User:VintageButterflies/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.


 * Name of article: Butch and Femme
 * I have observed in the past that the articles on butch and femme identities (including this one and the more specific articles on each identity) were presented from a biased point of view. While they have been somewhat improved since I saw them last, they still misrepresent some controversial issues.

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Lead evaluation
The Lead is relatively concise and understandable, but misleading. It cites Butch and Femme as only existing within "lesbian subculture", which is broadly speaking true, but most readers will not realize that historically the "lesbian subculture" also included many types of women attracted to women other than those most would now call "lesbian". Nowhere in the lead is it mentioned that bisexual women, queer women, and others also use the terms. Also, the sentence regarding "lesbian dyadic system[s]" is confusing for people unfamiliar with the terminology - and most people accessing this article will not be knowledgeable in that respect. The Lead ends with a fairly lengthy quote that should probably instead be paraphrased. There's no explanation of the article's sections. The second paragraph of the Lead is a useful discussion of the theory, general views, and criticism of the topic, but it isn't followed up with a section about that in the article itself.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?

Content evaluation
For an overview article on butch and femme, discussion of them as relates to anyone other than lesbians is spectacularly absent, and the couple of sentences that do exist are biased and prejudicial. The section on Butch is extremely short, particularly when taking into account that while there is a separate article for Femme this is the only article on Butch. (Though there are a couple articles on subgroups of butches). Creating a separate section on the prevalence of the terms, sociological theories about them, criticism, etc. (based on the second paragraph of the current Lead and the first two paragraphs of the "Attributes" section) would be helpful. There are a few events in the history section that are incorrectly placed in time.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral?
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Tone and balance evaluation
The article is at points biased towards radical feminism, particularly trans-exclusive radical feminism, and the entire article is extremely biased towards a monosexual-female-exclusive view of butch and femme. Some of these biased views are shown by presenting controversial opinions as fact. Some are simply a matter of omission (such as completely failing to mention the many multisexual women, trans people, and male-attracted men who identify as butch or femme). Some use subtle words such as presenting an author's point of view as "[so-and-so] explained" instead of "[so-and-so] argued". In some cases there is acknowledgement that a controversy exists, but then only one side of that controversy is presented. The absence of any mention whatsoever of Leslie Feinberg - one of the primary writers on butch identity, and, not coincidentally, someone who ties it closely to transgender identity - is glaring. There are a few examples of misgendering hypothetical trans individuals, such as "female butches and male femmes are not always transgender", which from context appears to actually mean "butch people assigned female at birth and femme people assigned male at birth are not always transgender".

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation
The sources are very much not thorough, as a consequence of the two previous paragraphs (absence of non-monosexual-lesbian butches and femmes, and absence of multiple points of view on controversial topics). The majority of the sources are from the 90s or early 2000s, though in most cases that's reasonable. All the links I checked were functional, though most cited sources are books without text online. Some claims are made without any sources.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Organization evaluation
There are a few grammatical errors. The article is for the most part fairly concise and easy-to-read, with a few exceptions. It has some major flaws in organization, with debate and theory scattered throughout the article instead of confined to its own section.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Images and media evaluation
A few more images (such as an image for the 21st century section) might aid in understanding and in providing a break from all the text, especially as while butch and femme are complicated identities they are also in large part about presentation. The images that are present are acceptably captioned and their layout is satisfactory. All images appear to have appropriate copyright/lack thereof.

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Talk page evaluation
The majority of the Talk page (which is remarkably scanty given the controversial and complicated topic) is a discussion of merging other pages about sub-identities of butch and femme into this page. The ruling was made to not do so. One of the arguments for not doing so was (paraphrased) "this page is more about the butch/femme lesbian dichotomy, whereas the individual identities can cover more than just monosexual lesbians," which I would accept more as an argument for the lacking content of this page except that there isn't a separate page about Butch as its own identity, and also even the premise is flawed (there never was a butch/femme monosexual-lesbian dichotomy, there was a butch/femme WLW dichotomy).

The article is part of several WikiProjects - WP Gender Studies, WP LGBT Studies, WP Sexology and sexuality, WP Women, and WP Women's History. The different projects rate it as either Start-class or B-class. It has a few warning banners, one stating that the topic is controversial and may be in dispute (and to only write content from a neutral POV) and the other stating that administrators are allowed to impose discretionary sanctions on people editing this article improperly.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * How can the article be improved?
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Overall evaluation
The article is overall biased, poorly organized, and extremely underdeveloped. An addition of a section on theory and debate surrounding the term (taking that content from where it is scattered about on the page and consolidating it) would be very helpful. More coverage of butch identity - currently given only four lines to itself - is absolutely necessary. Discussion, or at least acknowledgement, of the term's historical as well as current use by people other than monosexual lesbians is needed for full coverage of the topic; it might be simplest to devote a section to that instead of going through and editing every sentence. It needs to be gone through in depth to reduce bias, particularly bias manifesting as prejudice against transgender people and multisexual people.