Talk:Femininity

Lead problems

The lead of the article includes content that is not supported by the body of the article, presenting us with a MOS:LEAD problem. In particular, the article is not adhering to "Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article." I propose we remove the suggestion that femininity as a social construct is an idea held only by sociologists, and I insist that we remove that there is "widespread recognition" that femininity is biologically influenced. I know, and the article shows, that femininity as a social construct is the mainstream view in multiple disciplines. I suspect, and would like for the article to show, that there is widespread acknowledgment of the influence of biology on femininity. That said, the failure to improve this article in a WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY manner has led to problems, the quickest solution for which is the changes I've proposed. Pinging Pyrite Pro, though I'd be interested in hearing the thoughts of others. Firefangledfeathers 22:15, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Use of statistics from personality inventories

I'm suggesting the addition of any number of personality statistics pertaining to personality inventories. The big 5 personality inventory is perhaps the most readily available and accessible of these. Such statistics could help to avoid a non-committal tone where hard evidence is available. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:410:4301:4220:B8CA:B8A6:F10A:874E (talk) 23:13, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Religion subsections

Could I get another pair of eyes or two on the two religion subsections, Asian religions and Judeo-Christian theology? I'm getting lots of information about what religious concepts or deities are feminine, or argued to be so, but little about how these traditions view or understand femininity. My instinct is to start trimming, but I'd love another opinion. Firefangledfeathers 03:11, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Lead sentence - "women and girls" vs. "females"

The lead states: "Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with women and girls." I had changed this to end with "associated with females" instead.[1] Sociology: A Global Perspective states "femininity: The physical, behavioral, and mental and emotional traits believed to be characteristic of females" on page 202 of the 9th edition.[2] Newimpartial reverted me although I had attempted to compromise with "female humans".[3] I would actually prefer to write "associated with the female sex", but I thought it was safer to stick to the source's wording. The existing wording is less clear. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:43, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

For what reason do you think your sociology text is referring to "biological sex" when it uses the word "females"? Newimpartial (talk) 00:55, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

I strongly prefer "women and girls". My least favorite option is "associated with the female sex", which would fail to mention the humanity of the topic. "Female humans" at least narrows that down, but it comes with a strange biological/medical connotation when plain, common language works just fine. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:00, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

When in doubt, we should use the language of the sources. The cited source uses "female(s)". There is a circular definition problem among the Wikipedia gender articles. It's unclear to readers what femininity and gender mean when they are defined in terms of each other. What is the objection to using the language of the source? Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:19, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

My interpretation is consistent with Merriam-Webster: "the quality or nature of the female sex : the quality, state, or degree of being feminine or womanly".[4] Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:25, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

I believe your interpretation is what we generally call WP:SYNTH. And since femininity is, in fact, generally defined in relation to gender (not "biological sex"), it seems WP:EXTRAORDINARY to me that you assume a sociology text to mean what you think it ought to mean, i.e., this non-circular definition that you would rather have. Newimpartial (talk) 03:04, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

It's unnecessary to focus on my interpretation. The longstanding cited source uses the word female, not women and girls. I feel like you haven't addressed this. Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:35, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

@Kolya Butternut: Based on a quick survey of well-regarded online dictionaries, Oxford, Lexico, Dictionary.com, Cambridge, Collins all define femininity in some variation of qualities regarded as characteristic of a woman. Insofar as tertiary sources are considered useful for settling this dispute, Merriam-Webster seems to be in the minority here. This is not to mention the various possible objections to describing women as "the female sex", but if WP:DUEWEIGHT and WP:RS was your sole basis for making this change, then the current language seems perfectly satisfactory on both counts. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 04:20, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

And even Merriam-Webster includes "womanly". I also want to call out the "longstanding cited source" bit as incorrect. The source has been used for a while, but not for the opening sentence. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:26, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, I started with Merriam-Webster because that's the dictionary which I saw cited in THE TRANSGENDER EXIGENCY, Defining Sex and Gender in the 21st Century (Dec 2021) and The Encyclopedia of Women's Health (2004). Looking for an in-depth discussion of the term I find in The Encyclopedia of Women's Health: "Femininity is defined in various dictionaries in either a circular manner as the quality of being feminine or indirectly as qualities associated with the female sex. ... The dominant conceptualization of femininity in most modern societies is best described by sex-role theory, which proses that humans unconsciously integrate archetypical ways of behaving that are appropriate to their assigned sex from society's institutions." One source from 2004 may not be sufficient to change the lead sentence, though. My motivation for wanting this change is to provide clarity to readers. Maybe the Gender article is where the change should be to avoid circular definitions. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:35, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Your argument that a passage from a particular sociology textbook should be interpreted using a certain definition from a chosen dictionary is pretty much textbook WP:SYNTH. That isn't what we do, here. Newimpartial (talk) 22:36, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Huh? My thoughts cannot violate wiki policy. You asked me about my interpretation so I told you, but what I was proposing was that we use the language of the first source cited in the article which defines femininity. At this point we do not have enough sources supporting my proposal. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:05, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

What is the problem that we are trying to solve here? Are readers being confused by "women and girls"? What really is the difference between "women and girls" and "females"? Is "females" more precise or correct? And is this going to be perceived by many readers?

Seems to me that either there isn't a difference, in which case why change it? Or there is a difference, in which case we are changing the meaning here, and that is what we should be talking about. We aren't really bound to parrot our sources exactly, rather to serve the correct information as clearly and succinctly as possible to the reader, particularly in the lede. I could be wrong, but given the subject I suspect that there might be political agendas in play on both sides, in which case let's lay our cards on the table here. Herostratus (talk) 10:27, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

The problem wasn't your thoughts; I have some fairly wackadoodle opinions myself. The problem was that you repeatedly edited the lead of this article to insert one selectively chosen piece of terminology because it solved a problem in your mind, but where that interpretation couldn't be justified in this article without resorting to OR/SYNTH reasoning. There isn't a justification within the literature on this topic to insert a "non-circular" definition, because most of the sources don't support that move. Newimpartial (talk) 10:36, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

If we don't know what the sources mean by their words then we should use their words. Newimpartial, I feel like you're accusing me of something when you say "your sociology text" and "chosen dictionary" as if they weren't just the first sources I checked which happened to use the words I expected to find.

I'm not sure if I can say this differently, but the problem I see is that we define gender based on masculinity/femininity and masculinity/femininity as based on gender. We don't accessibly clarify what those concepts are. However, I do see that sources define gender based on characteristics associated with sex. I thought it would be less controversial to edit this article than Gender, but so far the sources don't support that. Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:45, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

The problem is that associated with is a vague phrase doing a lot of work there. We don't do our readers any favors by dumping an additional Rorschach into the lede to make a vague gesture at female sex, which is something your selected sociology text doesn't do (thus SYNTH).

BTW, the procedure you describe as using the first sources I checked which happened to use the words I expected to find is what the rest of us typically call CHERRYPICKING. I advise against that, particularly where the point you are trying to make can only be reached by juxtaposing such sources. Newimpartial (talk) 17:36, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I read Kolya Butternut's last couple comments as including signals that they'd like to disengage a bit and spend some time with the sources. Kolya, sorry if I'm misunderstanding. Instead of spending words on the ancillary debates, can we pause this discussion until someone has a proposed change and sources to support? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:41, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Newimpartial, what are you doing with all this criticism? I don't know if you're misinterpreting me or if you're not assuming good faith, but I don't see the point it describing unintentional cherrypicking as cherrypicking. By my 02:25, 21 August comment I had only looked at three sources and one of them had no definition of "femininity" at all. I assumed that one of the citations after the second sentence also applied to the first sentence. I did not engage in a "procedure" of cherrypicking even if that happened to be the result. You twice reverted my edits without referring to a source and you're continuing to criticize me....

Fire, I think I should work on proposals and sourcing at Gender instead. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:10, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

See you there! Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:21, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I was criticizing because I do not share either your assumptions about what the sources "should" say or your confidence in your own methodology for improving the sourcing. I was restoring a longstanding version which, I believe, represents LEADFOLLOWSBODY and BALANCE on this topic. Also, I found that your two attempts to change the lead here were following the same POV I had disagreed with when I first saw you express it at Draft:Female (gender). I believe it is legitimate to criticise edits with which I disagree as well as rationales for edits with which I also disagree. There is nothing personal about that, I assure you.

It is my belief that stable versions can be restored per WP:ONUS when they don't contain any contested material, as was the case here. I also don't agree with the "citation arms race" approach to lead writing - I am not attributing that approach to you, but that's one of the many reasons I don't reach for new citations to support status quo lead language unless something about that language is actually contested or otherwise at issue. Newimpartial (talk) 19:51, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

"Effeminate" men

"Effeminate" men are not effeminate, they're just feminine, just like masculine women are just masculine. Read R. A. Hoskin's dissertation (Femme theory), it's very reliable. Effeminate men and masculine women it's just sexist femmephobic terminological double standards.Reprarina (talk) 20:18, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi Reprarina. Could you post this over at Talk:Effeminacy? It would help if you could provide some more details on which Hoskin publication you're referring to, and if other works also cover that view. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:26, 25 August 2022 (UTC)