Talk:Believe women

Comment

I propose for the removal of this article. Probably belongs somwhere else than wikipedia

Why? The phrase shouldn't only apply to a Republican accused like Brett Kavanaugh - that would be implying that the phrase was simply a political tool to try and sabotage his nomination by Democrats and left leaning people in general. The phrase belongs on Wikipedia and should continue to be taken at face value [any man accused by a woman is guilty unless proven innocent] - if not, then that just makes it seem like it was a political ploy as i mentioned earlier. It has historical merit as well so that is another reason to keep this article.2600:1700:1EC1:30C0:44CF:FAB6:E1AC:755A (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:17, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Removal?

I believe this article should be removed, with perhaps the content added to one of the pages about Kavanaugh and/or Biden. I feel this article is too short and too focused on one single event (Kavanaugh). While Kavanaugh's Supreme Court controversy gave raise to this slogan, it is not the single aspect of the issue. If the article is focused on just that part, I believe it should be merged with the pages about Kavanaugh controversy.

Apavlides24 (talk) 21:54, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

If you want to nominate it for deletion, it is best to follow the procedure at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. But, in fact, it would be far better to expand the article for recent usage, including the controversy surrounding the Joe Biden sexual assault allegation. StAnselm (talk) 23:01, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Not everything is about the USA. The slogan and the attitude have a wider use. MonsieurD (talk) 13:39, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Believe all women vs. believe women

The article claims that "believe all women" is a common variant of "believe women." I do not see a reliable source for this claim. I only see the supposed "all" variant in opinion pieces criticizing feminism or some perceived subset of feminism. Do we have a reliable source for the claim that "believe all women" is actually a common slogan and not just a straw man? --Amcbride (talk) 16:51, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah - I added that in. It was also in Traister's article, cited further down. Here it is in fuller form: "The phrase, which gets bandied about a lot in feminist circles, is one that I have long thought of as compelling but flawed. It gets heard (and used) as a clumsy imperative — often recast as “believe all women” — and as such it is deeply problematic." StAnselm (talk) 17:21, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

"Believe all women" certainly gets a lot of GNews hits - see also "The Limits of ‘Believe All Women’" in the New York Times. StAnselm (talk) 17:24, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Still nothing in either of those articles actually saying "Believe all women" as something that they would agree with. They're simply quoting it as something people supposedly say, and that the authors themselves disagree with, but not actually specifying which people they're quoting. Hominid77777 (talk) 19:53, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, the only person I can find quoting it positively is Varun Grover.[1] StAnselm (talk) 21:45, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Monica Hesse has an op-ed in The Washington Post about this issue; I have added it to the article. --Amcbride (talk) 14:22, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Excellent. Thanks. StAnselm (talk) 21:10, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I've never heard "believe all women" until a few days ago. I think it basically means the same thing. "Believe women" never meant "Believe some women" or "Believe most women". It was meant to be a (flawed) rule.MonsieurD (talk) 13:03, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

This is a fairly amazing evolution of this article. The entire discussion of "believe all women" emerged because of a desire by one political party to disbelieve one women accusing their Presidential candidate. Conservative commentators, noting the hypocrisy of those who as recently as Justice Kavanaugh's hearing, believed that a college-aged women was attending parties held by Kavanaugh and his friends - then in high school, in which mass drugging and gang rape were standard activities (Swetnick) . If the idea that we should believe the most absurd claims without evidence doesn't sufficiently imply "believe all women", there are numerous tweets during the Kavanaugh hearings by high ranking Democratic politicians and national women's organizations with the #believeallwomen hashtag. That this hypocrisy was noticed, and that left leaning columnists took to the opinion pages to gaslight the country, and that those opinion pieces are now resulting in changes to what is supposed to be an encyclopedia is incredible and saddening. The statement in question - the one that exists now in this article solely to current politics - is based on a couple of left leaning op-eds. There are right leaning op-eds too. I imagine that somehow the left leaning op eds will all be reliable sources and the right leaning op eds will all be unreliable sources and any coincidental political alignment of editors will be just that, an incredible coincidence.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/29/joe-biden-tara-reade-sexual-assault-allegation-me-too-column/3040158001/

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/Do-Joe-Biden-s-supporters-still-believe-all-women

Of course, reality can't be held back, and the digging has just begun. Here is a source as "reliable" as they get, NPR, noting that some in the movement are saying "Believe all women":

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/961277626986868736

Please sign your messages. The common phrase during the Kavanaugh hearings was "believe women" not "believe all women" [Google Trends]. Personally, I don't think it makes a big difference. When you say "believe women" when a woman's account is in doubt, it means you should believe the account because she's a women. Also, there's this article by Laura Kipnis in the NYT this morning. It doesn't really support what I said, but I think it should be of interest to the discussion here. MonsieurD (talk) 13:55, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, I read "believe all women" as believing women regardless of what they're saying or how much evidence there is. In contrast, "believe women" just means what it says: don't dismiss them out of hand, instead giving their statements a fair hearing. That's just my commentary in response. We should stick to our reliable sources in the article. But I do remember seeing a newspaper article on this, so I'll see if I can find it again. FollowTheSources (talk) 18:18, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

You are correct. It's "Believe women" or "Believe her", not "Believe all women". The 'all' was inserted in right wing coverage of the Kavanaugh hearings to dishonestly frame the MeeToo movement. There's an article about it on the New York Times. "Believe all women" is not, nor has it ever been the correct slogan. It's a distorted and skewed version presented by Fox News and republicans to weaponize the movement for their own political gains. 46.97.170.78 (talk) 05:42, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

And as such, NPOV requires us to discuss it in the body of the article, not artificially elevate it by including it at the top as though the two are synonymous. SixFourThree (talk) 19:53, 21 May 2020 (UTC)SixFourThree

New article about this in Quillette:

“’Believe All Women’ does have an asterisk,” Susan Faludi recently wrote in The New York Times, in reference to a slogan popularized during the rise of #MeToo. “It’s never been feminist boilerplate.” In fact, Faludi explains, “believe all women” was merely a strawman that conservatives constructed to ridicule and undermine the #MeToo movement, to trap feminists in hypocrisy when they predictably failed to ‘believe’ women who accused prominent liberal men. According to Faludi, feminists on the left never cried “believe all women.” We all know some women are untrustworthy. “This is why the preferred hashtag of the #MeToo movement is #BelieveWomen. It’s different without the ‘all.’ Believing women is simply the rejoinder to the ancient practice of #DoubtWomen,” she writes. It’s an interesting argument—ridiculous on its face, but perhaps pointing to important truths. As a linguistic matter, there is no doubt that “believe women” means “believe all women”—just as “disbelieve women” means “disbelieve all women.” If “believe women” meant only “believe some women,” it would be too obvious to mention. Who would need to be told that some women’s accusations were worthy of credence? If the pledge meant only “believe those women with ironclad, corroborated claims,” it would be unnecessary. The belief would come naturally, following the evidence.

MonsieurD (talk) 18:12, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The two phrases have the same semantic meaning. It's just the emphasis is different. Baller McGee (talk) 18:09, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

A NYT times opinion piece by a leftist journalist rewriting history isn't a valid source to claim that #BelieveAllWomen is a right wing strawman. #BelieveAllWomen was constantly used by the left to attack Kavanaugh (as the numerous examples from left wing sources on this page show) and that NYT citation should be removed or at least moved to a different section with more context. Borisjoffe (talk) 07:56, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

The NYT OPINION piece, that some editors have quoted in this article, also states "[The] “All” insertion was all the rage during the Kavanaugh hearings." but the issue with this statement is that multiple public articles, including multple that they reference in the article were written BEFORE the Kavanaugh hearings. Using an opinion piece as a source is bad enough as it is but the fact that the lies are so clearly visible should be enough for it not be a valid source or for editors to quote it. Other sources that the editors themselves have referenced clearly show it having use before then at about a 10% usage of the actual tag, and looking through Twitter history via the search function shows plenty of people referring to it as Believe All Women. Considering the phrase "Believe all women" was not even added in this article until May 2020 shows a clear bias and political agenda. The phrase "Believe all women" either needs to be removed in whole in this article to stay neutral or the article need to be honest about its full use. Arookonas (talk) 19:35, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Citing an opinion piece as evidence that that opinion is true would be a mistake. But an opinion piece is a valid primary source for the fact that the author expressed that opinion, which is all this article is using it to claim. That's an example of WP:NPOV. ("Wikipedia describes disputes. Wikipedia does not engage in disputes.") Primary sources in general should be used with care, with secondary sources often preferred (WP:PRIMARY). --Amcbride (talk) 14:38, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

This article wasn't describing a dispute. It was using an opinion piece as an authoritative source claiming that "#BelieveAllWomen" was generally used by detractors. This was done within the first few words of the article. Borisjoffe (talk) 01:10, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Journalists used "Believe all women" prior to Kavenaugh allegations

I don't really do editing here, but would like to fact check this article. The article right off the bat says "or opponents as "believe all women..." This is factually false. Here are two links, both from February 2018 PRIOR to the Kavanaugh hearing. In both articles, "Believe all Women" was used, and not a phrase coined by it's opponents.

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/06/583778370/a-false-report-highlights-how-women-who-report-sexual-assault-are-treated

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/steve-paikin-fires-back-at-sexual-harassment-allegation-by-sarah-thomson

sign your comments.46.97.170.78 (talk) 18:59, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

and see below - an occasional use doesn't change the origin of that phrase, or its intention. SixFourThree (talk) 19:52, 21 May 2020 (UTC)SixFourThree

Avoiding an Edit War

This piece[2] chronicles the history of "believe all women", and it's pretty clear that the phrase is used almost exclusively by opponents. By putting it within the body of the article, rather than the opening line, we can keep it in context. SixFourThree (talk) 19:51, 21 May 2020 (UTC)SixFourThree

Actually, SixFourThree, I think you're edit warring as well. I think the consensus is clear that "Believe all women" should be in the lead (it's been there for three weeks): the question is how that should be expressed (i.e. whether "opponents" should be mentioned). So just removing the whole lot isn't particularly helpful. Anyway, thanks for starting a talk page discussion - I think we need it.

I agree that the debate has been polarised between right and left, but it's not as clear-cut as that. See, for example, the Traister article cited here. The Faludi article you cite says "the hashtag is, by a wide margin, used mostly by its detractors." Which implies that it is sometimes used by supporters. (She also says "In my online searches, I encountered some feminists who seemed genuinely to subscribe to the phrase.") Perhaps, citing Faludi, we could have

"Believe women", also expressed (generally by detractors) as "Believe all women"...

StAnselm (talk) 21:46, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I have added this wording to the article. StAnselm (talk) 04:58, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

The Atlantic article

I had added this source talking about concerns of false accusations of rape but there were concerns from other editors about it being unclear and being too much of an opinion piece. What do you think? Should it be added? Lmharding (talk) 03:14, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

References