User:Megaustt1/sandbox

The female body shape page has a lot of varying topics within it. While this information is useful, there are a few sections that are distracting and much of it could be condensed. From looking at the talk page for it, many users agree that this page is all over the place. The first half of the page focuses on physiology and measurements while the majority of the second half is more focused on cultural and social implications of the female body shape. As stated in the talk page, there is already a "human body shape" page and physiology and health are discussed at length, for both male and female body shapes. One correction that could be made is condensing these parts of the page and linking to the human body shape page while extending the cultural and social part of the page. In the human body shape page there is also a cultural and social section that is not long and could be linked to the female body shape page.This page also needs to be reorganized. The social aspect of this topic is combined in a section with health issues, it is unclear why. The waist-to-hip ratio section should be with the measurements and dimensions sections, as the health issues could be moved to a section that has more biological concerns. This would make the page much less confusing, with all the social and cultural aspects of this topic in their own section, and it would definitely help with the flow of the page.

Some statements made in this article need to be fleshed out more, a citation does not do this on its own. For example, in the "social and health issues" section, there are claims made that body shape influences health which is also affected by ethnic background. These ideas should be expanded on as well as having a strong citation with it. Some claims in this article are apparently just based in science, however there is not much information about how gendered social structures may influence conclusions made by scientists. There could be more discussion on whether attractiveness can be discussed in an objective, universal way. While this page acknowledges at points that standards of attractiveness of the female body shape are cultural influenced, a more grounded sociological analysis could be beneficial for this page.

The introduction section of the female body shape page does not have any citations. While these statements may be summaries of topics discussed and cited in other parts of the article, there should be citations for this section. Since users can cite the same source multiple times, this is something that should be done more on this page. For example, the section "social experiments on the ideal women's body" does not cite anything until the third paragraph in. There are only two citations in the "alterations of body shape". More citations will definitely make this page stronger.

This page also conflates the words "female" and "woman" many times. This is not inclusive to trans and non-binary individuals. This page does not even seem to acknowledge the existence of trans and non-binary individuals. This should be amended and a brief section on the implications of the social construction of gender could be useful to this page as well, perhaps linking to the social construction of gender wiki page.

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I chose the Glamour (presentation) page as my article to edit this semester. I am interested in how this relates to gender, specifically the cinema and icon sections. I believe Sean Connery is the only man listed in this article, I would be interested to find more male examples. I also do not know much about this topic and the page definitely needs more content.

Key terms:

Glamour

Gould, Carol S. 2005. "Glamour as an Aesthetic Property of Persons." Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism, vol 63, 237-248.

Glamour and Film

Friedman, Alice T. 2017. "American Glamour 2.0: architecture, spectacle, and social media." Journal of Consumption Markets & Culture, vol 20, 575-584

Glamour and Gender

Coy, Maddy, Garner, Maria. 2010. "Glamour Modelling and the marketing of self-sexualization." International Journal of Cultural Studies, vol 13, 657-675

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Finding sources for Glamour (presentation) proved difficult. I had hoped to find more information for the cinema and icon sections, however, I did not find much in that area. As this is a gender course, many of the articles I found were about glamour in relation to feminism. The current Glamour (presentation) page does not have anything about feminism or feminist thought in relation to glamour. There are a few directions I could go with the information I have from my sources.

An obvious choice would be to create a "glamour and feminism" section for the wiki page. I think I would definitely have to go to the talk page for Glamour (presentation) and see what others think. This could offer another point of view that the article is seriously lacking. I would approach this in the way of discussing what the feminist point of views are on glamour- not by discussing glamour from a feminist point of view. I think this is an important distinction that goes along with Wikipedia's vision. The three peer-reviewed articles I found each discuss different feminist perspectives about glamour. I could present each of these in this section. For example, in "A Glamourous Feminism by Design?," Sarah Baker looks at glamour in a dynamic way- seeing that glamour and feminism are not mutually exclusive. The consensus from this article is that glamour can both be a tool that is useful for feminists and a tool of the patriarchy that oppresses women. There is definitely no consensus in feminist thought on glamour and I think that can serve the page well.

One of my sources discusses perspectives of glamour in women's magazines from 1950's England. This article is "Beauty isn’t all a matter of looking glamorous’: Attitudes to glamour and beauty in 1950s women’s magazines" by Rachel Ritchie. Not only could this add to the history of glamour, it could also add more of an international perspective to this page. One of the critiques of the Glamour (presentation) wiki page on its talk page is that it does not present an international view of the subject. My source could add to that element a bit. Ritchie's article is particularly interesting because many of the opinions on glamour presented in these magazines were negative, even though the 1950's are seen as a glamourous time- at least to Americans. Richie states that many of these opinions may have formed from the association of glamour with Hollywood. This is a stark difference in how the current page references glamour- mostly only in relation to Hollywood.

I plan on running these ideas past other Glamour editors in the talk page. If this doesn't sound like a good idea to other editors, I may edit the definition section. "A Glamourous Feminism by Design?" gives a good definition that could help strengthen this page.

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Additions to Bisexual Erasure wiki

Bisexual erasure or bisexual invisibility is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or reexplain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources. In its most extreme form, bisexual erasure can include the denial that bisexuality exists. Bisexual erasure also includes the assertion that all bisexual individuals are in a phase and will soon choose a side, either heterosexual or homosexual. This comes from the belief that bisexual individuals are distinctively indecisive. Gross misrepresentations of bisexual individuals as hypersexual erases the sexual agency of bisexual, effectively erasing their true identities as well. It is often a manifestation of biphobia,  although it does not necessarily involve overt antagonism.

There is increasing inclusion and visibility of bisexuals, particularly in the LGBT community. According to a study done in 2011, bisexuals make up slightly over half of the LGB population. Bisexual women outnumber lesbians and over 40% of these women are women of color. Thus, the invisibility of bisexuals is not representative of current data. American psychologist Beth Firestone writes that since she wrote her first book on bisexuality, in 1996, "bisexuality has gained visibility, although progress is uneven and awareness of bisexuality is still minimal or absent in many of the more remote regions of our country and internationally".

According to scholar Kenji Yoshino, there are three main investments that motivate both self-identified homosexuals and heterosexuals to seek to culturally erase bisexuality. These motivations are firstly, sexual orientation stabilization. This relieves people of the anxiety of having sexual orientation questioned, an untenable position since it is in fact unprovable. There is a belief that bisexuals are simply undecided, and that they are fundamentally homosexual or heterosexual. This isolates, marginalises and makes bisexuals invisible within the community. Secondly, the maintenance of the importance of gender, which is seen as erotically essential to monosexuals while this notion is challenged by the existence of bisexuality. Thirdly, the maintenance of monogamy since for mainstream Americans, a pair bond is preferred. However, bisexuals are generally assumed by monosexuals to be "intrinsically" non-monogamous. Juana Maria Rodriguez adds to Yoshino's argument and posits that bisexuality breaks down traditional understandings of sexuality and the gender binary. Thus, individuals both in the dominant culture and in the queer community resist bisexuality.

Historically, bisexual women have had their sexuality labeled by lesbian feminist circles as an "apolitical cop-out". Bisexual women have been seen a not radical enough because of their attraction to cisgender men. Rodriguez asserts that bisexuality was anti-feminist because of the implied "desires for penetration, sexual dominance, and submission," and gender roles. Bisexual vilification and erasure by the community may not be as open and prevalent today, however, identifying as bisexual can still lead to exclusion and erasure in many lesbian spaces.

Erasure in Academic Literature
Bisexual individuals have largely been overlooked in academic literature. Hemmings posits that bisexual erasure is essential in queer studies to keep lesbians and gay men as the main subjects of study. Bisexuals are often included under the umbrella of LGBT+ in academic studies. However, data specific to bisexuals is lacking. Historically, academics began to study bisexuals in relation to HIV and AIDS. These studies contributed to the mythology that bisexuals have a higher chance of transmitting HIV and AIDS.

(in media depictions section)

Bisexual women specifically are subject to both hypervisibility and erasure. Bisexual women are over-represented in pornography, reality television, and music videos as part of the male gaze. However, representations of bisexual women as agents in their own sexuality are lacking. Erasure of sexual agency for bisexual women of color is prevalent within the media as well. Bisexuality stereotypically implies a sense of uncontrolled sexual desire, this is then intensified for women of color who are already hypersexualized.