Misplaced Pages

Talk:Men's rights movement

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Theicychameleon (talk | contribs) at 17:02, 7 February 2012. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 17:02, 7 February 2012 by Theicychameleon (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Skip to table of contents
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Men's rights movement article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
Article policies
Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32Auto-archiving period: 2 months 
This article has been placed on article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked temporarily from editing the encyclopedia, or subject to other administrative remedies, according to standards that may be higher than elsewhere on Misplaced Pages.Please see Talk:Men's rights/Article probation for further information.
Administrators: when sanctioning an editor for disruption to an article under probation, please be sure to record the action in the appropriate log. The log is here, under the section "Log of sanctions"
This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconGender studies
WikiProject iconThis 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 the project's importance scale.
To-do list:

 Here are some tasks awaiting attention:
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconHuman rights Low‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Human rights, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Human rights on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Human rightsWikipedia:WikiProject Human rightsTemplate:WikiProject Human rightsHuman rights
LowThis article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
This page is not a forum for general discussion about Men's rights. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about Men's rights at the Reference desk.
Points of interest related to Men's rights on Misplaced Pages:
Category
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Men's rights movement article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
Article policies
Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32Auto-archiving period: 2 months 
Peace dove with olive branch in its beakPlease stay calm and civil while commenting or presenting evidence, and do not make personal attacks. Be patient when approaching solutions to any issues. If consensus is not reached, other solutions exist to draw attention and ensure that more editors mediate or comment on the dispute.

Removing original research

As promised, I am slowly going to remove or replace sections that are improperly sourced or original research. I am starting with the refugee section. The one citation given does not speak about men's rights or discriminatory practices. The entire section appears to be the opinion of the editor who added it, with the citation to provide an example. I have spent the last 30 minutes looking for other potential sources about refugee issues and men's rights, and have found nothing. As a result, I am deleting the section. --Slp1 (talk) 19:32, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Good work. Binksternet (talk) 21:35, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Sounds good, I'll leave you to it. If the men's right movement is back in this article, and there's an exclusion of other men's movement, I'm sure I'm no help here. Best of luck!--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:21, 9 December 2011 (UTC)


Today, I've looked at the pensions and social security section. Some of the section is unsourced. The rest of it is sourced to government documents describing social security provision with no reference to men's rights or any form of discrimination. The current section fails WP:V and WP:NOR. In this case, after a fair bit of research I have been able to find reliable secondary sources making clear that these issues are of concern to men's rights activists. I will be deleting the current material and replacing with what I have found. --Slp1 (talk) 23:04, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I have tackled a section called "political representation" today. I have revamped the section to be more global, and removed some material about timing of things than seems to have been plumb wrong. I have renamed the section "governmental structures", since I think the previous title was somewhat misleading. --Slp1 (talk) 20:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I have worked on the false accusations of rape section.

  • The first sentence was unsourced. The rest of the section has significant problems with the misrepresentation of sources and OR.
  • I removed one source which doesn't mention men's rights, and more worryingly has been used inappropriately. The article in question mostly discusses that a young girl may have been too aggressively pursued by the law after making an apparently false rape claim, rather than the actions against "false accusers" is too lenient.
  • The source used to support the rape anonymity and evidence requirement sections do not mention men's rights and neither fully support the material included. For example, it is not clear from the BBC source] that "Women Against Rape" complained about the proposed law- they are just mentioned agreeing with it.
  • The Boston Law article has been entirely misrepresented. The author does indeed mention some states require corroboration for rape, but does not conclude that "Thus the issue of false accusations of rape is very serious." In fact, the author argues the exact opposite, that corroboration is an inappropriate requirement. e.g. "The prompt complaint requirement, corroboration requirement, and cautionary instructions in the criminal law of rape evinced the belief that, because women lie about rape, men accused of it need special legal protection beyond that which the law affords defendants accused of other crimes.....It is important to connect these retrograde policies with their discredited past and reject them both in the remaining state laws in which they withstand old age and in campus disciplinary procedures in which they are just being born."

The magnitude of the problems with verifiability is very concerning. Evidently, every reference in this article will need to be specifically examined. I have replaced the content with sourced material. --Slp1 (talk) 23:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Today I removed the section about Carol Liu and the California legislation. No connection was made to men's rights issues in the sources given, and I couldn't find any reliable sources that did. I have therefore removed the section per V, OR and undue weight. --Slp1 (talk) 20:47, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I worked on the education section today. As with other sections, I have removed some material that was unsourced and some OR material that had no overt connection made with men's rights. I have replaced it with sourced material; there were some good sources for this section. --Slp1 (talk) 23:05, 26 December 2011 (UTC)


Criticism of the men's rights movement

Most of the criticism of the men's rights movement is on blogs, but there are a few reliable sources that could be used to build a small section:

Kaldari (talk) 00:40, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I've actually been finding a fair amount of criticism/disagreement in the sources that I have been reading, but I haven't been including it because the criticism is more about the overall approach of the men's rights movements than the specific issues I have been tackling. I don't really like criticism sections, preferring to integrate the text, but it may be the way to go, at least in the short term. --Slp1 (talk) 20:51, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
So wait, this article -is- about MRA's and the MRM now? Arkon (talk) 23:16, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Well part of the article is, it seems. Kaldari (talk) 23:24, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Alrighty then, I'll go back through the archives and readd the material that was removed previously. Arkon (talk) 23:30, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
In my edits I'm sticking strictly to the methodology of looking for material about "men's rights" in a particular topic area. It turns out that when you do that, to date the sources almost always turn out to be about the views of the Men's rights folk, and so I have been attributing the opinions as I found them in the sources. I'm not sure what you are planning to replace, Arkon, but I strongly feel that we should stick to the approach of looking for high quality sources with direct connections to the topic of "Men's rights". The article may end up being mainly about MRAs and the MRM, but we don't know that for sure yet.--Slp1 (talk) 00:31, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

why is it that you can't cite any criticisms of the men's rights movement in here? whether it from MRAs or third parties? this is the only such page without a balancing section. a lot of the stuff here is pro-men's rights OR and kept in good faith, yet everything else is rapidly deleted. it's strange, valerie solanas is allowed to be labelled feminist, yet there's an editorial policy to give MRAs a benefit of the doubt which even extends to publicising an MRA's didactic biased "no true scotsman" statements. Paintedxbird (talk) 09:28, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

This is not a double standard: Valerie Solanas is not listed on the page for feminism, nor radical feminism except as a See Also. She is mentioned in Anarcho-feminism, but none of these articles have a criticism section. This is not unusual: Many editors dislike criticism sections. Ultimately though it's still just precedent: here at Misplaced Pages all edits will be challenged for elements such as verifiability, accuracy, neutral point of view, reliability of sources. We're about making descriptive statements of our target, not judgements. As for your contention that only pro-men's rights content is kept, you may want to see what the other side thinks.Theinactivist (talk • contribs) 18:49, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

fair enough. still, feminism has antifeminism, masculism, men and feminism, this page, etc all providing opposing views. whereas men's rights has no analogue. also, they would complain; they can't even understand what NPOV/RS/NOR means. Paintedxbird (talk) 07:03, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

You make a good point there, though I should qualify that by saying only three sentences in this article are critical of the feminist movement by name, and there are at least as many criticisms of the MRM scattered throughout the article. The other articles have even fewer direct criticisms, which also tend to be balanced in count. On another note though, by pushing for those quotation marks around "the feminist health movement" are you denying that feminism has a branch supporting women's health? Our article on the subject is labeled as a part of feminism: if you read the source article by Flood, that's exactly what he's referring to. For example, if you Google women's health feminist the first result is the Feminist Women's Health Center. Flood's argument is that it is unreasonable for people to blame these structures. Theinactivist (talk • contribs) 07:51, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

i thought he was describing an idea of the health service. no i'm not disputing that. fixed it back. Paintedxbird (talk) 08:35, 27 January 2012 (UTC)


Why are the history and definition sections there ?

Neither are necessary and come across as an attempt to obfuscate the issue.
Gathering a group of movements and claiming them to be mens rights just because there's men in them is like claiming a group of women supporting wife beating makes them a womens rights group. Pleasetry (talk) 05:03, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

This raises some good points. This article is Men's Rights. While information on the Men's Rights Movement (MRM) is certainly apropos (especially if there's no separate article), we should not randomly assume any modern day men's group is a Men's Rights organization or part of the MRM. The issue does become somewhat convoluted though as men seeing themselves as a specific and separate class with unique needs and issues is relatively new. Thus, while groups like the mythopoetic men's movement never really advocated for men's rights or issues, it was an early attempt at exploring the very idea that men had concerns, issues and needs that were unique to boys, men and fathers.--Cybermud (talk) 18:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree that this, like lots of other things, needs work. I agree that the definition section is problematic, with original research etc. As per Cybermud, it seems from the sources that some of these groups were precursors of men's rights actions and activism, even if they aren't really men's rights groups. It will need to be carefully written. --Slp1 (talk) 22:48, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree wholeheartedly, I don't see how unsupported arguments that human rights forums were unduly focused on men's rights is relevant to an article concerning (mostly unexplored) men's rights issues. It reads as an attempt to write unsupported criticism into the head of the article, and suggests that men's rights should be properly understood as issues which do not warrant special attention and are already being adequately dealt with. If the author of this section wishes to make this assertion it might be more honest to label their views as criticism.
The use of the word "patriarchal" in the second paragraph is also problematic as this concept is often used to imply that men's rights issues do not exist and that only women are denied human rights on the basis of their gender. The following section "Men's rights movement" is a much more substantial and less confused background to the subject of the article.

Theicychameleon (talk) 14:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

i don't see how saying that men were and are privileged in many ways necessarily entails that they can't have inequalities at the same time. logically that's impossible and the rest of the page attests to that. just because the facts aren't accommodating, doesn't mean they're untruthful or judgemental. same with the word "patriarchal". Paintedxbird (talk) 16:46, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Use of the Term Men's Rights Activism

This section should excised. I think it's a good placeholder for a topic of value to the article but it currently contains content that almost exclusively cites the "The Good Men Project" -- a pro-feminist project that is supported by Ms. Magazine and ridiculed by MRA's (although the article implies that the TGMP is part of the MRM.) While the Good Men Project is a Misplaced Pages worthy blog its articles are not worthy sources for content in other Misplaced Pages articles. The blogs written by contributors to TGMP do not meet WP:RS by any stretch of the imagination. Furthermore there are piles of books churned out by Women's Studies programs that already speak to the feminist impression of Men's Rights and the MRM which do not have the sourcing issues that TGMP does. I won't even go into the hyperbole it contains which conflates men's rights activism as "glorifying" the murder of women...--Cybermud (talk) 01:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

men's rights activists can't be pro-feminist? "no true MRA"? i'd like to excise all the masculism from self-proclaimed feminists who are ridiculed on that page. i guess we're both outta luck. if you read the text it doesn't equate MRAs with glorifying murder, it simply describes some who do. Paintedxbird (talk) 10:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I'll assume good faith on your rhetorical question even as you assume bad faith and comport yourself in an incivil manner by commenting that if I were to actually "read the text" I am commenting on I might come to a different conclusion than the one I did by, presumably, commenting on something I didn't actually read. So yes, MRA's are pretty strongly anti-feminist. There are certainly some notable MRA's who self-identify as feminists Camille Paglia, Daphne Patai and Warren Farrell come to mind but they still remain anti-feminist in most of their views, are respected by MRA's and refiled by feminists as a general rule. "Feminist," like many labels, means many things to many people and the reasons an individual chooses to take up that moniker on a personal level, can be as varied as the individual persons who chose to do so. When I talk about the pro-feminist (admittedly also a label) philosophies of others in general I am applying that criterion in a less subjective and, hopefully, more meaningful manner. If my telling you that MRA's and modern-day feminists are often times diametrically opposed to each other comes as news to you I suggest you limit your contributions to the article Men's Rights to copyediting and stylistic issues as you may lack the background in the subject matter to be able to contribute to the content in a constructive manner. As for your comment, "i'd like to excise all the masculism from self-proclaimed feminists who are ridiculed on that page. i guess we're both outta luck." I truly no idea what you're referring to but I will say that luck has nothing to do with it. Perhaps now we can move past this and acknowledge that TGMP is not a WP:RS?--Cybermud (talk) 17:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
"Bellanger and others within the men's rights movement have fingered other MRAs as radicals, criticizing the use of language such as in a radio podcast that called most women semi-human. Glenn Sacks of Massachusetts advocacy group Fathers & Families has questioned bloggers for glorifying murderers Darren Mack" so "questioning bloggers" implies "all MRAs"? i don't see it, but i'd be happy to quantify it specifically. i know most MRAs are antifeminist, but it doesn't mean they're "true MRAs" any more than Christina Hoff Summers is a "true feminist". unless you can prove otherwise removing it wouldn't be NPOV. also, the claim (podcast calling women semi-human) you're disputing is cited within the source's text "http://www.blogtalkradio.com/avoiceformen/2011/03/02/an-introduction-to-the-mens-movement". TGMP is a webzine with editorial oversight. i think it's a RS. Paintedxbird (talk) 19:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Your use of pronouns, bad grammar, and un-closed quotations marks is confusing and even where I can understand what you're trying to say I don't appreciate the relevance of it. Also not sure who/what you are quoting when you say "tll MRA's", "true MRA's", or "true feminist" as I would never presume that I, or anyone else, can define what "all" of any social group says or does, nor what constitute a "true" member of it. Perhaps you would clarify if doing so is germane to the article in question? In any case TGMP is not a WP:RS on anything other than, perhaps, TGMP itself. I should think that other editors here who constantly exhort "using the highest quality sources available" should be agreeing with me, but perhaps there is a double-standard at work when the sources in question confirm their pre-existing biases.--Cybermud (talk) 20:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
i'll overlook your irrationality and defensiveness. i was referring to what you said. "I won't even go into the hyperbole it contains which conflates men's rights activism as "glorifying" the murder of women". the sentence you're referring to says "Glenn Sacks of Massachusetts advocacy group Fathers & Families has questioned bloggers for glorifying murderers". in the source some MRAs equate Darren Mack and Herbert Chalmers as being like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. why do you think it's wrong to recognise that they call themselves MRAs other than the fact you find it unflattering? it sounds like you're trying to define MRAs as antifeminist to me seeing as you specifically criticise some sources as being "pro-feminist". you dislike TGMP, but i haven't heard anything except anecdotal smear and innuendo against a notable webzine in way of reasons why it shouldn't be accepted especially when the source identifies it's evidence. Paintedxbird (talk) 21:53, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Please indent your posts by using ":", as it makes it harder to follow conversation threads otherwise. You should also avoid calling people irrational and defensive as it is also wikipedia policy to assume good faith and, for the record, I have nothing to be defensive or irrational about though you may want to consider reading the article projection. Unfortunately your clarification is still not clear. What does what Glenn Sacks says about bloggers have to do with this article? Why are you claiming I think it's wrong to recognize they (who is they by the way) call themselves MRA's and why do you, erroneously think I find it unflattering? Why is calling some sources "pro-feminist" a form of "criticism" rather than a simple statement of fact? And why do you say I dislike the TGMP simply because I, quite reasonably, say it is not a reliable source? If your "notable webzine" identifies its sources why don't you go to them directly. I know there are admins editing this article who exhort others to follow a large number of wikipedia policies that you are flagrantly breaking, first and foremost wp:agf and wp:rs. If you insist on this route and they cannot, or will not, advise you of the error of your ways I will open an WP:Request for comment on your behavior and ask for input from the Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard regarding your inappropriate use of the TGMP. Having said that, I will once again remove the poorly sourced and confused content in question.--Cybermud (talk) 00:24, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
"What does what Glenn Sacks says about bloggers have to do with this article?" he's one of the most notable MRAs around. his comments have to do with recognising a school of thought within men's rights. the heading was called "Use of the term MRA".
"Why is calling some sources "pro-feminist" a form of "criticism" rather than a simple statement of fact?" because you said: "This (Use of the Term Men's Rights Activism) section should excised. I think it's a good placeholder for a topic of value to the article but it currently contains content that almost exclusively cites the "The Good Men Project" -- a pro-feminist project that is supported by Ms. Magazine and ridiculed by MRA's" if you accept there's nothing necessarily inconsistent with pro-feminism/feminism and men's rights then why do you claim it as a reason for removal?
"If your "notable webzine" identifies its sources why don't you go to them directly." that'd be original research. also, the blog doesn't have a wikipage.
"why do you say I dislike the TGMP simply because I, quite reasonably, say it is not a reliable source?" i simply asked why you thought it was a questionable source. you linked me to the article, but haven't explained your process. if you check you'll find that the TGMP is staffed by professional writers and editors.
"If you insist on this route and they cannot, or will not, advise you of the error of your ways I will open an WP:Request for comment on your behavior and ask for input from the Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard regarding your inappropriate use of the TGMP." all i asked for was your reasoning. you're also removing citations for being "pro-feminist". i'd like to resolve this so i think that'd be good. Paintedxbird (talk) 02:31, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
i've waited a day for a response so i'm now restoring the "use of the term MRA" section. feel free to either reply here or ask for dispute resolution. Paintedxbird (talk) 03:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Please phrase whatever it is you'd like a response to in the form of a question or coherent comment whose content can be easily identified. I don't have time to try to interpret what you are saying or extract it from your badly formatted responses. I am really not trying to be difficult here but a little effort on your part to be comprehensible goes a long way. Are you new to Misplaced Pages? There really should be no ambiguity to the fact that this section is very badly sourced.. it points to a blogging site run by non-journalists and non-experts and then starts pointing to pod-casts. Even if it were well-sourced it's confused and un-encyclopedic.--Cybermud (talk) 14:13, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
I thought it was simple enough seeing as it was written in the format of quoting your comments and a response by myself. Must be too complicated. Paintedxbird (talk) 19:46, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
I guess so. If there's any part of it that you'd like a response to please highlight it again as if you were talking to a child so I can respond because saying things like:

"If your "notable webzine" identifies its sources why don't you go to them directly." that'd be original research. also, the blog doesn't have a wikipage.

seems like gibberish to me.--Cybermud (talk) 05:17, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Tempting, but I think I'd just get a different form of passive-aggressiveness in response. Feel free to report this comment to whoever you like. Paintedxbird (talk) 11:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Hello Pot, meet Kettle.--Cybermud (talk) 03:55, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Hi Paintedxbird. I'd agree with others that this section wasn't the greatest in terms of sourcing and content. There is probably something small to be said about the few "fringe" men's rights activists who have used unpleasant tactics and received coverage in mainstream reliable sources, but it is always best to stick to the highest quality sources such as books, newspapers, journal articles etc. Websites aren't the best. --Slp1 (talk) 23:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Identifying sources

I seem to have had this conversation at least a dozen times on gender related articles but feminist sources for articles related to Men's Rights should be identified as such. This article is literally filled with qualifiers like "Men's rights activists claim.." but then includes content from feminist (and misandric) sources like Flood and Kimmel and pretends they are somehow neutral and require no qualification. Even worse feminist sources like TGMP are painted as MRM sources (in which case they also violate wp:RS.) Whatever the solution here it should be consistent. My preference is to have qualifiers identifying the ideological biases of both masculist and feminist sources, but qualifying one and not qualifying the other is totally unjustifiable and a symptom of the fact that almost all non-feminist editors have been driven from this article. I appreciate the fact that many people immediately ignore any research identified as "feminist" due to all the junk science and research that's come out of the their advocacy based scholarship but there's no justification for hiding the fact that feminist research is.. well feminist.--Cybermud (talk) 14:33, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

To make my point more concrete with one example (of several that exist) the section "Health" has two paragraphs. The first starts with:

"Men's rights activists view the health issues faced by men and their shorter life spans as compared to women as evidence of discrimination and oppression."

The second paragraph starts with

"Michael Messner and other gender studies authors critique the claims, stating that the poorer health outcomes are the heavy costs paid by men"

Creating a situation where gender ideologues who support the feminist view that all men are rapists are simply identified as "gender studies authors" whereas anyone who supports a contrarian view is labeled as an "activist" (ie non-academic.)--Cybermud (talk) 14:46, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I deleted the Paintedxbird section because of two reasons: poor sourcing and too much in-universe navel-gazing. I expect that a discussion of the use of the term "men's rights activism" would begin and end with dispassionate scholarly analysis, not blog posts hosted by participants. Binksternet (talk) 15:21, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
While it's always tricky labeling someone who is expected to be giving a neutral overview by their politics, I agree with the statement that feminist authors should be identified as such, on the grounds of the relationship (or at least widely perceived relationship) between men's rights and antifeminism. If a critic may be a political enemy, this is important to note because it effects the credibility of their personal assessments. When I did a copyedit of this article a while back I changed the wording to "gender studies authors" as it had been a highly vague "academics" and I compared each author cited based on personal bios and noted they were involved primarily in the field of gender studies. I don't recall any of these bios espousing feminism, so to identify them as such you'll need to find a reliable source, or an acknowledgement within the sources already cited. Theinactivist (talk • contribs) 19:32, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Warren Farrell and other writers are quoted by the article, the sources are non-NPOV. why is one group who claims advocacy for men's rights allowed and another removed based on a subjective belief on what should constitute men's rights as Cybermud has shown. once again, i'm asking why is criticism being censored? "navel gazing"? if you can have feminists commenting on radical feminism then why can't you have MRAs commenting on their own radicals? Paintedxbird (talk) 19:59, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Really!? You have a problem with quoting Warren Farrell in an article on Men's Rights and you're pushing the TGMP as a reliable source? I still have a hard time following what you're saying with the way you seem to jump from one half-finished idea to another but, in case it's even relevant (i'm not sure), sources don't need to be NPOV, articles do. No one here is censoring anything that I've seen over the past few days. All I've asked for is sources that don't suck and for feminist sources to be properly identified as such. If it's at all germane to the article, could you explain what it is that "User:Cybermud has shown, once again?" --Cybermud (talk) 05:09, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, in reality, saying "Gender Studies" rather than feminist (or Women's Studies) is a way of putting lipstick on a pig. Women's Studies university programs changed their name to Gender Studies to signal inclusiveness of homosexual issues and co-opt the creation of Men's Studies programs by allowing them (academic feminists) to claim that a generic, and inclusive, program now existed (notwithstanding that the curriculum and professors didn't change at all.) While anyone familiar with the history of the "academic arm of feminism" that is Women's Studies knows that "Gender Studies" is a euphemism for Women's Studies which is, according to their own mission statements, a supporter of the feminist political movement, the average Misplaced Pages reader will not make that connection and may believe there actually exists something called Gender Studies that does not have a Pro-Feminist bias (it does not), notwithstanding nascent efforts to create "Male Studies" programs at the university level.--Cybermud (talk) 05:26, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
like i said, Cybermud in his own words is trying to narrow the article to a specific subjective viewpoint based on his own personal and narrow view of men's rights. Paintedxbird (talk) 11:26, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


At some point perhaps an admin will admonish you for your behavior though I think that, in the meantime, they are hoping that dealing with your bad behavior will try my patience enough that they can find some reason to remove me as well. Unfortunately for you, and them, that won't happen in the foreseeable future. Every viewpoint is subjective, though, for my part, I actually do want a quality, NPOV article and am not here to POV push anything to the point that it unbalances the article. At the moment I'm trying to add balance to the subjective edits of the feminist task force that descended on this article and defaced it with Wikilawyering and excessive demands of "higher quality" sources and then, once they had driven the non-feminist editors out, allowed you to use crap sources so long as they confirmed their pre-existing biases. Heaven forbid someone who actually believes that men's rights is a worthwhile topic and political movement would be one of the editors of the article Men's Rights right? The contrarian view you are pushing is already well represented enough (though you are welcome to continue editing if you can do so without making false allegations against me.) I will continue to edit this article regardless of the incivility of editors who disagree with me and apply double-standards to WP policies.. but it would really be nice if you allowed me to do that without all the drama, hoopla, personal attacks and gibberish.--Cybermud (talk) 03:50, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

i don't know what i'm supposed to be accused of other than incivility, which i've stopped. it's you who refuses to engage with others and explain your decisions according to editorial policy. you can't have an NPOV article by censoring pro-feminists MRAs and internal/external criticism. antifeminist MRAs aren't entitled to monopolise the definiton of men's rights and the desire to do so has NOTHING to do with quality. wp:NPOV "Editors, while naturally having their own points of view, should strive in good faith to provide complete information, and not to promote one particular point of view over another. As such, the neutral point of view should not be interpreted as the exclusion of certain points of view." wp:v "The threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Misplaced Pages has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think unsourced material is true." i'm sorry if it's upsetting but all users are allowed their opinions and have the same rights to challenge editions based on policy. WP:NOR "Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by a reliable source. Material for which no reliable source can be found is considered original research." Paintedxbird (talk) 06:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I am very familiar with WP policies, what I don't understand is why you are quoting them to me. You are the one who was aggressively pushing TGMP as a WP:RS and becoming hostile and insulting when challenged on it. You also continue to accuse me of POV pushing and censorship when there is absolutely no evidence to support those claims whatsoever. The ONLY edits I've made to this article in months were to remove material that was so poorly sourced it may as well have been unsourced, add that "protector" was one of men's primary traditional sex roles and qualify the opinions of pro-feminist sources as being pro-feminist sources. Contrary to the assumptions you have made about me, I do want an NPOV article and care about the quality of WP, both in terms of this article, and in general.
I see sections all over this article that begin with "Men's rights activists believe/claim/assert..." but then the contrarian sections written by pro-feminist sources are not qualified whatsoever but, rather, presented as accepted truth with no ideological slant/bias/lens whatsoever. Doing this is POV in the extreme. I am for representing all viewpoints accurately and fairly.. even the ones I fundamentally disagree with! In order to do so we must first appreciate, and be willing to acknowledge, that there is a fundamental dichotomy here between MRA's and feminists. Once we've done so we can accurately provide a contextualized point and counter-point presentation. As long as we pretend that this is not the case and that "feminism is just about equality" we will just keep running endlessly on a hamster wheel and wasting each others time.
If I seem defensive, it's because I am. I know the history of this article, many of the editors who created the present probation problem and have been having all of my, very reasonable, edits reverted. The problem with this article, like so many of WP's gender related articles, is that there's a feminist task force that goes around practicing a very formalistic interpretation of WP policies and proceedures when dealing with editors they ideologically disagree with, while coddling editors who, no disrespect intended since I appreciate you are a new editor, like you, make poorly sourced edits as long as those edits confirm their pre-existing biases.
All that said, I look forward to working with you on improving this article.--Cybermud (talk) 18:09, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Per WP:V "Where available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources" that we should base it on. Like it or not, Flood, Kimmel et al. are longstanding, well respected scholars in the area of men's rights, men and masculinities, and have multiple peer-reviewed publications in the field. They are precisely the sort of sources that should be summarized for this article, even if men's rights activists dislike their viewpoints. Since academic sources attribute the views to "men's rights activists/advocates" so does this article. Since academic opinion appears to be critical of some men's rights claims, that needs to be reflected. I've done very broad literature searches, but other academic sources about men's rights, which present other perspectives, would be great; they need to be produced, however. --Slp1 (talk) 22:44, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

"equal rights"

regarding the claim that men's rights advocates equal rights i'm concerned because the two accessible sources don't seem to support it and are taken out of context and both scrutinise the claim. "Citizenship revisited: threats or opportunities of shifting boundaries" on p66-67 quotes a men's rights group as claiming to stand for equality, but then expounds on the fact that the group define the meaning as "equal, but different", which is contradictory. "From Panthers to Promise Keepers: rethinking the men's movement" claims that men want equal status, but not equal responsibility on p 167. and that "the very language of equal rights used by fathers rights might be used to justify traditional unequal forms of parenting and male privilege" on p166 also the third quote is of a book by Michael Messner, who's considered by some to be "pro-feminist". therefore i think the claim needs further clarification and factual verification if it's to be returned. Paintedxbird (talk) 20:20, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

As I tend to agree with Kgorman-ucb that "human rights don't seek anything by themselves" I think this concern is, for the moment, void. However for the future I would note that self-published sources and other personal statements are reliable enough to describe a person's or group's goals. Accusations otherwise, even if in print, are dubious. An assessment of actions and outcomes can reflect on the effectiveness of a group in meeting their goals. Theinactivist (talk • contribs) 20:49, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
that sounds like a double standard. some are subjectively cherrypicked to be "reliable sources" and allowed to speak about others, whereas others are removed despite fulfilling the same criteria. i think the processes should be open and scrutinised, as currently i don't see any consistency towards the three pillars. Paintedxbird (talk) 21:26, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
I may not be following you, Theinactivist, but actually I don't think you are correct. Yes, self-published sources can be used with care, but academic sources by scholars who have studied the movement, are much to be preferred. See WP:PSTS and WP:V and WP:IRS.--Slp1 (talk) 22:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't know if any third-party reliable source states "the goal of XXX is to have superiority over women" but if one does, my point is that such a statement is mind-reading and is a claim of information that cannot be known to the source. I would say, therefore, it is unverifiable. If you would like to discuss this further, perhaps there is a more appropriate forum where various editors can weigh in on the concept of verifiability. Theinactivist (talk • contribs) 03:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't know of any source that says that "the goal of XXX is to have superiority over women" either, so perhaps the discussion is moot. And yes, if it was a throwaway line in a newspaper article then it would be very dubious for inclusion per WP:UNDUE. But if high quality sources, having made a scholarly study of the MR movement observed, for example, that some parts of the MRM are conservative and patriarchal in their approach while others are not, then I hope you will agree that that is not mindreading, but the conclusions of academic study. --Slp1 (talk) 04:18, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Pure nonsense

I have been reverted twice for saying, in the lead of this article, that one of men's traditional roles is that of "protector" with some noise about a source failure. Are you kidding me? First of all, per WP:Lead article leads do not need citations if the content in the lead is sourced in the body. Secondly, do the editors reverting this change not live in human society? Would someone like me to source a claim that one of women's traditional roles was caretaker of children? I know it is probably fun to revert editors you disagree with just because, but it's not creating a better encyclopedia and just wastes people's time. There's no need to source a statement that says water is wet. If you need a Misplaced Pages policy for that try WP:Common--Cybermud (talk) 05:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think anyone would dispute that one of men's traditional roles has been that of "protector". The sentence is about men's "primary" role in the family, however, not a laundry list of male gender roles. Thus the disagreement. Kaldari (talk) 23:24, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
There's no laundry list and a penchant for hyperbole is not helpful here. Anyone with any background in the study of sex and gender roles know that men have exactly two traditional roles. Not one and not three. Provider and Protector.--Cybermud (talk) 03:53, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
The main problem, Cybermud, as I see it, is that the sentence was cited, and you added material that was not in the reference given. It doesn't matter how obvious you think the material is; it means that the citation is no longer accurate, and leads, now and in the future, to significant verifiability problems. In a situation like this you have a choice. You could find a citation that makes the point of both provider/protector,(best) or you could add "and protector" after the citation (less good). --Slp1 (talk) 22:22, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Please remember in future comments here that this article is still on probation, the terms of which can be found at Talk:Men's rights/Article probation if you'd like to review them. Kevin (talk) 01:06, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Summary: Multiple Issues

Neutrality: Tagged since March 2011, and persists. Both content and sources have been questioned.

Globalize: Tagged in September 2011. At that time the article was written largely about movement within England. There are now numerous examples from other regions, but the tag may still apply if these xamples do not constitute an appropriate representation of those regions' worldviews.

Citation Check: Numerous references to Google Books in which, if the authors indeed used these for the source, would be missing much of the information. In one or more cases, authorship was misattributed to editors. Numerous books and news articles which may be misinterpreted to represent a certain POV. Attention should be paid both to verification and source reliability.

Laundry List: In the absence of a single coherent view on the subject, the article currently contains a synthesis of all movements and issues which identify by, or which have been identified by the term "men's rights." The relationship to the whole and the notability within are often not properly conveyed. The most recent example of this laundry list construction can be seen here, though it is neither the exclusive nor most prominent example.

Expert Attention: Because of the disputes and questionable verifiability, I have requested an expert in the field of sociology. (portion removed)

Please note that this section is for discussion about the inclusion or removal of maintenance tags. Thanks for your time. Theinactivist (talk • contribs) 01:29, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you about most of these.
I am the person who originally added the globalize tag and I tend to feel it still belongs - the article still doesn't do a great job at a global perspective, and also is pretty recentist (although that isn't really covered in the globalize tag, I feel like it's a related issue.)I do disagree with you about the expert tag a bit - partly just on practical grounds. At this point, even more so than for an ordinary wikipedia article, we should really take what we can get - any additional eyes on this article from people who are familiar with the literature in this area would be awesome, regardless of what side they are coming from. I'd be ecstatic if any editor who is really really familiar with the literature suddenly appeared here, regardless of their persuasion or background. (My non-solely practical objections I won't bother to get in to here, because they'd take a while to explain and derail the conversation without adding much.)
I would consider the citation problems and the whole laundry list aspect the most significant problems in the article currently. Kevin (talk) 10:35, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the support Kevin. After I wrote that last sentence I feared it might offend a prospective reviewer. In my mind it was more a rationale than a requirement, so I'll redact it. I still stand by the need to for neutrality, but the more important issue is to define the subject more tightly. Theinactivist (talk • contribs) 16:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm just back to Misplaced Pages after a short break from this article. I'd agree with certain of the comments and disagree with others. As has been noted many times, including by Bkinsternet above, WP seeks scholarly analysis as the foundation of its articles. All sources come with their biases, and thus we don't seek neutral sources, but the highest quality, scholarly sources. WP:RS doesn't qualify sources according to any bias perceived by editors. For example, in Homeopathy, WP doesn't qualify academic opinion as coming from a "conventional medical" perspective or as "anti-homeopathic".
Similarly, all editors come with their biases, and as long as they are willing to park their opinions at the door and work collaboratively with people with opposing (or no) opinions to develop an article that accurately summarizes these highest quality sources, then everybody is welcome.
I agree that the current laundry list format is problematic, and note that it contrasts dramatically with articles about "men's rights" in other encyclopedias of various forms. This is a legacy from the past, but sticking to this in the short term may helpful as we seek to clean up the other problems.
I also agree that there have been significant problems with content verifiability with some of the sections I have checked. As part of that, checking the citations is a good idea too, but errors in authorship are likely good faith mistakes and quite easy to make; in fact I believe in trying to fix one misatttribution, Inactivist actually inserted another!!! --Slp1 (talk) 22:13, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't know which is stranger, that you know of a mistake which you are not correcting, or that you make a specific accusation by name without evidence. As I devoted a small section to explaining that the sources, as they appear to be cited, are incomplete, it would not be surprising if I did make a mistake. However I would hope that a variety of editors with whose identities I am not concerned would know the full source and context of the information they bring. Theinactivist (talk • contribs) 03:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Sorry if I didn't explain clearly enough. You made this edit, replacing the (incorrect- mea culpa I believe) author name Flood with Andrea O'Reilly, which was also incorrect. The actual author of that section is Kenneth Clatterbaugh. I made a note in the edit summary when I corrected it earlier today, but evidently should have clarified what was supposed to be a lighthearted comment about how easy it is for us all to make mistakes, especially with edited volumes.--Slp1 (talk) 03:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

attributing

I have removed the naming of individuals (except in the case of quotes), and the change from academics to "gender studies authors". Here is my reasoning:

  • The academics listed are for the most part not "gender studies authors". They are often academics with PhDs in sociology generally working in sociology departments-with their specialities are typically described (by themselves and others) "men and masculinities", but others are criminologists, education professors etc. Not only is it not accurate but "Gender studies" is, rightly or wrongly, used as pejorative term by men's rights activists and thus best to avoid per NPOV.
  • Attribution can be used as a subtle tool to minimize a point, as in "According Michael Smith, the earth goes around the sun". See WP:INTEXT. Direct, named attribution of this sort is typically only necessary where there are differing opinions within the same category of opinion givers. --Slp1 (talk) 23:37, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
The three Michaels (Flood, Messner and Kimmel) all have done work primarily or exclusively work in gender studies (or, if you prefer, the study of sociological relations between genders). That covers three of the five citations; of the other two, one is a study that is being critiqued by them, leaving one final study with authors in an unclassifiable variety of fields (criminology, evolutionary psychology). Words like academics are weasel words because they leave unclarified who is doing the talking. The bias you claim is not cited in Misplaced Pages anywhere I can find, nor do you give reliable sources, so is not justifiable cause for removing the term. Theinactivist (talk • contribs) 03:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't accept that "academics" is a weasel word. Quite the opposite in fact. It is a clear factual ad neutral description of all of the authors, whereas "gender studies" is a category that you as a WP editor has determined they all fit into, not the departments that the Michaels work in, nor the PhDs they have obtained, nor the particular field of study they themselves claim, quite apart from the others. And here are a few of the many sources where men's rights activists complain about "gender studies" departments . --Slp1 (talk) 04:03, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Please Don't Dumb Down Obvious Truths

For example, under the section titled "Divorce" it says; "Men's rights concern is regarding their perception of unequal representation in family and divorce law" then it goes on to say only 3% of men receive alimony indicating that custody rates are similar. This, however, is preceded by the statement "perception of unequal treatment." This is kind of like saying "Blacks perceived unequal treatment under Jim Crow laws." It has a certain weaselly absurdity to it. Grow some balls and say what you mean. If the evidence supports the conclusion, state the conclusion. If you don't understand why, see weasel words under "Passive and middle voice." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Benjamin9832 (talk • contribs) 05:19, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Health Section

The wording of the second section bothers me immensely. The emphasis of the Academic credentials of Masculist critics falsely implies that Men's Rights Arguments are mostly unacademic, its an ad hominem attack. Furthermore the assertion that men only suffer from a reduced lifespan due to "conformity with the narrow definitions of masculinity that promise to bring them status and privilege" smacks of victim blaming, as if men dying of heart attacks after a lifetime of labour and service are somehow responsible for their own predicament. If I were to cite authors claiming female responsibility for women's rights issues on the basis that women do so in order to access female privilege, or that they are less relevant as they apply more to minority groups of women there would be uproar (and rightly so).

On top of this, presenting the argument of "the male gender role as the root of men's health issues" being opposed to and criticism of the argument that "men's health issues are gender oppression" and the argument that "men's health issues are being marginalised by feminism" is fallacious: The former does not contradict or criticise the latter statements.

In order to remedy this I propose the deletion of the second paragraph and that arguments made by Academic Masculists such as Warren Farrell be added to the first in order to show how men's health issues being considered to be the result of discrimination and oppression is compatible with the view that they are the result of the male gender role.

At the very least the idea that "male health issues as a result of the male gender role" is a critcism of "male health issues as male oppression" should be contrasted with arguments showing how the two are compatible.

Thoughts?

Theicychameleon (talk) 12:29, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, thank you, Theicychameleon, for coming to the talkpage for discussion. It's a great step and much appreciated. I've brought the sections down to the bottom as that is where new topics typically go.
If you don't mind me saying so, I think your comments and observations contain a few misconceptions about WP, and WP editing. That is quite fine: I see that you are a fairly new WP editor, and there is a lot to learn I know.
  • This is an encyclopedia that seeks to summarize the highest quality reliable sources. Many of the comments made above come from the perspective that the current material is fallacious, that you don't agree it, or that similar material wouldn't be in another article. Articles don't get written based on these criteria, nor on making a new argument but on what high quality sources say. If you found high-quality sources making the point of "female responsibility for women's rights issues on the basis that women do so in order to access female privilege" then I'd support the inclusion in WP on an appropriate page.
  • As an example to show that this works both ways, the article currently talks about the difference in funding etc for breast and prostate research. When this overall topic was discussed a few months back (in relation to a different source than the one currently in the article), one of WP's finest medical authors gave a variety of seemingly solid reasons for disagreeing with the men's rights viewpoint on this matter . And the article in question gave several more But none of these arguments have (or will be) included as rebuttals to the men's rights viewpoint because these criticisms/observations have not been made in reliable sources in the context of men's rights.
  • Warren Farrell isn't an academic: he has a PhD, but he is not on faculty at a university, teaching students, doing research, writing for peer-reviewed journals etc.
So no, I don't agree with the deletion of well-sourced material, nor do I agree that there is a point of view problem with using the term "academics" since that is precisely who they are.
On the other hand, Farrell is a well-known masculinist author and speaker in the area of men's rights, and his publications are in my mind reliable sources. If you have some material to add from his books, that would probably be fine, making sure though the material is written dispassionately and is not given undueweight --Slp1 (talk) 23:35, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
No problem, I wasn't really sure where to put them to be honest.
"If you found high-quality sources making the point of "female responsibility for women's rights issues on the basis that women do so in order to access female privilege" then I'd support the inclusion in WP on an appropriate page." Good god, are you serious? We'd be roasted alive! Seriously though, I don't think that would be a helpful addition to the women's rights page, regardless who says it.
Thank you for the warm welcome, but I am aware, roughly, of how wikipedia works (at least at this level). If I wanted to write an opinion piece I'd be over in conservapedia ;)
Looking back over what I wrote I can see how badly I phrased it: Its not so much that I disagree with the cited work (I do, strongly, but thats beside the point), my main issue is that it falsely implies that the concept of the Male Gender Role being the source of men's health issues is solely an argument of MRA-critics and never of the MRM itself.
On reflection, however, I accept that you're quite right: that paragraph doesn't quite deserve deletion.
Instead I'd propose that another sentence or two be added to the effect that MRAs have also argued this position (Men's Health issues as a result of an overly strict Male gender role) in conjuntion with the former two (Men's Health issues as opression and Men's Health issues having been negatively impacted by some feminist discourses). "The Myth of Male Power" would serve pretty well in this respect: http://books.google.ie/books?id=yz-nPwAACAAJ&dq=the+myth+of+male+power
This would preserve existing citations while still getting across the point that some MRAs share this position and that it needn't necessarily be understood as being contradictory to the others.
As argued below I suggest that the critics be referred to as "other academics" on the basis that several of the cited sources for the first paragraph are also academic.

Theicychameleon (talk) 02:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. If Farrell makes his point in his book, great.
Which academics are you talking about? The sources being cited in the first paragraph (which are indeed for the most part academics) all attribute the ideas to "men's rights activists"; these are not their thoughts or ideas, but what they have seen in the men's rights material they have been studying. --Slp1 (talk) 03:25, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough :) I'll include that later this evening so.
"Doctors and academics have argued circumcision is a violation of men's right to health and bodily integrity." All the links following that sentence. If nothing else, it reads a bit weird to read "academics say x" followed by "academics critique this position" rather than "other academics critique this position." Especially when they're the same academics being referred to.
But I take your point that Messner and others aren't stating their own own opinion in the first paragraph. I think that section could do with some tidying up.
Just as a suggestion: I understand that "poor quality" sources such as blogs can be used as sources on themselves, if not their subject matter. While I agree that publications like the GMP aren't by any means of academic standard, and can't be held to be authorative on issues such as the interpretation of statistics, it might not be unreasonable to cite them as evidence that moderate MRAs have spoken out about such issues in the past and help balance out the focus on the fringe.
Theicychameleon (talk) 11:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
"Doctors and academics have argued" is rather too strong, since it could be interpreted to mean that doctors and academics were unanimous in this view (in fact, it seems to be a fringe position). I've amended it to say that "Some doctors and academics have argued...", and have also added some citations to those who disagree with this position. Jakew (talk) 11:08, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
i think the entire lot of recent editions have added sources that are unconnected to men's rights activism despite being about related issues. is that allowed? Paintedxbird (talk) 12:19, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
To Jakew: By fringe position you mean the idea that men die younger because of their gender role or that men die younger because of genetics? At any rate it looks like a sensible edit to me.
To Paintedxbird: The page isn't about men's rights activism, its about men's rights issues. Which sources had you in mind?
Theicychameleon (talk) 13:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
I mean the idea that circumcision is a violation of men's rights, Theicychameleon. Mainstream thinking among physicians and academics does recognise that there may be human rights issues associated with circumcision, depending on context, but generally doesn't take such an extreme position (see this UNAIDS document for a useful discussion of the issues). Jakew (talk) 13:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough, I'd agree with that.
Theicychameleon (talk) 17:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Domestic Violence Section

Again, I'm forced to ask why Masculist voices are phrased as "Men's Rights Activists" and critics as "Academics." I have no problem with criticism of the motivation of MRAs, this is supposed to be a neutral article and all voices should be represented, but I do object to one side being represented as "academic" and the other not.

I propose that the word "academics" be replaced with "critics" in the second paragraph. Also, I plan to add citations to the first paragraph from Warren Farrell's work on the subject.

Theicychameleon (talk) 12:29, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, we follow what the sources say, and the highest quality sources virtually always attribute these opinions to men's rights activists. The only places that I have found where the various viewpoints are not attributed are in books and articles written by MR activists themselves. In this context, trying to attribute what appears to be the mainstream academic opinion to "critics" is what WP calls using a weasel word. See also WP:VALID--Slp1 (talk) 23:35, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Weasel words are exactly the problem: why is an academic scholar an "MRA" when they draw attention to the existence of Female on Male DV, but an "Academic" when they criticise MRA voices? I say this as many of the sources for the first paragraph are, in fact, academics and in some cases are even the same academics cited as criticism. I have no problem with this, they've certainly said these things, its just that the adjectives supplied by wikipedians seem biased.
If 'critic' is seen as dismissive of their academic title then perhaps 'other academics' would suffice?
Just to take a parallel, academic critics of feminism are referred to on the feminist page as "writers" even though they're almost all professors and former professors. Do you consider this appropriate? If not, should we suggest that they be termed "Academics?" I suspect that this wouldn't be greeted warmly.
As above, Warren Farrell's work on the subject might help, I'm amazed he hasn't been cited in this section and he's nothing if not academic.

Theicychameleon (talk) 02:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

As above, the academics in the "first paragraph" all attribute the ideas to men's rights activists. They don't express agreement with the ideas; they are just reporting them on a factual basis. And as I mentioned above, Farrell is not an academic. He does not have any kind of position at a university. I don't know what is happening at the feminist page but I've already pointed out that WP:OTHERSTUFF isn't a valid argument at WP. Can I ask you to please read my comments, the links I give you, and the references in the article carefully before responding. It is important and a means of saving time and frustration. --Slp1 (talk) 03:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Christina Hoff Sommers is a "Men's Rights Writer" but her critics are "Academics"? I'm not a huge fan of her or her work, I think her criticism of feminism isn't accurate. But I don't question that she's an academic. As above, "other accademics" would be less weasely.
He's held several teaching positions in the past, and he holds a PhD in the area, how does that not make him an academic? He's hardly a lay commentator. Is there a wikipedia policy stating that only field experts with tenure can be referred to as academics? I'm not being smart, I'm just wondering, I couldn't find one in the links you provided and google didn't turn anything up. If there is I apologise wholeheartedly and thankyou for taking the time to add your views.
I'm sorry to hear you feel frustrated, I was merely refering to what seem to be acceptable editing practices in a related area. Its not that I hold you responsible for everything that gets written on wikipedia, or that if x is true on page y it must be applied everywhere, I was just interested to hear your opinion on the matter. Thank you for making yourself clear and I'd like to assure you that I did, in fact, read the links you provided.
Theicychameleon (talk) 11:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Allegations of Rape Section

The allegationg that "Men's rights activists and conservative Christian groups question the criminal status of marital rape, arguing that sex within marriage forms part of the marriage covenant" seems to be poorly sourced. The first source could not be retrieved, so I can't comment on it (should it be removed?). The second seems to be based on the following completely unsourced statement within the linked article: "Much of his support has come from men's rights organizations and conservative Christian groups, which tend to argue that a crime such as marital rape should not be on the books because consent to sex is part of the marriage covenant." Furthermore that part of the article mostly concerns the support of a women's rights campaigner, emphasising the broad base of support for victims of false accusations rather than being concerned with the views of deniers of marital rape. If there are sources to back up this claim, so be it, but I can't see how the current sources are adequate. At the very least the sentence should be rephrased as "Some men's rights activists..." as it has not been by any means established that this is the position of the majority of the men's rights movement.

Theicychameleon (talk) 14:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

We don't remove citations because editors don't have immediate access to them, Sometimes a trip to the library is required!
The material in question is sourced to a well-reviewed academic reference book, which for the record states that mentions "some emphasized child support, the status of marital rape as a crime, etc". Checking things, I'd agree that the other reference is not a great source, not because of the context or lack of sources (which are not needed in reliable sources) but because it turns out the Insight on the News is a Unification Church-owned newspaper, and has been controversial. But there are plenty of other solid sources out there about men's rights advocates complaining about marital rape legislation, and I will replace it with one or two of them. Another time, try googling and you would quickly comes up with a bunch. Having said that, I'd agree that "some" is probably justified, especially with the change in references. --Slp1 (talk) 23:35, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
I have no issue with written authorities :) I merely meant that the supplied link appeared to be broken. Perhaps it should be replaced with a Harvard style reference?
I'm glad you agree that denial of marital rape isn't a core MRA position. Mostly what bothered me was the way the previous wording seemed to imply that this was the case, and I don't think there is adequate sourcing, here or anywhere, to back that up with solid numbers as opposed to the opinion of an MRM critic such as Msrs Flood and Messner.
While I don't dispute that some MRAs have denied that marital rape is an issue, I do wonder if its appropriate to quote them here if it can't be established that their position is representative of a significant portion of the MRA movement. Feminism has had its crazies too, but the page on women's rights isn't exactly replete with references to their misandry (Solonas) and erasure of male victims (Brownmiller).
Nor would I think it appropriate to do so: women's issues are issues in their own right regardless of the actions of a minority of their advocates. But I hold that the same should be true of the men's rights page. Even if some conservative commentators would like to roll back the clock on women's rights its not relevant to a page on specific men's rights issues.
I agree that that kind of criticism is important, projects like wikipedia help ensure that this kind of thing is harder to sweep under the rug, but surely it belongs with the subject it criticises (Men's Rights Activism), rather than tangentially attached to another issue (False Accusations of Rape). There really should be some kind of separation of the issues and the movement.

Theicychameleon (talk) 02:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The link works fine for me. Not sure why you are having trouble but I doubt Harvard style referencing would do anything to improve the situation.
Once again, we go with what reliable sources say. The balance of the material is judged by what reliable sources say. Multiple reliable sources, books by academics, books published by University Presses, etc all state that men's right activists (or at least some) rail against this. We can't take into account what individual editors think are the "core" men's rights issues, because everybody has a different idea about what they are. Let me show you the problem. Evidently you don't think that marital rape is a men's rights issue. But let's say that this guy shows up here and says that it is. Who does WP believe? You'll understand it is just these situations that resulted in the formation of no original research policy. We have to go with the reliable sources. If you have sources to back up the assertions, great, and let's see them. Some reliable sources showing that some men's rights groups have supported legislation about marital rape would be very strong. It's all down to the sources.--Slp1 (talk) 03:55, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough, must have been just me then. Yep, I agree, if the links working then there'd be no point.
Again, as above, I do see the problem :) I'm not trying to insert my own opinion, I'm just wondering if "some MRAs claim marital rape doesn't happen" is really relevant to "false accusations of rape are a bad thing."
Its a bit like reading a sentence in the middle of an article about poverty in India pointing out that Mother Teresa exacerbated the suffering of many of her wards. Its not that its not valid criticism, or that its not properly sourced, its that it belongs on the page about Mother Teresa, not the page about Poverty. Equally, criticism of specific MRA groups doesn't have bearing on any men's issues, it belongs on a page about masculism.
On the other two subjects under discussion I accept that the criticism has a place: whether the issue exists at all is being brought into question. In this case, however, its not that theres a properly sourced citation claiming that false accusations of rape don't happpen, its a source claiming that some commentators of a particular ideological persuasion have argued that another issue doesn't exist.
Also, just for accuracy's sake, would anyone object to my changing the section title to "False Accusations of Rape," as thats whats being campaigned against?
Theicychameleon (talk) 11:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
within the text it states that some MRAs disagree with what constitutes rape and how investigations are conducted, so it's not just false accusations. Paintedxbird (talk) 12:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Which text? And are those issues raised on the basis that they facilitate false accusations?
Theicychameleon (talk) 13:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
if some MRAs can't accept rape can occur within a marriage then it has to do with allegations of rape. Paintedxbird (talk) 14:40, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
If some MRAs can't accept that rape can occur within a marriage then it has to do with some MRAs. Stuff like that really belongs over on the masculism page (and I do accept that its valid criticism). Masculism and the MRA movement are political ideologies, men's rights issues are human rights issues. Just because X speaks about Y doesn't make criticism of X relevant to Y. They're two different subjects. Do you argue that the SCUM manifesto should be quoted on the women's rights page?
At any rate, which text were you referring to?
Theicychameleon (talk) 17:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Categories: