BethanyKDurham

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Hello, BethanyKDurham, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Shalor and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:53, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Response

Hi, I wanted to respond on your talk page. From what I can see on the talk page, this looks to be the general gist of what's going on:

You are arguing that the article should focus more on the connections between gender and colonialism generally excluded by white feminists as well as land rights issues. Indigenous girl and CorbieVreccan have both argued against this, stating that the wage disparity is very much a major issue for Indigenous feminists. I did some Google searching and offhand it looks like they're correct - this is still very much a major focus. From what I can see, equality and civil rights are vital to Indigenous feminism since there won't be much headway with one aspect unless Indigenous people are seen as equal. Women are especially threatened by inequality as society typically sees them as inferior to Indigenous men. Essentially, Indigenous feminism will mean very different things to different people, just as feminism in general has so many different forms and aspects. For example, in this article has several women discussing what the term Indigenous feminism means to them, with each answer being different.

As far as the Andrea Smith quote goes, I think it would be good to find more sourcing, especially from Indigenous women. Keep in mind that while non-Indigenous people can write wonderful things, they're also not writing from the perspective of an Indigenous person. This doesn't mean that they're necessarily wrong per se, just that whatever they write will be from the viewpoint of an outsider, just as if I were to write a paper on Indigenous people.

I think that the best course of action here would be to work together to see how the content can be added to the article but not explicitly replace it. For example, rather than removing the sentence that talks about how "in many Indigenous societies, women played a crucial role in community life and they often, although not always, were afforded "religious, political, and economic power – not more than men but at least equal to men."" you could add to this along the lines of this:

According to Devon Mihesuah, in many Indigenous societies, women played a crucial role in community life and they often, although not always, were afforded "religious, political, and economic power – not more than men but at least equal to men." Darcy Leigh has also written on women's roles in Indigenous societies, stating that many Indigenous societies were matrilineal, in which women were valued, not oppressed, in motherly roles. They held positions of power, and could move between gender-specific tasks or even gender identities.

This way both viewpoints are represented. Neither look to be inherently wrong, just that each addresses a different aspect of Indigenous societies from different standpoints. I think that the best thing here is to add rather than replace or subtract, as feminism of any type can be pretty subjective to the individual or a specific subset of a larger group.

I hope this all comes across right - I don't think that any of the talk page discussion was meant to be accusatory, just that there's sourcing that states that goes against the statement that stuff like equal pay is not a major focus of Indigenous feminism. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:16, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I get what you're trying to say but this is really just making me feel worse and like I have no clue what I'm doing. I feel like everyone is just taking sides. Thanks for the help, though. I'll do my best.

--BethanyKDurham (talk) 16:46, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Shalor (Wiki Ed), thank you so much for taking the time out to research and trying to understand and explain what was going on with the article. Hi BethanyKDurham. I think that there was a misunderstanding as to what was occurring with the article. It's always good to add new things as they come along to help improve content and balance the weight. What is less than beneficial however, is adding sources such as Andrea Smith (academic) that are counter productive due to her history (which can be read in her article) to the article at hand when Indigenous voices are available. No one is taking sides. The only side is maintaining a good article that is factually balanced and well sourced. Removing content that is in fact important, such as wage disparity, diminishes the article and the authentic experience of Indigenous women. Please don't take edits personally :) This has nothing to do with you as an individual, it is maintaining the integrity of the article. Best of luck one future edits :)

Thank you, Indigenous girl. I wasn't at all aiming this at you. You edits were completely fine! I'm sorry for the confusion. It was the other editor who I thought could have worded things better. Maybe you can help me make some edits and help with where they should be made. My goal is to add onto what you already have. Just keep in mind that I am new here/not an expert so if I do something wrong, please explain. The only issue I had was that the other editor on the page made it seem like I intentionally tried to create erroneous information on the page. That's not it at all. I'm just new to this and learning. Thank you for clarifying!

--BethanyKDurham (talk) 18:45, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Indigenous girl (talk) 17:57, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• BethanyKDurham, don't feel bad - like Indigenous girl said, it's not about taking sides - it's just that Wikipedia is sort of specific in that the article needs to be comprehensive when it comes to the topic at hand - even if some scholars see things like wage gaps as less important, it's still seen as important to other scholars and as such, should still be in the article. It's not meant to be personal at all and I feel for certain that both editors would be more than happy to help you integrate content back into the article and give you advice and information about the topic. For example, Smith has been the focus of controversy since she's claimed that she has Cherokee ancestry despite professional genealogists savvy in researching Indigenous ancestry stating that they've found no evidence to back up this statement. As such, she has many detractors in the Indigenous community, as they believe her to be lying to give her work more authenticity and also taking attention away from Indigenous writers who have proven ancestry. This in turn can be seen as making her work at least semi-questionable since if she's lying or ignoring multiple people telling her that she has no Indigenous ancestry, then she may be ignoring or falsifying other content. (I have no opinion, but this is the general line of thought when a controversy over falsified anything comes up in the academic and writing communities.)

If you like, I can help you with tweaking your content so that it can be added alongside the existing material. Definitely don't feel disheartened over this. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:25, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

"Native American"

It would be beneficial for you to refer to individuals who are sourced by their Nation, not simply Native American. For example, you stated that Sarah A. Nickel is Native American. She is Tk'emlupsemc which is a First Nations community in British Columbia, so, not Native American. This is especially important (and respectful) with regard to the topic and it's connection to decolonisation. Thank you for considering this. Indigenous girl (talk) 19:57, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Read other editors' edit summaries and consider these reasons; do not just revert other editors with inaccurate edit summaries

Please read again why I removed this unnecessary addition of yours. It introduced redundancies to the lede. The problem was not sourcing, it's that this material is already in the lede, just a bit further down. Why are you reverting other editors to introduce redundant content? You need to discuss these changes on talk before proceeding, and respect the collaborative process. I am placing this on your user talk, as well, because reverting like this is also a conduct issue. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 21:42, 17 October 2019 (UTC)