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Introduction

Updated introduction for clarity and included more information. Removed the bit about historical roles of men relating to their physical capabilities, not germane to the introduction but might have a place elsewhere. LikaTika (talk) 17:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Why does the MR intro say "claimed by men/boys" whereas the WR article says "claimed for"? This seems inconsistent and introduces subtle, yet important bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzz90210 (talk • contribs) 03:30, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree, this seems like a badly worded sentence. The men and boys aren't necessarily doing the claiming, but rather the claims are made on behalf of men and boys. But the whole article has incredibly badly worded sentences, some of which devolve into factual error. I don't have the time or inclination to fix them, as I only clicked here because I thought it might be the page for the philosophical concept. OptimistInChief (talk) 12:24, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. The article has changed significantly since the majority of the comments were posted. The majority of the current article is not about the men's rights movement per se. A new move request may be proposed, although a separate article on the movement itself (separate from the rights) would probably be a less contentious undertaking. Aervanath (talk) 03:49, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Men's rights → Men's rights movement – The concept of "men's rights" is not readily distinguishable from the well documented Men's rights movement. The appropriate topic, and location of this article is a discussion of the movement, not a study of the claimed rights. Hipocrite (talk) 19:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I would have to object, as Men's rights and Men's Rights (the movement) are tied together. I would imagine that Women's Rights and Women's Rights Movement (which redirects to Women's Rights) are in the same boat, I see no reason why the same solution won't apply here. TickTock2 (talk) 19:10, 18 October 2011 (UTC) This template must be substituted.

There is a great deal of literature on the movement. There is very little literature on the actual rights in question outside of the movement, which is substantially different than Women's rights, which have a body of literature and study outside of that of Feminism. Hipocrite (talk) 19:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with that idea as well, as there are MANY sources about Men's Rights oustide of the movement in question, just because it is not under one label such as feminism does not mean that it is not there. I support my argument with thing such as conscription (which I sourced in the article), or Ancient Spartan males requiring to be in state custody after the age of 6, or we can go into more details such as rituals that are required of men (in some cultures) to become men. I have discussed this at length in this article and outside. TickTock2 (talk) 19:56, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I admit I'm new to Misplaced Pages, but by my previous edits, I hope you see that I am open to intelligent discussion, so What does it take to stop a move, and what would it take to change your mind that a move is not necessary? TickTock2 (talk) 20:16, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I strongly object to any such move. I've already described the differences between men's rights and the men's rights movement above. There should be separate articles for each. Hermiod (talk) 19:17, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

This article is soley focused around the movement (well, the parts that aren't just unsourced arguing, or totally off-topic that is). What can be written about the rights themselves, exactly? Hipocrite (talk) 19:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

That's completely incorrect. 'Men's rights' should and does discuss areas in which men have and are denied specific rights based on their gender. There is plenty in the article already to support this. This is analogous to women's rights. The movement to correct those imbalances is separate, as is separate to women's rights. I do not know why this is such a hard concept for others to grasp. Hermiod (talk) 19:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

No, it should not. Articles are not designed to be advocacy pieces - this appears to be your problem here - you would like this article to reflect the WP:TRUTH that "men have and are denied specific rights based on their gender." Reliable sources do not address this - if they do, please cite them here and we can build an article around them. This article is currently a morass of WP:SYNTH coupled with a few lines about a movement. Hipocrite (talk) 19:31, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:BURDEN. It's up to you to prove your case, not for me to defend mine. You are seeking this move, it is up to you to prove that there is a good reason for it. So far, all you have done is state your opinion without sources. Hermiod (talk) 19:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

You are misusing WP:BURDEN, which deals with adding or restoring unsourced, challenged content. I am asking to move the article, not add information - in fact, if the article was unlocked, I'd remove a lot of information which is either irrelevant or unsourced. I contend that your objection is not germane, as your definition for "Men's rights," appears to be "that which addresses the grievances of the Men's rights movement." Until such a time as you can demonstrate that this article adresses something unique from "the grievances of the Men's rights movement," your objection to the move can be safely ignored. Hipocrite (talk) 19:37, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

You are asking to make an edit which others have objected to. You are questioning my motives in objecting to this which is a policy violation of its own. You have no good reason to move this article and are doing so for arbitrary purposes. You are required to give a good reason for moving a page which is something you have not done. You have two separate objections, both of which you have attempted to belittle. My objections stands and I will not accept it being ignored. Hermiod (talk) 19:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

May I remind you of WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:OWN. I agree with the move personally based on Hipocrite's comments. Alexandria (talk) 20:07, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Frankly, no you may not. I'm tired of the bullying and harassment this issue has generated. Hermiod (talk) 20:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Reminding editors of applicable policies is helpful advice, not bullying - and playing the victim does not release you from your obligation to follow the policies. KillerChihuahua 20:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

No, the behaviour exhibited here by you and multiple others is bullying. You do not agree with the points raised in the article so you try to censor it by hiding it and holding it up to higher standards than any other article on Misplaced Pages. No victim card is being played, I'm calling you out on your behaviour. It is not your place or the place of anyone here to decide what is and is not a 'mainstream' viewpoint. It's that kind of behaviour that caused this problem to begin with and you are continuing to exacerbate the problem. Ironically, you are demonstrating the exact kind of behaviour that causes Misplaced Pages to have so few female contributors. You don't create an atmosphere where people can contribute positively. Hermiod (talk) 20:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Ironically, I think if Misplaced Pages actually had a normal gender balance, the Men's Rights activists would be demanding that the article be moved (rather than the opposite), and they would be demanding that all content be sourced to material related directly to men's rights (rather than the opposite). If we turned this article into a reflection of what the mainstream world actually thinks about Men's Rights, it would basically say "Men have all the rights," as this is the general perception of mainstream society. However, since Misplaced Pages is dominated by men and has a strong Men's Rights presence, this article is instead a one-sided argument about how men are not treated equally and are getting the shaft. If you are a Men's Rights proponent you'll be doing yourself a favor in the long run if you go with Kevin's suggestions and stick to strict sourcing rather than allowing original research and synthesis to dominate the article. You'll also be doing yourself a favor by moving the article to Men's rights movement. One day women may actually show up on Misplaced Pages and edit this article to reflect the mainstream view of the state of men's rights. Since there are about 100 times more sources for the feminist view than the masculinist view, you might have a hard time keeping your one-sided argment. Kaldari (talk) 20:32, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Which will come first, more women editing Misplaced Pages or men being represented at all in the university departments creating the sources you wish users to cite? The discussion around gender has been 100% female dominated for decades. University gender studies departments are man free zones. If you are asking for Misplaced Pages to be similarly biased then you appear to be getting your way already. Hermiod (talk) 20:35, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

{{fact}} Got something to back those claims up about the university departments? Alexandria (talk) 20:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's called the real world outside of the Internet. Sorry, but Misplaced Pages does not have an appropriate way to cite such a source. That's why the article on water isn't allows to use the word 'wet'. Hermiod (talk) 20:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, According to the American Association of University Professors, in terms of full time university Faculty, the majority of professors are male. The only place where there is a 50/50 or near 50/50 split is in part time faculty positions. The relevant data is on page 6 of the PDF --TheAmazing0and1 (talk) 12:13, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I was specifically referring to students in women's/gender studies departments, not the greater university population. Hermiod (talk) 12:24, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

But that is part of the problem. Gender studies departments are not the only area where articles and research about Gender Inequality originate. People in History, Medicine, English, Psychology, political science, linguistics, economics, and biology all discuss gender issues, and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. And some of those fields not only out man gender studies departments (pardon the pun), but also publish more as a whole, and are much better funded than any gender studies department. By limiting yourself to only gender studies research, which, as some other editors have pointed out, do have male faculty and authors, you're ignoring a wealth of other sources which exist and may live up to your desire for whatever sources you think should be included.--TheAmazing0and1 (talk) 14:41, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Are you arguing anecdata? Frankly, that has no place here. LikaTika (talk) 06:27, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not arguing for anything. It's merely an observation that highlights a flaw in the way Misplaced Pages works, in my view. It is not a request for change, it is not arguing with policy or anything like that.Hermiod (talk) 06:40, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

In the face of such a statement as "University gender studies departments are man free zones", a request for supporting reference is not unreasonable, and the assertion that a thing is so true as to require no supporting evidence is I think this article's core problem in a nutshell. Ford MF (talk) 03:51, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm guessing that "wikipedia does not have an appropriate way to cite such a source" means "Hasty generalization + Confirmation bias. I honestly chucked at that, there are plenty of men in both gender and women's studies. The difference is that I can source it. As a matter of fact I can source it to 30 years ago, which means that the many men in said fields had plenty of time to influence the subject. Nformation 04:58, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

No, it means real world information which Misplaced Pages does not support. Hermiod (talk) 05:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but real world information without support is called an anecdote. Not to mention that many groups do studies on that very issue on a regular basis and publish their results. I'm curious as to which sources you'd actually find acceptable, since WP requires statements to have sources like Noformation and I provided. --TheAmazing0and1 (talk) 12:21, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

This is of course not relevant to the move/not move. But it is also wrong to say that arguments adduced on talk pages need to be backed up with reliable sources. Hermiod is clearly correct, if hyperbolic, to call gender studies departments man free - they are usually either all female or almost all female. http://userpages.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/programs.html contains a list of 900 gender studies department. Out of interest I looked the first six I could connect to, all had academic staff between 5 and 10 and half had one male, half had no males. I don't think this would surprise anybody. What did surprise me slightly was that Hermiod was being challenged over the statement. And of course even more surprising is attempted rebuttal which refers to an article - well a short piece of introductory text - which thinks eight out of forty is one quarter - it is, interestingly (but not statistically significantly), the same one in five that was the maximum percentage my spot check turned up. Rich Farmbrough, 22:00, 21 October 2011 (UTC).

I do not agree with the move, they should be two seperate articles. However Alexandria makes a good point, it is rather biased (and im male) and could use some sources and sections on the other side of mens rights. ie we have them all.Meatsgains (talk) 20:38, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Strong support. I'm reading through this article for the first time and I'm concerned that the scope and focus of the article is just too vague to be viable on wikipedia. There's stuff here about ancient greece and Pakistan and divorce in the US and its very unclear what the common theme is beyond "Disparities in the treatment of men and women by law and institutions across history and cultures". Are there sources which connect, say, church policies to only ordain men with the percentage of men who file for divorce in the US with the military obligations of men in Ancient Greece under the framework of men's rights? If not, than I think throwing all that stuff into the same "men's rights" article is original research. My recommendation here would be focus on the platform of this men's rights movement (whatever it is) and to provide as much context for each specific issue as possible. If there isn't a source connecting an issue to the topic of "men's rights" than get it out of the article. (comment copied from ANI discussion) GabrielF (talk) 20:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry can you clarify what your saying exactly? Men's rights and Men's Rights Movement are not the same thing. We have Men's rights which deals with things like ancient Greece, and we have the current (modern) movement. It's very similar to what you see in Women's rights and Women's Rights Movement. Notice how those two pages redirect to each other? TickTock2 (talk) 20:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, now I think I understand what's going on here. This article is trying to mimic the structure of women's rights except from a male perspective. Note the similarities in the intro paragraphs and the topics discussed. Got it. The problem is that these are two completely different animals. Talking about the relative status of men and women in history provides needed context for a discussion of why the women's rights movement believed what it did. Also, there's a history of change in the rights of women. There's a perfectly logical flow from talking about how women in ancient greece (which was responsible for much of Western culture) had few civic and political rights to talking about the middle ages, to the enlightenment and the suffragettes and the modern era. These developments were all related. What is the relation between, say, military obligations for men in ancient greece and prison rape in contemporary society? The structure that works for the women's rights article utterly fails for the men's rights article. The only way that I think it would be permissible to link, say, ancient greece and the men's rights movement in the same article would be if you had a source that said something to the effect of "the men's rights movement is driven by a feeling that men have lost the traditional role in society that they enjoyed since ancient times" or something to that effect which makes the link explicit. Otherwise including stuff in this article "because the women's rights article does it" is just POV nonsense. GabrielF (talk) 21:02, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Strong support I agree that it's rather vague/fringey in regards to content, sources and ideas (nothing personal, folks!), and that it might be more beneficial to create a page that can examine the belief system and culture of men's rights as a movement, and per GabrielF. SarahStierch (talk) 20:44, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Per the Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view's "Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views," wouldn't an MRA page allow a uh...how do I put this...a page where that tiny minority's views could be expressed? An article...devoted to those views? mordicai. (talk) 20:45, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Can you expand on this a little bit? what do you believe is a tiny minority? The advocates, the rights, or what? How do you separate out the current rights from the movement? TickTock2 (talk) 21:03, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

The mainstream view of the world-wide state of men's rights can pretty much be found already in the article patriarchy. This article, however, reflects the views of (American) men's rights activists, not the rest of the world. Thus it is not in line with WP:NPOV. If it is moved, that won't be an issue. Kaldari (talk) 21:12, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Strong support for the reasons listed by mordeicai and kaldari - and because the fringe movement MRM does not define what men's rights are. Giving their arguments weight and space here does not seem to comply with policies. LikaTika (talk) 06:21, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Object The page is similiar to Women's Rights and Women's Rights Movement. I've heard no compelling reason as to why they should be separated and we should not use the same template. TickTock2 (talk) 20:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC) This template must be substituted.User TickTock2 has also objected above. Hipocrite (talk) 21:30, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
  • The difference is that the editors of this article don't seem to have any interest in making it NPOV. They want to focus on the talking points of the Men's rights movement (which is a minority POV). Kaldari (talk) 21:23, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
    • I'd completely disagree with that sentiment, some editors I agree don't, but some do. We were moving towards NPOV before all this mess started. TickTock2 (talk) 14:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

@TickTock I think Kaldari was referring to the article now - in relation to the recent coincidental influx of meatpuppets, men's rights activists, and editors who took breaks out only reappear again when this article became something of controversy. I don't think he's referring to the articles previous status, which you have primarily been involved in. I think myself, and others who were involved or observing the teamwork and editing (albiet slow, but that's how it goes) taking place a few weeks ago would say they were impressed by the tedious and well organized process. That's all gone to hell, with the recent situation. SarahStierch (talk) 15:19, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Judging by the discussions above (and the current article lead which includes things like "lack of social support services for men" and "decline of college enrollment"), I think a lot of people really want this article to be about the Men's rights movement. If it isn't moved, we should work towards making it reflect the mainstream world-wide view of men's rights, not the one-sided view of men's rights advocates (as it has since its creation in 2005). Kaldari (talk) 21:08, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Strong object. Attempt to move the page is politically motivated and not consistent with Misplaced Pages's neutrality policies. Hermiod (talk) 21:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)User Hermiod has also objected above. Hipocrite (talk) 21:30, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Let's assume good faith and not make assumptions about other people's motives. GabrielF (talk) 21:13, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I've tried but there's only so much trust I can be asked to give, given the mockery of the subject from the same users posting here I've seen on the Admins notice board. I am quite willing to accept that most people edit in good faith but this has been an entirely one sided view so far. Hermiod (talk) 21:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Let's be crystal clear here - the attempt to move the page is by me. I have not posted on the admins notice board regarding this subject. How could posts to the admin notice board have anything to do with my motives? Be extremely clear. Hipocrite (talk) 21:29, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I've been clear. The suggestion to move the page was made earlier today, not by you. You are only the one who did the paperwork. It has since been supported by users who clearly have political objections to the subject itself and therefore I cannot assume good faith from anyone who votes to move the page. Additionally, you specifically stated earlier that my vote should be ignored. That is disrespectful. Hermiod (talk) 21:34, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

The entire reason the move is being suggested is that the current article isn't NPOV. It currently reflects the views of Men's rights activists, not the mainstream views of the world. If the article is moved, people will be able to focus on the men's rights POV as most of the editors of this article seem to prefer. Why is this not a win-win suggestion? Kaldari (talk) 21:18, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Support. Clearly there are conceptually different things which need disentangling. Put it this way: I am a man, I'm not too keen on the Men's Rights movement but, all the same, I do feel that I should have rights. Also agree with GabrielF that the article is actually in a worse state than the RfC question is letting on and seems almost randomly generated in parts. --FormerIP (talk) 21:15, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Objectively  ... objectively there exists a topic that is aptly called men's rights. It is distinct from another topic: a movement to promote men's rights. The topic of the article is pretty clearly men's rights. If particular movements are mentioned, that is only subsidiary. The article's clear focus is on the rights themselves, and their acceptance or denial. We do not conflate Slavery and Abolition of slavery (which redirects to Abolitionism, as a movement), or Women's rights and such articles as Feminism. We not marginalise Women's rights by reducing its advertised scope so that it seems a mere movement or pressure group. Rather, Women's rights movement redirects to Women's rights; in parallel (since the topics and detailed contents are indeed parallel, as inspection shows), Men's rights movement redirects to Men's rights. If we change one, we ought to change its mirror image. I am assuming that editors here are against sex discrimination, and in favour of equal treatment regardless of political salience, or of success in achieving the rights treated in these articles. Objectivity. Noetica 21:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

  I don't agree that we need to treat the articles men's rights and women's rights accordingly. These topics are very distinct, with distinct histories and traditions of scholarship and WP:NOR demands that we treat them as such. We don't have much of a concept of "precedent" on wikipedia - just because there's a consensus around one article doesn't mean that that consensus needs to apply to another article. Having said that, my goal for this article is to see it brought into focus. Hipocrite seems to favor removing a lot of the historical material and focusing on the platform of the men's rights movement. Another approach would be to look at the rights and privileges historically offered to men with some discussion of how people believe those rights should be expanded. That seems to be what you're going for. I think that's an okay approach although more difficult to implement because its a broader topic. Ultimately, if the consensus is to focus the article in that direction than certain sections would still have to go - prison rape for instance, or cancer funding, since they really have nothing to do with men's "rights". GabrielF (talk) 21:44, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm really going to have to check and see whether rape is mentioned in any feminism articles if you think the treatment of male prisoners isn't a men's rights issue.Hermiod (talk) 21:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I would argue that it doesn't matter what the feminism articles say about rape because we don't run things on a "but that article got to include it" basis. GabrielF (talk) 21:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

A curious response, GabrielF. We don't absolutely need to treat the two articles the same. We could take a political stand and treat them differently, I agree. We could (though I have proposed that we avoid this) act in favour of sex discrimination, and against equal treatment regardless of political salience, or of success in achieving the rights treated in these articles. Why would we want to do that, though? Who benefits? Is the landscape any clearer, then? Do you think, after long and dispassionate reflection, that women have rights to equal treatment (and an article should be devoted to those), but men do not? Whatever we need to do with article titles, and whatever political pressure might achieve, no one has given a reason here to go against the policies and guidelines of the Project. There are two parallel topics, treated in parallel articles, with parallel treatment in external sources – differing in volume of publications, but that should not be a consideration. Please leave at the door any political inclinations you may have, next time. Noetica 22:10, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

But they don't have parallel treatment in external sources, that's the point. Whereas there is a large literature on women's rights (separate from the movement), it simply isn't there on the men's side. Perhaps it will be in the future, and then decisions can change. --Slp1 (talk) 22:19, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure they do. Women's rights is very much discussed within the topic of the Women's rights movement. Women's rights is an idea of the womens rights movement. Men's rights is an idea from the Men's Rights Movement. extransit (talk) 22:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that having an article called women's rights but not an article called men's rights would imply that wikipedia is saying that women's rights are more important. I'm not aware of any policy that would support your argument - I think its expanding NPOV way beyond its intention. One problem with your approach is that it leads to situations where a user can insist that every aspect of one article match another article. Hermiod, for instance, says that the question of whether the rape of male prisoners should be included in this article should be decided on whether rape is included in articles on feminism. That's crazy. The issue should be decided based on whether sources treat prison rape as a "men's rights" issue (and searching a number of academic sources, I couldn't find any that do, on the other hand, I found tons of sources that treat rape as a women's rights issue in the sense that it is a violation of reproductive and other rights. Additionally, when I was a teacher and had to discipline a student, the student would sometimes say "but so-and-so did this" and I would have to say that I would deal with the other student separately, but that my concern at the moment was the student in front of me. If I let a student drag in another student's behavior it would derail the entire process. I think the same concern is relevant here - if we start including women's rights articles into the conversation than it adds to the contentiousness and makes it very, very difficult to deal with the primary concern here, which is improving THIS article. GabrielF (talk) 22:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Support, for one main reason. Sources. Having looked about, I don't see reliable sources that distinguish men's rights per se from the claims made by MRA. For example, the chapter on "Men's Rights" in the "International encyclopedia of men and masculinities" is all about the men's rights movement, its history, philosophy etc. The Encyclopedia of human ecology also has a nice section on the MR movement, using just the sort of dispassionate language about, for example, the domestic violence issue that I hope could be emulated here. The "Men and masculinities: a social, cultural, and historical encyclopedia" also tackles the topic of Men's Rights through the movement.. In addition, I don't see the relevance of all the past history stuff (either here, or to be honest on the women's rights page).As far as the literature is concerned, there isn't the symmetry that Ticktock2 argues for: there is an extensive literature on women's rights issues per se, likely because globally over history, women did have a lot more catching up to do, with regard to voting, property, job opportunities etc. For men's rights the literature is all couched around the MRM. However, I think it also needs to be made clear that even if the page gets moved, it doesn't mean that the policies go out the window, and MRA talking points are the main feature. It still has to follow the rules, and accept the good and the bad according to the sources. --Slp1 (talk) 21:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Coda- my point about men's and women's rights articles not being symmetrical has been made much more eloquently and clearly by GabrielF while I was typing this up. I agree wholeheartedly. --Slp1 (talk) 22:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Support No support that this topic differs from "Men's rights movement." Furthermore, there's not a lot salvageable in this article. OhNoitsJamie 22:02, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose the rights specific to men as distinct from human rights is a cogent topic, much like Women's rights. extransit (talk) 22:22, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

"Rights specific to men" has the potential to be different topic from MRM, but do you have any reliable sources to show that it is, practically speaking? Also, frankly, if that's your definition, the article is going to end up being practically the opposite of what a men's right activist would want, as through history and still across the world, the bulk of "rights specific to men" are at the expense of women. --Slp1 (talk) 22:43, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I do not understand your talking point about how this article will be the opposite of what men's rights advocates want or why you think that is relevant to this merger discussion. If anything it shows how political your contributions here are. extransit (talk) 22:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Please refrain from attributing motives. It is unnecessary and unhelpful. Do you have any sources to make to show that men's rights are a distinct topic from men's rights activism, or not? --Slp1 (talk) 22:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Not to speak for Extransit, but one would be a historical article, and the other is about the MR movement itself. I think it's totally possible to have an article outlining the various rights (or lack of) through history in different areas of the world. But that doesn't seem to be what this page is....yet. Arkon (talk) 23:10, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

-

Yes, everything's possible. But it all comes down to sources. There's plenty of sources about men's rights in the context of men's rights activism. Have you got any sources (book chapters, encyclopedia, newspaper or journal articles that talk about men's rights through the ages as a topic? If not, we're inventing a subject and we are bound to be engaging in original research to find sources. --Slp1 (talk) 23:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I've typed up a few responses, but they keep growing in length...My opinion on what this article should be, is a historical recounting of Men's rights through history in differing areas. This would not require these facts to be in a specific context, just that they be sourced (the sourcing should obviously be discussed elsewhere). Arkon (talk) 23:51, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support Move I just don't see how this can be a standalone article from the MRA one. So far it's just a collection of random bits of information. If we want to detail men's rights in ancient greece, create an article called men's rights in ancient greece etc. Arkon (talk) 22:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

That reasoning makes no sense given that we have a Women's rights article. Should we disavow the article on women's rights because we could have an article about women's rights in Ancient Greece? extransit (talk) 22:27, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I think comparing this article to the women's rights article only highlights how terrible this one is. If you have some suggestions on bringing this article up to those standards, you could possibly sway me. As it stands, its a jumbled mess of cherrypicked factoids. Arkon (talk) 22:30, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I am confused about how you think moving an article is a solution to its quality problems? Editing, not a move is the solution to quality problems, just as how Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion is not for quality problems. extransit (talk) 22:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

This is the article we have, and it's terrible. Again, if you have suggestions on how to flesh it out, I am all ears and willing to change my opinion. For now, my opinion is that the best option would be to redirect/merge it into the MRA article. Arkon (talk) 22:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, I had just started working on it; I had just allready added six journal citations and three books, when it got protected quite ridiculously (there had been a single revert in the last two days). extransit (talk) 22:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I actually agree that the protection is over the top. On that note, changing my Support to Wait until protection expires to allow editors to improve the article. Arkon (talk) 22:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Comment Wouldn't it be possible to snatch up every reference from the women's rights page in order to do a mirror article? (As a start anyway) Arkon (talk) 22:50, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Irrelevant This article is currently about neither of the suggested titles, it's a poorly constructed mishmash of perceived inequalities with in many cases poor or cherry-picked sourcing together with large amounts of original research and synthesis. Most of the parts that would be part of such an article already have their own articles. Far better not to bother with a move, but to decide how best to fix this article first (which will probably involve removing a large amount of its content). Black Kite (t) (c) 23:00, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree with all your comments about the article content, and that it basically needs to be rewritten. But I do think moving would actually help with editing because it would help develop its form and content more clearly. It's what was decided when years ago "Fathers' rights" was moved to Fathers' rights movement: because that was what the reliable sources actually were about. For all that article's deficiencies (and there are plenty) it is better than this one in myriad ways.Slp1 (talk) 23:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support Gabriel and Slp said it better than I can. It is probably better to focus the title on the Men's Rights Movement itself and re-build from there, rather than trying to stitch together a historical survey on male freedom from a variety of sources. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:37, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support Articles appears to be in large part synthesis and original research without much of a corpus of sources to reference in support, outside the men's rights movement itself. Ford MF (talk) 04:00, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I would argue for moving of the page contents of a couple months ago to a men's rights movement page. It is my belief that the page as it was (couple months back), was based on an interpretation of Men’s Rights (Civil Movement), but was held to NPOV standards based on the definition Men’s rights (Civil Liberties). A reading of the article as it was a couple months ago, would see the intention was an article of the Men’s Rights (Civil Movement), and a simple renaming would likely have resulted in many of the NPOV complaints becoming minor or non-existence, and not delete-worthy. Particularly if the page was then held to the same standards for meeting policy that the Feminism article are held to (or even a moderately higher standard, as I don't see the Feminism being held to a very high standard.).--Kratch (talk) 01:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• support this article is currently a mess of Original research and synth. At the poposed title at least it will have a topic that it is possible to write an article about without basing it on Synth and OR.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:09, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Strong support. The article's gravitational center is about the recent movement to reclaim for men the rights some of them perceive they have lost to women (as if it is a zero sum game.) There is no topic called simply "men's rights". Binksternet (talk) 02:25, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support This article, as it stands, seems to be trying to be something like Men's rights as opposed to women's rights. If we really wanted an article on "men's rights" it would have to be about the development of men's rights and responsibilities in society. It would have to include things like land tenure, feudalism, the right to a fair trial, Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the French Revolution, The Rights of Man ..... The subject is simply too vast. The current content is pitiable compared to the subject. On the other hand a documentation of the current "men's rights movement", their concerns and claims (and whining) would be quite manageable, and encyclopedic. Dingo1729 (talk) 03:59, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

The title of the article reflects what a reasonable person in modern society would expect of an article dealing with men's rights issues. I don't think a reasonable person would expect an article titled "men's rights" to deal with historical civic rights like the magna carta - perhaps "rights of man" might create such an association. A point that many people here seem to be missing is that the phrase "Men's Rights" has established mainstream recognition and understanding, at least in modern, industrial, western societies - perhaps not to the extent of the phrase "Womens Rights" - but should that exclude it from being recorded in wikipedia?Zzz90210 (talk) 09:56, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose with no objection to the creation of a separate article centered on modern men's rights movements. The women's rights article does a good job of providing an overview of the history of the concept while addressing its modern themes and various interpretations. I support maintaining a similar format for this article. If one of the previous versions of this page is reincarnated as a modern men's rights movement article, I hope editors address the polemical tone and the overly Western scope while recognizing that the movement is very broad (compare the Promise Keepers to the mythopoetic men's movement). Any move should also consider how the new destination would differentiate itself from the masculism article. Gobonobo 04:10, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose – the article does not seem to be about a movement. It should remain named for its topic. Dicklyon (talk) 04:15, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Object This page deals with a large number of clear, specific, identifiable issues relating to Men's Rights, I count at least 15 high level "rights" which are subject to discussion. These issues are often subject of heavy media attention and debate, outside of the context and circles of MRAs. Most of the points raised in the article do not even mention men's rights movements at all - so to conflate it with that separate issue seems unreasonable. Zzz90210 (talk) 04:22, 19 October 2011 (UTC) — Zzz90210 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Support move Much of the content under discussion for the article concerns Men's rights movement. After a move, this page could then be changed into a disambiguation page. (A few of those voting "oppose" are recently arrived single purpose accounts. For example, Zzz90210 (talk · contribs), an account registered only a few hour ago, has only edited this page on wikipedia.) Mathsci (talk) 08:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence to support this claim? The term "movement" only appears a couple of times in the body of the article - there is very little discussion of movements in general. The bulk of the article deals with issues that are widely known in popular culture as relating to men's rights outside of the context of MRAs, and I think most reasonable people would associate the term "men's rights" with the points in the article. Issues such as divorce, child custody/support, paternity fraud etc. are regularly covered in the mass media in the context of men's rights, usually without much reference to any MRAs. It seems highly inappropriate that such widely reported and discussed issues are conflated with "mens movements", which is far more a fringe concept with far less mainstream adoption. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzz90210 (talk • contribs) 09:40, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Please stop using this page as a WP:FORUM. Also please could you sign your posts by adding four tildes ~~~~ at the end? Personal opinions are of no value on wikipedia unless they are fully backed up by secondary sources. What you are proposing might be fine for a personal blog or even a user space essay; but at the moment what you are suggesting seems to be little more than original research and synthesis. Please read WP:RS and WP:V. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia and not a place to engage in ideological battles. Mathsci (talk) 12:42, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:IAR and WP:BURO apply here. Rules should not be used as a stick to prevent good faith editing. Hermiod (talk) 13:07, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I will assume that since you resort to making personal attacks instead of providing evidence to support your previous claims, that no such evidence exists are your claims should be dismissed. Zzz90210 (talk) 21:36, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Nothing I have written can be taken as a personal attack. Since community probation is likely to be put in place, now is perhaps a good time to be more careful about what you write. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 03:25, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. Men's Rights issues occupy a slice of mainstream conciousness, are regularly reported on within the mainstream mass media, and I think a reasonable person would expect to come to Misplaced Pages and find a page titled "Mens Rights" that covers these issues of mainstream recognition such as I mentioned above. MRMs are quite distinct, occupy far less mainstream conciousness, and I think a reasonable person would recognize that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzz90210 (talk • contribs) 20:49, 19 October 2011‎

I think you misunderstand what this suggestion is about. Its simply whether this is the best name for the article. If the article is moved to Men's rights movement, then Men's rights will become a redirect to there, OR this page will be about the historical aspects, with a link to there. No one is talking about not having an article. KillerChihuahua 20:56, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Note: Don't use the nowiki tags, just the four tildes to sign, ok? KillerChihuahua 20:59, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support It seems quite clear that what's being discussed in this article are subjects in regard to the men's rights movement and not inherently to men's rights themselves. Silverseren 15:22, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I have to admit that I am torn on the subject. I feel that having historical context is almost always helpful (but I will admit, that my personal love of context is skewing my opinion here). However, I will agree that all the sources are mens rights movement related, and the historical context sources are being removed by people who think the sources should be directly related to the movement. However, without long term historical context, the movement loses a lot of the reasons that it is so contentious and the view of the overall picture is significantly dimmed. After all, no movement starts in a vacuum, and if you look at other social movements they have their roots hundreds of years before they became effective (for example, feminism and socialism both have their roots in a historical context centuries or so before). In short, I am very torn about this and cannot decide to vote either way and only made this comment to bring up what I feel is an important point --TheAmazing0and1 (talk) 16:43, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I love history and historical context too, and I agree it is important. But it isn't up to us as editors to decide what that historical context is: we have to go with what the sources say. The sources about discussing men's rights do not start in Ancient Greece; they start in the 1960s and 1970s. I don't know if you have access to Amazon "read this" function, but

Oh, I agree completely, I just love my context that much. It's a problem, I'm seeking help. ;) --TheAmazing0and1 (talk) 18:54, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose More than enough sources for a standalone "Men's rights" article. Furthermore the move rationale is not based on policy. "The concept of "men's rights" is not readily distinguishable " is not a valid rationale. – Lionel 20:55, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support move - the article as it currently exists is a seething mess of original research, given that an undesirably large number of the cited sources do not actually discuss the concept. It isn't enough to say "X country conscripts men" - the source would need to discuss male-only conscription as a way in which men are disadvantaged, and the CIA World Factbook does not do that. Kaldari's got a good point that if we actually wanted to cover men's rights as an idea, we would be obliged to point out that men's rights throughout history are pretty limitless, rather than using the article as a soapbox about how men are so oppressed by evil feminists. The quality of sources also varies widely throughout the article, ranging from social science journals to polemics; deciding on one scope or the other (ie. moving the article to a title that reflects its content, or covering the topic of the current title) would help us source the article better. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:16, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose move. While this article is something a skeleton at this point, it is clearly no longer substantially about the "men's rights movement." A move, now, simply wouldn't make sense. Divergentgrad (talk) 00:12, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

I confess to being disappointed by this close: a strong majority (particularly of experienced editors) supported the move, with what I think were fairly strong policy-based arguments - though I guess I am a bit biased here! The closer's view that the article has changed significantly since the RFC was posted is true, but actually the content of the article is now considerably more about the men's rights movement that than it was at the time. And it is likely to become even more so in the future, since despite multiple requests to those opposing the move, I can't see that anybody has been able to find reliable sources that mention men's rights independently of the men's rights movements claims. I don't know if it is possible or desirable to ask for a second opinion on this. What do others think? --Slp1 (talk) 18:10, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Naturally I think it would be fine for some interested party to create a "Men's rights movement" article about the (apparently) historic topic. But why does this article have to become that article? There are clearly topics here that do not belong to the "Men's rights movement" to which many here have been referring. Divergentgrad (talk) 01:56, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

sentencing disparities (again)

Although this is discussed earlier on this talk page, I'm starting another section with my objections because the previous one is kind of cluttered (and a new section at the end of talk will ensure all interested parties see it.) To be clear, I'm not currently talking about the Carol Liu stuff (although that stuff is also hugely problematic,) just the actual sentencing disparities stuff. (Of course, this same problem is present in much of the content in this article.)

Currently, the section has four sources. The first source does not discuss the issue of men's rights, explicitly disclaims its reliability, and is used to support synthesis. (Without a reliable source saying so, we don't get to suggest that a fact is meaningful.) The second source, although it certainly discusses sentencing disparities and looks reliable to me, does not discuss them as a concern about men's rights; it only observes that they exist. The third source specifies that it is a working paper which means that it is not peer reviewed and has an unknown level of editorial insight; it fails WP:RS. The fourth source, although it's hosted on a .gov domain and may be reliable, literally does not specify what it is or where it is from, so it is not apparent that it has the editorial oversight required to be a WP:RS. The fourth source also, again, doesn't talk about the issue as a men's rights issue explicitly. Some of the sources in this section note that differences exist, but none of them talk about them as a men's rights issue. Selectively using sources to advance a conclusion not present in any of those sources is synthesis, and isn't appropriate in a Misplaced Pages article. To quote WP:SYNTH: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources. This would be a synthesis of published material to advance a new position, which is original research."

I'll be waiting 24 hours before making any changes to the article, so that hopefully someone can either explain why I am wrong that this is synthesis, or rewrite the section to be acceptable. Kevin (talk) 16:10, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the section on Sentencing disparities fails to be sourced. While it might be relevent for an article on Men's Rights Activism, it is not at all clearly related to anything but gender disparity in sentencing, which should be properly located in Criminal sentencing in the United States. Hipocrite (talk) 16:17, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Kevin, this is an example of why there has been a backlash against both Misplaced Pages and yourself in particular regarding this issue.

This is your position: "It's demonstrably true that men are given longer sentences than women for the same crime in USA at the very least(and presumably other countries). It's also demonstrably true that in USA (and presumably other places) everyone has the right to equal treatment under the law, and there is explicit writing that specifically outlaws inequal sentencing.

However, we must not mention this in the wikipedia page about men's rights. Why? Because we have not found an academic / mainstream source that says 'Men are given longer sentences than women for the same crime, the rights of men are infringed upon due to this phenomenon.'"

You may be technically correct that the Misplaced Pages policies support your deletion of the sentencing disparity section. However, can you actually tell me with a straight face that Misplaced Pages is improved if someone comes to the men's rights page wanting to learn more and DOES NOT learn that men are given harsher sentences than women for the same crime?

Really? Can you honestly tell me that? That this article, and Misplaced Pages as a whole, is better off if that information is not included? As you must know, the rules are irrelevant - the only thing that's relevant is making a better encyclopedia. So please explain me to me how it is better to remove the information that men are sentenced more harshly than women in the article about men's rights? Celdaz (talk) 22:09, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Second warning, Celdaz: either be more civil and less dismissive of your fellow editors' views, or you may be facing sanctions. Tone down the rhetoric, please. KillerChihuahua 22:15, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

To you, this is a completely obvious issue. To some, it's a completely obvious issue that Obama is a Muslim or that Bush is an idiot or that there's a secular conspiracy to destroy Christian values in America or that there's a Christian conspiracy to destroy secular values in America. Even if you do think that this is a completely obvious issue, I 100% guarantee you that there are people who edit Misplaced Pages who think things are completely obvious that you don't agree with. Banning original research allows us to focus on creating an encyclopedia that is (for well-written articles) no more insane about any given subject than the balance of reliable published sources that deal with that topic are. It allows editors with different personal views on a topic to collaboratively create high quality encyclopedic articles.

Yes, sometimes reliable published sources are biased or are flat out incorrect. Yes, there are some articles that I think would be more accurate if I could introduce original research to them. It's perfectly possible that there are articles that would be improved if we didn't have to use already published reliable sources. We have decided as a community that the benefits presented by requiring sourcing in this fashion far outweigh these problems. We have decided as a community that these represent an acceptable loss. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with a Wiki that allows original research or adopts a particular world view, but it's simply not Misplaced Pages. Some that do so exist and are successful to varying degrees - conservapedia, rationalwiki, etc. Since Mediawiki is open source, you could even go create an MRA-wiki. Kevin (talk) 01:14, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

SYNTH is not a policy in itself, it is a part of NOR, and Compiling facts and information is not original research. Furthermore, it is your burden to show that an original thesis is produced . Furthermore, Synth is not Obvious--Kratch (talk) 02:02, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

This talk page is not intended for finding loopholes or contradictions in wikipedia editing guidelines. To include a subject in the article, a reliable source should be found which discusses that subject explicitly in the context of "men's rights". Otherwise the material is just original research and synthesis, essentially a personal essay. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 02:25, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

And what defines "discussing a subject explicitly in the context of men's rights" mean? Does an acknowledgment that a policy is a constitutional violation because it discriminates against men not count? Does a study (presuming it's an acceptable source) that acknowledges that the law is not being applied equally based on gender not count? And why does my siting multiple relevant policies in order to defend the retaining of content count as "finding loopholes" rather that offering reasonable counterpoints? --Kratch (talk) 02:38, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Probably that the words "men's rights" should appear explicitly in the text. The same method would be used for civil and political rights. A search on google scholar or google books for "civil rights" gives lots of good sources. The same applies to racial discrimination. Mathsci (talk) 03:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I would argue that such an interpretation ("Must have the words men's rights in it") is overly stringent. SYNTH does not say a thesis can not be proposed, it just says a thesis must not be original(And I'd argue that a thesis that men's rights are a risk of being violated based on sourcing an article that says there is a policy the risks a constitutional violation for discrimination, and that that discrimination is against men, is not an original thesis). Furthermore, Policy says an obvious conclusion is not SYNTH (to which I would argue, stating a law, and then sourcing research that demonstrates that law is not being followed for a specific gender, fit under an obvious conclusion. An example of what is not SYNTH describes a source providing the size of the sun, a source providing the size of the moon, and then a conclusion that the sun is bigger than the moon (despite the fact nether source references the other celestial body). I would argue that the example provided for NOT SYNTH is very much the same as the situation described here).

I still have concerns about my arguments being referred to as "finding loopholes" and being told this talk page is not for such discussions when the original editor specifically asked for reasons why these paragraphs should NOT be considered SYNTH, which is precisely what I did?--Kratch (talk) 05:27, 21 October 2011 (UTC) EDIT cleaned up wording slightly--Kratch (talk) 05:33, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

If it's not an original thesis, then you can surely find another reliable source that makes the argument that the evidence presented in this set of studies shows that men's rights are being violated. Claiming that such a conclusion is so obvious as to be completely apparent to anyone reading both sources is a really confusing argument to make when you have multiple people disagreeing with you that the conclusion is obvious. To claim that the suggestion is so obvious as to be unpublishable makes no sense at all. I'm not sure you read the burden point that you tried to link, but here's a quote from it: "The burden of proof is light: just explaining what new assertion is made will do, and then it's up to the other editor to show that your reading is unreasonable." I've done this already in this section, and will do it again: the sources that have been used support the idea that a sentencing disparity exists, they don't say what the cause is, and they don't claim that it's a men's rights issue. The section improperly synthesizes them, to assert that a sentencing disparity exists (which is in the sources,) is unjustifiable on the basis of the other facts of the case (which is suggested as one of several possibilities by a source) and that that unjustifiable disparity infringes on the rights of men (which is not in any of the sources.) You've been unable to show that reading is unreasonable.

I am removing this section, because I believe it is clearly synthesis, most other editors on this page who have made relevant arguments (slp, hipocrite, mathsci) have agreed that this is synthesis, and many other editors have expressed concerns on this page about the general excess of synthesis currently in the article. If you genuinely believe I am wrong, you should feel free to go ask for a second opinion at a relevant noticeboard. (And please note that generally the burden of proving content belongs in an article belongs to those trying to put the content there, so please don't restore the section without, say, having gotten consensus at WP:NOR/N that it is appropriate. (Consensus here that the argument is not synthetic would also work to restore it of course, but in all seriousness I don't think you can do that, so if you really do believe this isn't OR you would be better off asking at NORN.)) Kevin (talk) 18:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

First off, you said you would delete the section unless someone could explain why you were wrong about it being SYNTH. I did that, and while I may not have convinced you, I did provide reasons which "should" have been cause to have you postpone deletion until the discussion was completed and a consensus reached. And the issue of sources was no listed in your criteria for stopping your deleting the content, and reasonable time to correct those sources and/or discuss them, should have been given (24 hours in the middle of the work week is not reasonable time for discussion).

Secondly, I did read the burden point, and it said that the burden of proof is light, all you needed to do was explain what assertion is made. Please direct me to where you state, precisely, what assertion is made, as opposed to simply stating that AN assertion is made, and leaving it to others to guess your meaning. Because it is incredibly difficult to demonstrate how a non-existent assertion doesn't count as synthesis. Because the only assertion that I have been accused of establishing was that the law and study citations were combined to make an assertion that men not being accorded proper equal sentencing is an issue of rights as it relates to men... To which I assert that is an obvious conclusion. You also claim that it's not obvious, because the paragraph is being challenged. But it isn't being challenged because the conclusion isn't obvious, it is being challenged (to this point, anyways) because the sources don't specifically make use of the words that have been deemed "required".--Kratch (talk) 02:03, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

To quote myself: "The sources that have been used support the idea that a sentencing disparity exists, they don't say what the cause is, and they don't claim that it's a men's rights issue. The section improperly synthesizes them, to assert that a sentencing disparity exists (which is in the sources,) is unjustifiable on the basis of the other facts of the case (which is suggested as one of several possibilities by a source) and that that unjustifiable disparity infringes on the rights of men (which is not in any of the sources.)" You state that this is so obvious as to not require a source; I disagree with you, as do several other editors here. The standard is obviousness and not correctness, the fact that multiple editors disagree with you that it is an obvious point seems to be a fairly strong indicator that it's not a point so obvious as to not necessitate a source. If you would like additional outside opinions, feel free to ask at a relevant noticeboard. Kevin (talk) 07:41, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

The paragraph you deleted does not imply anything about the cause of the disparities, merely that it is happening (which you don't dispute). So that thesis is not presented as part of the paragraph you deleted, there was no SYNTH involved. As to it claiming it is a men's right issue 1: the paragraph never claims it is a men's rights issue, just that it is happening in violation of the law (which is supported by the sources). 2: As you have made abundantly clear, this is not an article about the men's rights movements issues, but of the rights men hold in general. Discussing how those rights are not being upheld (supported by the sources) seems rather relevant. I'd also like to point out that you didn't provide that thesis until 1 minute before you deleted the paragraph. I would argue providing a rule that notes you need to provide something that can be argued, and than your doing so, meets your "unless" clause. Again, as to the "obviousness", it's not how obvious the conclusion is that's in dispute, it is the fact that "men's right"s, those words specifically, are not included in the source, that has caused certain editors to object to the content. How obvious a conclusion is depends on what the conclusion being discussed is, and the fact this is relevant to the rights that men are granted is a conclusion that IS obvious. You haven't objected to that conclusion, you've objected to it being assumed it is a men's rights issue, which is a conclusion never implied in what you deleted (I'll acknowledge it was implied in the "the erosion of men's rights" section title you deleted much earlier, a title who's removal I did not object to because you were correct (erosion at the least WAS a very loaded word), but that conclusion was never implied in the content of the paragraph you just deleted), so it isn't a matter of obvious or not, as that conclusion does not exist to be defended.--Kratch (talk) 19:52, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Kratch, having the information here on the page is claiming that sentence discrepancy is a men's rights issue, by its very presence. We simply can't include things such because it is obvious to individual editors - and as Jimbo says "If your viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts". Surely you can see the problem. Let's say that I come here and argue that it is a infringement of men's rights that they have to pay more for shoes because their feet are bigger. It's proveable that men's feet are typically bigger than women's. People should be treated equally, and it isn't fair that men should be penalized for something they can't control. It's obvious to me that this is a men's right issue, so I should be allowed to include it, right? Well, the answer is "no" I shouldn't, because nobody else but me has made this point (I'm guessing!!!), and I am trying to use WP to make my argument. We need external sources that make the claim that this is a men's rights issue or this article will be a free for all. If it is really a men's rights issue it will be possible to find sources. It really isn't that difficult to find sources to make the key points about men's rights issues. I don't have time to take this particular topic on, but honestly the time spent arguing about this would be better spent finding reliable sources about men's rights issues. They are out there, quite a lot of them. --Slp1 (talk) 21:20, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Not a men's rights "issue", just relevant to men's rights. And yes, we can include things when they are obvious . --Kratch (talk) 01:09, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

As SLP said.. the mere inclusion of a section on this page claims that whatever is discussed in that section is a men's rights issue. A section that does not deal with a men's rights issue doesn't belong on this page in the first place. So, take your pick: it should be deleted because it's irrelevant, or it should be deleted because it's unsupported synthesis. Kevin (talk) 21:56, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the very inclusion of a section in this page indicates it is relevant to men's right's. THAT is the conclusion that is made by the deleted pargraph. That is the conclusion that is obvious. And that conclusion has yet to be challenged. It is the conclusion of it being an "issue" that you have all been challenging. Whether it is an issue or not was nether suggested in the paragraph you deleted, nor is it required in order to be on this page, as this page is not restricted to the issues regarding men's rights. If you see in that paragraph a claim that it is an issue of men's rights, that is a conclusion you have come to of your own, perhaps, because it is such an obvious conclusion, but it was YOUR conclusion to make, not something that paragraph suggested. THAT's why I'm not jumping through your hoops. Doesn't matter that you set a clause to stop you from deleting the content. Doesn't matter that I met that clause and gave reasoning (at least enough for discussion to ensue), Doesn't matter that this page is under probation, it's your page, you'll do what you want--Kratch (talk) 01:09, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know how to make it any clearer. I do not agree that that conclusion is obvious. Multiple other editors disagree that that conclusion is obvious. I have told you why the material as it stands is inappropriate, and multiple other people have agreed. I have even told you where you can go to get additional outside opinions if you disagree with us.

As you mentioned: this page is under probation. The probation includes an explicit mandate to "avoid discussing other editors, discuss the article instead." You are aware of this. Please stop making posts like your last post. If you do not, I will be asking an uninvolved administrator to sanction your behavior under the terms of the article probation. Kevin (talk) 03:35, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

And how do you respond to the sources I found here? NCFM talks about sentencing disparities in specific relation to discrimination against men: http://ncfm.org/2011/04/issues/criminal-sentencing/ As does this site, which explicitly discusses "gender discrimination"" http://law.jrank.org/pages/2051/Sentencing-Disparity-Studies-documenting-illegitimate-disparities.html Celdaz (talk) 00:14, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

To deal with the last link first: please go read WP:RS. Some random website that gives no indication of they are, does not attribute an author, has no indication of editorial oversight, and has no established reputation is not a reliable source for anything, ever, in any context. For the second: I think you have missed that I have not said that a sentencing disparity section doesn't belong in this article. All I've said is that the current one was unacceptably synthetic. The NCFM link is a perfectly acceptable primary source for saying that the NCFM considers it a men's rights issue. When the page move discussion closes and this becomes a page about men's rights activism, then a mention of it will totally belong in the article. An example of what such a mention might look like: "The National Coalition for Men, the United States' largest men's rights organization, considers disparities in sentencing between genders a men's rights issue, pointing to research showing that men in the United States receive higher sentences than women do for the same crime, even when all known mitigating factors are accounted for." (I wouldn't consider it particularly appropriate to use the NCFM link to support a section in the current article, since it won't be a secondary source RS by our standards. But it'd be perfectly appropriate in an article about MRA's - which is one reason why I want the move.) Saying "this section is currently poorly sourced unacceptable original research" is completely different from saying "this section can never be in the article." Kevin (talk) 00:38, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Kevin, the examples you gave are in fact irrelevant, and here is why. All your examples are either demonstrably false, a subjective matter of opinion (Bush's intelligence), or lack evidence to prove them true (conspiracies). Therefore, whether they are "obvious issues" is irrelevant - they must be excluded from Misplaced Pages for one of those three (very significant) reasons.

Sentencing disparities, on the other hand, are none of those three. They are demonstrably true and not a matter of opinion. The right to equal treatment under the law is likewise demonstrably true and not a matter of opinion (that is, the existence of such right as written under US law is not a question of opinion). That is why your explanation fails.

Now, up until this writing I believed that a strict adherence to Misplaced Pages policy dictated that sentencing disparity be excluded. However, after reading Kratch's elaboration and citation of further rules, I see that in fact, the rules clearly allow the section to remain. The analogy of the sun and the moon seem to be analogous to sentencing disparities and equal treatment under the law.

"Source 1 says the Sun is this big. Source 2 says the moon is this big. Therefore the Sun is bigger." = OK under the rules.

"Source 1 says we have the right to equal sentencing. Source 2 says men are given harsher sentences. Therefore men's rights are being violated." = OK under the rules. Celdaz (talk) 16:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

It's best to stick with the policy pages than delving around on essay pages. The latter are the opinions of one or more editors, and don't have consensus of the community, unlike the policy pages. The actual OR policy says: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources." If neither of source 1(A) nor source 2(B) state "Therefore men's rights are being violated" the article cannot say it or imply it. Your sun and moon analogy is of a different form; I am sure a logician can explain clearly and concisely why, but even from lay point of view they are not equivalent. It is to do with "bigness" being the predicate position in both propositions and forming the conclusion too. --Slp1 (talk) 17:20, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Neither source A nor B specifically say "men's rights are being violated", correct. But source A says that "everyone (by definition including men) has the right to equal sentencing" and source B says "we have proved that men don't receive equal sentencing." The rules of logic clearly indicate that the conclusion "men's rights are therefore being violated" is just as inevitable and reasonable as "the sun is bigger". I really do not see see how this arguing about technicalities and removing valid information helps make a better article - Kevin's explanation about "obvious issues" above was a failure as I explained previously. Celdaz (talk) 17:35, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that you would have WP make an exception to our policies for this edit and this page, and we simply can't do it. If you'd like to change the policy, then the place is the talkpage of the WP:OR page, not here. It's a question of what WP's role and purpose is, and it simply isn't the place to make new arguments and draw new conclusions. If nobody but men's rights activists have noted this as a violation of "men's rights" then WP won't be the first place to do so. --Slp1 (talk) 17:46, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

See WP:CALC for why we can say "2 (the volume of the moon) is less than 3 (the volume of the sun)," but not "It is only fair for men to have the right to an abortion." Hipocrite (talk) 17:44, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

All kinds of conspiracy theorists believe that what they believe in is so well supported by the available evidence as to be obvious. For instance, these guys believe that legal action taken against them is invalid because it's taken against JOHN Q SMITH (who they believe is a fictitious entity) and not John Q Smith. To be clear, I don't think MRA's are conspiracy theorists, but I do believe that the argument "But it's so obvious when you look at these sources that it should be included in Misplaced Pages without a reliable source having stated it" is not an argument that we can ever accept for claims of this nature partly because it's so hard to define a line. The tax conspiracy guys believe that the straight facts prove their point 100% obviously beyond any reasonable doubt, and I suspect that you'd look at their claims and think they are crazy. Requiring reliable sources for all arguments stops us from having to draw a line.

Anyway, there's another significant problem: including a section that has not being discussed in reliable sources also isn't something that we do. Even if this whole section wasn't unacceptable synthesis (and it is), Misplaced Pages articles are supposed to "fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint." Also please note, I editconflicted with everyone who has replied recently, so this whole reply was written before the new replies. Kevin (talk) 18:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I still hold the position that this pedantry is a net harm to the article and that if the sentencing disparity section is removed, the article will be worse off. That said, the NCFM talks about sentencing disparities in specific relation to discrimination against men: http://ncfm.org/2011/04/issues/criminal-sentencing/

As does this site, which explicitly discusses "gender discrimination"" http://law.jrank.org/pages/2051/Sentencing-Disparity-Studies-documenting-illegitimate-disparities.html Celdaz (talk) 00:54, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Just butting in here - Celdaz and Kratch what is being pointed out to you is that sources themselves must treat sentencing disparity within the context of men's rights. Nobody is arguing whether or not sentencing disparity exists just that third party reliable source have not as yet treated this in a way that gives wikipedia a reason to mention here on the men's rights page. And as a point of order neither of your sources even mention the term 'men's rights' (even if it mention's gender discrimination it does not examine the issues wrt men's rights and thus using it to do so is a synthesis). Unless a source frames itself as being about men's rights issues using it to talk about that is originl resaerch and while that could make a good blog post, news article or book it is not appropriate for a wikipedia article. Continued arguentation about it is a dead-end and is coming to the point of tendentiousness--Cailil 01:31, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Prison rape & Cancer sections

I have removed this, because apart from the main claims being utterly unsourced, it is completely irrelevant to this article. It is clearly ridiculous to have a section pointing out that men are more likely to be raped in prison, without equating this with the likelihood of either gender being raped in general. I have added a caveat to the Cancer section, although I'm unconvinced that this needs to be here either. Black Kite (t) (c) 17:39, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I see no reason why the following sentence belongs in a section about the low spending of money on prostate cancer: "However, this has to be seen in the context that breast cancer mortality rates are significantly higher, and that screening is more expensive than that for prostate cancer." It is silly to say anything "has to be seen" in any light whatsoever. That is a call to the reader to adopt a position which is influenced by an unbiased perspective. This article is not meant to be a debate about the validity of complaints over men's rights. Furthermore, this statement contains nothing quantifiable. I might think differently if there was quoted a mathematical model showing the ratio in quality-adjusted life years for each cancer, vs. the ratio in spending for each cancer. Until such quantification is made available, I am removing the statement altogether. Divergentgrad (talk) 17:03, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

New editors may be expected

The Redditors in Men's rights have noted the unprotection of this page. If we have new editors, please remember to start with a welcome message, and don't bite the newcomers. Thanks all for helping keep this page civil, and my job easier. KillerChihuahua 19:27, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Should we perhaps make a custom welcome message for this topic with an outline of the relevant policy or would that be an AGF violation? Also, evidently we're all feminists. Nformation 19:50, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Use standard templates; if the first edits are contrary to policy we have welcome templates to cover that. Look on WP:WT under Specialized messages if you don't feel that {{subst:welcome}} will cover it. I don't see that anything other than {{subst:Welcomelaws}}, {{subst:welcomenpov}} or {{subst:Welcomeunsourced}} will be needed. KillerChihuahua 19:59, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello! I am a new editor here. I just voted in the move thingy and it was very exciting. How many votes do we need to win? Do the women have to get permission before they can vote? This biting stuff. Kinda seems canibalistic, reminds me of vampirism. Gross. Anyway, could someone please tell me how do i get one of those neat "welcome" templates? – Lionel 21:11, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Lol KillerChihuahua 22:48, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

domestic violence

As it stands right now, this section is really awful. It says, as uncaveated fact, "In many jurisdictions, domestic violence is seen as men assaulting women and female violence is systematically minimized and denied." It does have sources, and there really are reputable sources that do claim this, but it's not at all an uncontroversial claim - although there are definitely reliable sources that support what is current said in the section, there's also very strong support in reliable sources for the exact opposite. The section currently makes no effort what so ever to accurately represent the state of the literature - it consists of cherrypicked sources used to advance a point of view. I don't have time to rewrite the section right now, but I am commenting it out until someone does.

Domestic_violence#Gender_aspects_of_abuse although not perfect is a hell of a lot better, and will give you some idea of how weird this section as it currently stands is. That page may also be a good place to start getting ideas about how to rewrite this section in an acceptable manner (although with a page move likely happening, it may not be a good idea to do a full rewrite before we figure out the scope of the new page...) Kevin (talk) 18:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

If you feel that it is missing the other side of the issue, but don't have time to add to it yourself, you could NPOV tag it, but removing it when you admit that it has reputable sources is a bit much. I'll be doing the R in BRD shortly. Arkon (talk) 18:33, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

As it stood, it was a grotesque misrepresentation of the literature. For now, I have simply swapped the content that was in the section with the first paragraph of Domestic_violence#Gender_aspects_of_abuse. Please feel free to do a further import of content from that page if you think it's warranted, or to revert me if you think that the initial content was more balanced than the new stuff is. I'm not intending to edit war about it, it's just did a colossally poor job at representing the main POV's present in reliable sources as it was. (I would've actually done this the first time if it had occurred to me, instead of just blanking it.) Kevin (talk) 18:42, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I won't be reverting that section again. But you probably shouldn't have either. Arkon (talk) 18:46, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

If you think the prior version of it was better, please revert to it - or just let me know and I will selfrevert. I usually would not repeat an edit similar to one that had been rv'ed so soon, but it hadnt occurred to me to import content previously, and it seemed vastly preferable to either other option. If you disagree that its a better option, let me know. Kevin (talk) 18:52, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

The version before was perfectly accurate. Did you read my citations, they were impeccable. The Florida Law Review, Psychological Bulliten, Routledge. Your version uses domestic violence advocates to give an out of context assertions that all claims of equal rates are only because of women's self defense, but that is true at all. As per the extensive discussion about this before "Dobash is not a reliable source. He merely dismisses data that he doesn't like. He presents no evidence. He is notable enough that his criticisms should be mentioned, but certainly not notable enough to simply dismiss the great bulk of the research on this question." How about what a non activist source says? Well, Archer (2000) which has been cited over 1000 times (Google), or more than 680 (per WebOfScience) says

It has often been claimed that the reason CTS studies have found as many women as men to be physically aggressive is because women are defending themselves against attack. A number of studies have addressed this issue and found that when asked, more women than men report initiating an attack (Bland & Om, 1986; DeMaris, 1992; Gryl & Bird, 1989, cited in Straus, 1997) or that the proportions are equivalent in the two sexes (Straus, 1997). Two large-scale studies found that a substantial proportion of both women and men reported using physical aggression when the partner did not (Brush, 1990; Straus & Gelles, 1988b). This evidence does not support the view that the CTS is only measuring women's self-defense.

Sources that reliable sources say have a history of misrepresenting issues are not reliable sources for refuting the idea that misrepresentation has gone on. Lifetime domestic violence advocates and feminists are hardly reliable sources because of an obvious COI. Family researchers like Archer or Frieze (who does call her self a feminist) and criminal psychologists like Motz are. I am reinstating my version. extransit (talk) 20:06, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm bringing the sources here for reference

"The denial or trivialization of violence by women against men and the knowledge that women can also be violent imply that what is happening to the male victims of violence needs to be examined."

• Frieze, Irene (2000). "Violence in close relationships—development of a research area: Comment on Archer (2000)". Psychological Bulletin 126 (5): 681-684.

"Despite the wealth and diversity of the sociological research and the consistency of the findings, female violence is not recognized within the extensive legal literature on domestic violence. Instead, the literature consistently suggests that only men commit domestic violence. Either explicitly, or more often implicitly, through the failure to address the subject in any objective manner, female violence is denied, defended and minimized."

• Kelly, Linda (2003). "Disabusing the definition of domestic abuse: How women batter men and the role of the feminist state". Florida State University Law Review 30: 792-793.

"Why does society deny the fact of female violence? This book explores the nature and causes of female violence from the perspectives of psychodynamic theory and forensic psychology."

• Motz, Anna (2008). The psychology of female violence: Crimes against the body. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-203-93091-6.

"selective inattention by both media and reaserachers victimization more visible."

• Straus, M. A., Gelles, R.J., & Steinmetz, S. K. (1980). Behind closed doors: Violence in the American family. New York: Doubleday/Anchor.

extransit (talk) 20:16, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

"Dobash is not a reliable source. He merely dismisses data... This is what a Misplaced Pages editor wrote about a study. Surely you do not believe that this is good enough to dismiss criticisms of the Conflict Tactics Scale? Getting cited is not such a great thing when many of the authors who cite your research do so to criticize your survey tool.

As you very well know, Russel P. Dobash is by far not the only researcher who has criticized the CTS. Even the National Institute of Justice has explained that the CTS "may not be appropriate for intimate partner violence research because it does not measure control, coercion, or the motives for conflict tactics; it also leaves out sexual assault and violence by ex-spouses or partners and does not determine who initiated the violence." The CTS does not measure the motivation for violence (a person who acts in self-defense scores one point on the scale just as the person who initiates violence); the CTS does not measure sexual violence (if you push your partner after she/he raped you then you get a point but not your partner); the CTS does not measure control, violence among ex-partners etc.

The issue is more complicated than you present it. Straus (the person who invented the CTS) cites studies that say that more women than men report initiating an attack. Other studies found that women are more willing to report their use of violence because "women tend to recognize such behavior as a violation of their socially prescribed gender role and readily confess to their transgression of the norm for their behavior; men, on the other hand, tend to minimize their violence against female partners" and that women tend to underestimate victimization while men tend to overestimate theirs (see Frude, N. (1994). "Marital violence: An interactional perspective. In Male violence (ed by Archer). Routledge Press. London, England; Rouse, L., Breen, R. and Howell, M. (1988). "Abuse in intimate relationships: A comparison of married and dating college students. Journal of interpersonal violence. 3 414-419; Schwartz, M. (1987). "Gender and injury in spousal assault." Sociological forum. 20. 61-75; Ferrante, A. et al (1996). Measuring the extent of domestic violence. Crime Research Center, University of Western Australia. Hawkins Press. Perth, Australia etc.)? Just because Archer defends his research and his methodology does not mean that criticisms of the CTS are "debunked" or something.

A domestic violence section that is exclusively based on CTS studies (without even mentioning their limitations) does not accurately represent the current state of literature. To be more precise, CTS studies do not examine domestic violence. They examine domestic violence minus sexual violence minus self-defense minus violence by ex-partners etc. It's a completely different definition of "domestic violence". --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 21:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, you arguments are somewhat irrelevant as the section does not make an argument for gender symmetry (yet). It just says that women's violence against men is minimized. As for your assertions about the CTS, approximately one hundred studies that have not used the CTS have found the same thing (see Fieberts bibliography). extransit (talk) 22:00, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

The quote you presented (for the third time) makes that argument. "Approximately one hundred studies"... Is that a guess? Thousands of studies have been conducted on domestic violence. Many of them by organizations such as the World Health Organization etc. I do not object to including CTS studies in this article. What I request is that we add a global perspective (most if not all CTS studies are from the United States), criticisms of CTS, large-scale, preferably international studies that include measures of motivation, control, sexual violence etc., and statements on claims of "gender symmetry" by organizations such as the National Institute of Justice.

Please also note that CTS studies do not look at domestic violence in a crime context but frame violence in relationships as lovers' quarrels (quote from Straus: "No matter how well a couple gets along, there are times when they disagree, get annoyed with the other person, or just have spats or fights because they’re in a bad mood or tired or for some other reason. They also use many different ways of trying to settle their differences. I’m going to read some things that you and your (spouse/ partner) might do when you have an argument. I would like you to tell me how many times ... in the past 12 months you ..." (Straus 1990b, p. 33) The CTS does not frame domestic violence as a crime and therefore a violation of anyone's rights whereas national surveys supported by National Institute of Justice, Center for Disease Control, and Bureau of Justice Statistics are conducted within a safety or crime context (and clearly find more partner abuse by men against women) (again see NIJ source). --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 22:52, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I find it amusing that you accuse me of making up numbers, when I actually did not (I counted, earlier back on talk:DV. Fiebert's bibliography has 282 entries. 147 use the CTS, 19 use the CTS2, 126 use other methodologies), and then go on to make up your own "thousands of studies"....

I don't understand why you want to keep arguing about the CTS. Aside from the fact that criticism of the CTS is almost all political, aside from the fact that 126 studies that did not use the CTS came to similar conclusions. My version here has nothing in it about prevalence so arguing about prevalence is beside the point. extransit (talk) 23:03, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I also agree that this section is deeply problematic. I have several concerns about WP:Verifiability, and would like more information. This section appears sourced but when I look at the sources I can't find the information. Page numbers and links would help.....

• can you please give a page number in the Motz book to support "In many jurisdictions, domestic violence is seen as men assaulting women and female violence is systematically minimized and denied"? I looked fairly closely and don't see anything.
• Same thing for "This means that support networks for victims of domestic violence are often only available to women and that in mutually abusive situations only the man may face legal consequences" What is the page number of Cook's Abused Men where this appears? I've also looked for Rosenthal (2006) also cited there. I can't find the source, and so perhaps you could find a better link or reference. The portion of the text cited there "Even when couples violence is mutual or minor, domestic violence programs typically discourage partner reconciliation" bears little or no relationship to the content it is supposed to source.
• What is the page number of from the Nathanson and Young book for "It has also been alleged that dishonest information and tactics by activists contibutes to an unjustifiably negative image of men and misandry". I can't find this information as related to domestic violence in particular in the book at present

There is also the problem of cherrypicking of information, apparently to push a POV.

• For example, why is "Men aged 20 to 24 were just as likely to be the victims of domestic violence as women" noted from this source but not "overall women are more likely to be abused in general and to be the victims of stronger physical violence. Across all age ranges, one in four women have been abused compared with one in six men" which comes just after?

Finally, there is the major problem of original research, which has been pointed out repeatedly on this page as a criticism of much of the content of this page. Virtually none of these sources make the connection with men's rights. Various bits and bobs seem to have been put together to advocate for a position. Can you point out where these links to men's rights are made in the various sources please?

I'm going to wait a while to get the page numbers and clarifications so that I can check some of the sources before removing all or part of this section. Thanks for your help. --Slp1 (talk) 21:45, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Your criticisms are easily addressed.

• On your first point, as the purpose of Motz's book it to answer the question "Why does society deny the fact of female violence?" and includes discussion of domestic violence I'd say it damn well supports "female violence is systematically minimized and denied". The first part of the sentence is supported by the first two citations, Kelly and Fierze.
• About Cook's book. See page 102 ("few regular support groups exist"), page 89 ("male options are more limited"), and page 72 for a discussion of how such stereotypes hurts men. It is easy to see how the Rosenthal citation supports the sentence (although I admit I should have picked a better quote). The article talks at length about how things such as the VAWA only focus on women. I will improve that.
• Third. That is what the whole book is about and I do not see how you can honestly challenge that citation. Just read the the product description from Amazon. The thesis of the book is that the media and others are spreading misandry and gives a number of ways they do this including domestic violence myths.

Now, you evidence for a cherry picked POV makes no sense. The current version does not cover the prevalence of domestic violence so I don't understand how linking me to a BBC article that says men batter more is at all relevant. If you would like to introduce the issue of prevalence in, please go ahead.

Finally about synthesis. If you read WP:SYNTH, it says articles should not go X and Y therefore Z. This section does not do this in any way! You instead seem to be making the claim that if a source does not contain the title of an article it can not possibly be on topic? Well, go trim out about 15% of Misplaced Pages's content then. In the Women's rights article for example many of the sources used to used to write the voting section only talk about "suffrage" not womens rights ('oh noes! SYNTHESIS! how can we know the sources are on topic if they do not use the phrase "women's rights"??'). The issue of men and domestic violence and unfairness or bias (which all the sources discuss) is appropriate for an article on men's rights both by common sense (Misplaced Pages:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue) and by the extensive bibliographies of writers such as Warren Farrell. extransit (talk) 22:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) They may be easily addressed, but not so easily accepted, I fear.

• First: "Female violence" can mean all sorts of things, including female serial killers, for example. What is the connection to domestic violence? If you can't provide a page number from the Motz book, that links this directly to the claim that "In many jurisdictions, domestic violence is seen as men assaulting women and female violence is systematically minimized and denied" it needs to be removed as a citation.
• Second: Thanks for offering to improve. I will wait for you to do so.
• Third: Yes, you are right that the whole of Nathanson and Young is about how misinformation has affected the perception of men etc... but you've quoted this in a section about men's rights and domestic violence. Where do they discuss this topic? Which page number? Per WP:V you need to provide a source that "directly supports it", including "page numbers where applicable". It is the epitome of original research and advocacy to collect together disparate reliable sources, none of which make the specific point, to make a new argument.
• Cherry picking: of course your preferred version makes a point. Instead of summarizing the article accurately and neutrally, as required by all editors, you have chosen to pick out one point, ignoring all the rest.
• Synthesis: The Women's rights article is irrelevant, so I have no idea whether your point is correct or not, though I'd point out that a synonym for suffrage is voting rights. Complain at the Women rights article if you have issues with the content of that article. As far as this article is concerned, an article about Men's rights needs to be about things that secondary sources have identified as men's rights. Collecting together various facts (even if sourced) in an article is original research. See WP:OR "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." The sources need to make the connection and point to men's rights. Otherwise it appears that you are collecting together various bits of information to make a point. I (and others) am challenging your sources and your sourcing and your conclusions, so references to "common sense" is not appropriate. --Slp1 (talk) 23:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

The pedantry of your arguments is incredible and off-base.

• About Motz. Section three in her book is entirely about domestic violence. Would any reasonable person conclude that when said she "violence" she was including domestic violence? Yes. Would any reasonable person conclude that that was what she intended? Yes. Reading a text as it is supposed to be read is not synthesis.
• About Nathanson and Young, ditto with above.

You say "It is the epitome of original research and advocacy to collect together disparate reliable sources, none of which make the specific point, to make a new argument", please explain how I am doing that? I have assembled a number of sources arguing that men are being neglected or treated unfairly over the issue of domestic violence and used their arguments. Men being treated unfairly by the legal system is topical for the article per common sense and the definitions from Farrell, as I said above. I also reject you calling me pointing out the standard practice of using sources that cover a topic even if they do not use the exact term as "irrelevant". extransit (talk) 00:17, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I suppose it is true that the Motz reference is not as topical as it could be so I am going to replace with another citation to Cook. extransit (talk) 00:25, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

It's the same arguments being used to justify deleting the Sentencing disparity section. If the sources don't specifically say "men's rights", it's off topic. . I suspect this issue (are these SYNTH? or is SYNTH being used excessively stringently?) will need to be resolved before this article can possibly move forward.--Kratch (talk) 02:16, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, no they are twisting WP:SYNTH. I'm going to start a new section about this in a bit; this tactic for whittling away the content needs to be bitten off at the head. If something is topical is a question for reliable sources, but once topicality is established it does not need to be reiterated in every single citation. Take a look at, say, Nuclear safety or Aftermath of World War I, hardly any of the sources used contain the title of their respective topic yet we use them because we know they are topical. We do need to demonstrate first that something is a men's rights issue (if someone could get their hands on some Farrell then we would be set for life), but once that is established with reliable sources then using sources that discuss only that issue is appropriate. extransit (talk) 03:09, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, well I have given 90 minutes that I didn't have to compose something about men's rights and domestic violence that is sourced to high quality sources. All the sources talk about both men's rights and domestic violence, and thus there should be no synthesis now. It really wasn't that difficult to do: it's just a question of looking for the right sources. BTW, extransit, you don't need to find articles with men's rights in the title. It just needs to be part of the topic of the paragraph, page, or whatever.--Slp1 (talk) 18:47, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Confused

I came here to look at the RFC - over a page move. The discussions - pro and con - seem to have some kind of partisan MRA/feminist agenda behind them, but for the life of me I can't see what benefit there is to either party in either name.

Looking at the vast amount of text it does seem fairly evident that there is a lot of uncertainty as to what belongs here though.

For that reason I would suggest that there are a bunch of basic ideas that need articles:

1. The men's rights movement, which should present a historical overview of the personalities, groups, campaigns etc.. (With other movements I have read about this is always an interesting story.)
2. Men's rights or lack thereof qua men, in various societies - for example when various groups of men achieved suffrage, a man's rights over his wife's property.
3. Men's rights or lack thereof as opposed to women's, in various societies - for example a man's rights over his family's property, lack of right to sue for alimony, polygamy without polyandry, polyandry without polygamy, matrilocal vs patrilocal.
4. Discrimination against men, both rights based, which overlaps the above, and societal which does not.

I would assume that item 3 would de-facto cover both genders, and may already exist. 1, 2 and 4 would or should be part of a matched pair. Rich Farmbrough, 22:44, 21 October 2011 (UTC).

I think this is a great suggestion and may solve the issues with scope that seem to plague this article. I have been working on a men's rights movement article on a userpage at http://en.wikipedia.org/User:LikaTika/men%27s_rights_movement and would sincerely appreciate any feedback and assistance developing it. I think at the very least, it will help make things here much clearer. LikaTika (talk) 01:30, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll just note that only the first point (and maybe the fourth) can be done without engaging in wp:original research. Point three has sourcing, but not in the context of men's rights; point two sounds like it would involve creating a set of unprovable theses in anthropology. --Ludwigs2 16:01, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Any of these except the first will be exceptionally difficult articles to write in a fashion appropriate for a Misplaced Pages article, and especially with the second and third I'm not sure that it is even possible. So far, I have not been able to find (and if anyone else has they haven't posted them here) a suitable selection of sources that cover 2 and 3 as coherent topics to be able to write articles about them that are not original research. I'm not sure that we can have articles on subjects that no secondary source has treated as a coherent subject.

4 will represent different difficulties than 2 and 3, and its difficulties may be surmountable, although I'm not sure. However, since most of the content previously contained in this article was explicitly focused on 'things that men's rights groups of the 20th and 21st centuries in the industrialized world view as men's rights issues' I feel that the existing stuff from this article would be more productively covered in an article about men's rights activism or the men's rights movement. (It'd also still present really fun problems of scope.) Kevin (talk) 20:05, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Anyone reviewing the edits, and the comments in the blanked out pieces can see this has been a hatchet job by some feminists and supporters. Why they keep insisting, I don't know, eventually there will be a backlash. I used to think wikipedia was pretty ok, but since I've started editing I noticed how pov-pushing is everywhere. I don't care much about men's rights, but wikipedia is going down the hill, wonder how long it will last DS Belgium (talk) 21:30, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Problem w/ Article and Removal of A Voice for Men links

This Misplaced Pages article has been the subject of two articles on the mainstream Men's Rights website A Voice for Men. Like the previously added press template for the Jezebel (website) I added templates for these articles but my edits were summarily reverted by Hipocrite claiming the were links to "pressure groups" (whatever that even means.) The summary deletion of these links (as if the talk page were the article itself), along with the tacit approval of the Jezebel link illustrates the very problem with this article as I see it. Editors construe the feminist publication Jezebel as somehow being a "more valid" media source than A Voice for Men -- in the article on Men's Rights no less. Notwithstanding the fact that the WP Jezebel (website) article itself is deficient in pointing out the strong feminist bias in the Jezebel blog, it bears mentioning that Jezebel, itself, has been the target of frequent criticism at A Voice for Men and several other mainstream sites in the Men's Rights movement for its manifest misandry.

By a doctrinaire and oppressive citing of Misplaced Pages policy this article has become "Men's Rights as Defined by Feminists." The same violates, or should, WP:Undue. Ninety percent of this article is written from a feminist perspective. If the problem with that is not immediately clear I must question why you are even on this talkpage. Radical feminism is one of the primary proponents of violating the very rights enunciated by men's rights activists. If you do not appreciate this fundamental aspect of the article's topic you will not be able to effectively edit it (outside of some copyediting.)

Once it is appreciated their are two opposing sides to the topic of Men's Rights (ie believers in men's rights issues and detractors) we can have some chance of creating a balanced article. I have no problem with including well-sourced feminist inspired "research" in the article, as long as they are qualified as such and not given undue weight in the article.--Cybermud (talk) 17:52, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

A voice for men is nothing more than a glorified blog. Jezebel is a product of Gawker Media, a reliable source. Hipocrite (talk) 17:59, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Without delving deeply into the way you are inappropriately categorizing, and minimizing AVfM and it's relevance to the article's topic, it's worthwhile to mention that Jezebel, itself, is a glorified blog. In any case your comment also serves to illustrate my point about how sources that are actually about advancing Men's Rights are not just marginalized or dismissed, but deleted altogether, whereas feminist sources are held up as "reliable" for the topic of Men's Rights. It's like calling medical literature produced by Tobacco companies "reliable" while, simultaneously, failing to explicitly acknowledge the source of the research, much less its clear conflict of interest in relation to the topic.--Cybermud (talk) 18:19, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

'Feminist sources', as you label them, meet our sourcing guidelines as laid out at WP:RS. These guidelines are content-agnostic. If you are aware of pro-MRA sources of equivalent quality, please share them so that they can be incorporated in to the article. We consider academic sources to be the highest quality, so it would be fabulous if you could post some pro-MRA academic sources. Neutrality does not require that we represent all viewpoints equally. We represent viewpoints in a way that is roughly proportionate to how they are represented in reliable sources. If reliable sources represent primarily one viewpoint, that's fine, and our article will then represent that as the mainstream viewpoint. Kevin (talk) 19:18, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

In case you missed it, I'm ok with feminist "research" as long as it is identified as such. Pretending it's the "mainstream" view is not ok though. Regarding "content agnostic" policies you are aware that policies can be facially neutral but disproportionately affect one group or another in adverse ways or be enforced in ways that are massively and pervasively biased? The examples of such are legion, but you may want to take a look at way blacks and whites are treated by the American legal system and the disparity in punishment in drug laws against crack cocaine versus powder cocaine (in spite of them both being the same drug.) Further, while your giving editorial advice and dictating policies to others you may want to suggest to the editors that seem to share your opinion on what this article should look like that they shouldn't refer to other editors as "activists" (for men's rights or anything else.) In closing, allow me to remind you that this is a TALK PAGE. WP:RS is for article space, not talk page content. If and when you see me cite AVfM in articles you can copy and paste this noise about how AVfM is not a project of Gawker Media (the relevance of such is beyond me though.. American Media publishes several reliable sources... it also publishes the National Enquirer.. ---Cybermud (talk)} previous comment was unsigned, signing for him for clarity

I asked you earlier to do so, but to ask again: please post some pro-MRA academic sources so that they can be incorporated in to the article. Misplaced Pages articles are supposed to represent all points of view present in reliable sources in a way that is roughly proportionate to the fraction of reliable sources that hold them. To quote Jimbo, "If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts." (We consider academic sources to be of the highest quality. Pro-MRA papers published in peer reviewed academic journals would be ideal, and pro-MRA sources published by academic presses would be great too. Other sources like news articles and popular press books can be informative too, but the backbone of this article should really be coming from scholarly sources.)

You are perfectly correct that this is a talk page and not an article. As I explicitly mentioned in a comment below this one, I do not think that WP:RS is relevant for deciding what media links to include on a talk page. The comment that you responded to was entirely about the content of the article, not the content of this talk page.

Please make an active effort to follow the terms of the article probation in any future responses that you may make. Parts of your post seem like you are deriding the comments of other editors, which could have you run in to trouble. Kevin (talk) 19:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:RS, Jezebel is a reliable source. A voice for men, while it's very important for you, as a Men's Rights Advocate, is nothing more than a blog. Hipocrite (talk) 18:27, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd actually be interested in a discussion on the RSN about Jezebel, if you happen to have a link. If it hasn't been brought up yet, I'll try to do so soon. Arkon (talk) 18:31, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Search for "Gawker Media," and you'll see that all the other sub-sites are typically seen as reliable. Jezebel hasn't come up because it hasn't been used - however, let's be explicitly clear, while there might be some reasoned discussion from informed parties about Jezebel's reliability, there would be no doubt that A voice for men is not a reliable source for anything. Hipocrite (talk) 18:36, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

To be equally clear, Jezebel's reliability is what I am questioning. AVFM certainly isn't. Arkon (talk) 18:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Keep in mind that reliability depends on context. I wouldn't think that Jezebel would be reliable for everything, but I do think that they will meet RS in at least some contexts, since they have an editorial staff, are run by an established company, and have a reputation for at least decent coverage. That said, I don't think that Jezebel has to be a RS to be worth mentioning as a media mention. It has full time staff, editorial oversight, and a very substantial viewership. (If there's coverage in other equivalent sources, it should be mentioned... but AVM is not an equivalent source.) Kevin (talk) 19:18, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll bring it up on the RS/N unless someone beats me to it. Arkon (talk) 19:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, it'd be a good idea for everyone to remember that this article is still under probation. The terms of the probation can be viewed here. Please keep this in mind while editing and don't do things like refer to other people's editing as 'doctrinaire and oppressive.' Kevin (talk) 19:23, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi cybermud. I'm not familiar with the source you've provided but it sounds like it's being rejected as a reliable source because it's more of an OP-ED type of site. However, if you disagree with this assessment and find yourself unable to build a consensus to use it here, you can get neutral, uninvolved opinion at our reliable sources notice board. There, the editors will probably give you a more in depth response than you might find on any given talk page. Good luck. Nformation 20:58, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Greetings to all - I added an external link to the Men's rights page and it appears to have taken all of 14 minutes before someone removed it (the link was to a site I created - www.menstribune.com). An email to me suggested there was a conflict of interest with the supposed neutrality of of the Misplaced Pages site. I find this to be a little short of remarkable. The title "Men's rights" is inherently biased towards men and resources on the subject should be expected to so biased. Yet links to men's rights sites are removed and under "See also" we have links to "Feminism" and "Women's rights" which are not only biased on their face but are in opposition to men's rights. The idea that a site entitled "Jezebel" is a "reliable" source for men's rights is like saying Lucifer is a reliable representative of God.

I belong to no organization but because I speak on men's rights someone could say I am naturally biased because I am a man. But then the same could be said of women, and because we are all male or female everyone could be said to have a bias one way or another and therefore no one may speak on the subject. Furthermore, I have no commercial interest of any kind and engage in no self promotion (Although it could be said that anyone who signs his name to an article is engaging in self promotion to some degree). I do promote the interests of a group - i.e. men, but Misplaced Pages promotes the interests of women with its link to "Women's rights". I must add that I do not find the articles on Feminism and Women's rights to be the least bit reliable. The idea that women are pursuing "equality" is an outrageous lie, or worse - a half lie. Wherever men have had an advantage feminists insisted on being on equal terms with them. But when the advantage was woman's no such claims for equality were made. There are something like 16 men in prison for every woman; I ask you - have you every heard a feminist campaigning for a quota system to put equal numbers of women in prison? I know this is not the place for political argument but anyone can claim something is a "lie" or that something is "reliable" without proof so I thought I would make just one point to give my charge some merit.

Lastly I would like to address some of the reasons/methods/devices employed here to ironically deny men their rights to free speech and of the press here on the Men's right's page. We live in a society dominated by women, so the larger and more established and more mainstream something is the more it will be biased in the interests of women. If the norm and status quo are permitted to be the only rule of conduct no change can ever be made for every new idea goes against established thinking. No oppressed minority group could ever get their equal rights if they need be established before making their claims. I am a self appointed men's rights activist because I have to be. There are no national men's organizations to speak of that could elect me. No national media agency or university would dare hire me for fear of offending women. It is true that for some things the established media is for reliable. I have no hookup to a weather satellite, I cannot afford to hire reporters to fly around the world to cover events. I can remember as a young boy (I am 54 now) that you can only believe about 10% of what you read. I don't know which is worse the media member who begins with a legitimate unbiased fact and puts such a spin on it so as to cause it to promote a certain view, or the college professor who hides his biased agenda in the most high-sounding, sanitized academic language. - Tom Pollock — Preceding unsigned comment added by Men's Tribune (talk • contribs) 02:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Your added external link was removed because it violated our guidelines for external links, laid out at this link.

You have no right to freedom of speech on Misplaced Pages. We're a private website and are perfectly able to promulgate whatever restrictions on speech we like. We've decided that we want to create a neutral (by our definition) encyclopedia based on what is said in verifiable sources that meet our standards for reliability. We generally welcome people with opposing viewpoints - even fundamentally opposing viewpoints of what Misplaced Pages should be - but you have no right to free speech here and if you try to make edits to Misplaced Pages articles that are opposed to the community's idea of what Misplaced Pages should be, there's nothing wrong with us reverting them.

Freedom of the press is also not relevant here - Misplaced Pages is, very explicitly, not a press outlet. The vast majority of what would be acceptable for a journalist to do is explicitly not okay on Misplaced Pages, and the majority of what is on Misplaced Pages wouldn't make a good news story. Even if it was relevant, it wouldn't apply: freedom of the press means that the government cannot restrict the speech of the press, it doesn't mean that the press has to let you speak. Misplaced Pages has no more obligation to let you edit an article the way you'd like than the NY Times has an obligation to publish an editorial you write.

You are right that if our policies are followed well then Misplaced Pages will not be able to be used by oppressed minorities to promote viewpoints that are not mainstream, regardless of the nobility or correctness of those viewpoints. That's completely fine with us. Kevin (talk) 02:51, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

"Logical opposite"?

In the very first paragraph, I replaced the phrase "logical opposite" with "natural complement."

The "logical opposite" of women's rights is "not women's rights," which could mean many things--none of them "men's rights."

Divergentgrad (talk) 23:27, 30 October 2011 (UTC)divergentgrad, 30/10/2011

I agree that 'logical opposite' didn't really work - men's rights are not in logical opposition to women's rights. I also feel iffy about 'natural complement', but it's definitely better at least. Thanks for making the change. Kevin (talk) 18:42, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The phrase "natural complement" seems rather disingenuous to me. While the original Men's liberation movement in the early 70s was about opposing all forms of sexism, that movement split into 2 factions - pro-feminist and anti-feminist. The current "men's rights movement" (which this article is substantially about), falls decidedly in the 2nd camp. While men's rights and women's rights may sound complimentary on paper, they seem to be opposing factions in reality. Kaldari (talk) 19:37, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Kaldari, if you want to discuss how the "men's rights" movement is anti-feminist, you have to tell us to which branch of feminism you are referring. Obviously neither the men's rights movement, nor this article, are decidedly against women's rights, which many feminists describe feminism as being about. We should not be surprised, however, that some faction of the movement described in the article is against some level of hatred of men, which is espoused by some feminist groups. So even if this movement is anti-misandry, it is not necessarily by-and-large anti-women's rights. And therefore it is still accurate to describe men's rights as complementary to women's rights, even if you take the position that men's rights and women's rights are only terms being used to describe specific movements.

Anyway, even if I accepted your premise, to me it would still be a distortion to say men's rights is the "logical opposite" of women's rights. If you have a better way of saying that "there are men out there who want to work for men's rights in the same way women have worked for women's rights," my brain is open. 173.133.187.36 (talk) 13:23, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Furthermore, looking over the article in detail, you will see that the so-called "men's rights movement" to which you refer is hardly mentioned except in the History section, which is hardly a paragraph. So you would need to make a stronger case that this article is "substantially about" the "men's rights movement" which began in the US.173.133.187.36 (talk) 13:27, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I definitely wouldn't support "logical opposite". Both "logical opposite" and "natural compliment" seem overly simplistic. Clearly the relationship is complicated. If it wasn't complicated, we could just merge men's rights and women's rights with human rights. (And we wouldn't have people on this talk page complaining about a "feminist" or "men's rights" agenda.) The complication is that these rights are being defined and fought for within the context of specific movements, and these movements don't seem to see eye to eye. Kaldari (talk) 18:03, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Kaldari, neither is a good choice. There is nothing either logical or natural about this topic. If anything it is a political opposite, and a social complement. But it is more correct to say that it is presented as a reaction to women's rights.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:06, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I would disagree with that, as it's not a "reaction" to women's rights, that's a simplification of a complicated matter as well. If your talking about the movement, then it's a reaction to what they see as an oppression of men's rights, (not actually a response to women's rights movement, as if MRAs didn't believe their rights were being infringed the movement wouldn't exist) I personally think we are making a opinion without supporting source and should completely remove that part. TickTock2 (talk) 19:05, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd be fine with doing so until a source is brought up. Kevin (talk) 19:19, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok, removing as I've seen no objections. TickTock2 (talk) 14:43, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I have to admit, I see nothing wrong with the statement that "men's rights is a subset of human rights and a complement to women's rights." In fact, without counting people whose sex is neither male nor female, in the strictest sense of all the words used in that sentence, that statement is axiomatically true. The set of human rights can be partitioned into women's rights and men's rights (all humans are either male or female under our assumptions) and the complement of men's rights is women's rights. If you like I can draw a diagram.Divergentgrad (talk) 17:16, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

But do you have any sources for any of this? This whole thing seems like clear original research to me. Let's find some sources saying what men's rights are, rather than trying to make up a definition ourselves. Also I'd suggest waiting to write the lead until the actual article is done. The lead is supposed to summarize the article, and the article is such a mess it doesn't seem worth the effort at present to try and finalize anything in the lead yet. --Slp1 (talk) 23:20, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree that there's no reason to work on the lead right now. My point in editing first was to correct something false. But there is no OR in noting that, if "humans' rights" are "the rights of men and women," and we want to know the Complement_(set_theory) of "women's rights," then it is, axiomatically, "men's rights." That is, again, assuming we take all humans to fall under the categories "man" and "woman," which is not really true when people use very precise language(we have to decide about children, intergender, etc); but there is unlikely to be a discussion about "girls' rights" and "boys' rights," and "intergender rights" will likely belong to some combination of subsets of "queer rights," and therefore belong to both men's and women's rights, thus destroying the whole partition idea. My point being, there is no OR since it is axiomatic given the assumptions--completely aside from the debate over whether or not the statement is needed. (My feeling is no, since it's such a trivial observation anyway.)Divergentgrad (talk) 01:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

... really the whole formulation is problematic. The above is not really true. Sure, the set of humans might be partitioned thus; but their rights, let's hope, cannot be in the sense implied above. Nonetheless I stand by my observation that the loosely understood "complement," as that which completes, needs no source to be used in its sense. When you combine women's rights and men's rights, assuming all humans to belong to either of those sets, you surely get human rights.Divergentgrad (talk) 01:28, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Primary education and Sports?

I am surprised not to see anything in this article about education. If anyone is willing to put in some digging through the recent sociology literature, there has been some work done recently relating lower success rate in school for boys to the lack of male teachers in early years--especially in communities where fathers or both parents are absent for one or another reason (in particular, work or prison).

There is also no discussion on this page about how Title IX affects boys' sport teams in high schools, though I have seen numerous news stories about (in some cases) the 1) lack of demand for girls' teams, coupled with 2) the need to meet Title IX requirements, resulting in boys being unable to play sports locally. Only a few weeks ago I read about a boy who wanted to play field hockey, and had to ask to play on the girls' team because there was no funding available for a boys' team due to Title IX requirements. (Naturally, he was not allowed to play.)Divergentgrad (talk) 17:12, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd be interested in a section on Title IX, I just haven't worked up any good sources to do so, I'd welcome any addition to the article about it. TickTock2 (talk) 17:54, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Divergentgrad, Education (amongst many other things) had been included in this article prior to it's dismantling (see the history, the page as it looked 3-4 months ago). But to attempt to include it now, despite significant literature on the subject , would only result in a wasted effort as it gets deleted for not being about "rights". I'm sure it would get argued that any attempt to make education into a right would be "SYNTH". Title IX is an issue of rights, especially as it relates to the recent "dear colleague" letter, or the recent proposed VAWA reform that would implement that letters policies as law, though, in regards to anything sports related, any source describing it as a "men's rights issue" (using that specific wording, as is required to get past this pages editor enforcers), would then be dismissed as being "fringe" and not reliable. Even Fathers and families, a family court reform group that has been involved in implementing several bills across many states, particularly regarding military custody issues, would (or has, as they aren't mentioned here anymore) be dismissed as just a fringe blog site.--Kratch (talk) 07:04, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

GENITAL MUTILATION. aka circumcision

Why this article doesn't cover this subject? That is a very important point and needs to be addressed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/Prevalence_of_circumcision

http://menshealth.about.com/od/genitalsexualissues/a/circum_comp.htm

http://www.circumstitions.com/Complic.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.230.156.66 (talk) 19:40, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad you think it's important, however the source has to discuss it in relation to Men's Rights, which I didn't see any of yours that did so. If you have any we'd welcome any useful additions. TickTock2 (talk) 20:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I've added in a brief section on circumcision. Note that 2 of my 3 sources directly relate the concept of "men's rights" to circumcision. See, it's not that hard! Interestingly the best reference was actually an article on genital mutilation from a feminist magazine. It included quotes like: "Women’s defense of men’s right to bodily integrity and their work against MGM will not have a negative impact on their struggle against FGM" and "When women acknowledge that gender issues include men’s rights as well, more open-minded men will support women’s rights." Kaldari (talk) 07:12, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Kaldari, I'm not sure it makes sense to include the phrase, "including feminists." In context, it is a rather pointed statement--if it weren't, it would be similar to say, "including Muslims," or, "including grocers," and equally irrelevant. Whether it was meant to prove a point about feminists or not (I think it probably serves the former purpose), I recommend removing it.Divergentgrad (talk) 16:00, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I just thought it was an interesting bit of information since the men's rights movement typically portrays feminists as being unsupportive of men's rights (indeed our article says this twice). I'll remove it for now. Perhaps a more in-depth explanation could be given about the intersections between the anti-FGM and anti-MGM movements at some point in the future, as it is an interesting confluence. Kaldari (talk) 17:31, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about the men's rights movement. But if this article is trying to be about "men's rights," which it appears to doing at this point, I think it's good to leave it out. What's anti-FGM and anti-MGM?Divergentgrad (talk) 00:00, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Anti-FGF means anti-female-genital-mutilation and anti-MGM means anti-male-genital-mutilation. I just learned this yesterday :) Kaldari (talk) 02:24, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

D'oh. Of course they do. Divergentgrad (talk) 19:33, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Cancer redux

Going back for a second to the health section, it was brought up previously that someone would try to find sources that tie the cancer section to men's rights but this has not been done and I'm skeptical that it can be done. There are no "rights" to have people research a particular cancer that affects one gender or another, and the section doesn't make sense in a rights context, at least in the way that "rights" is normally used. If someone can get sources for this we maybe should keep it depending on the sources, but we should remove it otherwise. Nformation 20:40, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I disagree, at least for the United States. Since funding for cancer research comes from the government, and thus taxpayers, I think it relates perfectly to rights. Men may feel that money is taken from them on the good faith that it will be used to benefit the health concerns of the people of the nation in a way unbiased toward a particular gender. If money is not spent in a way that benefits men and women equitably, then this is a violation of that trust. Divergentgrad (talk) 21:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, I am going to change the figures quoted in the cancer section to reflect numbers from a more trustworthy source (currently, the reference is a Businessweek article--hardly worthy). The American Cancer Society estimated in 2010 there were 39840 deaths to breast cancer and 32050 deaths to prostate cancer. That coupled with the fact that more men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and the vastly disproportionate spending, I think that this is a case that needs to remain in the article. Let me reinforce that: this page (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/NCI/research-funding) shows that less than half the amount spent on breast cancer is spent on prostate cancer. This page: (http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurveilance/documents/document/acspc-026210.pdf) shows that there are more than 80% as many deaths from prostate cancer each year (as of 2010, but the number climbs) as there are deaths from breast cancer.Divergentgrad (talk) 21:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

More interestingly, when you add up the dollars and deaths on prostate, testicular, and penile cancer, and compare them to the dollars and deaths on breast and female genital cancers, the disparity is undeniable.Divergentgrad (talk) 21:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

That's not relevant. Do any reliable secondary sources discuss cancer with respect to Men's rights? (Again, this problem would go away if this article was about the Movement). Hipocrite (talk) 22:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Hipocrite, can you suggest an article where this section belongs? Certainly it belongs somewhere; it is known, and therefore has a place in an encyclopedia. Let's not delete it before we find or decide its proper home.Divergentgrad (talk) 22:16, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Could you list your other wikipedia accounts, please? It belongs in an article about the fringe group of "Men's rights activists," as one of their outlandish claims. Hipocrite (talk) 22:18, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Debates about the relevancy of this section aside, I think your suggestion that the two separate documents from the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute are somehow coming from fringe, "men's rights activist" groups is a little silly. Could you explain to me the link between the ACS, NCI, and fringe "men's rights activist" groups? (To answer your personal question, I have no other Misplaced Pages accounts. I have made note on your talk page of your personal attacks here and I hope you will answer my request for at least a note of apology or acknowledgment of wrongdoing.)Divergentgrad (talk) 02:51, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

This edit was highly problematic OR by SYNTH - specifically, "Thus, while more than 80% as many deaths occur due to prostate cancer, less than 50% as much money supports prostate cancer research," which is a comparison not drawn by any of the presented texts. Hipocrite (talk) 22:13, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

These are just numbers. 300 is half of 600 and 32 is 80% of 40 (I only approximate here for brevity; no such approximation went into the statement). There is no "synth" other than that of putting, nearly literally, one and one together to make two.Divergentgrad (talk) 22:16, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

They are multiple numbers squished together in violation of WP:SYNTH. You do a ratio, then another ratio, and say that the difference in those ratios has meaning. No source discusses the difference in those ratios. It's really textbook. Hipocrite (talk) 22:18, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Fine, then--leave the ratios in and take out the "yet"! The ratios belong to their respective papers, and not to me. They remain true, especially in the context I gave them: namely, "American Cancer Society reports X," "National Cancer Institute reports Y."Divergentgrad (talk) 22:22, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Either way, the original statement here is biased. It suggests that prostate cancer has a relatively low death rate without saying how much lower, and that spending is lower without saying how much lower. And the source for this statement is still not very good.Divergentgrad (talk) 22:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Again, a textbook violation of OR by SYNTH. Please read WP:SYNTH. Hipocrite (talk) 22:25, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I will happily take out the last sentence of my edit. The rest of my edit was true and not OR.Divergentgrad (talk) 22:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Please do get back to me if you have any objection to my writing, "The American Cancer Society reports that X is spent on," etc., and "The National Cancer Institute reports that X people die of," etc. Otherwise we just have this biased and poorly-sourced statement that suggests that this concern is not really valid.Divergentgrad (talk) 22:30, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it was. Review WP:SYNTH. Unless you have a source that compares the two ratios, stating them next to each other is begging the question (and the question is wrong, and embarrassingly so, to you, given the onset age and treatment rate of breast cancer and prostate cancer. Your comparison ignores both of those major factors, to your unknown embarrassment). This will be my final edit here, except to state that I am right, and if you restore the comparison without strong consensus, I will seek to have you banned from further editing. Hipocrite (talk) 22:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I have read WP:SYNTH. Perhaps my comparison ignores those factors, but yours is sourced no better than mine; the Businessweek article gives no indication of sources. If you will not allow my edit to be placed, then I will ask you to delete the offending sentence entirely, or provide a better source for it. Your threat itself is bullying and I don't know to what extent that is tolerated on Misplaced Pages.Divergentgrad (talk) 22:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

No. Buisnessweek is a reliable source. If it were not, we must remove all content sourced to Buisnessweek. Hipocrite (talk) 22:36, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of the WP:SYNTH issue, the cancer section has nothing to do with Men's rights. Men's rights are defined in the lead as "an umbrella term, encompassing the political rights, entitlements, and freedoms of males". How much is spent on prostate cancer and how much the media covers it isn't a right. Unless you have a source explaining how this is connected to men's rights, it should be removed. Kaldari (talk) 22:37, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Strongly agreed. Hipocrite (talk) 22:38, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

As do I. Slp1 (talk) 23:33, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

This looks like it's covered elsewhere, such as in this article. Might be some good sources too, such as this. Arkon (talk) 22:49, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

It's pretty simple: breast cancer research has a highly organized, vocal, politically savvy activist community behind it. Prostate cancer research does not. So breast cancer research gets more publicity and more federal funding. That shouldn't surprise anyone, and that's basically the gist of the BusinessWeek article.

FWIW, regarding the BusinessWeek article, I think it's a bit misleading to compare the number of drugs on the market to treat breast vs. prostate cancer. Breast cancer is highly chemotherapy-sensitive, whereas prostate cancer is notoriously resistant to most forms of cytotoxic chemotherapy. So there will inevitably be more drugs which are active against breast cancer. That's not evidence of discrimination, but simply a consequence of basic tumor biology. (As a second quibble, Velcade treats multiple myeloma, not leukemia... but now I'm nitpicking).

More to the point, the BusinessWeek article doesn't tie this issue to the men's rights movement. I'm not sure how one would view this as a men's rights issue, except perhaps in the narrowest of terms. After all, even if one is male, one presumably has female friends, family, and loved ones who would benefit from advances in breast cancer research, so it's not exactly like throwing money down the drain. If you're looking for imbalances between the incidences of specific cancers and their level of research funding, there are far more glaring disparities than breast vs. prostate cancer. Hell, the NIH spent $30 million investigating chelation therapy for heart disease, even though we've known since the 1960s that it's ineffective and dangerous. These decisions are political, but I don't see gender bias or a men's rights issue here, and I don't see that reliable sources point to one either. MastCell  23:22, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Sheesh, now that is a lot of OR. Arkon (talk) 23:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, the Masculism article isn't anything to emulate, and the business week article is all about a prostrate cancer group arguing that they want more funding and attention to their cause, and comparing what they get to other illnesses (including breast cancer). Not exactly a surprising activity for an advocacy group. There's no mention of men's rights, at all. That article might be a suitable source in the prostrate cancer article, but it has nothing to do with this one. Slp1 (talk) 23:33, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The entire article is riddled with references to the "Gender Gap" in regards to this area. I am quite confused how this wouldn't be relevent in an article about Men's rights. Arkon (talk) 23:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Not really. The only actual mention of "gender gap" is in the title. And the article is not about a gender gap but about the attributed claims of the National Prostrate Council, an advocacy group for Prostrate cancer. --Slp1 (talk) 23:42, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about that, misspoke on the riddled, though "cancer gap" is mentioned in the body as well. However, this is a RS, making straight comparisons between how a men's and women's health issues are treated with regards to cancer. I am going to need some convincing if your position is that it's not relevent to this article. Arkon (talk) 23:54, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't know how to explain it more clearly: a prostrate advocacy organization is complaining about a "cancer gap" in order to get more funding for their cause. Do you really think that is a good source for an objective claim that there actually is a men's rights issue here? When the prostrate organization doesn't claim there is a men's rights issue? When the more neutral voice of businessweek actually points out the some of the reasons for the discrepancies? That has been the whole problem with this article: editors pick out various stats from sources and claim that there is a men's rights issue because there is some sort of discrepancy between genders. We don't do that kind of original research here. We need sources that mention the issue of men's rights, as has been pointed out over and over again on this page by numerous experienced editors. Slp1 (talk) 00:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I really believe that this is published in a RS, yes, and is clearly related to this article. Your opinion of the organizations motives is meaningless. As you've noted, it's titled 'A Gender Gap in Cancer', reflecting, as the article notes "glaring disparities" in awareness, funding, media coverage, and research between prostate and breast cancer. If the source lists reasons for some of the discrepancies, include that too. No, we don't need every source to explicitly say 'This is a men's rights issue', you are misrepresenting what OR is. Arkon (talk) 00:17, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

We should have references that do refer to men's rights in regards to the subjects at hand. If we could declare that something was a men's rights movement "issue" without a reference to men's rights in that subjects source, then we could declare anything a men's rights issue. SarahStierch (talk)

Not too important considering the comments below, but I don't believe we should ever declare anything to be...anything. Related reliable sources will do that. I appear to have made the mistake of thinking this article was something it was not. Most seem to want to follow the definition of "the political rights, entitlements, and freedoms of males", which IMO is so broad it becomes meaningless. Arkon (talk) 01:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

The existence of a gender gap does not make something a men's rights issue. What makes something a men's rights issue is a reliable source saying it is. The problem is that activist editors are attempting to channel their righteous indignation about how terribly men are treated into the article - this very much needs to stop. 00:25, 3 November 2011 (UTC)Hipocrite (talk) 00:20, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There's no question it is a reliable source, and I've never disputed it. Please avoid strawmen. The "glaring disparities" is a quote from an advocacy organization, and the complaints about funding, media coverage is directly attributed to them as their opinion. It isn't a fact... it is an attributed opinions, and clearly presented as such. And no, we do not connect the dots between random injustices and men's rights without reliable sources making the claim. It is the very essence of verifiability and

Please see below. Arkon (talk) 00:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

In light of the discussion here, I advocate that the entire Health section be removed.Divergentgrad (talk) 23:36, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

As consensus appears to be against the cancer section at least, I've removed that paragraph. Kaldari (talk) 23:44, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

This section was started 3 hours ago. I haven't read the section you've removed yet, but if it is properly sourced, or can be, I will be restoring it to give others time to weigh in. Arkon (talk) 23:56, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, let's give it a day. If someone can find a source showing that the "cancer gap" is related to men's rights, maybe the consensus will change. Kaldari (talk) 00:10, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this section should be added. If this is all that can be provided...it really doesn't show anything in regards to "men's rights." And advocacy groups really can't be considered neutral resources, IMHO. The information in the article doesn't touch on that, and just shows that prostate cancer gets less funding but has a higher survival rate. I really can't understand how this is problem. SarahStierch (talk) 00:13, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Outdenting (EC). I would like a clear statement of what you fellow editors need before you accept a source to be related enough to be included. Apparently, one explicitly stating a difference in how a men's health issue is treated versus a women's health issue, even using the term 'Gender gap' (BTW, I think you'd find the disambiguation page informative on that), is not related to Men's rights. If it's about 'Bias against men', or 'laws that are unfair to men', would that be good enough? Or must the source have the (quite vague) term men's rights throughout?

I have to think I am misunderstanding something, because OR and SYNTH are being thrown around in ways I've never ever run into before. If possible, could you please tell me what you think this article should be about, because I think my idea must be wrong. Arkon (talk) 00:33, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

This isn't the Bias against men article. It the men's rights article. Men's rights is currently defined as "the political rights, entitlements, and freedoms of males". If you have a source that explicitly relates the "cancer gap" to the political rights, entitlements, and freedoms of males then it will be relevant. Otherwise I don't see any reason for it to be in the article. As an analogous example, women have a lot more choice when it comes to buying blue jeans. There are about 100 different styles of blue jeans marketed to women, while there are only about 2 for men. Should we add a section on the "blue jean gap"? Or the "lacy underwear gap"? Sure, cancer is a lot more important than blue jeans, but it still doesn't have anything to do with rights. Kaldari (talk) 00:49, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Funny that when I produced a paragraph on sentencing disparities as an unequal application of men's "political rights, entitlements, and freedoms", I was told it was unacceptable because it was "SYNTH" to make the connection as relevant to a "men's rights issue (read men's rights bias)" article. --Kratch (talk) 08:32, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Kaldari, if others share your opinion, I would think this article shouldn't even exist. Arkon (talk) 00:54, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that it should exist, but probably under a different title. Oh well. Kaldari (talk) 00:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks for your good questions: I have to run but I am sure somebody else will have time to explain in more detail. But I'll just add my 2 cents that I don't think it is entirely clear what this article should be about yet. There is a suggested move to Men's rights movement above, which should it succeed will clarify the article much better, in my view. But for the present, and to explain the problem, when this fuss started there was lots of information in the article about the rights and privileges held by men at the expense of women! It is certainly one way of interpreting the concept of "men's rights", isn't it?!! Because of this and the other original research claiming various discrepancies in the other direction as "men's rights", we are mostly agreed that we need to find the best sources about "men's rights" and summarize them, rather collecting things that individual editors think are discriminatory and listing them here. Slp1 (talk) 01:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks S1p1, from both of the above comments, I'm drawing a blank on what I would even include in this article. So, I'm generally going to bow out, though I reserve the right to be a nuisance in the future :) Arkon (talk) 01:38, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest searching for "men's rights" on Google books and see what turns up. Kaldari (talk) 01:40, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Haha, if only! It turns up a whoooole lot of stuff which has already been said to not fit in this article. Arkon (talk) 01:44, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I know of one book that discusses cancer in relation to Men's rights and it's Men and gender relations by Bob Pease. I don't have access to it right now, can anyone obtain a copy? TickTock2 (talk) 16:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I'll see if I can get it. Kevin (talk) 18:57, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with SLP that the article should be moved, and I think that the move discussion has pretty much established a consensus. Unfortunately I've been very busy lately, so I haven't had much time on-wiki lately, but do think the move would be good. Generally, I agree with Kaldari/Hipocrite/SLP on policy issues here. Kevin (talk) 18:57, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Are you referring to the Cancer section of the article or the entire article itself? If you are talking about the entire article, I believe the move has failed to reach any sort of consensus. TickTock2 (talk) 19:15, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I think this discussion has wound down at this point. The consensus still seems to be to remove the cancer section for now. If anyone tracks down Men and gender relations and it proves to be a useful source on the issue, feel free to create some new content on this subject. Kaldari (talk) 02:29, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Just to comment that another book by Pease (and Pringle) called "A man's world?: changing men's practices in a globalized world", was used as a citation here] by Extransit about breast/prostate cancer issue and men's rights. However, there is no mention that "supporters of Men's Rights have argued that they should receive equal medical attention" either on the page cited or indeed anywhere else in the book. The material has gone now anyway, but I am deeply concerned by this basic failure in following verifiability- and unfortunately the second time with this same editor. --Slp1 (talk) 22:29, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Slp1, that is a blatant lie. Any reasonable reading of my citation supports the claim. The particular instance I have cited is a foot note in a chapter that talks about the men's right movement in relation to men's health which reads "Arguments of equivalence are often made between breast and prostate cancer. The suggestion is that these forms of cancer are equivalent for men and women across gender — if women receive funding for breast cancer men should recive funding for prostate cancer (see Dow 1995)". extransit (talk) 02:09, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

No, it is not a "blatant lie", a comment which verges on a personal attack in my view. As I said previously, nowhere on on the cited page, 81 does it say or in any way indicate that "supporters of Men's Rights have argued that they should receive equal medical attention" as you claimed it did in your edit WP:V asks that material be "attributed in the form of an inline citation that directly supports the material", which the citation p.81 clearly does not. Perhaps you made a mistake in the page numbers you gave. I don't know. But it is really important on a controversial topic like this one, and especially one on probation, to stick very closely to the sources and to cite very precisely and accurately. --Slp1 (talk) 02:46, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Half way down page 81, see the footnote labeled #5 which I quoted above. It explicitly says that there are some people who have argued that breast and colon cancer should get equal medical attention because they are equivalent problems. Who are the 'some people'? Well, reading the text as it was meant to be read... Men's Rights activists.

I'm calling a spade a spade. Your argument is obtuse in the extreme. What your argument essentially boils down to is that anything this is not plagiarism is synthesis, something hardly supported by policy. extransit (talk) 03:02, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, no. My argument boils down to the fact that material needs to be "attributed in the form of an inline citation that directly supports the material" per WP:V If the author doesn't make a specific point, editors don't get to decide what was "meant to be read", as you put it. That way lies madness (and unverifiable original research of course). That's my last on this topic. Slp1 (talk) 03:27, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Stay at home dads

Is there much discussion of stay at home dads (particularly those in a heterosexual relationship where the mother is working) in relation to mens rights? Discussion on this mens right site seems to concentrate on issues arising in divorce which we already touch on. There's obviously the issue of paternity leave which we also touch on but a whole host of other issues, Stay-at-home dad#Disadvantages touches on these to some extent, e.g. social support networks and social acceptence both of which seem to lag quite far behind that for mothers in the workplace in many countries (this may be significantly related to the numbers but it can obviously be a problem) but I don't know if the sources relate it to men's rights. Nil Einne (talk) 14:36, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe there has been any discussions about this. Obviously we can't use the mens rights website as a source, but, if you can find reliable secondary sources that document how stay at home dads relate to the mens rights movement, perhaps it can be added to the article! SarahStierch (talk) 15:05, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

This is actually a great addition to the article, I'd recommend starting with International encyclopedia of men and masculinities By Michael Flood p192-195. I'm sure there is plenty of good information there about it. (Not to mention there are LOTS more out there, but it's just the first one that came to mind that I had handy). TickTock2 (talk) 15:17, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Movements/MRAs

I find this sentence questionable: "The supporters of men's rights are considered part of the men's movement, and go by the moniker of "men's rights activists," or MRAs." Could someone tell me where, in the referenced sources, it is stated that "supporters of men's rights" call themselves "men's rights activists"? I think it is doubtfully true. If a person, when asked, "do you support the right of a man to equitable treatment under the law?" responded with "yes," they would support men's rights. Yet does that person need call him/herself a "men's rights activist"? I don't think so. Divergentgrad (talk) 19:15, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for this. A couple of things. First, I have removed the Ridley-Duff reference, as I couldn't find that he even mention activists in his book- which appears to be self-published in any case. Second, I don't think Farrell says anything as directly as this, but he does promote the notion of men's rights activism from pages 363 on; fairly close, but not close enough to my mind, so I have removed that too. I have found good academic sources for the being part of the men's movement part, but not for the "called MRA" part. However, I don't think this is a truly controversial statement. It seems to be a commonly used term by academics, journalists and by those who promote men's rights themselves. I think I'll tweak the statement and add a citation needed for now. --Slp1 (talk) 23:21, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

My impression at this point (I'm not truly knowledgable about the history here) is that "MRA" has come to imply participation in some more narrowly defined "men's rights movement," which I think this article is heading toward not being about. And while I think editors of this article should be very careful about using arguments from symmetry (women x, therefore men x), here it is not simply symmetry of gender, but symmetry of all causes that convinces me this is not an accurate statement. In the real world, we make a distinction between an activist and a supporter. To be an activist, one has to actively campaign for one's cause; to be a supporter, one need only carry the ideology. Obviously a women's rights activist is probably someone who participates in the women's rights movement, and similarly a gay rights activist etc. (I'm gay, I support gay rights, but I'm not an activist.) See what I mean? I really don't think that statement is accurate. Maybe if you wrote vocal supporters, but then we're dipping into men's rights movement territory and this article is called just "Men's Rights." Divergentgrad (talk) 23:34, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I should point out that Hipocrite earlier accused me of being an activist, and equated it with anti-feminism/radicalism/fringiness. It's a way of discrediting a position as unpopular or beyond belief, only to be held by those who have their undies in a twist. It seems like we need to tread carefully here. Divergentgrad (talk) 23:40, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Slp1, your new wording "The men's rights movement ... and advocates are known as 'men's rights activists,' " is better, since it doesn't make a blanket statement about mere supporters of men's rights. The previous version was, I think, false, and that was my quibble. Divergentgrad (talk) 23:59, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think the problem about all of this is that we have to start not with our own opinions but with what reliable sources say. I have seen lots of people say that men's rights can be a separate topic from the claims of men's rights supporters (or advocates or activists or whatever), but I haven't seen any reliable sources that actually make the claim. What I am interested in is not discussion about the merits of any position, but about what sources can be found. Have you got any sources that discuss men's rights separately from the MRM or MRA or whatever? If so, let's see them and use them.

I'm sorry that you felt offended by Hipocrite's comments, but to be honest and based on past experience, coming here via any "for a cause" website can be a reason for concern. However, it needn't be a problem. We all need to edit in a way that seeks to fairly represent the material found in the highest quality sources, and if you can do that there will be no difficulty at all. But it all comes back to finding sources: personal opinions about this and that mean nothing. --Slp1 (talk) 00:16, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Welll just to briefly address this--I believe I made it clear there is no edit conflict here, now. Your new wording is fine. The previous one was not; it said something completely different from what it says now. And it was not merely that I was offended by Hipocrite's comments. It was, Hipocrite's comments were offensive. N.b. Hipocrite's suggestion above that I be embarrassed, or that I had something unknown about which to be embarrassed (i.e., Hipocrite suggested I am ignorant). Divergentgrad (talk) 01:34, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Just to clarify, the comment about "edit conflict" means that I received an edit conflict notification when I tried to post my comment. In other words, I am indicating that my post does not respond to your last comment but the one before. --Slp1 (talk) 02:20, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah, alright. All in order then. Divergentgrad (talk) 04:37, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

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