User:Danirumsey2894/sandbox

Article Evaluation

The Social Construction of Gender Article on Wikipedia makes an attempt to explain gender as a social issue, rather than biological. However, its presentation ultimately distracts and tangents to find this topic effective to anyone interested in learning more about the topic.

The presentation of “Social Constructionism” under the heading of basic concepts distracted me, purely from the viewpoint that while I can understand how it ultimately fits into the social construction of gender, the explanation was long winded, and its writings jumped around referencing multiple sources, with hardly any explanation of their inclusion. If it’s ultimately determined that this section remain an important part of understanding the concept that is the social construction of gender, I think that this section should be reworded to support better understanding not only of the topic, but as to why it fits in with the main subject.

In many sections, the overall writing of the article does not come off as particularly academic, as is the case in the section on gender. Not only are many claims unfounded, the writing appears to switch tonality throughout the article.

While the presentation of the opinion that this article is one-sided is also an opinion in biased, it cannot be ignored that while the article does a substantive attempt at providing information on gender on a social construction it does not cover or seem to develop out the concept of gender being biological too thoroughly, and only seems to mention it in passing. This is a concept that providing understanding for might actually add to the thought that gender is a socially constructed concept, and the balancing effects that both nature and nurture can have on humanity.

“Society typically only recognizes two genders (citation needed).” “Therefore, when transgender individuals want to have a sex change operation, they must prove that they can “pass” as a man or woman (no real evidence that such a requirement solidly exists, fact is disputed, though left in article).” The quote “so even the choice of changing one’s gender is socially constructed” is unattributed, and such a choice weighs heavily in the minds of those affected. Controversial statements without the support of citation take away from the effectiveness of the article.

“Throughout history, women have fought for their rights regarding various issues.” This statement is generic, and could actually be substantially backed up through examples of everything from the creation of the women’s suffrage movement all the way to the most recent Women’s Marches occurring in the past few years. Everything from voting to reproductive rights and equal pay is up for grabs, and yet nothing is mentioned or backed up with a credible source.

A lot of general statements are made that ultimately need to be better defended.

Sizeism

Sizeism has yet to be rated on a quality scale on Wikipedia, which to me is an important signifier that there's a large amount of work to be done in contributing to the article. I believe that there are more resources that can be added to this article to more firmly establish what sizeism is and who it effects. In addition, creating a better understanding includes expanding on the concept as a form of discrimination that affects more than just the few obvious groups of people.

Potential Sourcework for Sizeism Edits

http://www.apa.org/monitor/jan04/size.aspx

"Size-based discrimination may be hardest on children." American Psychological Association.

Finding resources that fall within Wikipedia's neutrality guidelines on sizeism, or size-based discrimination, has proven difficult, to say the least. FOr many groups, the fact that negative viewpoints held towards them for their size (for example, "skinny shaming") is backed up only by opinion, and finding peer-reviewed sources that it does exist has proven a challenge. Finding that children are affected by sizeism is a step in the right direction in finding sourcework that helps demonstrate who this discrimination effects.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4853419/

"Obesity Discrimination in the Recruitment Process: "You're Not Hired!" Frontiers in Psychology.

Source that will hopefully assist in illustrating where size based discrimination occurs.

Intended Sizeism Edits/Progress

There is a plethora of information out there on sizeism used as a weight-bias toward individuals who are considered overweight or obese, and there is also a great amount of recent information supporting the idea of intersectionality between sizeism and sexism. For example, in the journal article "Is Fat a Feminist Issue? Exploring the Gendered Nature of Weight Bias," the authors suggest that "fat women fare worse than thinner women and worse than men, whether the men are fat or thin (Fikkan, Rothblum, 2011)" in matters of "employment, education settings, romantic relationships, health care and mental health treatment (2011)." For these reasons, I think the article could be included to expand the statistical data and summary of studies done by the authors that illustrate how sizeism affects women. In addition to the effects on women, sizeism has also been found to have physical, mental, and emotional effects on those individuals who identify as overweight or obese. As their is ample data on that front, I think the article could stand to be expanded in the sense of adding effects of the practice. Since it is not reportedly synonymous with weight-bias or weight-based discrimination (it can encompass more than just weight), it has proven difficult to find sizeist data on anything beyond negative social practices against those who are considered overweight. While there is the opinion that sizeism exists toward those who may be considered "small" by societal standards, there has not been data to back up the practice. For these reasons, the article expansion that I would like to provide will focus more on sizeist attitudes and practices towards those who do not fit the slender ideal.

In line with the effects of sizeist attitudes, or attitudes that pertain to individuals believing that their size is superior to all others, these attitudes and behaviors have fallen largely on those who are overweight, research shows. "Findings...reveal that weight-based stigma shapes weight perceptions, which mediate the relationship between perceived discrimination and health (Schafer and Ferraro, "The Stigma of Obesity: Does Perceived Weight Discrimination Affect Identity and Physical Health?", 2011)." This suggests that effects on an individual's health may be perpetuated not only by health factors, but social factors as well, as "perceived discrimination" entails the individual believing that they are the victim of discrimination, depending on the social actions that occur to them. Since discrimination and prejudice are social processes, so too, is attached stigma, and similar to racism (believing that ones race is superior to another's race), sizeism is a social form of discrimination against one's perceived weight. Perception is important in regards to weight, as often weight is judged at a distance without a person knowing the exact weight of the person they are bringing judgment on.

Revised Proposed Addition to Sizeism
Based on data analysis done on a survey of over 3,000 Americans, weight and height discrimination, a form of sizeism, was ranked just behind gender, age, and race (biology) as a highly experienced factor of discrimination. Among female respondents, weight and height discrimination exceeds race-based discrimination as the third most prevalent form of experienced discrimination. This discrimination was experienced in multiple settings, including from employers, interactions within the health-care field, in educational atmospheres, as well as within personal and familial relationships.

Greater prevalence was found to exist within those respondents who were self-reported as female, with 10% of female respondents reporting having experienced weight and height discrimination, compared to 5% of male respondents. For younger women, these numbers illustrated still an increase: 14.1% of women with a reported age range of 35-44 years old expressed experiencing weight and height based discrimination, and women who identified between 45-54 years of age were nearly five times more likely to have experienced weight and height based discrimination than their 65-74 year old counterparts. The study also found that African-American women were more likely to experience weight and height discrimination, with 23.9% of respondents having reported an incident.

The women most affected are those who identify as belonging to the highest weight category. Those women reported as moderately obese, or those with a Body mass index of 30-35, were found to be three times more likely than their male counterparts of a similar weight to experience weight based discrimination.

These statistics illustrate prevalence within the United States, where ideal body image and size are described as “normal,” not only within research studies such as this one, but within individuals and society as well.