

Here are some scholarly works I'll be digging into:

Shippee, N. D. (2011). Gay, Straight, and Who I Am: Interpreting Passing Within the Frames for Everyday Life. Deviant Behavior, 32(2), 115-157. doi:10.1080/01639621003748514

Wickes, R., & Emmison, M. (2007). They are all ‘doing gender’ but are they are all passing? A case study of the appropriation of a sociological concept. Sociological Review, 55(2), 311-330. doi:10.1111/j.1467-954X.2007.00707.x

Pfeffer, C. A. (2014). "I Don't Like Passing as a Straight Woman": Queer Negotiations of Identity and Social Group Membership. American Journal Of Sociology, 120(1), 1-44.

Beydoun, K. A., & Wilson, E. K. (2017). Reverse Passing. UCLA Law Review, 64(2), 282-354

Article Evaluation - 1/29/18
Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you? Everything in the article appeared to be on the topic of the social construction of gender. The most distracting things I noticed were a few grammatical errors or clunky sentences. I recall reading a "to" where a "the" should have been. I also recall reading about some theory which felt really unclear which needs some work - the criticism of Martha Nussbaum of Butler at the end of the political potential and limits. There were quite a few sentences which felt thrown in there, but were needed. Specifically, I recall some concepts in the social change section near the end of the article which felt reasonable but weren't cited (mostly claims about the movements of feminism).

I was surprised to find nothing in the gender roles section and wondered how one might flesh that section out. Would a brief description of roles and statuses be required?

Whenever I hear Nature vs. Nurture, my skepticism is immediately piqued. That last section I would argue is not needed at all. There are too many misconceptions about this idea already. This section does little to illuminate the nuanced interaction between the two realms in terms of the social construction of gender.

Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? Nothing immediately jumped out to me as particularly biased, but referring to the talk page I see that this has been addressed in the past. I did notice that much of the article is worded in ways such as "authors X & Y claim the social construction process happens by..." rather than simply stating that social construction is categorically one way or the other. So, I appreciated that.

The only other thing that really stood out was that a lot of the work used as evidence is highly central to Western society but there are few mentions of this. It makes the article somewhat feel as if it's talking for all parts of the world without reminding the readers that this is true for Western societies or the U.S. I would like to have more contextualization of the evidence. Example: Lorber found in the midwest U.S. that gender was constructed via...

Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? Admitting my own ignorance here, it was hard for me to tell. I'm relatively new to the field. However! I did notice that the work of West and Zimmerman was highly relied upon. If their work is prolific and merits this dependence, then that's a good thing!

Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article? Each of the cited sources I followed up with appeared to support the general claims that were made in the article. Exploring the talk page I saw a few editors had caught some misleading uses of the work of West and Zimmerman so I was pleased to see that. It also provided a good example of what out of context or inappropriate sourcing looks like.

Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted? For the most part, the facts I saw stated were supported by appropriate reference materials. However, there were some places such as the section on social change and at least one other which I remember bugging me in regards to how little the claims were supported or how uninspired some of the descriptions were.

Most of the sources appear to be works produced by sociological researchers which are presented in a way which neither illuminates nor disguises the biases they might have. Often I read statements about gender in terms of who had described them and what conclusions they drew which satisfied me in their neutrality. What I did not see was a robust section exploring dissenting work or where the theoretical frameworks are limited in describing the social construction of gender. There was a section however which touched on how the lines between research and activism can be blurred. I wonder if there can be more work done there.

Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added? Admitting my ignorance, nothing appeared terribly out of date. However, I did notice that most sources I pulled up were published in the 90s. I would love to bring in more recent work if not already there.

Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? There is talk of some fixing of mechanics, suggestions for editing, and other questions of content worthy of inclusion/deletion. I also noticed some great work addressing misrepresented ideas using the wrong work to cite which got cleared up. One topic is literally titled "This Page is a Mess". Some folks suggested using a merger to partially solve some of the problems presented.

How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

The article is rated as C-class for the three WikiProjects it is associated with: Feminism, Gender Studies, and LGBT studies.