Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biological determinism of human gender roles


 * 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 delete. The weight of WP:PAG based argument comes down heavily against retaining this page. There was one suggestion buried in a delete comment that a merge might be possible but I'm not seeing any other support for it. Ad Orientem (talk) 04:09, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Biological determinism of human gender roles

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It may have been made in good faith, but this is an unnecessary content fork that is inherently prone to POV issues. The same subjects are covered much better in other articles.

It presents a very one-sided view of nature vs. nurture that is slanted in favor of nurture way more than the scientific community is. Consider its discussions of sexual orientation and the book Not in Our Genes and compare them to our articles on those topics as just two examples. Other editors have complained about it as seen on its talk page and in its tags. It is inherently POV since "biological determinism" is usually an accusation against some researchers made by other researchers who heavily favor "nurture." -Crossroads- (talk) 02:15, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. -Crossroads- (talk) 02:15, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -Crossroads- (talk) 02:15, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Behavioural science-related deletion discussions. -Crossroads- (talk) 02:15, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. -Crossroads- (talk) 02:15, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. -Crossroads- (talk) 02:15, 1 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. The article was created procedurally to remove a coatrack from the main article, which certainly didn't need it. The material here is indeed unbalanced and should be deleted. For the record, labels like "inherently" and "usually" are emotive and unreliable: opinions and attitudes on such matters are contextually (medicine, philosophy, sociology, and genetics are four disparate contexts, for example) and historically dependent, and terms like biological determinism have had varied connotations. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:05, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep  - this is an important article, and has plenty of references. It is not unbalanced  - as well as talking about biological determinism, it talks about the book by Rose, Lewontin and Kamin called Not In Our Genes, which criticies genetic determinism. Vorbee (talk) 06:17, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Biology-related deletion discussions. IntoThinAir (talk) 11:25, 1 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep First of all the fact that a topic is controversial and "is inherently prone to POV issues" as User:Crossroads1 states above is not a valid reason to delete the article. If it were a lot of very important articles such as Creationism and Vaccine hesitancy should be deleted which I doubt anyone would think is a good idea. I agree that this article needs a lot of work. IMO it currently has too much emphasis of the viewpoint from people such as Gould and Lewontin and not enough from people such as Stephen Pinker, E.O. Wilson, and Richard Dawkins. But that's an argument to improve the article not delete it. I could possibly see a justification for merging this into Biological determinism. However, when I looked at Biological determinism it already has several sections that point to articles on specific sub-topics. So I think this article should be kept (and improved) and also that there should be a link to it added in the Biological determinism article. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 17:00, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * This seems to be an argument admitting the article is bad, but saying we should keep it because someday someone else will put in the work to fix it. Regardless, the problem is not that it tends toward controversy, but it is inherently POV. We already have NPOV titled articles like gender roles and sex differences. We do not have one-sided fork articles titled social constructionism and human gender roles or divine creation accounts of the origin of life or evolutionist accounts of the origin of life. -Crossroads- (talk) 20:13, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "This seems to be an argument admitting the article is bad, but saying we should keep it because someday someone else will put in the work to fix it" Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. If you look at the policy on reasons for deletion the fact that an article is not good is not one of the reasons. Nor is the fact that an article is inherently controversial. Those other articles you mention don't cover the same topic. There is just some basic undeniable science that biology plays a major role in whether or not people have a penis or have a vagina and breasts. If you have 2 X chromosomes you get a vagina and breasts. If you have an X and a Y you get a penis. If you have some unusual (I'm just saying unusual in a statistical sense not in any judgemental sense) combination such as XXY you are likely a transgender person. This is a real topic and it's very wp:notable I would be in favor of changing the title of this article because I agree "Biological Determinism" is a loaded term and it's not a term that most competent biologists would use. There are always environmental factors, such as epigenetic effects that interact with your genome and influence if and when a certain gene (including genes that do things such as tell a body to start puberty) gets turned on or off (but note that these environmental effects are also under the science of biology). The renaming was done with Vaccine denialism. The current article is titled Vaccine hesitancy but there are also redirects for more loaded terms like Vaccine denial. If someone wanted to do the same with this article and rename it to something less loaded but retain a redirect I would support that. But I think the article itself should clearly be kept --MadScientistX11 (talk) 14:52, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * By now you've admitted that the article needs material from the other viewpoint added as well as the title being bad. Once I make it discuss this topic from NPOV and give it a neutral title, how is it anything other than a redundant content fork of gender roles or sex differences in psychology? Albeit one that would be of low quality since it would still be a hodgepodge of info on intersex conditions, sexual orientation, Lewontin et al's book, etc. Per WP:CFORK, "Content forks that are created unintentionally result in redundant or conflicting articles and are to be avoided." That is why this needs to be deleted. I need to emphasize that my nominating is not just because it 'needs work' nor just because it is controversial. However, I do agree with the essay WP:Delete the junk regarding not keeping bad articles on the basis that someone else will fix it. -Crossroads- (talk) 06:09, 4 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep ("intro" Note: I may be new to this, but there is a first time for everything [plus, anyway, this might already be my nth time -- to "not" vote ["!vote"] -- for some other "small" value of n [other than " "] ... so, ... here goes.) I understand that this topic is one that, at least in the minds of some persons, is controversial. This topic may have a lot of baggage for some of us (perhaps partly emotional, perhaps other kinds). Perhaps partly because someone (let's call that person "P3", 'just for now'; that might help to avoid using pronouns ... which might be "even more" of a good idea, for this particular "!vote", than ... for some ordinary "common or garden-variety" AfD discussions) has -- let's imagine, for a minute -- a different "take" on things, than your ordinary "randomly chosen" ("Plano vanilla") reader or editor of Wikipedia.
 * For example, [P3 might be] a "n00b" to "!vote"). P3 might have had [e.g.] some very memorable experience in the past, ... perhaps something involving a "[potentially trans]" friend or relative (maybe not P3.self) ... who was [considering] having some kind of "gender assignment" consultation [maybe even surgery]; ... and perhaps the fact that things went well (*or* ... maybe, things did "not" go so well) was one reason why the episode made a lasting impression on the mind of P3. Another possibility: even if P3 has not had that close of an "encounter" with the issues relevant to the topic of this article, P3 might have read some material, (e.g. at the library, or on the internet) ...or somewhere else ... which made it clear that there are some "experts" who seem to disagree about some of this stuff, ... big time. Especially if an "expert" (let's call him "X3" ... we are already using "P3" for something else, and the first character of "X3" reminds us that X3 is considered -- at least by X3! -- to be an "e pert") has a biased POV, or otherwise 'might' have some motivation to cherry-pick the data, or otherwise to [try to] skew "how things sound" to readers like P3, ... caution is necessary. But -- IMHO -- "caution" does not "necessarily" mean that we have to delete the article! It might mean, that we have to keep in mind, that there may well be some persons in this world, who have a motivation to [try to] be kinda bossy about what other persons think, say, and do.
 * PS: Thanks for your patience, since ... this is (it turned out to be) so long. --Mike Schwartz (talk) 19:34, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

*Keep. A perfectly valid subject. Perhaps it could be merged somewhere, however without a clear target for merging this is definitely a "keep". My very best wishes (talk) 01:27, 5 August 2019 (UTC). Yes, arguably a content fork, merge to Gender role. My very best wishes (talk) 14:59, 5 August 2019 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment. I would like to point out that our keep votes all have poor rationales; whereas I believe my rationale for deletion, endorsed above by the article's own creator, is much stronger. To reiterate: This article violates WP:CFORK, as in its present form it is a (good faith) WP:POVFORK, and even if improved, would be a WP:REDUNDANTFORK of gender roles and sex differences in psychology. The 4 keep votes do not refute this and cite no policy that justifies a keep. The 1st keep asserts with no proof that this article is "important," whatever that means, states it has "plenty of references," which is irrelevant, and claims it is not unbalanced because it talks about the book Not in Our Genes, even though I specifically mentioned this as an example of how it is unbalanced. The 2nd keep agrees it is POV, but never explains how, once renamed and fixed, it is distinct and not redundant from our other articles. The 3rd keep is frankly nigh-incomprehensible, but seems to just be saying that having POV problems does not mean we should delete it, which does not address the central problem. The 4th keep simply states that the subject is "perfectly valid," whatever that means, which again does not address the issue. Please see WP:ILIKEIT and WP:VALUABLE. There is nothing in the article worth saving or merging. It is an unfocused essay that meanders through intersex conditions, homosexuality, what Not in Our Genes says about gender, a random paper by Rossiter from 1980, and intersex conditions (again!). (The first sentence does not even define the topic correctly.) The article is redundant junk. -Crossroads- (talk) 03:50, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. Crossroads1 has the stronger arguments, which should be taken into account with regard to what WP:Consensus states. Anything worth keeping and that isn't redundant can be merged with one or more articles. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:58, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jovanmilic97 (talk) 14:57, 8 August 2019 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: At this point, the "delete" !votes appear to have the stronger arguments (I have difficulty to unearth anything policy-based from ' overly long !vote). Perhaps the suggestion for a merge with Gender role deserves some more attention. Relisting one more time to obtain clearer (policy-based) consensus.
 * Delete This article isn't about "biological determinism of human gender roles" at all. This is evidenced by the first sentence which asserts that gender roles are about "human sexuality" which totally misconstrues the topic - gender roles are rather "a social role encompassing a range of behaviors and attitudes" (according to gender roles). It may be appropriate to create an article with this title should there be a section within another article actually discussing this topic and where WP:SIZESPLIT is satisfied. Meanwhile "gender assignment", "homosexuality", and "social construction of gender" are different topics, and if these sections are removed we'd be left with nothing. For an actual section related to this title see Gender. Pontificalibus 13:08, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete I had trouble formulating my convoluted assessment and thus put off commenting here, but I find that Crossroads1 has essentially done the job for me. In summary, this was created in good faith and could be shifted in a variety of different directions, but I can't see any likely outcome that does not involve a high degree of redundancy. This is not needed, and housekeeping considerations suggest it should be removed. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:13, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Randykitty (talk) 15:35, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * delete I actually originally thought that this article was a keep and was just poorly rewritten, but the arguements above have changed my opinion on that. I disagree with the arguments for delete based on heavily unbalanced content-- that can be changed. Indeed, the article in its original form has a more neutral format. Take a look at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/#BioDet for how this article doesn't have to be written with such biased language. But I do agree that the article is present in many forms all over wikipedia, and its size doesn't merit a content fork, especially because a lot of the language in this is "fluff." I would merge to Sex differences in psychology as this seems to cover what the title is referring to (while not covering some of the content). For those that are still not convinced, take a look at it this way: 2 of the 3 sections in the article are merely summaries of main articles, and if this article is supposed to be justified as a content fork, then how can it in turn point to subjects (the third category, anyway just seems to be a summary of gender discrimination)? The content fork justification was the original justification for creating this, and seems to be the only justification, but at the same time, can't be true as there is no original content on this page. Unless someone wants to add new content to this (which is already extensively covered in my proposed redirect), this is a delete for me. Sam-2727 (talk) 03:21, 16 August 2019 (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.