Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Equity and gender feminism


 * 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 redirect to Who Stole Feminism?. Consensus that this shouldn't be its own article. Anything worthwhile can be merged from history subject to editorial consensus.  Sandstein  19:10, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Equity and gender feminism

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Essentially this article is pointless. It is about ideas discussed in Christina Hoff Sommers's book Who Stole Feminism? Anything worthwhile in the article can be added there; it does not merit an independent article. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 10:33, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete Article starts out: "Equity feminism and gender feminism are theorised types of feminism that were first defined by scholar Christina Hoff Sommers in her 1994 book Who Stole Feminism?." We don't need duplicate articles, one on the book and one on what it says.  The concept might merit a paragraph in Feminism. Borock (talk) 14:30, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. North America1000 22:00, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. North America1000 22:00, 16 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment: There are some hits for the term "equity feminism" (the other term is so broad that there are a ton of false hits), but so far it's slim pickings. I'm pretty much only looking in scholarly sources, to be honest, since those are really what the article would need in order to show that it'd merit its own entry outside of another target. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  07:36, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm going to add any other sources I find to the bit above. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  07:37, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Since moving to books, I've actually found equity feminism mentioned quite a bit and only one of the above sources would be considered a trivial, passing mention. It's enough to where the term equity feminism would likely merit an article, at the very least. I will say that this article would require a re-write in order to make it more up to snuff, which would be best done by someone familiar with the term. I'm just here to find sources. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  07:41, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * More sources (again, these are all for equity feminism): Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  07:45, 18 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep For an apparent neologism, the term "equity feminism" seems to have some acceptance and some solid sources. That makes it notable enough. That the article needs improvement or rewriting is no reason to delete. Dimadick (talk) 15:23, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and as such doesn't have articles about every term that might exist. In any case, the article is not "Equity feminism". It's "Equity and gender feminism". Why should there be an article discussing both these terms? Everything the article deals with can be better discussed at other articles. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 08:36, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep independent sources exist which discuss the concept, implying notability. - üser:Altenmann >t 04:18, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * What is the concept supposed to be? What does "Equity and gender feminism" mean, exactly? "Equity feminism" is not so much a concept as term used by Christina Hoff Sommers to refer to her views on feminism, "gender feminism" being a loose term for various different kinds of feminism she opposes. I doubt there are actually sources that define the precise expression "equity and gender feminism" as a concept and discuss it. Two terms, thrown together, does not a concept make. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 08:11, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Opinion stricken out as uninformed. - üser:Altenmann >t 21:55, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete and Redirect to Who Stole Feminism? - These are not novel concepts, just terms used to describe topics we already have articles about. Many people would argue that "equity feminism" is just Feminism, but it seems like she's primarily talking about first-wave feminism and second-wave feminism. "Gender feminism" is basically her way of separating, for the purpose of critique, social construction of gender and post-structuralist ideas (like those related to queer theory). So there would need to be sources talking about these terms apart from the book, but we would also need those sources to clearly distinguish them as topics we don't already have articles about. Hence delete. It's possible the terms are worth a mention (Selective Merge) at one or more of those other articles, but not a stand-alone article. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 13:52, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep. Although equity feminism is not mainstream feminism, it is discussed enough by other than Sommers to be not only weighty but notable. It discusses the concept and thus goes beyond what Wiktionary would offer. I have read books that attempted each to introduce a term into general discourse but where, as far as I know, no one but the author adopted the term; Sommers at least succeeded in coming up with a term that did enter general discourse and not merely as a synonym for an already distinct feminism, and how it was introduced is not a reason to shy away from it for the purpose of an article. We could even argue that she actually opposed any feminism outside the U.S. in her book (cf. its passage about a Russian visitor); nonetheless, the acceptance of the term in some discourse apart from her means it lives even if she is not herself an equity feminist if she is not a feminist. Unlike some terms in, say, engineering, the term gender feminism does not need an exact definition to be valid as an identifier for a concept; English has plenty of words without precise definitions (nice, for example); it is enough that it can be distinguished from other feminisms. The concept need not be novel, merely distinct, and, among various feminisms, while many feminisms overlap, equity feminism is distinct. An observer hearing of someone self-describing as an equity feminist would know that that person may not be an ecofeminist, for example, and is almost certainly not a radical feminist. While the book article can carry critiques of the book, critiques of equity feminism itself would not normally go into an article about a single book, an article on the subject being a better venue for the critiques. Perhaps some of what's in the book article should be moved into this article. A move of this article to equity feminism would be sensible but has already been rejected. Gender feminism is also a concept although one with less common acceptance as an identifier outside of proponents of equity feminism, but probably still enough support to warrant inclusion in this article as due weight. We cover radical feminism and other feminist ideologies that are not mainstream feminism and we do so in separate articles, and covering this one is appropriate for Wikipedia. Nick Levinson (talk) 22:57, 22 August 2015 (UTC) (Mainly or only corrected format, deleted a redundancy, clarified, and linked: Nick Levinson (talk) 23:12, 22 August 2015 (UTC))
 * It's hard to respond to that, other than to note that you've provided no real evidence of any of your claims. Use of the term "equity feminism" does not indicate that the user believes there is a distinct subject or concept called "equity feminism." "Gender feminism" is a term not really used by anyone other than Sommers, who employs it as a synonym for Radical feminism, which has its own article. I am still not seeing any reason why these two terms need to be discussed in an article called Equity and gender feminism. How does it help Wikipedia to have a series of distinct articles on what are essentially the same topics? FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:05, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * To save time, I checked only half a dozen of the linked-to sources above. Both "gender feminism" and "equity feminism" are discussed by Kim A. Loudermilk, sr. lecturer, Emory College, in a literary critique, Fictional Feminism: How American Bestsellers Affect the Movement for Women's Equality (2013) (link 3 above) and by Barry X. Kuhle, prof. of evoutionary psychology, Univ. of Scranton, in Evolutionary Psychology (2011) (commentary) (link 1 above). "Equity feminists ... [are] sometimes called liberal feminists", according to then-prof. of philosophy, who discusses more about the subject in Equity Feminism and Academic Feminism, in Scrutinizing Feminist Epistemology: An Examination of Gender in Science (2003) (link 4 above) and that claim of similarity could probably be added to this article based on this source. Equity-feminism is differently defined in a discussion of West Germany, by Peter J. Katzenstein, prof. of international studies, Cornell Univ., in Industry and Politics in West Germany: Toward the Third Republic (1989) (link 5 above), antedating Sommers' book, which means the article probably should carry both definitions, separately sourced. Equity feminism is distinguished from difference feminism in Cheris Kramarae and Dale Spender (whose names I recognize from feminist writing), Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women's Issues and Knowledge (probably tertiary) (2004 (four years later than the edition cited in the Wikipedia article)) (link 6 above). (At the moment I looked, I couldn't access JStor for link 2 above.) (Author biographical info herein is from university pages or Wikipedia.) I have not read enough of any of these sources to be confident in adding them myself to the article, but neither are they evidently unlikely to be reliable sources, most of them secondary and one tertiary, and someone else can go ahead and add them, if they wish. I did not sample the first half dozen because they were better or worse than the other dozen; they were just first. But they're enough to show that notability is not lacking. Sommers is easily not the only author to use either term nontrivially in secondary sourcing.
 * Whether Sommers equated gender feminism with just radical feminism or most feminism should be sourced to some page/s she wrote. I think she probably equated it with most feminism and not just the radical branch, but I'd have to source that before adding it. If you found she equated it with just radical feminism, cite the page and add it to the article. The Wikipedia article does not have the word "radical" anywhere in it now.
 * Above, it is asked why Wikipedia should "have a series of distinct articles on what are essentially the same topics". What series? I thought we were discussing just one article. The main proposal is to merge it into an article about a book, not into an article about another feminism. Is anyone proposing that more feminism articles be deleted even though sourced? If any two articles discuss the same subject (not feminism on the whole but the same specific branch of feminism), then the sameness should be sourced and be not much in debate and then it may be reasonable to combine them. But, so far, as far as I know, no claim that equity feminism is coincident with any other feminism is both sourced and settled.
 * I think there's enough material with which to substantially expand the article, which would make deletion counterproductive.
 * Nick Levinson (talk) 18:00, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The main proposal is to merge it into an article about a book, not into an article about another feminism. As this is AfD, the main proposal is delete. However, the outcome of an AfD is not limited to what is originally proposed. The goal is to do what makes sense per Wikipedia policies and guidelines.
 * By citing a bunch of sources that define these terms differently from one another, and several of which that do so without mentioning Sommers -- not to mention those which do cite her and define the terms the same way we define other topics -- you're making a case against keeping, as you're just finding instances of a term, not a concept. Wikipedia has articles about concepts, not words, so if multiple terms talk about more or less the same thing, they should be covered together. Neologisms require not just coverage but coverage which makes it clear the term is also a distinct concept and thus deserves a stand-alone article. Something can be notable without meriting a stand-alone article -- that's why we merge things. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 18:52, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete or redirect as per nom and Rhododendrites.  Onel 5969  TT me 17:52, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   19:14, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * delete. The very article title ("two-in-one") shows that the terms are not very well recognized in their merits. The article Who Stole Feminism? discussed the topic in much more comprehensive way, i.e., this one is nothing but a POV fork. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:37, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * In response to recent posts:
 * The notability guideline says notability generally "is a test ... [for] whether a given topic warrants its own article." If there's notability, generally an article can be kept.
 * On equity feminism, the definitional differences are not so unrelatedly diverse as to preclude the article's existence (and, if they were, that might require multiple articles on different subjects and disambiguation or crosslinks, not deletion). In the sources I described above for this article, the German case may be the main outlier. Other than that, equity feminism appears approximately to overlap liberal feminism but with less activism; more precision can be found in sources already cited. Were Sommers' the only source, then the book article would be the place to put the definition. But sources have gone beyond hers, and quite a number of sources, a number exceeding what many lasting articles cite.
 * Citing sources that define terms without mentioning Sommers is not my argument against keeping. On the contrary, the discussion within sources has come alive beyond Sommers. So far, the sources define based on inspirations from Sommers. The sources as glanced at appear to be mainly about feminism, society, and effects, roughly speaking, and not mainly about Sommers' biography. There's too much material that's likely important to shoehorn it into a section of the Sommers book article.
 * It may be that equity feminists are few in number or are many of the people who used to say that they support equal pay for equal work but are not themselves feminists. There may not be a national organization behind equity feminism. But it is still a concept, not just a Wiktionary candidate. It is also a term that is definable from sources, but whether it is in use mainly by opponents of feminism who want to look like they're feminists or observers whose work would be more controversial if they didn't support some kind of feminism (e.g., Steven Pinker for The Blank Slate, in my view) is less important than that it is a stream of thought with which some people identify themselves, as sources show. It need not be the mainstream of thought. It need not be widely agreed with. Consider Wikipedia's truthiness article, a featured article, showing that a word can also be a concept that is not in the mainstream of thought and that need not be subsumed into another article (in that case, into the Stephen Colbert article). Author Kirsten Powers may be a supporter of equity feminism, judging only from a Google news search, and it may be that a book she wrote can be cited in this article.
 * I'm not clear from the arguments above what more would be needed for this subject to be a concept and not just a term. I think conceptuality has been met. We don't have to agree with its substance for it to be a concept. Expansion of the article is within reach and is easier and faster than deleting or merging and then rebuilding.
 * It's not a POV fork since it includes criticism insofar as available from reliable sources, as far as I know, and thus fulfills the neutrality guideline. If more can be added, please do.
 * The book article has other content but is much less comprehensive than this one on this subject, not more. Besides the lead, which is merely supposed to summarize the rest of the article, the rest of the article is about the book's reception, thus not relevant here, and an overview, of which only one paragraph is about the feminisms themselves, and that paragraph has only one citation. That's much less than is already in the article we're discussing.
 * Most content about equity feminism or gender feminism other than what's in the book would not be due weight in the book article. That begs the question about where such content should go. It's already touched on, very briefly summarized or less, in the feminist movements and ideologies article, which is meant only to provide summaries of other articles on specific ideologies. Since equity feminism has become a subject in the non-Wikipedia world apart from the book (an editor listed 18 sources above) and coverage in Wikipedia would therefore not be limited to what belongs in the book article, a stand-alone article is needed and sources exist to adequately support the article, although more of them should be added into the article.
 * Moving the article to equity feminism is fine with me if the consensus is to overrule the article consensus against moving. Being a two-in-one article title does not show much other than that the title may be excessive, if the two feminisms should be treated in two separate articles. But, even with that move, gender feminism, which exists largely as having been critiqued from equity feminism, should be covered in the equity feminism article until enough sources (in addition to the Sommers book) are found so that gender feminism can become its own article, too.
 * Nick Levinson (talk) 00:33, 25 August 2015 (UTC) (Corrected my misspelling: 00:45, 25 August 2015 (UTC))
 * With all respect, Nick, it seems to me that if you really had a valid point, you could sum it up simply, rather than argue with a wall of text such as the above. See WP:TLDR, which is a nice essay giving advice on this subject. You say that "equity feminism appears approximately to overlap liberal feminism but with less activism". Is that anything but your opinion? Even if it were more than just your opinion, it seems like a terribly weak basis for keeping the article. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 08:17, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * When brevity does not address what was raised, depth is needed. Broadly sweeping claims were made that needed redress. Validity is based on content, not abbreviation. TLDR is about wasted length, not this.
 * Regarding the overlap with liberal feminism, that statement was my opinion and was not sourced but it gave context to what came next in the very same sentence: "more precision can be found in sources already cited." Equity and gender feminisms both deserve an article (or maybe two) and the availability of more definitional precision refutes the claim above that "a bunch of sources ... define these terms differently from one another" as a reason to delete. Variation of definition within a general range is consistent with keeping the article and expanding it.
 * Nick Levinson (talk) 00:16, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Your comments have been so long as to be self-indulgent, giving the impression that you are trying to use length to compensate for lack of substance. How, for example, did Steven Pinker suddenly become relevant to this discussion? FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:20, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Focusing on substance, in this case, needs addressing and clarifying of multiple points explicitly or implicitly raised in the claims for deletion. Brevity would mean omitting necessary responses. Being helpful to other editors is opposite of self-indulgency. It's part of an effort at achieving consensus. AfD is not just for voting and disappearing. The AfD page says, "while AfD may look like a voting process, it does not operate like one. Justification and evidence for a response carries far more weight than the response itself." and "When making your case or responding to others, explain how the article meets/violates policy rather than merely stating that it meets/violates the policy."
 * Pinker became part of this discussion because he is already in the article, in the first section, where it says "[e]xperimental psychologist Steven Pinker expands on Sommers ..." and where he is cited as listing 16 other people who "identifie[d]" with equity feminism. Thus, just from the Pinker content, equity feminism is evidently not limited to Sommers alone. She may be the principle inspiration, but that does not deny the subject's notability apart from hers.
 * Nick Levinson (talk) 19:13, 29 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep - That there are such things as feminists that are individualists, egalitarians, classical liberals, and the like has been documented by all kinds of reliable sources. We have the feminist 'mainstream' and the minority feminist 'dissidents' who have clashed over the rights of trangender people, the feminist sex wars, and other disputes; a pretty clean line exists to separate the people that want measures such as increased government censorship over people's speech versus the people that put personal liberty first. The thing is, we already have an article for 'Individualist feminism', and it's one that needs a lot of work too. I don't see what is the difference is between being an equalist / individualist and being an 'equity feminist', and the sources that have been cited don't seem to either. The concepts are treated as being fundamentally similar if not the same. For the average person and the specialist alike, then, we have a tricky situation. Ideally, I'd like to have this whole article merged to 'Individualist feminism' with almost all of the material kept. Since that's not likely to happen, I guess keeping the current article more or less as-is (renaming a suppose to 'equity feminism') is a second best option. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 05:25, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep: Concept is relatively new, but exists independently of its originating source.  Can expand on the concept and subsequent scholarship.  No objection to possible renaming or retargeting, but the dab to the phrase as a term of art should remain.  Montanabw (talk)  16:31, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * As already noted, there is no concept per se. The article is about two terms, which are both synonyms for things Wikipedia already has articles for. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 08:12, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Instead of just repeating, when someone has refuted that point and if the refutation is wrong, please respond in kind. I said above, "I'm not clear from the arguments above what more would be needed for this subject to be a concept and not just a term. I think conceptuality has been met. We don't have to agree with its substance for it to be a concept." If anyone disagrees, please be specific in the response.
 * If equity feminism is similar to another feminism and that similarity is sourced, please add that to the article. The same applies to gender feminism. Absent that, we don't have authority to merge.
 * If the contention is that equity and gender feminisms are covered in the book article, please respond to the point above that "[m]ost content about equity feminism or gender feminism other than what's in the book would not be due weight in the book article" and therefore the article here under discussion is the appropriate place for nonbook content (see above for more). If that is disagreed with, please explain why.
 * Nick Levinson (talk) 00:16, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Nick, but I know what you said above. You don't have to repeat yourself. Other editors aren't stupid, and can easily see for themselves what you said. It can be difficult to respond to comments so grammatically confused as to border on the incomprehensible ("Instead of just repeating, when someone has refuted that point and if the refutation is wrong, please respond in kind", for example). I'm afraid that your past comments ("the definitional differences are not so unrelatedly diverse as to preclude the article's existence") seem more and more like babble to me. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:26, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Since you knew what I said above, and if you believed it was wrong, I asked that you please refute it. You didn't.
 * What you said was grammatically confused is correct as is, but I'll gladly clarify it. If a point has been responded to so as to make a showing that it is incorrect as it is, but it is believed that the response is itself wrong, please respond by showing how it is wrong.
 * What repetition I wrote was clearly and specifically for the purpose of asking that disagreements be made specific or explained or that content be added to the article. So far, content has not been added to the article and the specificity and explanation have not been forthcoming.
 * It was claimed that the meanings of the terms that are the article's subjects are too diverse to contain the terms in one article. But in my review of the article and some of the sources cited on this page, I found that most of the definitions are close enough to each other to support inclusion in one article. However, insofar as definitional diversity is a problem for this article, it would be an even more difficult problem if all the subject content were merged into the book article, since definitions or definitional differences not based on the book would probably not belong (not be due weight) in the book article, and then where would they go? That's one reason for the subject article's continuing existence.
 * Nick Levinson (talk) 19:13, 29 August 2015 (UTC) (Expanded per original intention with this post, added, and reformatted: 19:31, 29 August 2015 (UTC))


 * Redirect to Who Stole Feminism? or delete. The ideas of Sommers are adequately covered in the Who Stole Feminism? article. Otherwise, the concepts are covered in appropriate Wikipedia articles such as Gender equality, Women's rights, and Individualist feminism. --Bejnar (talk) 19:35, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * These are no longer only Sommers' ideas, thus the need for a separate article. She may have started them, but other writers have written on them, too.
 * The gender equality and women's rights articles are too wide for the more specific subjects of this article.
 * The individualist feminism article says, "Sommers define[s] individualist feminism in opposition to what ... [she] call[s] political or gender feminism." But a search at amazon.com reveals that that statement is sourced to the index in Sommers' book and I don't know what index entry is meant. We don't usually cite to an index, so I've raised the issue on that article's talk page. Maybe there's more than one edition but based on the Amazon search the statement is probably unsupported.
 * Nick Levinson (talk) 00:16, 29 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete and redirect to Who Stole Feminism?, per Rhododendrites. I fail to see how this subject is notable outside of the book used to desribe it in, on which all subsequent mention is based. Mythic Writerlord (talk) 10:16, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That would be like merging the second-wave feminism article into the Betty Friedan Feminine Mystique book article. We don't do that, because notability of the concepts is due to sources available being in addition to Sommers. Nick Levinson (talk) 00:16, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That's a nonsensical comparison. The terms equity and gender feminism are associated almost entirely with Sommers herself; the situation with second-wave feminism and The Feminine Mystique doesn't even begin to be comparable. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:16, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The validity of the comparison is that both are about whether a subject is notable although inspired by an author whose on-topic book is accepted as notable. While second-wave feminism is far larger than equity feminism, the principle of the notability guideline is the same. But if the scale is too different, the same is nonetheless true of many articles where the subject's scale is smaller. Nick Levinson (talk) 19:13, 29 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Redirect to the book. This is basically just a rehash of the book, and that has its own article. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 02:28, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete and redirect to either Who Stole Feminism? or Christina Hoff Sommers. It's true that there are sources which use the term, but they often define and use it in different ways.  I'm particularly struck by the fact that this source (one of the ones Tokyogirl linked above) uses "equity feminism" to talk about a concept that is many ways the polar opposite of Sommers' "equity feminism." There simply aren't enough sources to hang an article on here - not one that would define and treat "equity feminism" as single, coherent concept, anyway. So what we're left with is Sommers' "equity feminism." And I think it is clearly more appropriate to discuss that within the article on her, or the article on her book, than to have a separate article on it. Fyddlestix (talk) 03:17, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Google wouldn't let me verify that, but, in general, a conflict between sources is reportable as a debate over a factual claim. We'd report both sides. Nick Levinson (talk) 00:16, 29 August 2015 (UTC) (Corrected by copying missing sig block for this list item: 00:28, 29 August 2015 (UTC)) (Corrected this post's format: 00:36, 29 August 2015 (UTC))


 * Merge to Who Stole Feminism?. As pointed out above, many sources use these terms in different ways. That suggests this neologism hasn't really caught on, but rather was independently defined by different people at different times. This concept is tied heavily with the book and has little acceptance outside of that. In this case, there is more encyclopedic value in discussing the ideas of the book in its own article over having an independent article for a term that is hovering around the line of notability. I think it falls just under that line. ~ RobTalk 13:26, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete/redirect - Avoid merge. No content worth saving, as it's all "Sommers said in Who Stole Feminism?..." and should already be in there as basic concepts in the book.  Two lines on spread are potentially arbitrary, given the range of interpretation shown. MSJapan (talk) 18:27, 1 September 2015 (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.