User:I am kenough/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Femicide in Mexico

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I picked this article because as someone with Mexican descent, I have a personal interest on violence against women in Mexico, particularly femicide statistics. It matters because it's an ongoing human rights violation that has not been properly addressed by either the government, police forces, or legislation. My impression of this article is that it seems quite short for such an intense topic.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section:


 * There are appears to be no clear lead section. The first sentence does provide a short definition of femicide and it's predominance in Mexico in comparison to other countries, however it quickly jumps into other statistics and is part of a larger paragraph that doesn't concisely summarize the article's topic.
 * Biggest issue is the non-existent lead, it just jumps onto an "introductory section" composed of 3 body paragraphs that are too detailed and dense with information to be considered a brief description of what the article will cover.

Content:


 * Overall, the content is relevant to the title and is somewhat up-to-date, it's most recent femicide statistic is from 2021 and it includes new legislation that was put in place in 2022.
 * However this quote, "Mexico is also among the leading country in term of murders Murder rate, and 90% of the victims of murder are men", does not seem relevant to the article at all because it isn't connected to femicide, it would be more useful to just highlight the percentage of female murders in the country.
 * Some important statistics about femicide seem to be missing. For example, the article should ass "Amnesty International estimates that there were 34,000 female homicides in Mexico between 1986 and 2009" from Violence against women in Mexico because it provides more accurate information than its original estimate which was "~1,000 femicide victims". Additionally, the article does not include statistics such as Mexico's rate of femicides per year; it should be included because it would demonstrate how widespread the issue is. It should also list the number of femicide victims per state since it would provide more detailed information on specific regions in the country. It would also be helpful to mention Mexico's ranking in terms of femicide, it is currently "ranked13th among the country’s 32 states in femicides per 100,000 women", according to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.

Writing Quality & Organization:


 * The article has several grammar mistakes (writing "feminicide" instead of femicide a few times, random capitalization of letters, random spaces).
 * Additionally, there are unusual sentence structures that are hard to follow such as, "In their attempts to understand the causes of this brutality- up to one third of the women victim of murder are murdered by their current or ex partners- researchers found that to be the majority of murders". It seems as if the author meshed together unfinished sentences.
 * Confusing sentence structures leads to misinformation. For example, this statement, "Feminist movements have been active in bringing attention to the 3% of femicide however this has had an adverse impact... causing feminist to ignore that 90% of the victims are men", sounds like it's reporting that 90% of femicide victims are men. This statistic is wholly incorrect and doesn't apply to the definition of femicide at all.
 * The article is broken into separate sections, making it easier to read. However, it needs a proper lead section (aka introduction), a separate section for the second body paragraph (could be titled "Causes of Femicide" or something similar), and a separate section for all the statistics so it's easier to distinguish that information.

Tone and Balance:


 * The article is not neutral. Instead of utilizing an objective tone when stating facts, it strongly asserts that the police and the government are to blame of high femicide rates. They state that police misconduct is a primary reason why femicide crimes often go underreported, are not properly investigated, and that the police are often associated with the perpetrators that commit these violent crimes. The author also states that the Mexican government allows femicide to take place because women's liberation goes against their interests. Although these statements can be true, they need to be rewritten in a more unbiased manner.
 * Also, seems to be trying to adopt a more optimistic tone in its Feminist Movement section, however there are few sources to back up their statements such as, "Women naming their abusers publicly became normalized as a result" and that, "up until recently, feminism was treated as a dirty word". These quotes seem to reflect that we live in a post-feminist society, which we do not.

Sources and References:

Images and Media:
 * Sources that are cited do appear to be reliable and from trustworthy references such as scholarly texts, nonfiction books, academic journals, etc.
 * All links work and there is a diverse variety of authors, especially Hispanic women and men.
 * Many sources are recent, from 2010 onwards.
 * Some statements require sources to back it up, such as "Until recent decades, feminism was treated as a dirty word" and "As more women became victims to violence the general disdain towards feminism and its ideals became less common among women and many began fighting for justice of murdered women". These sentences seem too informal to be backed up by reliable sources because they over-generalize.


 * Includes 2 images of femicide protestors holding signs of victim's photographs and slogans. Images are relevant to the topic and laid out in a visually appealing way.
 * They appear properly captioned but could use translation to English so more readers can be aware of what the signs say. Also, the captions could include more description, such as the name of the march/protest taking place or the name or the city it was held in.

Talk Page Discussion


 * The article is of interest to the Feminism WikiProject, as well as gender studies, human rights, and women's history. It's ranked mid-importance.
 * Only one person has added a discussion post, but they are not addressing any of the issues in the article's writing, rather they are commenting on how awful the violence rates are.

Overall:

The article is at a good starting point but it needs more work to be well-developed. It does a good job of defining feminism and introducing some statistics about it, some information about how feminist movements are challenging this gendered violence, and mentions roadblocks and setbacks that women have faced. However, the writing is informal at times, becomes difficult to read in the second section and further on, is heavily-biased, and fully inaccurate about certain points.

The article can be improved by adding more statistics about femicide rates in Mexico, writing more section titles so it's easier to navigate, fixing grammar and sentence structure, editing the wording so it's more objective, and expanding on the possible solutions to address femicide in Mexico, as well as adding more examples of how feminist movements have worked to bring attention to gendered violence in the nation.