Wikipedia talk:Writing about women/Archive 3

Just an essay, so...
If this is just an essay, do plenty of Wikipedians disagree with many parts of what this essay says?? Georgia guy (talk) 12:57, 18 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi, it has never been proposed for guideline status, so I don't know. I've considered asking that it become part of the MoS, but there are a few people I'd want to check with first. SarahSV (talk) 14:44, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Do many of them disagree with some parts of this essay?? Georgia guy (talk) 14:47, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * We don't know, because this essay has never been opened for community discussion through eg. a move to make it part of MOS. You can see what people have said on this page, or in the edit history. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:24, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Pronouns: "His" and "Her"
Replacing "his" with "her" to fight sexism is... sexist in itself. Just use a gender neutral "their". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.117.121.225 (talk) 15:18, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

"Writing about men"
Where is the article for writing about men? I find it a pretty big irony that in the lead it states: "The combined effect of personnel and policy is the gender imbalance of our content. Only 15.5 percent of the 1,445,021 biographies on the English Wikipedia were about women as of January 2015. As a result of sourcing and notability issues, almost all biographies before 1900 are of men". If such is true, and policy and languages can be deemed sexist, then surely enough the creation of this article and the neglect of a male version is a sexist policy, is it not? Not to mention the fact that if said figure of 84.5% of biographies are on men, then surely enough such an article would be more than welcomed, but actually required. Where is the writing guide for men? Uamaol (talk) 08:43, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Is there an article for Benjamin Franklin's wife?? Georgia guy (talk) 14:02, 14 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Ah! The old "Giving attention to underrepresented subjects is itself a form of discrimination" argument. First, no one is insisting that editors are wrong or sexist for editing primarily about men. You are allowed to pursue whatever subjects you choose, and no one is obligated to write about anyone. (The larger part of my editing concerns biographies of white American women, but that doesn't make me racist or sexist.) Second, as you point out, most of our biographies are about men: therefore, it stands to reason that our existing guidelines and policies already adequately cover writing about them. If you have something specific to say about writing about men qua men, if, even with a majority men user base, you think men subjects, while receiving the largest share of editing attention, are somehow being written about poorly as men, feel free to share. Otherwise, your complaint is wholly misplaced. Rebb  ing  15:41, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Possessive vs genitive
First, I think this a really good essay, but I do have a problem with the following sentence (in addition to the jargon I mentioned in my edit summary):

(Names added by me to make it easier to discuss). Semantically, the second is the same as "Alice is Bob's wife", which is probably a bit less awkward in most cases, so I'll use that also. But in short, the "possessive" doesn't just indicate actual possession or ownership (although it certainly can do that too). See Possessive for a little bit more detail. I realize I'm citing Wikipedia here, but it's an informal discussion about an essay; I can dig up better sources if someone really cares. But the possessive can also indicate relationship to or affiliation with (which is why some argue for renaming it back to genitive to avoid the confusion). For a more down-to-earth argument, I don't think anyone would balk at saying something like "Eve is Bob's mother/daughter/sister".

Or is there another point here that I'm missing? If so, it might be good to expand on that, but if not, I think this should be removed per the above. --Deacon Vorbis (talk) 15:02, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Lots of expressions have multiple meanings, but when one of the common interpretations of that expression can offend, we should try to use one that doesn't. If we were to insist that only the least offensive meaning were important, we could use the term "man" everywhere, since one of the common meanings of "man" is "human", which includes "woman". But we don't, because another common meaning doesn't. Specifically in this essay we're trying to point out phrasings that don't imply women are in some way less than men. "Alice is Bob's wife" can be (and historically often has been!) interpreted as "Alice is Bob's property", or "Alice is Bob's subordinate". We want to avoid that. "Alice is married to Bob" doesn't connote that ... as much. (There are theorists that claim that the basic nature of heterosexual marriage implies it anyway, but we can only do so much with one phrase.) --GRuban (talk) 19:37, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, and the reason the essay uses "A is the wife of B" rather than "A is B's wife" is because we're talking about the text of Wikipedia articles, in which we don't find "A is B's wife" nearly as much as "A is the wife of B". For example: V. M. Girija, Fran Walsh, Barbara Bush (disambiguation), Anoma Gamage... (and, of course, "is the husband of" in Jens Doberschütz, Ricky Davao, Emilio Estefan...)--GRuban (talk) 19:46, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Some mind-altering discussions regarding Sarah Jane Brown can be seen in the archives of that article's talk. The battle raged over whether the article should be titled Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown) (that is a redirect). One point is that if the only reason to have an article on the woman was that she was the wife of the man, the article would not exist—notability is not inherited. If the main encyclopedic information that can be conveyed is that the person being discussed is someone's wife, it might be better to not mention the person at all. It is the Sarah Brown issue that "A is the wife of B" is addressing—an article on A should be focused on A. Johnuniq (talk) 23:10, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Does saying that "Charles is the husband of Diana" implies that Charles is possessed by Diana ?? Does saying that one "is having sex" means that one have private property over "sex" ?? If "Eve and Frank had sex last night," how did they manage to lose it by the next morning ?? Should they report their losses in their tax return ?? -- Usien6 msg &#8226; his 21:44, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Does saying that "Charles is the husband of Diana" implies that Charles is possessed by Diana ?? Does saying that one "is having sex" means that one have private property over "sex" ?? If "Eve and Frank had sex last night," how did they manage to lose it by the next morning ?? Should they report their losses in their tax return ?? -- Usien6 msg &#8226; his 21:44, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Limits on births??
This essay says:

As of 5 March 2018, 267,241 biographies on the English Wikipedia were about women (17.49%) out of 1,527,862 overall.

Note that until 1800, public life was a primary male thing. What percentage is it if we restrict it to people born in 1800 or later?? Georgia guy (talk) 21:52, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I think this would be difficult to calculate. Whatever way is being used to measure the number of articles about women will be independent of those with birth dates. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:56, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

This is an essay, not a policy - thankfully
This essay started with some good points, but it quickly became apparent that the author(s) are not aware of some fundamental meanings. 'Mankind' has nothing to do with the male of the species! It means man the species, not man the gender. It is a perfectly acceptable term. Also, the suggestion to replace the universal 'he' with instances of 'her' beggars belief. It shows a cynical attitude towards discrimination, implying that it's a one-way street. Anyway, it's an essay, so I can, and will, ignore it. 31.52.165.201 (talk) 18:21, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Marriage section
, you've changed that section five times since October 2017, removing the idea of markedness and complaining about "possessive vs genitive". You opened a discussion on talk over a year ago, Wikipedia talk:Writing about women/Archive 3, and failed to gain consensus, but now you're removing it again. The sentences you object to say:

"When discussing a woman who is married to a man, write "A is married to B" instead of "A is the wife of B", which casts the male as possessor. Avoid the expression "man and wife", which generalizes the husband and marks the wife."

Pinging editors who discussed this in 2017,, and , and the original author,. SarahSV (talk) 21:08, 3 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Okay, you partially chronicled the history of this. Do you have anything to add about the actual content instead of my behavior?  –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 21:20, 3 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I do! (Since SarahSV invited me, Ima gonna take "you" as the plural. Not mansplaining at all, me, no, never.) This is a page about how to write about women subjects, so as not to offend women readers. Even setting aside the women subjects/women readers thing, hopefully it's clear that when possible we should try to avoid offending our readers in general? The phrasing "Jane is Bob's wife" offends some readers, for reasons discussed above. (At least one, Sarah; and, since she is quite experienced, rather persuasive, and not an incredible outlier, I strongly suspect quite a few others feel similarly. She also wrote most of this page; not that that makes her always correct, but in this case, I think she clearly is.) The phrase "Jane is married to Bob" conveys the same information, and yet has not had as much (or any) objection. Therefore, it should be clear we should prefer the latter. If we can get from point A to point B two ways, shall we not take the way that does not involve running over someone's toes? Rather than request they wear steel-toed boots? (I tried a similar but related tack in the section in the archives. I actually think it's written better there, but whichever works.) --GRuban (talk) 21:53, 3 December 2018 (UTC)


 * , you haven't presented an argument in support of your changes, so it's hard to know what to say about them. You said last year: "the 'possessive' doesn't just indicate actual possession". Yes, agreed that it needn't, but in this context, given the history of marriage and the reality of it in many parts of the world, the implication is there, so it's good to avoid that construction. You haven't addressed why you keep removing the sentence about markedness. You want to replace the whole thing with "avoid the expression 'man and wife', which fails to be parallel," which can't stand as it is. SarahSV (talk) 22:04, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I reverted the edit; the original is correct. Advice does not have to be universally accepted. In fact, if it were, the advice would be redundant. Some people don't understand the issue about "A is the wife of B" but there's not much this essay can do about that apart from provide the advice. Johnuniq (talk) 00:20, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I picked the exact wrong time to get into this, because all hell has broken loose (more or less) in real life, and I don't have the time to cover this and a couple other things going on here, but I will be back to discuss this before too long. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 00:22, 4 December 2018 (UTC)


 * We've all become much more sensitive about the power of language to present gender relations as asymmetrical. This is natural at a time when those relations are going through a transition—one that appears to have gathered speed in some sectors (e.g., the film industry). WP needs to be particularly sensitive to how its language conveys asymmetry, given its policy of aiming for neutrality. Among the expressions we should be cautious of using in this context are "man and wife", "she bore his children", and several others. Yes, I do think this should be dealt with in the essay overleaf. Tony (talk)  12:36, 4 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Dear, thank you for inviting me. I have not been following this page close enough to comment on Vorbis' revisions, hence I'm not going to. I see, however, that it is virtually unanimous among us that "possessive does not imply in possession." Under that knowledge one can note that the section Marriage of this essay, as is:
 * Falsely claims that "&apos;A is the wife of B&apos; (&hellip;) casts the male as possessor;" and
 * encourage fellow wikipedians to fix what's not broken.
 * Furthermore, regarding the claim that "the expression &apos;man and wife&apos; (&hellip;) generalizes the husband and marks the wife," I have failed to find any rationale behind it. I therefore believe that this first paragraph shall be wholly erased, for good. Kind regards, --Usien6 21:43, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Medical issues
Thank you for this essay. I'm working on translating it to German Wikipedia. Thereby, I have difficulties with the section "Medical issues" because I simply do not understand it. What is the relation to biographical article? What is the woman-specific in it? It "only" seems to describe the general approach for finding medical research articles. Best wishes, Leserättin (talk) 06:21, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi, thank you for translating it. The medical section is there simply to be helpful to editors writing about women's health issues. The essay isn't only about women's biographies. You're right that the advice would be the same when writing about men's health. SarahSV (talk) 20:44, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you. That clarifies it. Best wishes, Leserättin (talk) 06:09, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Describing marriage and relationships
I wanted to follow up on the discussion at Archive 3#Possessive vs genitive. While we shouldn't say "Alice is Bob's wife", and it is perfectly acceptable to say "Alice is married to Bob", another alternative could be "Alice's husband is Bob" if Alice is the subject of the article. (Of course, then one would write "Bob's wife is Alice" is Bob is the subject of the article.) I only mentioned it in case someone wanted to write with slightly different phrasing. — Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 03:34, 4 January 2020 (UTC)


 * It's perfectly fine to say "Alice is Bob's wife", just as it's perfectly fine to say "Bob is Alice's husband, just as it's perfectly fine to say "Christine is David's sister". Trying to deprecate use of the genitive by conflating it with the possessive is utter horse manure. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 05:47, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Reverted good faith edits by Unbeatable101 (talk): Don't see where that guidance is provided in MOS?
@Nikkimaria The MOS says to avoid generic he and generic she, so WP:HER would break it. Unbeatable101 (talk) 21:14, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Your edit summary indicated the use of singular they was recommended; could you point out to me where that guidance can be found in MOS? Nikkimaria (talk) 23:32, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, don't remember why I decided to put that in Unbeatable101 (talk) 16:39, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I edited again, this time with a better description Unbeatable101 (talk) 16:41, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Son of X and his wife Y
I wonder how other editors feel about edits such as this one, describing the mother as the wife of a ruler's father. On one hand, whether one's parents were married or not is key information in this sort of biographies; if the mother was the ruler, then presumably the father would be described as her husband. On the other hand, I can see how it might raise eyebrows. Thoughts? Surtsicna (talk) 12:16, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I think that edit is fairly pointless. For medieval nobility, if we say "X was the son of Y and Z", most readers will assume that Y and Z were married.  If their parents weren't married, that's probably an important enough part of their biography that readers can safely assume that we will explicitly note that fact (as we do, for example, at Gervase of Blois, as a roughly contemporary example).  When it comes to modern subjects, whether or not their parents were married is in most cases relatively inconsequential, and I don't know that it's worth explicitly discussing it either way unless our sources do so and it's an important part of their life for whatever reason. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:43, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Why is this not part of the official guidelines?
All of the instructions for writing about women seem to be in line with the guidelines and give clear examples for how it should be done. Since the official guidelines lack any specific mention to pay more attention to the gender-bias on Wikipedia it makes me wonder why this article or its content is not included. Especially since the gender-bias is a known problem. 2A04:EE41:2:912E:D4A1:2A61:266C:AA9D (talk) 15:47, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't have a straight answer, nor do I necessarily disagree. There are many, many links to other essays that may be worth a look if you believe we need it as a policy. Just a few of them are:
 * The difference between policies, guidelines and essays
 * How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance
 * Policy writing is hard
 * Avoid instruction creep
 * Hope I've been of some help. -- DB 1729 talk 16:25, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * If you feel this should be designated as a guideline, the process for that is described here. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:24, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

great guidlines!
I am so excited/relieved to see these guidelines. I get so down/frustrated by information about women compared to men, because the focus always seems to center around her gender/relationships as opposed to aspects that are obviously more notable. TheRightofHerWay (talk) 15:47, 4 March 2023 (UTC)