User:Apuhala/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Gender expression

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have chosen this article because I think that the way people express gender, or lack thereof, is constantly evolving and it is a topic that find interesting and also personal.

Evaluate the article
The introduction to this article could be significantly better. I think the first sentence is good, however I was distracted by the mention of gender roles, without elaborating more deeply into how they relate to gender expression. This article, though expresses a lot of helpful information, is not up to date with the correct terminology, such as assigned male at birth, assigned female at birth, non binary identity, etc. It would be helpful if the article elaborated on this and potentially gave a summary of how freedom of gender expression has evolved over the last few years. Also, though there is a section on discrimination, the article does not go into how intersectional identity is connected to gender expression. For example, black trans women are significantly more affected by sexual violence compared to cis-women. It is important to mention how different intersectional identities affect one's safety and ability to express the identity.

Additionally, this article focused primarily on the experience of gay and lesbian people, with some mention of gender non-conforming individuals, however, I think that more focus should have been put on how gender expression has evolved as our understanding of gender has evolved. The tone of the article is fairly neutral, but it is written from a very binary point of view. Although that is a critical part of the world we live in, non-binary identity and experiences also need to be a bigger part of the conversation.

Most of the sources referenced in the article work and are reliable, however there is certainly an overrepresentation of white authors. Also, the structure of this article is not conducive to understanding the topic. There should be a section for history, the introduction should be more developed and specific, and the "confusion between gender expression..." section should have a different title and should appear later in the article. Additionally, some of the sources reference other wikipedia articles instead of reliable sources.

Looking at the talk page of this article, it is clear that there is debate surrounding gender identity compared to gender expression. Seeing as these are different terms, it would be helpful to explain how they are different in this article. Also, though there is a figure on the right of the article referencing its connection to transgender topics, that is not mentioned in the article.

Overall, compared to how we have talked about gender expression in class, this article takes a more dated and binary approach. Though it has good bones, more explanation of how intersectional identity and different types of gender identities may or may not influence people's decisions to express gender is needed. Additionally, there is very little about how gender expression has evolved over time.