Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:19, 21 August 2010

It is requested that a photograph be included in this article to improve its quality. The external tool WordPress Openverse may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites.

Upload

This topic contains controversial issues, some of which have reached a consensus for approach and neutrality, and some of which may be disputed. Before making any potentially controversial changes to the article, please carefully read the discussion-page dialogue to see if the issue has been raised before, and ensure that your edit meets all of Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. Please also ensure you use an accurate and concise edit summary.

Gender studies Unassessed

This article is part of WikiProject Gender studies. This WikiProject aims to improve the quality of articles dealing with gender studies and to remove systematic gender bias from Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate in the project, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.Gender studiesWikipedia:WikiProject Gender studiesTemplate:WikiProject Gender studiesGender studies ??? This article has not yet received a rating on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. To-do list: Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Assess : see Unassessed Gender studies articles and Unknown-importance Gender studies articles Cleanup : edit to see Collaborate : see /Collaboration Copyedit : edit to see Deletion sorting : see /Sexuality and gender Expand : edit to see Infobox : see Gender studies articles needing infoboxes Merge : edit to see Notability : edit to see NPOV : edit to see Orphans : Brannon Masculinity Scale · Holy Virility · Media and gender · Michael Kaufman (author) · Women's education in Saudi Arabia Photo : see Misplaced Pages requested photographs of gender studies Split : History of feminism Stubs : see Gender studies stubs Translate : see /translation Update : edit to see Verify : Riot grrrl Needs attention : see Gender studies articles needing attention

This article was nominated for deletion on 13 April 2007. The result of the discussion was speedy keep.

Archives
Archive 2 Archive 1

External Links Section and WP:EL

I would appreciate it if folks who have added external links could please review WP:EL and compare their additions to EL with the policy. Before I get all WP:BOLD on this section, I would like everyone to have a chance to remove things themselves which may not meet WP:EL. Rorybowman (talk) 17:24, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Nineteenth & Early 20th-Century History

So when exactly did the father of modern masculism, Ernest Belfort Bax, get excised from this article? Was there any rationale for this removal? Bax quite clearly began his work in direct opposition to the feminism of his day and this intellectual heritage seems important to understanding not only the term but how the tenor of the masculist movement has been largely consistent over time. -Rorybowman (talk) 19:20, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

• Politics of Aristotle asserts excellence varies with social role, including gender.
• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792.
• On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, 1859.
• The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill, 1869.
• The Legal Subjection of Men by Ernest Belfort Bax, 1908.
• The Fraud of Feminism by Ernest Belfort Bax, 1914.

Older and newer senses

This term has a couple fairly different sense; in fact, the two are nearly contradictory of each other (or at least pull in different directions). And older—and I believe still more widely used—sense is used in much feminist writing. It means something like "male-oriented", in a critical or negative sense. A more recent usage is the one discussed in the body of the existing article, associated with the "men's rights" movement(s).

I tried today to add an explanation of both senses, but another editor immediately reverted my addition with the rather confrontational edit summary "rvv", and with no explanation on this talk page. Ideally this article should discuss both uses of the term, but as a start the lead should let readers know of both senses. Most definitely, the older sense is not merely "historical" since it is still the dominant usage (outside this article). LotLE×talk 01:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the historical definition is more widely used in feminist academic literature, but the results in the first several pages of a Google search for masculism seem to meet the current definition.

The historical definition should either be in a disambiguation page, or in a section in the article on historical usage. Very negative definitions for feminism abound in conservative and misogynist literature, to a much greater extent than for masculism. Should they be included in the lead for feminism?

You would do well to look up reclaiming (in the linguistic sense). JCDenton2052 (talk) 01:41, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

It looks like the top page of Google has about 3/4 use of the newer "men's movement" sense, and about 1/4 the more traditional meaning from sociology, feminism, and anthropology. However, almost all of the use of the recent coinage is "popular advocacy", blogs and so on; almost all the use of the traditional meaning is academic or scholarly. As far as an encyclopedia goes, we definitely lean toward more coverage of longstanding and scholarly work than towards (possibly fleeting) popular usage. For example, see http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/masculinist as well as the other dictionary I initially used in the edited lead.

Certainly, I'm not advocating against coverage of the "men's movement" sense of the word. Clearly that is sufficiently widespread to merit discussion on WP. However, the longstanding scholarly meaning is a common use (I believe more common, but the exact distribution is not key here). It is certainly not something like an "historical curiosity" as JCDenton2052 seems to be trying to cast it in the article and on this talk page.

While the body definitely needs to be fleshed out with the traditional meaning of the word, I will restore the lead to again indicate the several distinct senses of the word. There is a partial distinction between "masculism" and "masculinism", with the former used more often in the newer sense, and the latter almost exclusively in the traditional academic meaning. It's possible that some future refactoring could make that separate pages for the word variants, with appropriate dab's in each direction. LotLE×talk 03:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Please take a look, also, at Google Scholar on this:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=masculinist&hl=en&lr=&btnG=Search

As far as I can see all of the 23k hits there are about the more traditional academic sense (OK, I admit I've only looked through the first few hundred).

Google Scholar shows a far smaller number of hits for "masculism" than "masculinism", but again these seem to be solely about the more traditional meaning:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=masculism&btnG=Search

LotLE×talk 04:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

DAB

Okay, I'll work on a disambiguation page for masculism. Should the lead for feminism also be rewritten so that it presents how feminist academics use the term and how conservative academics use it? JCDenton2052 (talk) 14:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you are being dissimulative in the analogy with the word "feminism" or simply making an inaccurate analogy. The structure of the two cases is very different, however, and I can't see how any particular lesson from one applies to the other.

The term "feminism" arose originally as meaning something like "women's movement". Technically, "feminism" is the older word, but even in the 19th C sense of the word, and definitely in the "first wave" movement of the early 20th C, the word always referred to politics and theory that advocated for women's interests/rights. Subsequent to the use of that word by its advocates, various people (conservative or otherwise) criticized the movement/philosophy on various grounds. However, their criticism is always a criticism of the ideas (or actions) of feminism; i.e. "proponents" and "opponents" are still using more-or-less the same sense of the term. No one has ever really used "feminism" to mean "female-oriented" (not as a primary sense, some feminists have claimed that the way to be feminist is by being female-oriented, but they are presenting that as an argument, not describing it as the meaning of the term).

In contrast, "masculinism" or "masculism" (more often the adjectival version, "masculinist") was used for a long time (at least 100 years) as a semi-technical term in sociology, anthropology, psychology, etc., and picked up by some feminist thinkers familiar with those fields. Those writers meant the word as meaning, roughly "male-oriented", usually in a negative sense (i.e. "too much male-oriented"). In the 1990s (but mostly not until at least the 2000s), a few folks in the "men's movement" started using the term as one of advocacy for policies or theories that center on male experience. I do not know whether those creating the new use were deliberately "reclaiming" the word, or if they simply used the obvious Latin stems to construct a word for what they wanted to advocate. In either case, however, no one using the traditional (critical) sense was critiquing the newer movement/philosophy. At most, what they criticized, or simply commented on, was attitudes that may be indirectly similar to what users of the new sense mean. It is conceivable that at some point in the future someone might criticize "masculism" in the new sense of "men's movement", but that's not present in the traditional usage.

Better analogies of words that had one meaning that was later reused might be Pronatalism or Queer. The first is widely used, generally neutrally rather than critically or as advocacy, in anthropology and other human sciences. If in the future some group were to take the name, e.g. "The Pro-Natalism Society", we might have a DAB issue in explaining the differing academic and popular senses. "Queer" has been deliberately reappropriated, though roughly the same sense of "non-normative sexuality" is meant by both the earlier insult and the more recent term of pride/self-identification. Of course, for "queer" both the older and newer usage are still in effect, and should hence both be discussed in the article. Looking at the Queer article, I think it does exactly the right job of discussing the senses and chronology (I hadn't read it until just now). LotLE×talk 19:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

That does not make current usage of "feminism" by conservative academics or authors any less relevant. They use "feminism" to mean misandry, female supremacism, political lesbianism, etc. This is not how feminists describe themselves. Similarly, some feminist academics may use (or may have used) "masculism" or "masculinism" to refer to misogyny, male supremacism, etc. This is not how masculists describe themselves. I don't understand your insistence that feminists are allowed to define themselves and masculists are not.

Either both feminism and masculism should include definitions in their leads from those within the movements and without, or they should have disambiguation pages. JCDenton2052 (talk) 19:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Although you seem to want a formal symmetry to the philologically similar words, their actual usage and history is starkly different. We cannot impose a neatness we might like to have among terms that simply are not used that way. The reason "masculists" cannot simply "define themselves" is because the term has a widespread and ongoing meaning that predates the self-identification one by at least a hundred years (a usage that is by no means restricted to feminists). Similarly, "Queer rights" advocates cannot autonomously declare that the word "queer" is no longer an insult in anyone's mouth (it "might be nice" if they could, but word usage doesn't evaporate as soon as a few people want a differnet meaning).

Criticism of feminism might well be significant in its article (there are still issues of WP:WEIGHT, WP:RS and others, but those are general, I haven't even read the Feminism article, so am not claiming anything specific). However, it's not similar to this case of distinct (albeit indirectly related) senses of the term. Critics of feminist, as you yourself describe, are claiming various faults in the movement or thinkers who (generally) describe themselves as feminist.

So, for example, William Buckley might have written "Feminist Gloria Steinem is misandrist". OK fine: true, false, what are the arguments, etc. In contrast (i.e. prior to the 2000s), Gloria Steinem might have written "William Buckly is masculinist" I.e. "...and he doesn't realize it"; not "...meaning he belongs to a men's rights movement". LotLE×talk 20:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I did not know that the term "masculist" existed until I read the Misplaced Pages article, and now that I have read the article, I have learned that the term has two different spellings, and two different meanings. In contrast, I have noticed that the Misplaced Pages article on feminism begins with the four modest words "Feminism is a discourse...". Well, drop kick me, Jesus! Now, Is there some reason why I should not consider masculism to be a discourse also? -Mike M —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike X Zike (talk • contribs) 03:12, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

higher premiums for health insurance?

When I looked up high deductible premiums for a class I teach, they were higher for women than for men (eg. approx $105 vs $95 for a 30-year-old). I'm going to remove that concern. Please only put it back if you can supply a good reference for it. Thanks, 24.58.239.241 (talk) 05:51, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

The whole bullet has this dubious WP:OR feel to it, and I've tagged it as such. Insurance rates, by the premise of insurance, are risk-adjusted. So, for example, people who are likely to die sooner pay more for life insurance. Gender is a factor there (men don't live as long as an actuarial matter), but so are weight, diet, prior diseases, region, occupation, etc. It is conceivable (but unlikely) that men as a class pay more than their risk-adjustment would suggest, but we'd need a good WP:RS citation for that (and no, not some men's rights blog speculating about the fact). LotLE×talk 16:16, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Here's a source for men paying more than women for life insurance. Does it meet WP:RS? Masculists claim that discriminating based on something that an individual can't change is unfair. For example, whites have a longer life expectancy in the United States than blacks. Would it be fair for blacks to pay more for life insurance? JCDenton2052 (talk) 19:45, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

The seems like a good source for the fact that rates vary (obviously, they do by race as well, fair or not). I think the dubious part is that this is discrimination. What we really need (and really this is true of all the bullets in the section) is some specific citable claim by a third party who claims the thing is discrimination... currently it all reads as a WP:OR essay. So best would be: According to John Smith, in his article "Inequities in Insurance Policy", differential premiums based on gender are a form of anti-male discrimination. Readers are welcome to agree or disagree with Smith, but then we're citing 3rd party claims rather than just writing our own essay of political opinion. LotLE×talk 20:03, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a source for (life) insurance companies charging different rates for different races? I've read the masculist claim before, but I don't have a source at the moment. That's why I posted it on the talk page rather than in the article. I'll look for a source. JCDenton2052 (talk) 20:15, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

There's both the de jure race-basis that many insurance companies have used (but not legally), e.g. http://www.insure.com/articles/lawsuitlibrary/philadelphia.html and the de facto' race-basis that exists via strong correlations with other health factors. For example, Type II diabetes is more prevalent among African-Americans than among European-Americans, and is a health measure used for life-insurance (similarly, Type II diabetes is also more prevalent among men than women). Using that health factor, but not per se race, is legal under USA insurance law in setting life and health insurance rates. Geographic factors that also differentiate rates also create race bias (not gender in this case though); that is, geography by zipcode, not by broad regions. LotLE×talk 20:51, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

However, there are many instances of discrimination in car insurance. companies (Diamond, Sheila's Wheels, etc.) who market and sell exclusively to women as, according to their advertisements "woman make safer drivers" . This form of blatant discrimination is perfectly legal at present. --Brideshead (talk) 19:19, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

LotLE×talk 19:39, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Grocery list of original research

It appears that the large majority of this article simply enumerations of complaints that WP editors may have about (alleged) sexism against men. None of the claims are particularly absurd, or even unreasonable, but almost none of them are given any source other than "some WP editors is struck by this societal pattern". We're not here to write a blog about personal complaints. There was a recent addition by an anon editor along these lines, but it follows the pattern of the rest of the article.

Even the few items that are given any citation at all are given citations that do not really support inclusion in this article. This article is about a school of though or political movement called "Masculism". There seems to be adequate evidence that such a school exists, at least to a minimal extent. Following that are a list of claims about ways in which discrimination against men exists, a few of them with external citations for the existence of that discrimination. What is entirely missing is any evidence that these particular forms of discrimination have been agenda/issues/essay-topics/whatever of masulism (i.e. some notable author or speaker in the movement has specifically raised the issue). It is absolutely not sufficient to point out that a discrimination exists and therefore "might plausibly" be a concern for the described movement (and still worse, of course, to allege it exists solely based on personal opinion).

I am very close to taking some very serious scissors to this article, and excise everything that lacks any purport of actual article relevance. If we can't write that "Masculinist author Foo Bar complains of discrimination Blaz in his book Stuff I Don't Like" than a particular claim has no actual relevance to this article. LotLE×talk 19:16, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I understand the policy against original research, but you are pretty much implying that paper media sanctioning defines valid societal commentary. Bloggers shouldn't be discounted as sources in a new topic that's nevertheless extremely important lile htis. Dnavarro (talk) 17:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I think I'll add some citations from a book I'm reading by Warren Farrell. Wrad (talk) 20:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

This interwiki link is proper?

Now ar:ذكورية of arabic version is linked with this page. However, perhaps the article is not the explanation on masculism but such on male chauvinism. Could you investigate it in detail, if you can understand arabic? --Shirobunchō (talk) 16:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks like you're right. Wrad (talk) 07:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

positive role models in the media

I deleted: "Lack of positive reinforcement and role-models for young boys in the media, while presentation of positive female figures is a large aspect of much of the media." Dubious is right. I suppose the entire claim is subjective, but I'd label this one was just plain false. Female figures in the media are a huge problem for women and girls- just look to Paris Hilton, etc. Lack of positive role models in the media is a problem for both sexes. Can anyone back this up at all?

There is a title: "Masculist concerns". That means a list of "Examples of questions raised by masculists" (quote from the article). So it's neither your opinion nor the real situation what we are talking about, but "Masculist concerns". 190.138.223.52 (talk) 17:11, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above: while i can see it can be argued both ways ("paris hilton as a role model?" vs "did you see that show with the fat, lazy, stupid male character and smart, level-headed, fit female character?") i think the REAL issue is that MASCULISTS view this as an issue, so that's what should be addressed. As such, is there a way we can get the tag dropped? I'd do it myself, but i don't know the "correct" procedure (is a rewrite required, better wording, etc?). Lingering tags in articles have a horrible tendency of making what's tagged appear as "incorrect". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.54.117.53 (talk) 05:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Philosophy

This article does a fairly good job of painstakingly documenting the notable examples of discrimination experienced by males. Fine. What concerns me is that for an article devoted to masculinism there is no attempt to explain some of the underlying ideas in the philosophy. Towards the end it demonstrates two somewhat conflicting schools of thought between “liberal” and “conservative” masculinists, but this is only brief. Furthermore, the history of the idea is sketchy in itself, jumping from the mid nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. I propose that someone with a broad base of knowledge on masculinism explain the a) philosophy—common ideas to all masculinists b) schools of thought c) important issues/incidences of discrimination 152.15.161.242 (talk) 18:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

this article is broken, to the point of being close to useless -- which is why it is also littered with cleanup tags. It appears that there simple aren't any editors willing to invest the time needed to fix things. Misplaced Pages is written by unpaid enthusiasts after all, and the article will just continue to sit there until somebody takes pity. --dab (𒁳) 11:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Violence Circumcision Heading

I see someone felt the need to add "characterized by some as male genital mutilation."

The fact of the matter is that circumcision of one sex is condemned, while circumcision in the other sex is pardoned, and even advocated. How the circumcision of either sex is "characterized," whether it be as "genital mutilation," or "harmless tradition" is irrelevant. Condemn them BOTH, or do not condemn them at all. To condemn circumcision as "violence" in one sex and not the other is, by definition, SEXISM. I think the above snippet is irrelevant, and should be removed from the main article.Kogejoe (talk) 06:49, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I recognize the point you're trying to make; however, it needs to be kept in mind that the negative health effects associated with female circumcision are far greater than the negative health effects associated with male circumcision. So this area isn't really a black or white topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.179.254.177 (talk) 01:01, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The MAIN and ONLY goal of "feminist theories" is "equality of gender", so you cannot opposite "feminist theories" and "equality of gender". Unisexe (talk) 02:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

• "Feminism" is not gender-neutral it is "the equality of sex, within the context of women's rights", and "masculinism" juxtaposes it nicely. Perhaps it "equality of sex, overall" should be called a gender-neutral term like "genderism" then.--130.126.175.50 (talk) 20:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• What's people's view on these sentences: "(However, technically, for male genital mutilation to be the same as female genital mutilation, the penis would have to be cut off. Female genital mutilation entails the cutting off of the clitoris, thus ending sexual pleasure and leaving behind a lifetime of possible health problems.)"

Cutting the penis off is obviously not the same as severing the clitoris. Also, I believe that it doesn't prevent women from sexual pleasure (correct me if I'm wrong though). Are we in favour of changing around these sentences? Depor23 (talk) 04:45, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

If you want to get technical, neither does chopping the penis prevent sexual pleasure for men (see prostate). Besides, the penis and clitoris are biologically homologous. I'm a guy, but when people talk about female circumcision I cringe, because... dude, that's like chopping a guys dick off.

Proposed Merge

I saw a proposed merge into "Men's Movement". I would strongly vote against this; it makes no sense to pretend a term (especially a term that is easily identifiable with Feminism) doesn't exist or deserves to be sidelined into an article. Should "Feminism" be merged into and become a subsection of "Women's Movement"? I propose the box at the top of the article be deleted if no one objects; no comments have yet been made of the proposed merge. 18.202.1.20 (talk) 08:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it shouldn't be merged. This article needs a lot of work (and I plan on getting around to it someday). It wouldn't be fair to merge masculism into men's movement without also merging feminism into women's movement. JCDenton2052 (talk) 05:24, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The merge suggestion should be removed. Because there is no explanation at all from the proposer (at least on this page) why it should be merged with Men's movement when ideology and social movement are two different subjects. If the proposer wanted it to be merged with Men's movement, then he/she should have suggested it on Men's movement page as well. -- 09:28, 20 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Beige.pygmalion (talk • contribs)

Masculism, Men's movement, Father's movement and Family movements are definitely different things. Men's movement concerning issues on gender equality regards to where men's position in society is lower than that of women. Father's movements are focusing on father's and their rights to spend time with their children, and somewhat a child's right to spend time with their father. Family movements focus on the Right of the Child Convention, and a child's right to spend equal time with both parents. Whereas Masculism is a common description where the three other is a part of the definition. All according to how feminism and different women movements are defined. No merge possible in my opinion. Please give critics to this comment if the differences of the concepts are not totally clear. --Anders K 21:22, 4 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by AndyPanda65 (talk • contribs)

Maybe it should be merged to men's rights, as some of the information is already on both pages and keeping the separate pages results in unnecessary duplication and possible inconsistency. snigbrook (talk) 17:36, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Although maybe there should be separate articles, one for historical information and another for current issues. snigbrook (talk) 17:40, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that it should be merged with men's rights. I don't think that the argument made above "It wouldn't be fair to merge masculism into men's movement without also merging feminism into women's movement." holds much weight. Feminism is a very well known and well used term, whereas masculism is not - there is not even a well formed understanding - as demonstrated by discussion on this talk page - that people writing about it here even understand what it is. I'd love to see some more debate about this proposed merge. Jenafalt (talk) 19:08, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I do not see much connection between the fact that masculism being less known and less used than feminism and the merge proposition for masculism and men's movement. First, not only masculism but also men's movement is less used and less known than feminism or women's movement. Second, if you think this page does not explain what masculism is well, then what you should propose is a revision not merge. The very same principle why feminism and women's movement should be separetly maintained applies to masculism and men's movement. Because they are two different entities although some of the contents might overlap. -- 10:09, 1 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Beige.pygmalion (talk • contribs)

Masculism is a separate entity from the men's rights movement. This article even contradicts itself, at one point considering masculism adherence to historical male roles in society and at another point considering the definition of masculism ambiguous. But as I understand it masculism is the belief in traditional gender roles for males. This is not really the same as the men's rights movement which has a goal to eliminate gender roles and allow men to take on non-traditional roles. I'm not even sure why Warren Farrell is referred to as a masculist here.Stargnoc (talk) 05:36, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Masculism vs Feminism - unequal presentation

Why does it say neutrally that "Masculism is the advocacy of men's rights," while under Feminism it states that it is "the belief that women should have equal... rights..."? 'Belief' is a weak word suggesting dissent and multiple theories regarding the basic premise of equal rights for women. How things are stated is important. An encyclopedic site should strive for equal sociolinguistic treatment in this fundamental area. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.249.240.119 (talk) 12:51, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe it's to counter-balance the presumptuous wording of "women should have equal... rights" creates when compared to "advocacy of men's rights," (the latter of which seems to definitively imply that masculists are already afforded more rights than women). But I could be wrong.

Weakness of this Article

This article could be informative, yet it seems as though there are politics being played. Far too many of the examples given are vague, although they could be completely valid if only more details were given. -- Just a thought from a true impartial! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.30.142.137 (talk) 00:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Physical Exams & Criticism

The article states:

"Harder physical entrance criteria for men in many occupations, such as the army, police and fire service. Requiring men to be physically stronger than women in these occupations leaves men responsible for a greater share of the physical work, for no more pay."

I find this claim dubious. Some physical entrance tests have been modified for women, but to use an example of firefighters, once women get the job they end up having to work just as hard as the men doing the same physical level of work. Unless there is a quote from a masculinist source that makes this complaint, this should be deleted.

There should also be a section here of criticism of some masculist movements, which is an important component in understanding the general social milieu in which this concept exists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.198.87.177 (talk) 09:16, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

While I find the claim dubious as well (men tend to be physically stronger than women, meaning a flat standard would be unfair to women), I don't think the section should be deleted, provided a suitable reference is found. There is no reason it should not be reported that dubious claims are made by some masculinists. I agree that a criticisms section should be included, however I notice there is no criticism section in the Feminism page, which should also have one. Bigdumbweirdo (talk) 14:19, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

It is violating male candidate's equal opportunity and male firefighter's equal treatment rights. First, if the female firefighters who have taken and passed the less harder physical entrance test do the same duty as male firefighters who have taken and passed the harder one, then there is no reason why male candidates should take the harder one. Second, if the female firefighters who have taken and passed the less harder physical entrance test take less workload and/or put to less dangerous duty than male firefighters who have taken and passed the harder one, then they should pay male firefighters more than female firefighters. -- 22:25, 20 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Beige.pygmalion (talk • contribs)

About the terms "masculism" and "masculinism"

I think the correct term should be "masculinism" just because it is so in Spanish and Portuguese and other languages, also the word "masculism" was originally conceived in feminist works that described as a movement or sexist woman-hater, and create ambiguity with the sense of mannish women. The term should be used as it was enshrined as something that legítimo.Surgido course, so the correct term is masculinism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.82.48.209 (talk) 18:00, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

- I agree with this, we are meant to be talking about men and women having equal rights, biased terms like masculism could only contribute negatively. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.29.251.159 (talk) 07:10, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

- I am sympathetic both to the impulse to link usage across languages, and to the impulse to distinguish masculism from woman-hating. However, the 'ordinary' sense of "masculine" as having to do with characteristic styles of behaviour, appearance, and so on creates an even stronger source of mis-interpretation than those of-concern above; further, this same sense of "masculinism" invites the parallel construction, "femininism", which goes completely off-the-rails as concerns traditions of feminist discourse. In other words: yes, particular people might advocate for-or-against "masculinism" and/or "femininism" as concerns deportment, fashion, speaking-styles, etc., but such interests seem parochial as compared to the scope of interests at stake in the notion of "masculism." 206.248.138.250 (talk) 05:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Draft

Compulsory military service laws currently single out men75.118.170.35 (talk) 18:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Cancer Death Rates

I have checked the WHO death tolls, which were satisfactory sources for the articles on prostate cancer and breast cancer. It seems that the death rate (per million) is 3.97 for breast cancer and 1.75 for prostate cancer, unless there is a mistake in my calculations. A quick glance at the visual representations given in both articles supports an obvious prevalence of one over the other, though this is hardly a thorough method of analysis.

Irrelevant to the point, but a cause of uncertainty on my part: Though the page referenced in both articles claims these numbers are for 2004, the .xls file itself is marked February 2009. NotARusski (talk) 23:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Male Genital Mutilation

The part that it says about male's experiencing less joy after circumcision isn't true, I've heard many doctors who say thats false and even the opposite. Heck even on the Doctors (Tv Show) and Doctor Oz say its the opposite. And at least Doctor Oz is reliable. 72.199.100.223 (talk) 06:48, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The statement about the health benefits of circumcision is disputed. On circumcision it is states that some studies show no effect. I don't think this statement: "However, unlike female circumcision, male circumcision also has health benefits, such as the reduction of AIDS infection and transmission." is appropriate here. --WikiDonn (talk) 05:09, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Recent studies show that the foreskin is there for a reason, it collects bacteria which would, if foreskin wouldn't be present, accumulate on the glans of the penis and meatus, thus exposing men to UTIs, foreskin protects the galns from abbrasion, foreskin helps lubrication and increases sexual pleasure because of friction.source

Removing the foreskin at child birth should, and is in most countries, be considered a form of genital mutilation. This should be stated in the article to help represent the global view.

Patriarchal masculism

I removed this section (content below) from the article, because it was dubious, uncited, tagged for cleanup, contains weasel words, and lacks neutral point of view. If the information is actually correct, please re-add it to the article, being sure to add appropriate citations to Reliable Sources. Thanks, Vectro (talk) 21:31, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Contrary to self-styled "progressive" masculism, which is essentially grounded in, and a complement to, the feminist worldview, Patriarchal masculism emphasises and defends "traditional manliness" and traditional male (and, by extension, female) gender roles.

It is argued by this branch of masculism that these roles are essentially positive for men. This branch perceives that traditional male behavior and norms are on the decline, and that it is necessary to resurrect them through articulation of their virtue.

This branch of masculism can be said to be androcentric in some instances, as opposed to the allegedly gynocentric nature of "progressive" masculism.

This branch views the (loose) replacement gender roles for men in the feminist and post-feminist landscape as unsatisfactory. Also, the practical shortcomings of the gender egalitarian philosophy are critiqued.

Neutrality

The article begins "Masculism is the belief in the superiority of men or the masculine." But the rest of the articles is about critisism of unfair treatment of men, which can hardly be classified as "belief in the superiority". The first sentence is taken from a dictionary and I really doubt that any of the masculists themselves would agree on that definition. Aaker (talk) 16:07, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Masculinists can't just define themselves just as feminists can't just define themselves. The Merriam Webster dictionary and Allwords define "masculism" and "masculinism" as the belief in the superiority of men. The vast majority of other sources state the same thing. Randygeorge (talk) 22:19, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages requested images of human behavior
• Misplaced Pages controversial topics
• Unassessed Gender studies articles
• Unknown-importance Gender studies articles
• WikiProject Gender studies articles