User:Carmilla613/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
'Internalized sexism'

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I wanted to learn more about internalized sexism. My initial impressions were that the article seemed to have some good points and made some well thought out connections, for instance describing in the intro paragraph that it's a subcategory of internalized oppression. However, there is certainly a lot of room for improvement, especially in talking more about intersectionality and describing certain topics more in-depth. It is a part of WikiProject Feminism, WikiProject Discrimination, WikiProject Sociology, and WikiProject Gender studies.

Evaluate the article
Lead section / content / tone and balance / organization and writing quality / overall impressions: :

The whole intro paragraph was extremely short and could have used a lot more summarization of what the article would go into; they don't provide a broad overview of the major sections of the article. This article was a bit contradictory at times and couldn't decide if it was only directed towards sexism affecting females or if it was inclusive of male-oriented/men's internalized sexism. For instance, the intro sentence states that 'Internalized sexism takes the form of sexist behaviors and attitudes enacted by women toward themselves or other women and girls'; this is the definition of internalized misogyny, not internalized sexism. Despite framing it as woman-oriented, the article contains a section on 'Toxic masculinity, machismo, and hypermasculinity'. There is also a section on 'Internalized heterosexism' that could be more cohesively connected to the topic of the article. It seems biased to only consider women-oriented sexism so this is one improvement that could be made.

Furthermore, the 'Effects' section was problematic in that it only talked about the effects of internalized sexism on oneself--that is, they discuss things like body issues, depression, shame, and diminished job performance as a result of internalized sexism, but they do not discuss the effects of one's internalized sexism on others. We are left with questions about how could the internalized sexism held by one person could impact another (for instance, how do women who hold these attitudes treat other women differently from men? Is a woman in a position of power who holds internally sexist views more likely to hire/promote male coworkers? More likely to listen to ideas from male co-workers? What does this mean on a broader, societal scale?). There should be a broader intersectional discussion of sexism as a whole, not only by including discussion about how internalized sexism effects other women and men, but also by how discussing how internalized sexism might differ with your identity. 'Misogynoir' is mentioned offhandedly only once in the whole article.

Finally (although I'll keep this brief) the 'Combating internalized sexism' section could use improvement. This section is very vague and hard to follow, yet should be a crucial part of the article as a whole. It says "A lot of research has been done on internalized sexism," but doesn't cite any individual studies or phenomena found by them. It is then stated that "encouraging people to be intentional and decline to participate in derogation, invalidation, and objectification of members of the same gender" helps combat it. Furthermore, "empowerment, support, and collaboration are all effective ways to combat internalized sexism." That sounds just like telling people not to be sexist which sounds a little obvious/patronizing I guess? And what exactly is empowerment or support? This section is frustrating.

Sources and References : One major issue was that the 'Mode of internalization' of sexism of 'Early childhood inculturation' didn't cite any sources. It states, " Internalized misogyny is learned in tandem with female socialization, the idea that young girls are taught to act and behave differently than their male counterparts. These same societal and behavioral standards are also thought to be spread through exposure in the media, which reflects the standards of the society that it serves to inform and entertain." There are no sources for this which is a poor practice, and the mention of media at the end belongs in the next section, 'Television and media.' This whole subsection doesn't really talk about inculturation or what that means and seems very out of place.

Images and Media: There are no images included to enhance this topic. This is a major improvement that could be made to the article.

Talk Page Discussion: There are a lot of interesting discussions and a lot of controversy over sections like 'Internalized misandry' a section which seems to have been deleted? Some people are raising similar complaints to me about the initial definition of internalized sexism.