User:Taughey/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Mother

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I'm participating in a Wikipedia project as part of a class on feminism, art and culture and I chose this article because I have a personal interest in this area. It is listed as a level-4 vital article, but is also listed as c-class. My preliminary impression is that it is well-developed in parts, while other areas could be expanded upon, both in terms of citations and content.

Evaluate the article
The lead section could be made more concise by moving much of this content to the Biological Mother or Non-Biological Mother sections. It does not include mention of one of the main sections of the article: LGBTQ+ motherhood. The article defines mother as 'the female parent of a child', however this differs from the Sociology of Motherhood subsection of the Sociology of the Family article, which defines it more as a role. This is significant, especially in relation to the LGBTQ+ subsection, because "not all women mother, and mothering as nurturing and caring work is not inevitable the exclusive domain of women" (citation 33 from Sociology of the Family). The lead seems to imply a binary of mothers and fathers, ignoring that a child may have more than one mother.

The article appears to be written from a western point of view, rather than a more balanced worldwide view. For example, the lead states that, "The above concepts defining the role of mother are neither exhaustive nor universal, as any definition of 'mother' may vary based on how social, cultural, and religious roles are defined." It would be nice to have more information on how 'mother' is defined in different countries and cultures. This is also true for parts of the Social Role section. In the interim, it would be helpful to at least acknowledge which countries or cultures these norms represent. At the same time, all of the (many) photos of real people are of non-white mothers and children, which could be balanced by changing some of the images to white mothers and babies on the one hand, and also LGBTQ+ mothers and babies and more diverse representations of motherhood on the other.

The In Art section could be expanded upon a lot. It could include more contemporary representations of mothers and motherhood in art, as well as the work of mothers who are also artists.