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social constructionism of gender

This responds to those of Slrubenstein's comments in the Superiority section above that the commenter thought might belong in a separate section:

Much was taken out of the feminism article because it had grown too long for many browsers. However, all of the content is still in the article or was moved or already found in other articles which are linked to.

I'm unfamiliar with "the view that it is inequality that produces gender". If you have a source for it and if it's not stated somewhere in WP, consider adding it or cite the source here. As long as the sexes were distinguished socially there was gender, even if the word gender lexically lacked the meaning until lately. Gender existed whether inequality does or not; that is a point of difference feminism. Perception of difference produces gender; gender is correlated with inequality but it's too simplistic to say that gender causes inequality; but I don't know of an argument that gender didn't exist except for inequality. It implies that equality will make gender disappear. I'm not sure there's agreement on that.

You may be making an error in linguistics that's common among nonlinguists: Words are supplied according to demand. A concept is more visible when it has a word as a name but it may exist without one and it may exist with another word as its name, including a shared word. Gender as a concept predated gender as a word. The earlier word was sex (see OED) and the meaning was the same. The word sex did double duty, serving both biological and cultural meanings.

I'm having trouble imagining the Europeans just three centuries ago not perceiving a biological difference between the sexes/genders. Humans and primates have probably always known of sex differences serving reproduction and spent their time accordingly. Elsewise, e.g., there should have been as much lesbian/gay sex as het sex if they wouldn't have known the difference, and while we don't have bed-check records from a million years ago more recent evidence suggests otherwise. If Making Sex really says Europeans factually didn't know, the book is probably wrong on the history.

Some feminist ideologies, very much including NOW's, seek to support most men against sexism; others don't see most men as damaged by sexism, finding men's causative agency instead.

It might be useful for WP to create an article on how different feminisms and feminist writers relate to men as victims or agents of sexism, and to link to that article from the main feminism article. Feel free.

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I understand the difference between a word and a concept. But surely, you understand the difference between your view and other people's views. Simply because you believe that wherever there is social difference between sexes means there is gender does not make it so. This is one view, even I would say a mainstream view. It is not the only view. You are "having trouble imagining the Europeans just three centuries ago not perceiving a biological difference between the sexes/genders." Fortunately, I anticipated your lack of imagination, which is why I provide a reference to Thomas Laquer's book. I doubt it has disappeared in the intervening night. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Visa vie SLR's point I think you're missing the conceptual point of that argument Nick, ie the sex/gender distinction. People as late as Judith Butler (eg her book Gender Trouble) or as early as de Beauvoire (eg her book The Second Sex) have been extolling the concept that 'woman' is a culturally specific paradigm. For them rather than being about differences in sex the terms 'woman' and 'man' are political categories indicating different statuses in politics. An as a semiotician I'm going to say while what you present is factual it leaves out the fact that words (and all other symbols) respond to hegemonic usage (ie coinage) and meaning can shift. Also from a linguistics/semiotics position a sign contains meaning through a form symbolic violence - that is precisely the French feminist position that one is not born a 'woman' but forced (by the symbolic order) to become one via social expectations rather than biological exigencies.
But I have to say that all this is really discussing the subject rather than the sources and we really should focus on discussing sources and what they say per WP:TPG--Cailil ^talk 18:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd say this discussion of content has helped us identify some very important sources: possible Thomas Laquer, definitely de Beauvoire and Butler, and we should consider Marilyn Strathern as well. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I've added the statement on men's oppression. I may have a cite soon, although if you have one that may help.

It's true that "[I] believe that wherever there is social difference between sexes" "there is gender". I guess from your writing a contrary view is that gender is oppressive, that not all social differences between the sexes are oppressive, and therefore that gender is only the set of differences by sex that are oppressive such that some social differences by sex are not the subject of gender. If you have a citation for that or any other view contrary to mine, please let us know. I haven't seen that anywhere, although it's possible someone has defined gender that way and I just haven't seen it. The appropriate place for that is in the sex and gender distinction article, linked to from this article.

On good faith, I'll add—to my off-WP reading list—the book Making Sex, but I think that, as history, it will be largely overwhelmed by other history books. A notion that any major society in the last millennium did not perceive that babies came from sex and that pre-birth belly bigness was observed in owners of vaginas and not owners of penises requires a very high standard of proof. Or is the argument (regarding then, not today) philosophical instead? e.g., that the ancient people's understanding of sex lacked intellectual depth and erred in areas? Science has contributed much, so that would be plausible, but not, in my view, an argument that they were utterly flat-liningly ignorant of what sex does and generally of who has which sex. If the book turns out to be valid, I'll consider citing it in WP.

I don't argue that women are the same worldwide or across generations or likewise for men and therefore I agree that sexism takes different forms and therefore so does effective feminism. I also agree that gender includes political differences. Politics is about the distribution of power in a community; gender affects that distribution, thus it affects politics. I agree that meanings of symbols shift; a meaning formerly usually used with the word sex has moved in recent decades to the label gender. So some of what you say I missed (misunderstood) I didn't.

Nick Levinson (talk) 03:39, 27 August 2010 (UTC) Corrected one word (to "belly"): Nick Levinson (talk) 03:50, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I added one citation to the point of men being oppressed by sexism. I hope to add one to the ballancing point of men as agents of sexism. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:34, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I understand you cannot read everything, my point was just that there is a reliable source for this. The argument is not philosophical. Nor does it involve denying that women have babies. The argument involves a number of popints I do not have time to recapitulate. But they include the observation thatbefore the Enlightenment Europeans (meaning of course those who wrote - historians have no record by those who did not write and little record of those who did not write) believed that men and women were essentially of the same flesh, and differed in quantities (the female phallus for example being generally much smaller than the male phallus) and were also mutalbe (so that females could become males and males coud become females) but that socially assigned gender was immutable, men and women were supposed to act quite differently and had no freedom in how they were expected or interpreted to live according to their social roles. Laquer's point is that this becomes inverted with the Enlightenment and in the 19th century people began to believe that males and females are biologically qualitatively different and that these differences are immutable, but that socially assigned genders are in fact maleable. Apparently this is still the ruling way of thought in Western culture today, so much so that it is hard for a normal Westerner to make sense of how 18th century Europeans could have thought as they did. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:05, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, are you suggesting that 18th century literate people believed that grown males and females could transmute their physical genders? If so, how? By an act of will? Forgive me if this is basic Women's Studies stuff. Blackworm (talk) 03:17, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, that's a more plausible historical explanation, especially if they (incorrectly, as it turned out medically) believed the mutability of sex was in the fetus or embryo, and it makes sense that they might have thought that what we now call gender they saw as immutable. It's also credible that some of today's non-Western societies have comparable beliefs. I may not need to read the book, at least not yet. If I understand correctly what you're referring to, it shouldn't be that hard for modern folks to understand that earlier people thought we couldn't change cultural qualities or qualities that resulted from sex, since that's been in modern debate (e.g., when discriminators say that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks", easily refuted).

Invitation: Please write a paragraph on the history for the sex and gender distinction article, and then I can summarize what's needed for the feminist movements and ideologies or feminist history article and, from that, for the feminism article.

I suggest this course of action because you probably know that history much better than I do and the sex and gender distinction article is the most appropriately specialized article for the topic and has room for it.

How does that sound?

Nick Levinson (talk) 03:46, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, right now I do not have time to do even a partially decent job. I will have more time in 2011. What i can do is suggest sources if anyone else is interested and has time. Minimally, I can simply point out trends in academic research that we can write up later, but for now my point is much simpler: first, there are some views that are so well-known they should be mentioned in the lead (I am referring to the view that gender oppresses men as well as women; therefore, feminism will benefit men as well as women).

By the way, While I am happy to talk it out on the talk page rather than rewrite what you wrote, Nick, I object both to your use of "harm" and "sexism" in place of "oppress" and "gender." Harm may be acceptable, although to me it connotes direct injury through discrete or specific acts, whereas opress can be indirect and difuse. I understand you can say harm can be indirect and difuse (e.g. insecticides leeching into the soil harm all people over time ... but even here it can be linked to specific outcomes e.g. specific cancers) but I think most people think of harm as taking direct and specific corms and that is not what feminists are saying. But even if I conceed to you on harm (but I would like more discussion) I really disagree about sexism. Most peole understand sexism to mean a set of practices that benefit men and disadvantage women - by definition it is hard to see how this hurts men. I think there are feminists who argue that men may believe that they benefit from sexist situations and practices, but actually do not. This view would uspport your use of the word. But I think that there is nevertheless an important distinction to make between diferent and unequal. Most Westerners now agree that there are two distinct genders. As the introduction currently suggests, one form of feminism is that one gender systematically takes advantage of the other gender, and that we need to fight this - this is feminism as a fight against inequality. But one can conclude that those feminists are fighting for a world in which there are two genders but they are equal. I think Beauvoir and hooks are saying that it is gender itself, not inequality, that is the problem. So creating a world in which one gender is not taking advantage of (or harming) another gender, fighting for a world in which there are two genders but they have equal rights, is not the objective. The objective is to get rid of gender, to get rid of this major fault-line that divides humans into two groups socially. Put another way (for all those who see men and women as different biologically) women may always be the ones who get pregnant and have periods, while men have to shave or trim their beards ... but it is just as likely that mom will carve the Thanksgiving turkey as mom, and at parties the chances of finding all the women in one rom chatting and all the men in another room chatting are equal to the chances of finding all the blonds in one room chatting and all the brunettes/men with brown or black hair in another room chatting. I see "sexism" as referring to an ideology of inequality. One kind of feminism does fight against sexism, but the other kind is not just fighting against sexism, it is fighting against gender. it is not the same.

Finally, as for the other points I made ... well, if no one else can write about them and I cannot until 2011 I just ask that the article be written in a way that does not exclude or foreclose on those other views. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:44, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I've much expanded the shared perspectives section. By adding quotes, it's now more balanced. I've also created the feminism and equality article.

I'm still thinking about the feminism article lede's references to harm. On sexism, I left one instance intact and changed the other to gender roles to clarify the two sides of that issue. The harm issue is different, because it's unclear why most feminists would have become feminists against fairly fierce opposition unless they felt strongly about needs, which means they either experienced or perceived strong problems for which feminism became the remedy. But relatively few people ever use the word oppression. Discrimination is a more common word, at least in the U.S., but only in some contexts, such as employment and club admissions, but someone talking about lack of abortion services probably won't call it discrimination, even though they could. On the other hand, people don't talk about destruction of women and there's no commonly used parallel to genocide (gynocide is not commonly used). I'll keep thinking about whether to reword harm.

On whether there are more than two genders, I'm not in that camp (and I guess you're not, either, at least not strongly). The concept seems to come up mainly for sexual orientation and I'm not sure that it isn't an other-ing of lesbians and gay males within their communities by differentiating them even more extremely than they might themselves. I'm open to changing my mind about that if a scientific case can be made fr it, but it doesn't seem to enter feminist discourse so it may not matter.

I'm not planning to edit the sex and gender distinction article. Maybe someone else will. I hope I haven't precluded any valid content entering the various feminism articles. I don't think I have.

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 07:20, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Nick, why should I care what camp you are in? It doesn't matter what camp I am in. Wearen't supposed to put our views into articles. Many social sciences believe there are only two genders, determined by biology. Many social scientists and historians argue that at different times in history and certainly in different societies people have believed in three genders, which means that the idea that there are two genders while perhaps firmly believed in is not natural. As to oppression, well, there is Michele Barret's book - the whole notion of patriarchy, that men rule, seems linked to a notion of oppression rather than discrimination. Mary Daly and Kate Millett do not write about oppression? These are among the most important feminist theorists. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:38, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm unaware of any feminist source supporting or even critiquing more than two genders nor of any scientific claims supporting their existence (science cross-cutting feminism and other areas of study validating mention in feminism). One could argue that equality between three genders should be a feminist goal but I'm unaware of any feminist argument that goes there or ever did in history. As far as I know, it only comes up with regard to homosexuality (and perhaps other sexualities) and only in some cultures. If it has scientific backing, then it probably belongs in the feminism article because of the effect on equality claims, depending on what the scientific discovery is, exactly. But if it is only a belief among some cultures, then it belongs in articles on those cultures, on gender, and on whatever it's invoked for, such as homosexuality, but probably not in feminism, until a source connects a third gender with feminism. (This post is continued below the immediate answer. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:17, 2 September 2010 (UTC))

As I said, the research on multiple genders is part of a larger argument that gender is socially constructed, and that gender is a system that oppresses humans, men as well as women, but that for historical reasons it is women who make this critique and thus feminism that can help liberate men. I was explicit that this is a different kind of feminism than the equality kind you seem to keep going back to. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Mary Daly and many other feminists wrote of oppression, but WP is for lay readers who then are introduced to subjects and terminology. I think most readers don't know what's meant by it. We define feminism and feminist in the lede, but that's because the article is the feminism article. Is the lede the right place to introduce terms and define them other than those very close to the title of the article?

Nick Levinson (talk) 04:28, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's leave this open for discussion - certainly the key thing is that it is explained in the body. Another good source on oppression besides barret is Gayle Rubin's widely cited "The Traffic of Women." Slrubenstein | Talk 14:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

No feminism is about lifting the oppression of men except as part of lifting the oppression of all people thus of women and men and thus, because it is feminism, the relationship or the balance of power between men and women is part of feminism whether it tries to relieve men of oppression or doesn't. Movements that ignore that relationship between genders or that lift men's oppression and ignore women's are, by definition, not feminist. They may be movements good for society, e.g., an antiwar movement, and may be worth supporting, but they are not feminist.

I have been recognizing feminisms that oppose oppression of both genders, as the article reflects.

I'm not sure any feminist argues for a genderless world, given that sex differences will always exist and therefore that there will be cultural differences. What is being sought within feminism is a minimization of gender; e.g., a hospital can build a maternity ward without building a paternity ward but women should not be denied employment because they might become pregnant some day. Within a minimization model, genderal equality is possible. A library is looking for a bell hooks book for me that I think will address this; I have read at least one and I think a couple of her books.

In general, I'm commenting from a reliance on sources absorbed and not simply my own views, which I scarcely refer to in WP. We may apply judgment to sources and claims, not to exclude new information, but so that if someone says gravity repels we can demand strong proof before we believe it, even if it's in print.

Nick Levinson (talk) 04:17, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Slrubenstein: Having now read Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex, I wouldn't agree that most people in any major society at any stage of history ever believed that only one human biological sex was in existence. Some influential people in Europe a few centuries ago did believe it, but the author saw their influence as limited. "Despite the growing tendency of the learned tradition to distance itself from 'popular errors,' my sense is that doctors, lay writers, and men and women in their beds shared a broad view on how the body worked in matters of reproduction." Making Sex, p. 68 (see also id., p. 68 n. 22). "In the ordinary course of events, sexing was of course no problem." Id., p. 135. More generally, "the fact [is] that there must have been much local wisdom and a florid oral tradition among women in early modern Europe, which printed sources, no matter how popular, and modern evidence, no matter how wide-ranging, can never recapture. They are forever lost to historians. Nor does it [the evidence adduced in the book] prove that ordinary people, men or women, thought very much in terms of the anatomical isomorphisms of the one-sex model." Id., p. 68. However, in id., pp. 68–69, the author sees some overlap between the literature he examined and popular views of the time on some basic concepts.

On religious authorities, while I'm not an expert in the principal books of the most populous religions of the world and assuming the stability of their texts, I think all of them are clear, simple, and consistent on the number of sexes being exactly two. Those texts would have been taught to most people within reach of their respective religions and, likely more than with other texts, would have been believed by them in turn. That would have limited the persuasiveness of the claims of any number other than two.

At any rate, Making Sex is authoritative and makes clear that the one-sex model was believed by a significant part of the world for a significant time, and that makes the tortured nature of the belief irrelevant to whether to report it in Wikipedia. I've added from this book to the sex and gender distinction article. If you want to question my choice of quotes or my representation of what the author said and I should verify or defend what I wrote, please do so very soon, since I borrowed my copy of the book and I have to return it shortly. I may return it this Saturday.

Thanks for bringing up an interesting point. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:18, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 69.14.21.235, 19 September 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} Feminism is NOT about superior rights for any minority and your wikipedia article says "superior rights" within the first sentence. I'm a feminist theory PHD student and I find your definition completely wrong. 69.14.21.235 (talk) 17:26, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. I'm sorry, but Wikipedia cannot accept original research, per its policy on verifiability. Salvio ^{Let's talk 'bout it!} 18:35, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Salvio hold on a sec - if you have a read of the threads above this one you'll see that this is yet another user making the same point about the current version of the page - that the current version of the page contradicts reliably sourced definitions by saying feminism seeks superior rights for women. While I agree that the above user needed to support their point with sources etc (per WP:V and WP:NOR) their point is part of a larger, longer, ongoing discussion.--Cailil ^talk 21:37, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Please see the feminism and equality article, including the section on superiority, which includes five sources (I'm about to reread a book that will probably be the sixth source, and according to its cover it sold 2.5 million copies). Superiority is well-sourced as a minority position. However, I'm now considering citing the works cited in that section in the lede of this article as well, albeit without repeating the quotes into this article. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 23:03, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Nick Levinson, I have been noticing your contributions to articles about gender and feminism with great concern. The section on superiority violates all Wikipedia policies because it consists of your interpretations of certain books and works. You must provide reliable sources that clearly and unambiguously state the mentioned sources show that feminism is about superiority. The sources you have provided so far do not do that. The article misrepresents feminism to such an extent that one is shocked and dismayed that this is allowed to pose as truth under the banner of Wikipedia. TheLuca (talk) 21:06, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The section you cited does precisely what you requested and has since creation. The section contains several subsections. Quotations exceed explanation in length and detail and the explanations are supported by the quotations, which are fully cited. Most Wikipedia content is not simply quotation; it is usually a rewriting of what is in the sources in order to avoid infringing copyrights and to ease reading. The quotations and citations in this case are more extensive than is usual, and should satisfy any concern about accuracy. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:49, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Nick Levinson, the section on superiority as well as the very first sentence of this article violates WP:NPOV because it is a bunch of original research consisting of your interpretation of primary sources. You have listed several books by women who allegedly write about the benefits of matriarchy or discuss how awesome "bitches" are, but this does in no way support your claim that feminism demands superior rights for women and girls. In fact, your claim contradicts all reliable sources about feminism and its aims. I support other editors who have asked you to remove your original research. The sooner the better. TheLuca (talk) 18:06, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

The claim is not regarding all of feminism but is with respect to a minority, and it is a significant minority, as supported by the extensive quotations given, including from a book of which millions of copies were sold. It is not OR; it is well sourced and quotation marks are provided to show that I quoted the sources. It is NPOV to neutrally state a source's POV, which I did. I am not contradicting all reliable sources, since I have given you several reliable sources that support what I have written about a significant feminist minority. The statement in the feminism article's lede of necessity must be concise and therefore should not and does not repeat the quotations available in the feminism and equality article, but it does properly cite its sources. Note that, besides superiority, the feminism article discusses a number of minority views within feminism. If you believe I have misrepresented any source anywhere, please be specific about which source and how you believe I have misrepresented it. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 00:55, 30 September 2010 (UTC) (Corrected my indent: 01:02, 30 September 2010 (UTC))

Nick Levinson, the "extensive quotations" you refer to are a few primary sources you describe and interpret in another article. The primary sources discuss the benefits of matriarchies or state that "bitches" are wonderful and things like that. Stating that "bitches" are great does not equal your claim that feminism or a minority within feminism is propagating superiority. You have simply picked some books where authors (who may not even consider themselves feminists) write something about matriarchies and used this in a misleading way as "proof" for you claim that these books exemplify feminism's quest for "superior" rights. Nobody is interested in your interpretations of sources. You need to find passages in the books witch clearly and unambiguously state that feminism or a part of feminism seeks "superior" rights. Or you need reliable secondary sources that state that feminism does that. Right now, you have highjacked this article and misused it to circulate your original research. Remove your original research as soon as possible. TheLuca (talk) 22:59, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The practice in Wikipedia is not to provide everything in one article when the article would then be far too long. Therefore, articles are linked to each other. Thus, it is within policy and a common practice to state a fact in one article and support it with a link to another article for the fact's further development. That is why the feminism article links to the feminism and equality article.

A few sources are all that are needed, given how important they are to feminism. The sources are authoritative for feminism and, as to superiority, authoritative to the minority subscribing to it. All the authors who were cited in their own subsections are well known in feminism as feminists and as authorities on feminism. It is not necessary to find many sources; several are sufficient (in many cases, one is sufficient, and I went well beyond one). One could probably find more sources in feminist serials, although many are only in hardcopy and microform and long out of print. You should feel free to add that research.

These sources I've cited are not letters from women wondering why have to bake the turkey in the kitchen and thinking merely that feminism might be an alternative to explore. These are serious and, in feminism, widely accepted works. Publications about feminism by feminists and feminist scholars may be used in Wikipedia. I take it you agree on that principle as to issues in feminism other than superiority. So that there'd be no concern about the publications' interpretation, I quoted them, and did so extensively. The explanations primarily assist in organizing the quotations and do not exceed the sources, and a nonspecialist education is sufficient to find the explanations supported by the quotations. If you believe that a specialist education is required to understand what I wrote, please point to any passage where that is required.

You observe that a statement is made in the feminism article and quotations are in the other article. That is true, but, in addition, the article with the quotations also offers adjacent statements based on those quotations, so that the linked feminism article has adequate support for its statement.

Your summary referring only to benefits of matriarchy, the wonderfulness of Bitches, and "things like that" deeply understates what the quotations tell the reader. When you have more than a couple of minutes, please read them before critiquing their adequacy for Wikipedia. Each subsection describing one author's contribution to feminism supports the superiority point.

You suggest some of the quoted authors may not be feminists by their own descriptions. Please name any such author. I think your report will surprise many people, so you first may want to find a source for any among Mary Dally, Andrea Dworkin, Phyllis Chesler, Jo Freeman, or Jill Johnston considering herself not a feminist when she wrote her publication or later.

You say "misleading". You previously alleged misrepresentation but have not shown any misrepresentation. Please point to any subsection with quotations and describe how it misleads as to the conclusion presented.

The passages you are requesting were already in the article. One is on Womenland in comparison to Israel. Another is a quote calling for a Hag-ocracy. If you don't agree that a Hag-ocracy is government by one or more Hags, please state how it is not.

There's nothing I see to delete. One could trim a few relatively minor words here or there but then the core statements would be inadequately supported or could appear to be. And you have asserted that these are only a few sources, so reducing the number of sources would be contrary to your position.

Thank you for your interest. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:29, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

A lot of blah blah blah. As usual. The point is that you base the definition of an important political, social, and economic movement solely on your misinterpretation and misrepresentation of five primary sources. The sources don't support your extraordinary claims. A book that describes the term "bitch" and the difficulties that "bitches" face in our society can hardly be used as evidence for your claim that "feminism seeks superior rights for women." The author herself never implies such a thing. The entire section and the definition is your original research and it has been disputed by dozens of editors. TheLuca (talk) 19:41, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Instead of responding to, or correcting, the points I raised, you call it all "blah blah blah". None of the sources were misinterpreted or misrepresented and the sources support all of the claims I made for them. That any source makes a point does not mean that it does not make another point, especially when the two points are consistent with each other, as in the cases you describe. The respective authors wrote and said what I quoted them writing and saying. Please don't offer hyperbole and exaggeration as your response, because they require us to deconstruct your arguments in order to get at what's important. I did the research to get the quotations right and that is permissible.

You have, however, started a new discussion on these points at Editing Lead and Removing False Definition of Feminism, I will consolidate replying into there.

Nick Levinson (talk) 09:58, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

feminists vs. profeminists

TheLuca, what is your objection to noting in the lede, as part of the definition of feminist, that males are not always accepted as feminists but are accepted as profeminists? Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:22, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The objection is that there is one section about men and pro-feminism. For the lead, it suffices to say that feminists can be persons of either sex. TheLuca (talk) 14:41, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The definition as it is now in the lede is POV. The prior definition ("feminists are persons of either sex, or females only (in which case males may be profeminists), who believe in feminism") is NPOV.

Removing any definition of feminist from the lede altogether is a separate matter that has some legitimacy. However, it appeared because an editor thought a definition of feminist belonged in the lede and it probably does, because it is very close to the title of the article and "feminists" redirects to this article.

Nick Levinson (talk) 04:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Editing lead and removing false definition of feminism

Many other editors have been bemoaning the false definition of feminism that contradicts all reliable sources about feminism. The false definition is based on the misrepresentation of five to six primary sources by one editor (Nick Levinson).

• Jill Johnston’s Lesbian Nation is a book about the lesbian separatist movement in which Johnston defines female relations with the opposite sex as a form of collaboration. [1] The author never states or implies that she herself or feminism in general “seeks superior rights."
• Jo Freeman’s BITCH Manifesto is an attempt to describe the restrictions that assertive women face in our society and take back the term “bitch.” The author never mentions feminism, she never even acts like she speaks on behalf of women or feminists, and she never states or implies that she or feminism in general “seeks superior rights."
• Mary Daly’s Gyn/Ecology is a book about women’s oppression, patriarchy and male-centred language. The book was thoroughly misrepresented by Nick Levinson. One particularly disturbing misrepresentation is the part where Nick Levinson claims “She advocated for government by women” and then cites a passage where the author describes “hags” who create “Hag-ocracy.” Another example is when Nick Levinson claims that the author “argued against mere equality” when in fact Daly argues that certain laws like the legalization of abortion help women but don't free them completely. The point is that the author never implies that women or feminists or even the author herself “seeks superior rights.”
• Andrea Dworkin’s Scapegoat is a book about a nation state for women (not a state where women govern men or something like that) like Jews have Israel. Nick Levinson begins his endless quotations with a statement by Isaiah Berlin and and Ramin Jahanbegloo and makes it seem like it was Dworkin who wrote this. Dworkin actually calls Berlin’s statement “You cannot combine full liberty with full equality—full liberty for the wolves cannot be combined with full liberty for the sheep” into question and never states that she or women or feminists seeks superiority over equal rights.
• Phyllis Chester’s Women and Madness is about women's roles in history, society, and myth and the double standard when it comes to women's psychology. Among various other things, the author mentions Amazon societies and how these mythological societies oppressed men. The author points out that female-dominated societies would be no more just than male-dominated societies and expresses the hope that someday a choice between forms of injustice will not be necessary. The author never claims that she, or women, or feminists, are superior or that she, women, or feminists “seek superior rights” in our society.
• Helen Diner’s Mothers and Amazons is a history of matriarchies and mythological Amazons. Nick Levinson admits that the book has nothing to do with “feminist superiority.” Nonetheless, he quotes the book extensively in the section about "feminist superiority."

I would like to add that your sources violate WP:PRIMARY. Primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors. TheLuca (talk) 22:19, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

This responds to this topic and also continues from the last post in the topic Edit Request From 69.14.21.235, 19 September 2010.

All of the authors make the points you say they make, or approximately do (your descriptions are in various ways close enough that I'm happy to accept them, having read the books and not just descriptions of them) but the same authors also make the points I quoted them as making. Apparently you believe that authors who make one set of points couldn't make the others. That is incorrect. The quotations are correct, correctly summarized, and supported uncontradicted by the rest of the respective publications.

• Jill Johnston in Lesbian Nation wrote, "A small but significant number of angry and historically minded women comprehend the women's revolution in the visionary sense of an end to the catastrophic brotherhood and a return to the former glory and wise equanimity of the matriarchies." Id., p. 248. Her claim is not about feminism in general and I didn't say it was. It is about a part of the feminist movement and I said so.
• On Joreen's Manifesto:
  • Joreen, now as Jo Freeman, does identify The BITCH Manifesto as a feminist article; this is at http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/joreen.htm. I've added that identification to follow the quotation from it, in response to your point. She is well known as feminist and adding the identification of the Manifesto is appropriate. A self-published statement is permissible when it is with respect to the self.
  • Your statement that she "never even acts like she speaks on behalf of women or feminists" is refuted by, among other things, the Wikipedia article on her, which says, in the lede, "Jo Freeman . . . is an American feminist" (deboldfaced) and that "[s]he has also written extensively about women" and by her essay, On the Origins of the Women's Liberation Movement from a Strictly Personal Perspective, as accessed Oct. 6, 2010, with respect to which "[her] scholarly account of many of the . . . events [in the essay]" appeared at least ten times (id., n. 1). She was already a feminist at about the time of writing the Manifesto; she was, for instance, also invited to "publicize the women's liberation movement to another group of women" (id., the essay).
  • In the Manifesto, she wrote, "We must be strong, we must be militant, [and] we must be dangerous" and that bitches are "always . . . female", are "domineering" and "overwhelming", that the highly competent bitches have "superiority", and that bitches are the "vanguard" of the society of which Joreen wrote. That is a call for superior rights for some females.
• Mary Daly:
  • Gyn/Ecology is as you described it, and it also says "women . . . are creating Hag-ocracy". Id., p. 15. She wrote that "this book . . . is . . . Anti-male". Id., p. 29. She wrote that "women . . . are . . . controlled by men" and that by "direct[ing] our own Crafts/Vessels we become reversers". Id., p. xxvi (New Intergalactic Introduction). Hag-ocracy is a government. Mary Daly called for it.
  • She wrote of "tokenism . . . commonly guised as Equal Rights" as a "false ideal" because it "deflects and shortcircuits gynergy, so that female power, galvanized under deceptive slogans of sisterhood, is swallowed by The Fraternity." Id., p. 375. She wrote that "tokenism is insidiously destructive of sisterhood". Ibid. She wrote, "there is no equality among unique Selves." Id., p. 384. She did support reforms such as "legalization of abortion", id., p. 375, but that is not a refutation of what else she wrote in opposition to the equality that is usually the fulcrum of feminism. She advocated for more power for women than equality could afford.
• Andrea Dworkin:
  • Her call in Scapegoat and subsequently was for, as you say, a "nation state for women", and, since men could live there (she gave the example of a "male intimate", id., p. 246), therefore "a state where women govern men" (quoting from your incorrectly negational claim). She wrote: "One needs either equality or political and economic superiority." Id., p. 336. Her call for a Womenland is a call for "superiority".
  • Her calling "into question" (your phrase) of Isaiah Berlin's statement was to ask "Are women sheep ('led like sheep to the slaughter')? Must women become wolves? Is violence against women a direct result of the fact that there is no inevitable, painful, retaliatory consequence for hurting women?" Id., p. 246. She wasn't challenging his statement; she was using it to build her own, which I quoted.
  • My quotations of her book do not make Isaiah Berlin's words seem like Andrea's own. They are attributed to Isaiah Berlin by both her and me. They are part of her argument and therefore belong.
  • I did not quote Ramin Jahanbegloo except as a coauthor with Isaiah Berlin of a book cited by Andrea Dworkin in her book.
  • The quotations I supplied were in total not too long, given the material and its importance.
• What you say about Phyllis Chesler's book, Woman and Madness, is largely right except that she was "saying that a female-dominated or Amazon society based on the oppression of men . . . . is better for women." Id., p. 338. Therefore, either justice is not crucial to her argument or unjustness is acceptable. She wrote, "[i]f women take their bodies seriously—and ideally we should—then its full expression, in terms of pleasure, maternity, and physical strength, seems to fare better when women control the means of production and reproduction. From this point of view, it is simply not in women's interest to support . . . a fabled 'equality' with men." Id., pp. 337–338. She wrote, "women who are feminists must gradually and ultimately dominate public and social institutions—so as to ensure that they are not used against women. I say 'dominate' because I don't think that 'equality' . . . will be possible for women who have never experienced supremacy in public institutions as men have." Id., p. 347.
• On Helen Diner's Mothers and Amazons, you're flat wrong to claim that "[I] admit . . . that the book has nothing to do with 'feminist superiority.'" On the contrary, what I wrote is that the author herself did not advocate for feminist superiority. And she didn't have to for the book to be important for the article. I quoted the book because it presents history in support of female superiority: specifically, that Amazons were a "feminist wing" of humanity. Id., p. 123. She said that Amazon society included boys as slaves and no other males. Id., p. 122. I quoted her words. A female feminist society in which the only males are slaves when some or all females are not slaves is a society in which females govern males. She wrote, "[among] [t]he Libyan Amazons . . . .[,] [t]he women monopolized government and other influential positions. In contrast to the later Thermodontines, however, they lived in a permanent relationship with their sex partners, even though the men led a retiring life, could not hold public office, and had no right to interfere in the government of the state or society." Id., p. 136. "Strabo, traveling in North Africa . . . found that . . . ["its women"] ruled the country politically, while the men were still without significance in the state". Id., p. 137. She added, "The Berbers of our times . . . .[,] [n]ear the Atlas Mountains, . . . have preserved a strong gynocracy." Ibid.
• None of these works are comparable to a diary or a traffic accident participant's report on the accident. All of the sources I quoted were reliably published by, e.g., Simon & Schuster, Beacon Press, and Macmillan. Gyn'Ecology, Mothers and Amazons, and Scapegoat draw on other sources and interpret them. The reprinting of the Manifesto in books establishes its role in feminism; I simply used its most authoritative rendition, that published by the author.

In other ways, feminism is not solely about equality. Difference feminism often completely sidesteps any notion of equality or superiority by asserting that women have their power from being different, rendering equality meaningless and irrelevant (although some nonfeminists also argue difference and irrelevance). Equality is the majority view by far, but it is not the only view.

Dictionaries are generally not good sources when more authoritative sources are available. They generally are tertiary. I included your dictionary definitions because secondary sources are also included, but a good argument can be made that they shouldn't be there even so.

Since the lede defines feminist (and it is right that it does), it is just as important to include within that definition that whether men can be feminists is in serious dispute, as discussed in the body of the article, in the section on men as feminists.

I preserved both of your citation-needed templates (moving one to be after the semicolon rather than before), although I don't think either of the related points are in dispute. I will consider editing so the article includes the information requested, if lacking. I may place any needed cites into the body, as the lede can refer to the body and implicitly does anyway.

Your edits to the Antifeminism subsection are fine (I've taken your word on what the sources say, to save time). I'm not sure about relying on Yahoo's dictionary, but I'll leave it in since it's an additional dictionary definition and not the only source on point. The new cites probably should be reformatted for consistency of style in the article's footnotes as displayed.

The practice in edit summaries of linking to Talk is to link to the relevant Talk topic, not to the Wikipedia article about talk in general.

Please do not again exaggerate or misstate what I wrote or what any other source says. I'm happy to work out differences and questions and ask you to do the same.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 10:11, 6 October 2010 (UTC) (Corrections of nonbreaking space representations that were misspelled, closing quote mark that was erroneously typed as italicization markup, and midsentence "Among" that should have been decapitalized: 10:40, 6 October 2010 (UTC))

Nick, you need to realize that long comments like th above are inappriotae for the talk space. I relaize you wish to spell out your points but in practice comments of this length do the opposite to what you intend - see WP:TLDR.
Secondly you are reverting against consensus - there is no consenus for the inclusion of supremacism/superiority in the lede line (line 1) and consensus is required for article content. In fact TheLuca is correct that there is consensus here for its removal. And while I think TheLuca's wording could have been better sourced it is what is verifiable.
Thirdly as I have pointed out at length your current wording is in breach of WP:NPOV by giving equal validity to fringe views.
None of the authors you quote define feminism in the broad sense as being about female supremacism, and reliable sources that contain definitions of feminism do not do this either. I beginning to agree with TheLuca that there is a original research issue here as covered by WP:SYN. I'm giving you the chance to self revert--Cailil ^talk 12:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, but I don't plan to revert. That many severe distortions by TheLuca of what was in the articles and sources required straightening out, and TLDR applies to articles, not talks, for exactly this sort of reason, as to either party. I was concise in light of how much TheLuca put into the opening post. To save time, please compare what TheLuca said about any of the authors under discussion with my reply about the same author; that's faster than reading all of them (as I had to do) and will show you how very wrongful are TheLuca's complaints. Feminist writers like Mary Daly and Andrea Dworkin and book sales of 2.5 million copies do not make what they say fringe to feminism. The cited sources say part of feminism is about superiority, not all of feminism. The majority view is sourced and is present in the lede's first sentence. As to consensus, you'll note from the comments that I'm not alone in supporting inclusion. I'm happy to discuss with TheLuca and others the issues but TheLuca effectively declined, and that's inappropriate. Nick Levinson (talk) 13:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Nick, you're not getting it. While I agree that TheLuca could have been more temperate in their comments towards you, they do have a point about the content - none of the books you used actually define mainstream Feminism as being about superiority (also on a technical point the manner in which you referenced them was in breach of WP:RS - we don't cite other WP articles). The point we're all making (and there is only 1 other user, Blackworm, that is in agreement with you BTW) is that the definition, in the current version of the page, is not representative of mainstream feminism (as defined in mainstream sources) because of the inclusion of fringe views. And no a book's circulation does not change what you point out yourself - that SOME, very few, female supremacists believe this, not all or, more pertinently, mainstream feminists. As I spelled out months ago, the the manner in which your edits present feminism in the first line is in breach of WP:GEVAL. We don't discuss post-colonial, marxist or post-structural feminism in line 1 because equally that would breach WP:GEVAL too. I presented a solution to this in August. Other users have disputed the same text as I did since then, while I respect your use of the bold, revert, discuss cycle there was no consensus for the re-inclusion of the disputed text. No-one owns this page Nick, its content is written in line with policy and is added and removed by consensus--Cailil ^talk 18:21, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Cailil that the length of your replies in completely inappropriate for Wikipedia talk pages. For some reason you fail to understand that your posts violate WP:PRIMARY which states that All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.

Your analysis of the primary sources is your analysis which is highly subjective, inaccurate and therefore disputed here. I spent days reading the sources you provided and your analysis advances a position not advanced by the sources. This violates WP:OR because it violates WP:PRIMARY.

Furthermore, the "greater" part in the lead was an unsourced POV addition by user Wwmargera [2] who has tried the same unsourced change of the lead several times in the past: [3][4][5]

Your version of the lead violates WP:NPOV, WP:PRIMARY, fringe views, WP:GEVAL. Just for starters. Your continued ownership behavior is inappropriate for Wikipedia. TheLuca (talk) 22:24, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

TheLuca while I broadly agree with your points re: content (and re: Wwmargera) , please do not personalize this discussion. Please discuss Nick's edits rather than Nick himself (e.g. please try a different phrasing such as "this edit/comment presents/advances an original view" rather than "your opinion"/"your analysis" etc). Lets all stay cool--Cailil ^talk 00:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not about being intemperate. TheLuca is making wildly wrong charges and is not responding at all to my corrections, quotes, and clarifications. I wonder if it isn't a deliberate strategy, based on an assumption that no one else will read the sources anytime soon. The editor has gone on to delete almost all the sources from the feminism and equality article's superiority section and proposes to get rid of the rest of it, and I wonder if the subject so horrifies that editor that the desire is to silence it (the one source allowed to remain at the moment is suddenly marked as only alleged with no reason given for TheLuca's doubt).

I understood the points made and have responded to each of them. I don't think I've missed any. We do, however, disagree. The solution to that is to seek to narrow areas of disagreement and find ways of phrasing that satisfy the proper sources. I have not been owning the article; edits have appeared that I didn't respond to because I had no objection, I agreed, the difference of opinion was too minor, or I was willing to take on the additional work implicit in them. I did not add a {{Maintained}} template, I did nothing listed in WP:OWN#Examples of ownership behavior, and I do not try to kick anyone out. But that looks like TheLuca's intent now, given his content misanalysis and nonresponse.

Again, I did not say that mainstream feminism is about superiority. I said a significant minority seeks it, and it does. Erasing sources does not change that. The sources come from different decades and point to centuries. The pursuit by the minority of superiority is persistent.

Another editor also agreed on the general point, not just one, and so posted on the talk page. But I was responding to TheLuca's claim on the page that "dozens of editors" disputed my edits (I had combined replying to two topics where he had posted similar objections). By no means did dozens post objections. It also happens that most editors on either side of a dispute likely never post anything about it even after reading it, so the numbers are likely higher than are visible on either side.

Primary sources may be used with care. You may suggest more careful ways of doing so.

Book sales volume being high is indicative of exposure and potentially of acceptance of major parts of it. People tend not to buy books they disagree with; they're likelier to buy those they agree with or are open to (although that's somewhat less true of libraries and schools). Cited were several books by authors who are widely read in feminism and that is not indicative of a fringe. Note that WP has an article on Victoria Woodhull, who could certainly be considered as being on the fringe with regard to Presidential politics and free love, at least. As long as the subject has a significant following, coverage is apropos.

On the minor point you raised about citing the sources by citing them indirectly in the Feminism article by linking to the feminism and equality article's subsections is not an inappropriate method. It is simply linking between articles to subsections and is done acceptably throughout WP; it happens that the subsection titles were also publication titles. It met a need in that readers apparently weren't noticing the one link that was already there before critiquing. People following the links to the subsections would have seen the full citations and what they support.

Clearly, the information is controversial and runs counter to popular expectation. As long as it is properly sourced, that should not be avoided, although that may require finding more accommodating ways to handle its controversial nature. Very few feminists made concrete plans that went very far toward female superiority; but evidently significant numbers gave it thought as something interesting. College years in particular seem to be when much feminist conceptual experimentation is undertaken; later, reality, so to speak, is more constraining. A dictionary editor years ago published linguistic evidence for the womyn lemma and much of it came from college and specialized feminist sources.

I wrote "greater" completely unaware of the prior use by another editor (a self-described masculist), I think, since I don't think it was present when I read the article prior to my editing. In fact, many feminists seek more power than they have but stop short of equality; thus, their pursuit is for greater power than they otherwise would have. Difference feminism is an example of that. Sources were provided in feminism and equality.

We each presented a wording proposal for this article's lede but I have no objection to trying to develop other solutions. My concern with the August 24 proposal (1:55p) was that it would shortly be re-edited by someone on the ground of being weasel-worded in not declaring equality the only fulcrum. We could try inserting the passage, or a close version of it, as an experiment and see what happens, although it appears TheLuca will delete it.

Your point about not mentioning particular movements within the lede is well taken. The problem is the demand for an overarching definition for which the fulcrum will be demanded. Perhaps a solution is adding a sentence or more into the article's body that the lede can implicitly reference as to equality, but that still leaves the matter of how the lede will reference it.

If I see us returning to discussion, I'm open.

Thoughts? Nick Levinson (talk) 03:35, 7 October 2010 (UTC) (Corrected "seems" to "seem" for syntax: 03:48, 7 October 2010 (UTC))

Nick Levinson, again and again and again, the length of your replies is inappropriate.

I repeat that the analysis (I have been told to avoid saying "your analysis") of the sources is an interpretative original analysis. Therefore, WP:PRIMARY and WP:SYN state that All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors. The analysis and synthesis of the primary sources advances a position not explicitly advanced or even implied by any of the sources. Therefore, this analysis and synthesis constitutes original research. Wikipedia urges all editors to remove original research immediately and aggressively. Addressing your question why original research horrifies me, seems unnecessary after pointing out the relevant Wikipedia policy.

The problem isn't even that the disputed edits don't have consensus. Even if your edits had 1000 other editors supporting them (which they do not), WP:SYN, WP:NPOV, WP:PRIMARY, and a host of other policies override any concerns about consensus.

The content which you want to include violates WP:SYN, WP:NPOV, WP:PRIMARY, WP:GEVAL, and isn't cited properly. TheLuca (talk) 14:22, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) @Nick: I think the best solution is the simplest one - just quote secondary sources that define feminism in order to define feminism. The lead will end up being something along the sides of "feminism is a movement for women's rights and equality of the sexes" because that is the common, definition of the broadest part of the feminist movement. Any of the books I listed in August will provide quotable text for that.
@Both: Please step back from personalizing this issue. This is a content matter there is no need to get personal about it--Cailil ^talk 14:57, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Cailil, that's a good principle (defining feminism by quoting a secondary source) but you'll run into a problem. Someone, perhaps you, provided a citation to a scholarly essay (in Signs) the theme of which was the defining of feminism and it arrived at a definition that did not depend on equality. Given that many feminists seek something less than equality (i.e., greater power than they have but not full equality), the trap is akin to that of when Democrats beat Republicans 60–40 and then say the polity is Democratic. Leading national political groups in the U.S. (and probably many nations) almost all publicly stand for equality but whether most self-identifying feminist women do is a question with a more complicated answer. Experiment with drafting a lede (as you have) and see what you come up with.

TheLuca, I said nothing about original research horrifying you. You made that up. Don't attribute your statement to me and claim that I said it.

You misunderstand which sources are secondary and which are primary. You misunderstand POV/NPOV. If the citations you are criticizing for impropriety are those in the lede that were links to superiority-related works, they were links to WP article subsections that also included book titles in the subsection titles; linking to WP article subsections is proper. Some of your other charges are not new and I've already replied to them.

No source was miscited. If you believe one was, please say which one.

When someone is right about a criticism of me, my response is usually amazingly short: I say thanks. I take critics seriously. I often criticize myself and do it openly.

Cailil, I'd like to depersonalize it, but given TheLuca's behavior (e.g., broad-brush attacks, gross misreading, falsification of what I wrote, repetition, refusal to discuss, and demanding in effect that I shut up so TheLuca can attack without answer) that means I'd be swallowing all of this and I don't want to, because that's often interpreted as implicit agreement, which would generally be wrong. So I'm going to step back, in a sense, and let everyone else sort this stuff out.

Nick Levinson (talk) 04:19, 8 October 2010 (UTC) (Corrected a gendered pronoun by replacing it with the referent and added a corrective phrase: 04:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC))

Cailil is making two critical points I think. First, we must comply with WP:NOR and not provide out own synthesis of views. Second, we must comply with WP:V anbd provide verifiable views. Signs is the world's leading feminist theory journal and articles in it can certainly be considered reliable sources. IF there are multiple definitions of feminism, WP:NPOV requires us to provide them. But we cannot try to synthesize the different definitions we have read. The principal task I think is for us to discuss the diferent views (and we have all laid them out on this page - I quoted some key passages from Friedan, for example, and I have mentioned hooks; Cailil has mentioned de Beauvoir, all important sources - and discusee which views are mainstream (and different views can be equally mainstream), what are majority and minority and fringe views. I propose using Cailil's quote and then constructing sentences carefully worded to avoid violating SYNTH to summarize other mainstream or (in the language of NPOV) "significant" views, with verifiable sources, and include those in the intro. I agree with something TheLuca implied, blow - historical context is important i.e. what was a najority view among fminists in the 1970s may not be the majority view today, (conversely, what was a minority view in the past can become a majority view) so when looking at a range of verifiable sources it is important to try to group them not only by affinities but also chronologically. Slrubenstein | Talk 04:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Nick, just reminding you that quoting from secondary sources is what wikipedia is for. We don't write essays here we record what other secondary sources say about subjects. Secondly no the essay I referenced (and Nancy Cott's book) explain why feminism is defined as being about two things women's rights and equality of the sexes (women's lib) - giving the history and tension between these two projects. Even dictionaries present it this way.
Secondly both you and TheLuca need to depersonalize this now. And for accuracy sake Nick a source like Gyn-Ecology or the Bitch Manifesto is a primary source on female supremacism (just as Michel Foucualt's books The History of Sexuality ARE primary sources about governmentality for example).
I support SLR's suggestion and explanation - I think this is the most productive way to move forward--Cailil ^talk 18:14, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I did quote. Considering whether I quoted as a separate issue from the issue of the quality of the sources, if you have handy any of the books I cited, please read any of the pages I quoted and you'll see that they're accurate quotes supporting what I wrote. If anyone can point to any actual instance of that not being the case, I still await that. Vague and fabricated complaints don't help and I hope they've come to an end.

I'm considering changes for the feminism and equality article. I can see an argument for how Bitch Manifesto might be closer to being primary (even though it's not insider but it's not source-based so maybe) but Gyn/Ecology is definitely secondary, just as is Feminine Mystique, and Mary Daly probably had more academic qualifications than Betty Friedan did, and we (properly) cite the latter. Both, like Nancy Cott, were doubtless discriminated against as females but that and being feminist do not disqualify their works as secondary. I'm relying on WP:Primary and WP:Secondary for the WP definitions of primary source and secondary source: "Primary sources are very close to an event, often accounts written by people who are directly involved, offering an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on." "Secondary sources are second-hand accounts, at least one step removed from an event. They rely for their material on primary sources, often making analytic or evaluative claims about them." (Emphases removed.) Gyn/Ecology and various other books I cited easily meet the WP test of a secondary source. Gyn/Ecology, as a study of ethics, is well known because of its "analytic [and] . . . evaluative claims about ["primary sources"]." These WP definitions do not separate a book into being secondary for its own sources but primary as to its content, because that content, even if original from that author, is based on analysis and evaluation of primary and secondary sources. I'm planning to review other cited sources in light of WP's standard. I can't comment directly on Foucault; I read something of his many years ago and mostly forgot it. But you cite Foucault as primary on governmentality, yet the WP governmentality article you link to is based on Foucault's work (and others), thus presumably Foucault's work meets WP's test of being secondary, including on governmentality. Gyn/Ecology therefore should present no conflict in being the basis of WP article content, including on superiority, insofar as presented in Gyn/Ecology. I'll re-evaluate other works.

I will try rewriting what seems to be perceived of as my own essay-writing but which was intended to ease navigating the quotation/s.

To recap, my effort is to re-evaluate cited works to be well inside the range of what we consider secondary and to re-edit my explanatory content so readers spend more time on the quotes themselves, and I'll try to lean over backwards to avoid what is raising concerns in the context of an obviously controversial subject.

Karen Offen's main proposed definition of feminism is the sentence straddling pp. 151–152 (pp. 34–35 per the PDF viewer). The fulcrum is "a rebalancing", not "equality". Later, when considering who's a feminist, she refers to "inequity" (p. 152 (p. 35 per PDF viewer)), so then she's coming closer to equality, but clearly she does not want to depend on equality for the main definition of feminism.

Dictionaries are generally tertiary. Where a statement is sourced only to dictionaries, consideration should be given to adding to them or replacing them with secondary sources, if they exist, especially for the more important statements.

Thank you. I hope this helps. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:56, 9 October 2010 (UTC) (Corrected "does" to "do": 05:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC))

Whether a source is primary or secondary is relative. once there is a body of scholarship offering different readings of a text, that text is de facto a primary source. A secondary sources are sources that interpret, explain analyze or synthesize or generalize primary sources. If there are a number of sources that interpret Gynecology, or sources that make synthetic statements about certain kinds of feminism, including Gynecology as a source, then Gynecology has become a primary source.

I do not want to get into a silly argument about different kinds of sources. I am sure that Gynecology functions as a secondary source in relation to other primary sources, and if we are writing a section on those sources Daly treated as primary sources and wish to use Gynecology as s econdary source on those sources, well, Cailil, nick, I cannot object to that.

But, insofar as there are now many books and articles that anylyze and interpret Daly, or include Gynecology in their synthetic accounts of feminism, we also have to treat Gynecology as a primary source.

Nick, let me put it this way: if there are books or article out there, published by university presses or peer-reviewed journals, interpreting Daly, we are not allowed to say "This is Daly's view: ... " and then provide what we think Daly's view is. If you want to quote Daly, fine, but if you are quoting something Daly said that has been itself an object of scholarly debate, we are now required to provide an account of how later scholars interpret the quote you just put in. If there are different views of Daly, we cannot just put in Daly, we have to provide all significant views (I do not just mean "I like it" "I hate it", i mean different readings, interpretations) abour Daly. otherwise we are violating NOR. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:57, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

A source may be primary and secondary at the same time according to its use. A biology book may be secondary for biology and simultaneously primary as to the author's biography or for an epistomology study across disciplines. Gyn/Ecology is secondary on feminism even though it's also primary for her biography or for a study on Mary Daly's own feminism. The WP articles we're discussing are on feminism and not on her personally, thus the book qualifies as secondary for the articles. Other books on feminism may treat of Gyn/Ecology and thus Gyn/Ecology could be primary for the further study of feminism but would still be secondary when cited for what it says. WP policy does not convert secondary sources into primary because other authors do so for different purposes not controlling here.

The semi-protected Jesus (Oct. 8, 3:04p) article (current as I write this) cites Biblical passages at notes 58–59, 63, 72, 79, 83–85, 90, 95–98, 106–107, 177–179, 182, and 184–187, which are more than ten percent of the notes, and a spot-check shows the article paraphrasing or interpreting the Biblical passages, so I don't think WP will have a problem with citing Gyn/Ecology and kindred works in feminism articles appropriately. While feminism and religion are different, both are edited under the same WP policies. Consensus is valid but not as a substitute for WP editorial policies. I'm happy to refine my editing to fit all of the proper standards.

There also seems to be a continuing misunderstanding of the passages I wrote. They were almost entirely quoting the respective sources. Quote marks were supplied. One commenter denied that I had quoted, misinterpreted into the reverse of what the books said, did not cite pages for the reversals, and then rejected my reply on the ground of length. This seems to be contributing to others thinking that I was writing originally and not quoting. I wrote a bit of my own to ease navigation (and I plan to reduce that). I intend to quote Gyn/Ecology and not merely write about what she wrote, much as I had done before the trashing.

Including analyses of her writings on point is fine. I don't have them handy but will look for them. If you can suggest any, please do.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:31, 10 October 2010 (UTC) (Corrected redlink to Jesus article (my error): 01:48, 10 October 2010 (UTC))

On the claim that I'm essaying rather than quoting, in reviewing the former Gyn/Ecology subsection, I had quoted 614 words from Gyn/Ecology and had added only 53 words of my own. (The counts exclude references and Wickedary.) Thus, I had added less than 8 percent to the text, and most of it was navigational, paraphrasing the respective quotes. I edited similarly for the other sources. The claim of underquoting was unjustified. Please, let's not let one editor who exaggerates and invents go unchecked. Criticize on point, and don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. (I'm editing anyway, trimming the Gyn/Ecology-based passage.)

I assume citing Simone de Beauvoir would necessitate citing later scholars' responses to de Beauvoir just as much as with the sources I'm citing. I don't want to see a double standard develop.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:21, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

NIck, I'm sorry but your comments REALLY are too long. What is present in other articles is not actually relevant here. Secondly re: consensus - consensus is required for edits that are disputed. The current wording of line 1 has neither consensus nor has it policy backing as it violates WP:NPOV by giving equal validity to fringe views and WP:NOR by synthesizing sources. That is the long and short of it. Re: synthesis the juxtaposition of quotes that advance a position whether commentry exists or not is still a violation of WP:NOR. What line 1 does is to reference a claim that feminism is defined as being about superiority in all of the cited books - none of them do that.
Re: the de Beauvoir point you raise - short answer yes, hence my use of books about the hisory of feminism etc.
I am sorry if my short messages come across as curt or aggressive - they aren't meant that way, even this is of medium length by site standards--Cailil ^talk 13:23, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

In effect, you're calling me a liar. The books all say what I quoted them saying. Please cite any page from any of the books that contradict the quotations, such as if an author said "I didn't mean it." I didn't find any such contradiction in the sources quoted. The post that made the claims about book content cited no pages in support of their claims and the central claims were wrong. I rebutted the claims so we'd all know. I'm not going to go to the expense and possible infringement of photocopying the quoted book pages and postally mailing the copies to commenters or of buying the books and mailing those for free. I got most of them from public libraries and interlibrary loan should suffice for anyone rejecting or questioning the accuracy of my quotes.

You're still complaining about line 1. You're free to write the first line. Go ahead. Stop waiting for me. I already said I'm not editing it. If you don't know how to edit it to meet the intent you indicated, neither do I. Good editing can be difficult. But this is looking more like you'd rather leave line 1 in the way you oppose so that you can keep complaining about me. I hope that's not the case. If you were simply too busy to get to it you wouldn't still be complaining about my previous editing of it.

I've read WP talk topics elsewhere with many short comments and the misunderstandings pile up and get hard to disentangle. I'd be brief, too, but when someone makes a mass of charges, the main justification for a very short reply is that the charges are right and get thanks instead of rebuttals, but these charges were wrong so I guess you're agreeing with the charges despite my careful and articulated rebuttal demonstrating why I said they're wrong. No one has been specific in disputing my rebuttal about what the books say. Evidently, my word is good for almost nothing with you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 17:21, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Nick I'm not calling you a liar and I'm not complaining about you. My point is simple the wording doesn't fit with policy and you're not hearing the points being made. Also you just reverted the lede a few days ago thus I wanted to try to establish a consensus for a change.
I have not said anything about the points TheLuca made but that doesn't mean I agree with them. Please try to assume good faith. I have been consistent in my objection that the wording of line 1 violates WP:GEVAL. I have stated consistently that these books do not redefine feminism, nor are the opinions reflected in them represented in other mainstream 3rd party definitions of the broad, mainstream feminist movement. I happen to think your edits are a big improvement here but I also happen to disagree with you on this issue. As I said before 4 words in the lede line is our substantive point of disagreement. I don't want to revert the article or contest everything you've altered. Thus far bar some nit-picking this is it.
And as a piece of serious advice stay cool, you need to depersonalize this issue and stick to source based discussion rather than talking about what you think they think about you - it's not helpful.
As a starting point for redevelopment of the lede I'm going propose, as I suggest anyone who is interested does too, a properly sourced definitional line. Which we can agree upon over a few days (or longer if necessary)--Cailil ^talk 19:21, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to communicate and thereby establish that I hear your complaints. If I write point for point, I get TLDR retorts. If I select a point and don't answer the others, the response is to what I hadn't answered. Brevity and concision are not the same, and if multiple charges are being made please don't object to a response to all of them, but, instead, please respond to them so we can make progress. I'm not filibustering or repeating; I'm responding concisely on point.

By saying you're not calling me a liar, you're effectively retracting your charge that "[w]hat line 1 does is to reference a claim that feminism is defined as being about superiority in all of the cited books - none of them do that." You are now agreeing that I didn't say that all of feminism says that or you are agreeing that the cited books do define a minority view that feminism is about superiority, especially retracting the "none" clause. Thank you. If you don't wish to be so retracting, please provide the books' page numbers that make me wrong, if any.

It is not synthesis to say that several sources give the same general conclusion.

When I reverted, I also added to a talk topic on it, so you and I both made efforts to communicate. Part of what happened in that time frame was a third editor's fault, not yours or mine. My analyzing another editor's personal view of my work is due to the third editor's actions being otherwise inconsistent or senseless. The analysis informs me that it's not worth doing work that the editor seems to be sending me to do, when it appears to be a waste of time because the justification is only personal hostility. In such a case, for me to assume good faith is naive, at best. Then I go back to assuming good faith in other contexts or wioth other editors.

I'm glad you've started working on the line-1 problem and I hope you and other editors come up with something useful. I'm happy to encourage you all. I do know the objections you've stated as to the lede. Continue the editing.

It appears that a line of argument above is that a secondary source is not permitted in a cite unless its statement is replicated in another secondary source. If I understood the argument correctly, this is incorrect. If a secondary source is unreliable, that is a different matter that should be addressed, but simply requiring replication, as if across the board, is overkill and not in Wikipedia's policies. Bringing together several secondary sources to state what each one states is valid.

I think the problem is that the content is controversial. For that, I don't have an easy solution.

My work on superiority is going to be in the context of the feminism and equality article, and discussion should be there, at Talk. Simply putting it into a subarticle may reduce its controversiality.

Nick Levinson (talk) 06:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Nick, a recurring argument that you use is that the passages you quoted are accurate. I can confirm that the vast majority of them are (you leave out some parts to advance a certain point). There are several problems: The quotes lack context; the quotes are synthesized to advance a certain point; the quotes could be interpreted in a completely different way. There is a simple solution to all these problems: We need a secondary source that would state something like that: "In her essay, The Bitch Manifesto, Jo Freeman argues that feminism seeks superior rights for women" or something like that. I cannot begin to correct your essay-length replies. I will have to limit my response to the most blatant misrepresentations.

• Mary Daly
• You quoted Mary Daly's as writing "this... book... is anti-male." This is absolutely correct. The problem is that the quote is used out of context and invites misinterpretation. What you leave out is this quote by Mary Daly:

"This will of course be called an "anti-male" book. Even the most cautious and circumspect feminist writings are described in this way. The cliche' is not only unimaginative but deadening, deafeningly, deceptive----making real hearing of what radical feminists are saying difficult, at times even for our-selves. Women and our kind----the earth, the sea, the sky----are the real but unacknowledged objects of attack, victimized as The Enemy of patriarchy----of all its wars, of all its professions."

So her use of "anti-male" refers to the stereotype as in "any book that deviates from male-centeredness is discredited as 'anti-male'."

The entire quote is this:

"Within this society it is men who rape, who sap women's energy, who deny women economic and political power. To allow oneself to know and name these facts is to commit anti-gynocidal acts. Acting this way, moving through the mazes of the anti-female society, requires naming and overcoming the obstacles constructed by it's male agents and token female instruments. As a creative crystallizing of the movement beyond the State of Patriarchal Paralysis, this book is an act of Dis-possession; and hence, in a sense beyond the limitations of the label "anti-male", it is absolutely Anti-androcrat, A-mazingly Anti-male, Furiously and Finally Female."

Anti-male in Mary Daly's terminology means anti-gynocidal. This definition of "anti-male" is incompatible with the common definition of the word. To quote it out of context and interpret it in a way that contradicts what Daly says is the epitome of misrepresentation.

• You also quote Mary Daly as writing "tokenism . . . commonly guised as Equal Rights" as a "false ideal" because it "deflects and shortcircuits gynergy, so that female power, galvanized under deceptive slogans of sisterhood, is swallowed by The Fraternity." This is correct again. And again, the problem is that it is quoted out of context and interpreted in a way that is no supported by the source. What Daly says is that equal rights is a "token" gift (by men to women) which yields only "token victories." Your interpretation is that "She advocated for more power for women than equality could afford," when in fact she is asking for the better implementation of equal rights so that they become more than "token victories" and "illusions of partial success."

• Jo Freeman
• You wrote: "Your statement that she "never even acts like she speaks on behalf of women or feminists" is refuted by, among other things, the Wikipedia article on her, which says, in the lede, "Jo Freeman . . . is an American feminist" (deboldfaced) and that "[s]he has also written extensively about women" ..." A feminist can write something and not speak on behalf of women or feminists just like a capitalist can write something and not speak on behalf of capitalists.
• You quote Jo Freeman as saying "We must be strong, we must be militant, [and] we must be dangerous" and that bitches are "always . . . female", are "domineering" and "overwhelming", that the highly competent bitches have "superiority", and that bitches are the "vanguard" of the society of which Joreen wrote. It is true that these words and fragments do appear in the essay/article. The problem, again and again, is that they lack context and are synthesized to advance a certain point.

"Personality. Bitches are aggressive, assertive, domineering, overbearing, strong-minded, spiteful, hostile, direct, blunt, candid, obnoxious, thick-skinned, hard-headed, vicious, dogmatic, competent, competitive, pushy, loud-mouthed, independent, stubborn, demanding, manipulative, egoistic, driven, achieving, overwhelming, threatening, scary, ambitious, tough, brassy, masculine, boisterous, and turbulent. Among other things. A Bitch occupies a lot of psychological space. You always know she is around. A Bitch takes shit from no one. You may not like her, but you cannot ignore her. "

"Like other women her ambitions have often been dulled for she has not totally escaped the badge of inferiority placed upon the "weaker sex." She will often espouse contentment with being the power behind the throne -- provided that she does have real power -- while rationalizing that she really does not want the recognition that comes with also having the throne. Because she has been put down most of her life, both for being a woman and for not being a true woman, a Bitch will not always recognize that what she has achieved is not attainable by the typical woman. A highly competent Bitch often deprecates herself by refusing to recognize her own superiority. She is wont to say that she is average or less so; if she can do it, anyone can."

Yes, words like "domineering," aggressive," "superiority" are all present here but this is an essay about women who "meet the hard brick wall of sex prejudice" and inspire everybody's disdain, men and women's, because they "don't fit." Freeman's point is that a "bitch" is not the "average" woman. A bitch is superior in that she "is living testimony that woman's oppression does not have to be, and as such raises doubts about the validity of the whole social system." You interpret this as "That is a call for superior rights for some females." And I respond: It is a call for women who defy sexist stereotyping to be proud of themselves.

• 'Jill Johnson
• You quote Johnson as "A small but significant number of angry and historically minded women comprehend the women's revolution in the visionary sense of an end to the catastrophic brotherhood and a return to the former glory and wise equanimity of the matriarchies." Yes, this is correct. Again, the problem is the lack of context and the interpretation. I haven't been able to read the book so I don't know the context. Even if we assume that Johnson hasn't been quoted out of context, it is obvious that seeking an end to "catastrophic brotherhood" doesn't equal seeking "superior rights." Similarly, seeking and end to sexism doesn't make you anti-male but only anti-sexism. Johnson emphasizes the "glory" and "equanimity" of matriarchies rather than the "superior rights" of matriarchies (in fact, there haven't been any matriarchies and it's unclear whether Johnson believes that they yielded "superior rights" for women).

• Andrea Dworkin
• As you point out, Dworkin called for a "nation state for women" like Jews have Israel. At no point does Dworkin imply that it is a state where "women govern men" or have "superior rights" to men. In fact, her comparison to Israel implies that it is a state where women are free from the oppression by men. This does not imply superiority and certainly doesn't mean that Dworkin advocates "superior rights" for women.
• You also quote: "One needs either equality or political and economic superiority." Correct. However, context is key. This quote by Dworkin is a response to Isaiah Berlin and and Ramin Jahanbegloo's claim "full liberty for the wolves cannot be combined with full liberty for the sheep" and leads her to ask if women need to defend themselves against the "wolves" (she uses Berlin's terminology). She argues that equality or political and economic superiority would do that but at no point does she imply that she has a preference for the latter option or that she advocates the latter option.

There are a dozen other point that I feel I should correct and address in your combative replies to me, but I think that everyone is able to see that the quotes your used to create a huge section entitled "feminism and superiority" and change the Wiki definition of feminism are taken out of context, synthesized to advance the point of view that feminism or a feminist minority movement seeks "superior rights" for women and that your interpretation is disputed at best. I am sorry for this super long post. Won't happen again even if Nick Levinson continues to imply that I have been disputing his edits out of ignorance. TheLuca (talk) 21:15, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for acknowledging accuracy. I will now address whether misrepresentation occurred.

On Mary Daly: Your interpretation has validity.

However, she wrote of "anti-male" as having limits that she goes beyond in declaring her book "Anti-male", thus using the word in two senses, one beyond the other (arguably the difference in capitalization makes them different words but still one has a sense that is related to but beyond the sense of the other). I did not posit "Anti-male" as meaning that she meant that there should be no men in any community she sought established. In that case, her argument would have been for separatism (which she often supported anyway) but her argument would not have been for government over men, since feminist separatism would eliminate men from the women's community. She probably considered most men as anti-women, including being gynocidal, but she didn't consider all men such. I believe she accepted that men would continue to live, which necessarily means they'd be governed, and her call was that men would no longer be almost the only people governing men, but that women would be governing, and, given that she sought genderal reversal, more than an occasional woman in mostly-male government, i.e., mostly or entirely women would govern women and men.

I didn't see evidence that, to her, Anti-male is exactly synonymous with anti-gynocidal, although they substantially overlap. Gynocide is the killing of females because they're females, but killing is not the only thing for which she blames men. She also criticizes men's restrictions of females even though the restrictions permit females to live. Anti-male thus, to her, had a larger meaning than only anti-gynocidal, so her interest was not just in stopping men from killing, for which separatism might be enough (assuming there is some kind of wall, distance, or other preventive that might not require women to govern men) but her interest was also in stopping men from restricting females.

Her book was also "Anti-androcrat", meaning against government by men or males, and in any community someone has to govern (even in an anarchy, because where everyone is self-governing if both genders are present both genders self-govern, thus both genders govern).

She did want equal rights, in the sense that females should have as much in rights as males have. However, I saw nothing arguing that females should have no more rights than males have. I did not see such a limit. Were the "Equal Rights" statement the only one she had ever made, then it could be read ambiguously, and would likely be read as a call for a more multidirectional pursuit of rights in order that females could achieve equality; but most strictly it is a challenge to the typical pursuit of equality of rights, a pursuit that she saw as tending to tokenism, so her statement on "Equal Rights" supports and does not contradict her other statements, and is important to include in order to show that, at the least, she did not advocate for equality in a way that would preclude governance by women.

So, including the statements on the book being "Anti-male" and "Anti-androcrat", among the various things for which she advocated was government by females of females and males. Thus, I did not misrepresent her work.

On Jo Freeman:

Perhaps you missed my addition regarding the Manifesto following your critique: "The author identifies the article as one of her "[f]eminist [a]rticles" and has summarized its publication history.<ref>[http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/joreen.htm Freeman, Jo, Feminist Articles by Joreen], as accessed Oct. 6, 2010 (Jo Freeman and Joreen the same person, ibid.).</ref>" It was the second paragraph of the subsection. It was present before your large-scale deletion, but only briefly (15 hours and a minute), so if you deleted without checking the article history you might have missed it. Thus, while, as you observe, it is certainly possible for "[a] feminist . . . not [to write or] speak on behalf of women or feminists", in this case, by describing the Manifesto as "[f]eminist", she was writing for at least some women and/or some feminists. I didn't claim that she wrote for all feminists or all women; for what's being presented here regarding a minority view, writing for some is enough, and she did that.

You analyzed the Manifesto as being "about women who 'meet the hard brick wall of sex prejudice' and inspire everybody's disdain, men and women's, because they 'don't fit.' Freeman's point is that a 'bitch' is not the 'average' woman." If by that you mean that she meant that only nonaverage women 'meet the hard brick wall of sex prejudice', no. The Manifesto recognized oppression of women, including those who are not bitches: "This is the root of her own oppression as a woman. Bitches are not only oppressed as women, they are oppressed for not being like women." Later in the Manifesto it says: "Our society made women into slaves and then condemned them for acting like slaves." The Manifesto thus referred to women as oppressed, not only bitches as oppressed. On the other hand, "'don't fit'", the phrase you quoted from the Manifesto, is from: "Those who had to make their way entirely on their own have an uncertain path. Some finally realize that their pain comes not just because they do not conform but because they do not want to conform. With this comes the recognition that there is nothing particularly wrong with them they just don't fit into this kind of society." (No punctuation before second "they" in original; semicolon or comma probably intended.) "Those" in that statement refers to "Bitches", "most Bitches", or "those Bitches", all according to the immediately preceding paragraph. The two statements you put together have conflicting antecedents. Most "women who 'meet the hard brick wall of sex prejudice'" don't "inspire everybody's disdain, men and women's", except in the sense that most women are disdained anyway, and most women are not considered to be bitches, the term as men apply it being about exceptions among women.

Bitches, per the Manifesto, may be exceptional among women. That does not preclude the Manifesto nominating them to govern men and perhaps women. The Manifesto calls for bitches to apply the qualities that make them bitches and observes they "cannot avoid" "be[ing] the groundbreakers for the mass of women for whom they have no sisterly feelings" (recalling from the Manifesto that "[e]ven as girls, Bitches violated the limits of accepted sex role behavior . . . [and t]hey did not identify with other women" although "Bitches are . . . oppressed as women").

You wrote, and I agree with your responding sentence in this statement: "You interpret this as 'That is a call for superior rights for some females.' And I respond: It is a call for women who defy sexist stereotyping to be proud of themselves." It is both. These readings, mine and yours, are not in conflict.

On Jill Johnston:

If you're having difficulty locating her book, her last name was Johnston, not Johnson.

You're right that, by itself, "seeking an end to 'catastrophic brotherhood' doesn't equal seeking 'superior rights.'" But that seeking was not by itself. Nor did she merely "emphasize . . . the 'glory' and 'equanimity' of matriarchies". Lesbian Nation specifically referred to an aspirational "'return'" to "matriarchies". Returning to matriarchy is more than merely emphasizing its qualities. By definition, a matriarchy is a government by one or more matriarchs. To be a matriarch, one must be a woman. Per Shorter Oxford English Dictionary ([4th] ed. 1993). Whether any matriarchies ever existed doesn't matter for whether there's an aspiration for them. "[W]hether Johns[t]on believe[d] . . . that they yielded 'superior rights' for women" is irrelevant to whether some women believed or hoped they would. Whether any matriarchies were successful by any measure may dissuade all women from aspiring to have one, but evidently some women were not so dissuaded but aspired to have them, and past lack of success of matriarchies is irrelevant to whether the aspirations to "return" to them exist. She reported some women did so aspire.

You're right that "seeking and [sic] end to sexism doesn't make you anti-male but only anti-sexism." However, what she described was an approach to anti-sexism, specifically an approach encompassed in the women's aspiration to "return" to matriarchies. That necessarily means her approach to anti-sexism included government exclusively by women.

Whether any matriarchies ever existed was answered in the affirmative by Helen Diner's 1930s book of history, Mothers and Amazons. Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade has more on the subject. Women-run societies are rare in history and perhaps none were large even for their time and neighborhood. But scarcity, smallness, brevity, and dysfunctionality, if true, even together, would not disprove the existence of a desire for a matriarchy.

On Andrea Dworkin:

"This quote by Dworkin ('One needs either equality or political and economic superiority.') is a response to Isaiah Berlin and and Ramin Jahanbegloo's claim 'full liberty for the wolves cannot be combined with full liberty for the sheep' and leads her to ask if women need to defend themselves against the 'wolves' (she uses Berlin's terminology)". I don't have Scapegoat handy (I'm awaiting it again from the library) and I can accept that the quote of her words responds to Isaiah Berlin's statement. (I'm not sure the statement on "full liberty" was also Ramin Jahanbegloo's, who I identified only as the coauthor of Conversations with Isaiah Berlin.)

You wrote, "[s]he argues that equality or political and economic superiority would do that [let women defend] but at no point does she imply that she has a preference for the latter option ["political and economic superiority"] or that she advocates the latter option." On the contrary, yes, she made it clear.

In her book, she raised questions. After publication, she was interviewed about it. "'The last chapter - that's my favourite chapter,' she said, regarding the section of her book proposing a nation state for women", reported The Guardian.

In her book, she wrote: "'Do women need sovereignty—not only over their own bodies as currently understood in the United States . . .; but control over a boundary further away from their bodies, a defended boundary? Do women need land and an army . . .; or a feminist government in exile . . .? Or is it simpler: the bed belongs to the woman; the house belongs to the woman; any land belongs to the woman; if a male intimate is violent he is removed from the place where she has the superior and inviolate claim, arrested, denied parole, and prosecuted." (No question mark at the end in the original.) That is a description, in her words, not quoting someone else, in question form, of a place with women's sovereignty in which a male intimate might live and might need to be disciplined by removal, arrest, nonparole, and prosecution. That is government by women of one or more men. Since she does not advocate that women should stop having intimate relationships with men, presumably a substantial number of women would have a substantial number of men living among them, thus the government is one with women's sovereignty over women and men, plural.

After publication, she was interviewed for The Guardian. I quoted that interview in the article's subsection about her book. "Andrea Dworkin . . . wants women to have their own country." The interviewer reported of Andrea Dworkin's statements, "The Jews got a country because they had been persecuted, said that enough was enough, decided what they wanted and went out and fought for it. Women should do the same. And if you don't want to live in Womenland, so what? Not all Jews live in Israel, but it is there, a place of potential refuge if persecution comes to call." She was thus clear that she wanted a women's sovereignty to exist; it was not a question. Even if it has to be fought for, she wanted the women's country established.

In general and on other points:

I've established, hopefully to your satisfaction, that not one of my subsections misrepresented any of the authors.

We can, of course, quote at whatever length anyone likes subject to legal limits on infringement and limits on a Wikipedia article's or section's length relative to what it's saying, the latter partly so most readers won't have difficulty navigating it for what they want to know. Citations provide a way to get additional context for those who want more. My obligation was to avoid misrepresenting, not to see if more context might be helpful to some readers. As it is, I leaned over backwards to provide more than a summary that could have been justified by the sources but that would have led to long arguments about whether the sources said even what I quoted them as saying. When a matter is widely known, the statement of it can be very short. Minority views are by their nature less well known and thus surprising to more people and thus need more proof that those views exist, and so I provided it. A minority view does not have to be proven right in the sense of the majority then being wrong, but it has at least to be proven to exist as a view, and that was done. If there's really a desire to provide still longer quotations as part of a proof already completed, I'll stop short of infringement.

An example of an argument for women governing men that I did not report (and probably won't even if there's demand to keep adding proof) is that by Valerie Solanas in The SCUM Manifesto, because I think she later called it a satire, suggesting it was not meant seriously (although perhaps she meant only that a portion about cutting up was satirical but intended the rest to be serious). I don't think nonseriousness was clear from the book's text itself (there may have been more than one edition but I think I read the earliest published) but if she made that assessment later about her intent as of when she wrote and released it then it probably should not be included in the article, at least without an appropriate caveat. With every source that I did cite, I made the best effort to ensure that it was a seriously intended proposal and thus appropriately citable in WP in support of the point.

It is not necessarily synthesis to select the most relevant statements from among the less relevant ones, and I avoided synthesizing for WP. Synthesis is important because it is possible for someone to make statements A and B without realizing they might be read together and thus risk having attributed to them something they didn't intend. That can occur when an author's statements contradict each other and the contradiction is not addressed. But that's not the case here. It's not necessary that a chapter have been devoted to a topic before we acknowledge what they wrote.

I appreciate your irony in describing my responses to you as combative. After you used bold type to scream at me and said, in effect, that I'm not allowed to reply informatively, and after you earlier had suggested that I had made most of the content up, I became defensive and saw little reason to help you. I'm interested in how you'd describe your posts to me as anything but combative. Or, perhaps, you're willing to put combativeness behind us and focus on facts, issues, WP policy, sources, and the like. I'm willing.

Feel free to list the dozen other points you had in mind. The only thing that makes them hard to answer is hiding them. On the other hand, given your track record with the issues you have so far raised, I'd appreciate the time savings if you would review them before continuing with them. It takes time to reply and show you how the sources say what you say they don't say. Only recently did you start quoting, even as you missed the mark a number of times. I quoted long before you did and that takes my time, whereas your approach is a relatively easy throwaway for you (thank you for, this time, doing more work, effectively narrowing your complaints). If you didn't misinterpret deliberately, and this time I'm willing to give you credit for not deliberately misinterpreting, you should still be more careful. For example, that an author says one thing does not preclude their saying a second statement in the same book, and almost every book is long enough to contain many statements, and even so, in my observation, they're usually nonconflicting.

I am working on a rewrite with the goal of being even clearer, if that's feasible, while still making available to WP readers the information on superiority as a minority branch of feminism. If you would like to provide additional sources and helpful analysis, I'm interested.

Thank you very much.

Nick Levinson (talk) 06:36, 17 October 2010 (UTC) (Corrected re Jo Freeman where a link was in error and italicization failed due to bracketing within bracketing and insufficiency of nowiki elements and re Valerie Solanas as to what might be satirical and clarified re Andrea Dworkin as to which book wasn't handy (not Isaiah's) and re the immediate addressee as to the throwaway, amount of work, and analysis as helpful: 07:18, 17 October 2010 (UTC))

You can rewrite everything if you wish to do so. The content will still remain disputed since none of the five sources say anything which could be in any universe interpreted as "feminism or a minority branch of feminism seeks superior rights for women." The problem persists: You quote out of context and misrepresent (or simply don't understand) what the sources say to advance a certain point of view which is not supported by the sources. This breach of WP:NPOV, WP:PRIMARY, WP:SYN is a unacceptable. TheLuca (talk) 13:52, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

We disagree. Most people reading the pages I cited should have no difficulty finding the passages, and indeed you found the ones you looked for. Nor did you find, as I did not, any contradiction from the authors, although both of us found that the authors said other things, your view being that having said other things they therefore could not have said what I said they said and my view being that they said both sets of statements. We agree that none said that all of feminism is about superiority; we disagree on whether a significant minority said so.

Your statement that they therefore did not say anything "which could be in any universe interpreted as '. . . a minority branch of feminism seeks superior rights for women.'" seems to be your entire basis for claiming "breach of WP:NPOV, WP:PRIMARY, WP:SYN". If you believe that even if the sources do say what I've said they say then any such breach would still occur, please state how.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 19:24, 17 October 2010 (UTC)