Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/All-female band


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was keep. Krimpet (talk) 03:39, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

All-female band

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

This article presumes all of the listed bands should be tied together because of the gender of their members - this is stigmatizing, as many of these bands are barely similar, also associating classical female composers of the past to garage rock.. what is the correlation, apart from the fact they're female? The existence of this article implies that female bands deviate from the "normal" band, that is, all-male. If anything, it overcredits them - if they are relevant bands, cite them in "normal" music pages. It is proposed for deletion for WP:OCAT Betina 00:19, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep There's an encyclopedic article on the history of all-female bands and how they differ from generic 'women in music', though this needs rewriting badly. Also, incidentally, even in a quick scan of the article I see at least 3 bands (The Breeders, The Raincoats, Bikini Kill) that weren't all-female.  Eliminator JR Talk  01:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment How so? I can see references ranging from bands in punk to irish folk music.. how are they correlated apart from gender? Would this article make any sense if they were male bands? Are women in bands subjected to being in "female bands" evaluated in "female music" as opposed to simply "bands"? Betina 01:12, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I was suggesting that there is an encyclopedic article here about the history and development of all-female bands more in a sociological sense than a musical one. Maybe that's not the case, and even if it is, this article does need a lot of work so I believed it may be worth keeping as a starting point despite its faults. (Having read it again, I've changed my vote to Weak Keep btw).  Eliminator JR  Talk  02:02, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment How would WP:OCAT apply here? That's a guideline for categories, not articles. Masaruemoto 01:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep It's a perfectly legitimate topic and this article, whille not perfect, is certainly a good start. It's referenced and should be improved through editing rather than dispatched through deletion.  I fail to see how it's sexist to discuss all girl bands. Nick mallory 03:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * If you need my personal input, it is sexist because it assumes they can all be grouped together under the umbrella of gender, which is not a fair parameter. But even using that parameter, the article fails in organizing anything - and so do the sources. It's like attempting to relate irish folk music to punk rock - they do not have a correlation! And the gender of the musicians do not make them any more similar, as the case is in male bands.
 * Weak delete, reads like a personal essay. The assertion that 'all-female band' has a specific definition needs verification. I agree with the nominator that the justification for tying these bands together is weak.-- Nydas (Talk) 07:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Changed to weak keep per Uncle G.-- Nydas (Talk) 08:17, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * In addition to the six books cited in the article itself, a mere 1 minute's research on my part turned up a seventh, ISBN 0822333171, from page 207 of which I was able to verify several of the points made in the article, and which discusses The Go-Go's, Bikini Kill, and L7 almost in the same breath. Another minute's research turned up pages 134–136 of ISBN 0896082407 discussing all-girl bands, in a section entitled "All-Girl Bands".  The concept is discussed in depth in many sources, and is discussed in the same way as it is discussed in the article, even to the extent of discussing such disparate groups under a single umbrella.  We are here to report what the sources say.  The objections above are simply editors disagreeing with the sources.  Pseudonymous Wikipedia editors don't get to override sources.  Verifiable, notable, and not original research. Keep. Uncle G 09:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete not a notable sociological phenomenon. There's no generic reason to keep All-Female X.  I was far more inclined to keep until I noticed that girl group exists. MLA 12:02, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The books that discuss the subject say that it is a phenomenon, and document it. In a conflict between what a pseudonymous Wikipedia editor says and what sources say, the sources win.  And saying that we should delete an article that cites books in favour of an article that contains no citations at all is patently wrongheaded.  And that's not even to address the point made in one of the sources given above that the members of a "girl group" do not play instruments, whereas in an all-female band one will find female guitarists and the like.  Have you actually read any of the sources at all on this subject?  Your rationale does not seem to be an application of our Verifiability policy.  Uncle G 14:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The issue itself is also present in the books that discuss it - these all-women bands are not related to each other. This is different from girl groups or riot grrl, which refer to specific band setups, scenes and genres, with actual collective similarities and the characteristics of a "sociological phenomenon". This article simply ties all the bands together because of the gender of their members. The fact that "All-women band" has the specific implication that all the girls play the instruments isn't reasonable, either, nor does it bring them closer to each other - Radiohead and Korn are bands in which males all play instruments, and this does not make them any more similar. The article even fails at making itself consistent by citing several bands that have a male member, making the attempt to label said bands under a loosely defined "chick music" genre. The sources have a similar inconsistency, and the method of grouping of such bands in said book chapter is too subjective. Betina 17:10, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The issue itself is also present in the books that discuss it &mdash; This exemplifies what I said above: Your objection isn't based upon sources at all, and is solely based upon the fact that you personally disagree with the sources, which discuss all-female/all-girl bands by those very names, and the fact that this notion exists and is documented. Once again:  We are here to report what the sources say.  That you personally don't think that the sources are reasonable (You clearly haven't read the either the source, what I wrote above, or even our girl group article, if you think that "all the girls play the instruments" was the definition, by the way.  So your charge of unreasonableness is actually aimed at a straw man of your own making.) is not a reason for deletion.  It isn't even a reason for cleanup. Please read our No original research policy.  We don't get to make our own novel interpretations of things simply because we disagree with the interpretations that the sources have.  And that includes not having articles merely because we personally don't like the fact that quite a few writers have chosen to document the concept of all-female bands and include a wide range of bands in that category.  In a conflict between your unsupported personal opinion, as a pseudonymous Wikipedia editor, and an actual source, the source wins.  In this case, we have quite a few sources.  (At least one of them was written by an assistant professor at UCLA, incidentally.)  Your argument that the sources are "subjective" when your entirely subjective personal opinion, with no sources to back it up, is the sole basis for your own argument is clearly a double standard, also. Human knowledge is unfair, uneven, and imperfect.  If you here to set it to rights, such as by not discussing all-female bands because it unfair that there isn't a parallel discussion of all-male bands, you are here for the wrong reasons.  This is an encyclopaedia.  We aren't here to change human knowledge and change what the sources say.  We are here to document human knowledge and report what the sources say.  If you want to document all-male bands to the same degree that all-female bands are documented, or dispute what all of the sources variously say about all-female bands, or just generally go on a crusade to change human knowledge, go and write a book of your own.  Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Uncle G 17:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for taking this to a personal level - as if this was a "straw man of my own making", and that I have personal issues with this without any rational point to make. I am making clear statements here: girl groups have specific requirements of arrangement (i.e. three girls doing vocals with a backup band, choreographies, etc), therefore they are a category of their own, as is riot grrl (feminist background, not necessarily all-female but relevant to women, etc). They are referent to gender-specific traits, but they represent an actual collectivity. If their articles are not well documented, that is an issue for edition, not deletion, as they represent well-defined (or at least better defined) categories. You say this is an encyclopedia that only documents human knowledge, and I agree with you - there are articles on racist organizations, the Klu Klux Klan and their beliefs out there. But they are shaped specifically, as a definite category related to an actual organization, an actual separation. The All-Women Band article does not have such standards - if the standard is not "girls playing all the instruments" then what is the point of the name? What then defines an All-Women Band? What does the article represent? I am not saying we should ignore what the sources say, my point is that their organization does not meet the same standards of an encyclopedia. Organize the info in a form that meets a standard. And creating an article that does not have a particular standard for inclusion is the issue. It's for similar reasons why Wikipedia does not include "Top 500 best" or "Top 50 most influential" lists in their directories, for instance - they do not have objective, listable, distinguishable standards. They might be cited in the relevant articles (as the bands' profiles) but for their lack of organizational quality, they do not constitute articles. Also, could you for the love of god contain this discussion to what the article is, as opposed to what you think I am doing, my reasons and personal beliefs, and also contain your hyperboles of crusades against human knowledge? I think the issue is much simpler than that. Thank you. Betina 20:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You're not addressing the pint that the sources disagree with you. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 00:59, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I am addressing the issue by saying that the sources do not collectivize all of these bands in a satisfactory manner, similarly to rankings, top 50's and so on. They are not gathered by genre, time period, cultural similarities, similarities in setup, not even gender of the band members. I have addressed this strongly enough. I do not disagree with the information contained in the sources - I do disagree how some feel that this encyclopedia should reproduce the inaccurate grouping of all of these bands, without any proper standards, under the same umbrella - while this is acceptable in a book, it is not acceptable in a database that proposes to organize human information - not simply reproduce it directly from the source. Lists such as "Popular Tourist Destinations" have been deleted for similar reasons - no one disagrees that Paris is everyone's favourite traveling destination, yet we have no distinguishable standard for that, even though it is probably called a popular destination in several sources! Why does the citation not make the list any more credible? Because the standards for inclusion in the article are unclear. They are imprecise and vary in different sources Not mentioning that a wide array of hundreds of "All-Women Bands" is ignored in this article - and attempting to cover all of them would result in a very inconsistent essay (which it already is), simply because they are not related to each other in similar ways as other types of music category would be. Even the All-Women Bands listing has a better standard by only choosing bands that are truly All-Female.

I cannot make my point any stronger, and if you still insist that I am choosing to ignore the knowledge of the source, I understand that you take Wikipedia a simple search engine that reproduces the organization of every single of its sources without discrimination - however confusing, conflicting and inaccurate that setting may be. Oh, and organization and content are absolutely the same thing.Betina 12:20, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Concur entirely with Betina - this is not a specific and discrete subject for an article. I'm not going to expand on anything here bar saying that documenting all of human documentation is a very disappointing outcome for this project. MLA 10:11, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Notable subject, this is just he politically correct article title for "girl band"... "girl band" gets 674,000 ghits MPS 19:25, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep and move to the more common girl band (note that we also have boy band). Obviously a distinct type of band worth discussing. Sandstein 22:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep don't move. L7 is most certainly not a "girl band." ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 00:59, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep as referenced article. I tend to think that a merge might be a good move but I will leave that decision to the editors of the articles. Capitalistroadster 02:49, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - notable topic. Do not merge with girl group or girl band; these are distinct types of groups. Badagnani 17:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - Whatever we think of the political correctness or otherwise of using the terms "girl band" or "all female band" et cetera, the facts remain that such bands do exist,and the terms are notable in so far as they are in widespread use the media. Therefore this article is encyclopedic.  Also I agree that this article should not be moved as "All-female band" is a better overall description than "Girl band" in that all girl-bands are all-female bands but not all all-female bands are girl bands. A1octopus 12:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * That would be beautiful if the bands cited actually were all-female bands. Girl band would make a better article title as it describes its intent more properly. Whatever. I guess it's my very personal perspective of seeing a greater number of so-called all-women bands out there that makes the narrowness and invalidity of this article more evident.Betina 02:57, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Notable topic and I think that this has the potential to be a very good article. daveh4h 20:31, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.