Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Female (gender)

Female (gender)

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Female (gender) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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I redirected to Female but was reverted. Seems like a WP:CFORK which is not needed and is better covered in "Female" or in Gender which is where Male gender redirects. Bruxton (talk) 00:39, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. Bruxton (talk) 00:43, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
• Keep This nomination is too soon. The creation of Female (gender) is the result of a discussion at Talk:Female#Recent change to lead sentence as a bold WP:CONSPLIT. Also about 8 minutes before this AFD nomination I added the in creation template to the article, which suggests against doing this while an article is being created. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:46, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  If that's not acceptable, then moving it to the draft namespace seems like the obvious alternative while the article is created. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:48, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  It is a WP:REDUNDANTFORK in my opinion, prior to my redirect of the stub, another editor came to your the article starter's talk page to also suggest a redirect to the target article: Gender. Bruxton (talk) 00:50, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  I think you might be confusing me with another editor? I don't seem to have such a discussion on my talk page. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:53, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Yes that was me. I reverted both of those because both reviewers had obviously not read the discussions linked in the talk page. The void century (talk) 00:57, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  If you had read the prior discussions linked on Talk:Female (gender), you would see that editors with widely diverging views agree that the article is not redundant and would be best covered in a separate article. Newimpartial (talk) 00:53, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  I see no reason the needed article would be faster or better in Draft space. Let's not do that unless the AfD closes that way. Newimpartial (talk) 00:51, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Female is a biology article, while Gender is about gender in general, not specifically about Female (gender). Neither of those pages really cover the material of Female (gender) as its own topic. The void century (talk) 00:54, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• Speedy Keep Please allow editors to create this article in good faith as we've already had extensive debate on this issue. This feels like WP:STONEWALL, ignoring literal years of discussion leading to the creation of this page. The void century (talk) 00:50, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• @Bruxton this AfD should be rescinded, as per Wikipedia:Introduction to deletion processNominators for deletion should demonstrate a reasonable level of competence. This means articles, categories or templates should not be nominated in a routine fashion, nor because one feels too lazy to check for sources, or if the content is still being built or improved. The void century (talk) 01:16, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  if the content is still being built or improved - precisely that. The bloody creation template was on the article when Bruxtom made the (inappropriate) filing. Newimpartial (talk) 01:20, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  @Newimpartial: You do not have to template my talk page. This is part of the normal NPP process and it is not personal. I am only one editor, and if my judgement here was incorrect we will soon hear from other uninvolved editors. Bruxton (talk) 01:27, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Look, I templated an ArbCom member today when they made an edit relating to a GENSEX dispute and I couldn't tell whether or not they were formally DSAWARE in that area. I also template editors newly involved with GENSEX issues whether or not I agree with their POV. It was, indeed, not personal but it is a formal part of how we keep editing within this topic area from becoming, ummm, overly aleatory.

  My concern with your nom is that, at the time you placed it, the creation template was on the page and the discussions that spawned it were linked on Talk. All of which you apparently ignored as you filed the nomination - not, errr, the best practice, innit? Newimpartial (talk) 01:31, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• Delete A content split requires there to be content which can be split. As is, Female is remarkably short for the subject matter. I don't see how dividing it into two pages is going to improve the situation. Further, the most content that there was to split out was the mere definition of the female gender. Until several paragraphs can be dedicated to it, it should remain part of the Female article, otherwise it will become a WP:POVFORK. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:07, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Ummm, Captain, a lot of the relevant content is at Woman, Girl and Sex and gender distinction. There isn't exactly a shortage of high-quality sourcing on the topic.

  Also, I don't think WP:POVFORK is a concern, since the argument that had been made by the OWNers at Female is that the scope of the topic ought to be about biology. It was never about POV (at least avowedly) or a lack of material, either. Even your own recent edit to Woman had a "don't get your chocolate in my peanut butter" vibe IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 03:29, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  @CaptainEek Expanding on Female (gender) within female could result in Template:Human-centric. Though it's not a steadfast rule, biology articles generally shouldn't have a bias towards humans. This article seems to be within the confines of WP:WHENSPLIT, as the main focus of Female is very obviously biological sex. The void century (talk) 03:37, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• Delete. This is indeed a WP:POVFORK, being made to undercut and sidestep the fact that there is a long history of the vast majority of experienced editors at Talk:Female and Talk:Woman disagreeing with efforts to make those articles WP:UNDUE via maximizing gender and minimizing sex. Check the most recent discussions at those pages to see what prompted this. They wanted to de-wikilink female at woman so it didn't imply womanhood had anything to do with biology, and then they tried to make female half about gender in its lead despite the fact it mentioned gender already. Even now, we see complaining above about the existing consensus as being WP:OWN, which of course rather applies to this fork article which was obviously made to escape consensuses a few didn't like. This is pure redundancy and pushes the POV that experiencing life as a woman and as a female human can be reduced to just gender identity, a psychological state, based on a single new Merriam-Webster entry. WP:NOTDICTIONARY is relevant. All we need is brief material at female that the term sometimes refers to gender, but it's mostly about sex as it is about all species, not just humans, and they don't have gender. Other gender-related material belongs at woman. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:33, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  • They wanted to de-wikilink female at woman so it didn't imply womanhood had anything to do with biology This wasn't the goal of delinking and you know it. The goal was to create WP:BALANCE between gender and sex.
  • maximizing gender and minimizing sex. That's not the goal here. The goal is for female (sex) to be its own topic (which it is) and for female (gender) to be its own topic in the context of sociology, psychology, gender studies, etc. There are more than enough reliable sources to rationalize this distinction. We have an entire article called sex and gender distinction for god's sake.
  • Check the most recent discussions at those pages to see what prompted this. Yes as you say, this topic doesn't have WP:DUE in female, but it does have enough reliable sources to be its own article, which is made apparent if you look at any reliable source besides a dictionary.
  • based on a single new Merriam-Webster entry. That's not true in the slightest. The main reason I used a dictionary definition in the lede is because you and other editors have been claiming that the weight of dictionaries trump all other reliable sources, which is what WP:NOTDICTIONARY is supposed to avoid. Turning WP:NOTDICTIONARY around on me feels a lot like WP:GASLIGHT. Just look at your most recent arguments in Talk:woman and Talk:female where you're touting the unbeatable power of dictionary definitions...
  • All we need is brief material at female that the term sometimes refers to gender Is that really what you get from decades of scholarship, legal developments, and social developments -- a single sentence?
  • Other gender-related material belongs at woman. Except that gatekeepers who WP:OWN that article have prevented additional coverage of gender, which leaves us right back where we started. This is the embodiment of WP:STONEWALL. People who are resistant to change in one article claim the change needs to happen in another article (procedure over substance), and then when you go to that article, someone else directs you right back where you came from. The consensus in both those articles is a pretty strong rationale supporting WP:WHENSPLIT.
  • I don't think you actually disproved that this article has WP:VERIFIABILITY or WP:WHENSPLIT. Being loud is not the same as making an argument. The sources speak for themselves. And I'm gonna request that you lower your tone and don't equate years of debate and attempts to improve Wikipedia to complaining. I don't think that represents what's happening here at all and it's kind of hurtful. The void century (talk) 07:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
  • experienced editors - experience or number of edits doesn't make your opinion any more valid than others, except maybe that you have special powers like wp:admin. WP:SERVICE - "master" editors are not bestowed with more authority through this award than "novice" editors.. See also WP:CRED and WP:NOBIGDEAL. This is one of the most admirable philosophies in the wikipedia rules. Everyone is assumed to have WP:Good faith, no matter how long they've been here. The void century (talk) 08:34, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

The use of dictionaries was entirely about how to write a concise first-sentence definition, not how to split entire article topics. And nobody at woman has prevented additional coverage of gender; in fact you were invited to rectify any such perceived shortcomings in the article body. That is where detailed material about the female gender belongs. It's just that editors didn't agree with the attempt to unbalance the lead by making the topic solely a matter of gender identity disconnected from sex, because e.g. numerous reliable sources about women, especially WP:MEDRS about women's health, being about female-sexed people. The corresponding and linked female article and its lead already discusses the gender-related meaning, too. And as for the sex and gender distinction, that article states that gender can refer to...social roles based on the sex of a person - in no way does it support the implication that sex and gender are totally disconnected from each other. They are distinct concepts by definition, but still related. Crossroads ^-talk- 14:31, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• how to write a concise first-sentence definition Thank you for clarifying. That wasn't how I read it.
• you were invited I'd support adding more gender content to the body of woman, but I want to see how this article develops. We can always merge later, so I don't see the harm in letting this article be written for now, especially given how much WP:Notability it has.
• The corresponding and linked female article that coverage of gender is insufficient, and it's most likely WP:OOS in a biology article.
• I never said sex and gender are totally disconnected, and as you say, They are distinct concepts by definition. We agree on both of those things. Significantly distinct concepts are enough to rationalize separate pages. For example Life, a biology article, is related to Personal Life, a human article, and they are big enough concepts on their own to be separate pages. The void century (talk) 15:29, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Crossroads, first of all, [[Female (gender) is not an article about gender identity disconnected from sex; if you can't read the article, then don't !vote at AfD.

Second, Woman isn't supposed to be a catchall article for material about female-gendered people, and editors at Female constantly cavil and kvetch about the inclusion of human gender at all (to the point where CaptainEek moves the embryonic "female" gender section inside the human species break, which shows just how far this POV goes).

Are you seriously arguing that Female (gender) represents of all things a POVFORK of Woman? Why on earth would you think that? These are nested, notable topics, one of which has been consistently marginalized by article OWNers for more than a decade now. Why not let the sources speak for themselves on a fresh page? Newimpartial (talk) 16:49, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• Delete on the basis that a WHO source has been cited as saying something it clearly doesn't, and editorial synthesis is used to advance a position, this simply does not bode well for what is likely to follow. It's unfortunate, but based on this effort, and discussions at Talk:Woman, one can only conclude that this is WP:ACTIVIST editing. Acousmana 09:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Not sure what you mean:

  • From the WHO article: Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy, as well as relationships with each other. How is that substantially different from saying Female gender pertains to sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles)?
  • Also from the WHO article: Gender and sex are related to but different from gender identity. Gender identity refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth.
  • Reading that, I don't see how the line in Female (gender) is substantively any different: Female gender pertains to sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and/or gender identity, as opposed to female (sex) which is biological.
  • I copied that line almost word for word from the gender article which reads (referring to gender): Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. The same line in gender also links to the WHO, so I think it's a pretty far cry to call that WP:ACTIVIST, though I suppose I could have added the other sources linked there. If you had an issue with the interpretation of gender, you've had ample time to debate that in the talk:gender page.
  • As I said right from the start, the article was supposed to be a stub to be built on by the community, not a personal project. The void century (talk) 09:22, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

"I copied that line almost word for word from the gender article..."

recontextualising it in the process, what is actually stated is:

Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity.

you are inferring is that the words femininity and masculinity can be freely interchanged with the words female and male? the WHO source you offered states:

Gender interacts with but is different from sex, which refers to the different biological and physiological characteristics of females, males and intersex persons, such as chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs. Gender and sex are related to but different from gender identity.

it continues:

Gender and sex are related to but different from gender identity. Gender identity refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth.

in the entire WHO statement you cited the word female is used twice, and solely in the context of sex. They lead the statement with:

Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy, as well as relationships with each other. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time.

in the source you cited, why do you suppose the WHO have avoided employing the word "female" in reference to gender identity?

i'm pretty sure there are sources that could be used to underpin what you wrote, but this isn't one of them. Acousmana 14:10, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Fair. I've generally seen "female" and "woman"/"girl" used interchangeably in reliable sources on gender, but some scholars have made the distinction you're talking about. It feels a little like undue weight on arbitrary semantic distinctions, but I agree with you it would be better to use a source that uses the word "Female" when defining female (gender). I'd welcome that edit if you have a source in mind. The void century (talk) 14:23, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

"It feels a little like undue weight on arbitrary semantic distinctions", no, much simpler than that, no feeling involved, it's pragmatism; and using sources properly while being diligent about enuring no disjucntion exists between what is written and what is cited. If you can't do this, you shouldn't be writing articles. Acousmana 14:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

@The void century:, pne reliable source is here. Newimpartial (talk) 14:37, 23 July 2022 (UTC) ping added Newimpartial (talk) 15:14, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Here's another. Newimpartial (talk) 15:47, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• Acousamana, I don't see any misuse of the WHO source there, and you haven't demonstrated any in any discussion I've seen. I am disappointed in you. Newimpartial (talk) 13:09, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - I wouldn't have the current version of the article in my userspace, let alone draft space, and certainly not in mainspace.  Tewdar  09:19, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  It's a stub The void century (talk) 09:23, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  It's not good enough for a stub.  Tewdar  09:24, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Make it better? Nobody's stopping you. The void century (talk) 09:26, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  For reference, this is the initial entry in Female https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Female&oldid=251773

  • Are you really gonna claim that this stub is that much worse? They linked to seahorse in the lead section and didn't have any citations. The void century (talk) 09:36, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  • You're having an uphill struggle convincing people that Female (gender) should exist, unlike that stub, which didn't face such problems (over twenty years ago).  Tewdar  10:16, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

    What happened to "I'd support that."? The void century (talk) 10:26, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

    In principle, I'd support the creation of this article. And I've actually spent the last hour gathering sources to try and save your poxy article during Tewdar's Saturday Big Breakfast Time, so don't be such a smart-ass.  Tewdar  10:31, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• Delete. For the same WP:POVFORK reasons already given. Until Biology rewrites the science of humans, the female sex is not a "gender". What a female sex is expected to be by family, society, religion, and culture is when gender comes into the picture, and social science takes over. WP:ACTIVIST editing is the bane of Wikipedia's existence. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 10:29, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  @Pyxis Solitary How is this WP:ACTIVIST? I wanna go through the list so you can correct me.

  • Hostility - The only edits I have reverted were redirecting this article to another article. Other than that, I'm open to all edits and improvements. I never intended my initial stub to be the final article.
  • Removal of information - I haven't done that.
  • Addition of poorly sourced material - The WHO, Merriam-Webster, and APA are all reliable sources.
  • Addition of well-sourced but biased material - I guess there could be an argument made there. Is this what you were thinking?
  • Source misrepresentation - I can see how this would be interpreted as a misrepresentation of sources, but again, I'm open to all edits and improvements. When I first entered the discussion on talk:woman, I had assumed (like you) that female usually denotes sex and woman/girl are gender, but a look through many dictionaries and secondary sources indicated that female is also used to refer to female gender.
  • Biographies of living people - nope
  • Conflict of interest - no. I'm a cis person who works for a tech startup that has nothing to do with gender or biology. I do have a degree in biology, but that would make me biased in the opposite direction of this article. The most conflict of interest I have is knowing trans people in real life and respecting their preferred pronouns. The void century (talk) 11:29, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Also @Pyxis Solitary I see that you say L not Q, denoting "Lesbian not Queer" in your signature. I'm not making any assumptions, but rejecting queerness is often associated with the TERF movement. If this applies to you (again, not assuming), I'd hope that can consider whether your own biases are affecting your judgement on WP:Activist, WP:Verifiability and WP:Reliability in this case. The void century (talk) 11:55, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Please see WP:ASPERSIONS. Lots of LGBT people disagree with being called queer and the term is controversial for many reasons, despite the fact that some people try to make it be the umbrella term and refer to any LGBT individual as queer. Crossroads ^-talk- 14:38, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Just to be clear, Pyxis: you are expressing the viewpoint that biological sex exists, and gender roles and norms exist, but gender identity does not exist? And you are objecting to this article because it might contain information about gender identity?

  That sounds like activist editing, and you may be right that WP:ACTIVIST editing is the bane of Wikipedia's existence. Newimpartial (talk) 13:18, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  I didn't get that at all. Crossroads ^-talk- 14:38, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  If Wikipedia is only supposed to recognize the female sex and what the female sex is expected to be, then that leaves some very large gaps in the domain of gender. And promoting this gender identity-denying POV is inherently ACTIVIST. Newimpartial (talk) 14:44, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• Redirect (or delete) to Trans woman as that article (and many others) cover this. This is a POVFORK and ACTIVIST editing and possibly a case of those editors feeling a bit of: Wikipedia:I just don't like it when they're not getting their way. I think Crossroads' comments said it best. Masterhatch (talk) 12:34, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Redirecting Female (gender) to Trans woman would be extremely WP:UNDUE. Female (gender) includes all women, not just trans women. The void century (talk) 12:48, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  This misframing of Female (gender) as being about Trans women is a classic example of activist editing. Please read Sex and gender distinction - this topic had been around for longer (actually, much longer) than Gender identity has been recognized. Newimpartial (talk) 12:57, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. gnu57 13:40, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
• Drafity Ignoring the content, it's clearly been moved too soon. It seems predictable that such an article would get lots of views and should be written out properly before being moved into the encyclopedia. I made some basic formatting fixes. CT55555 (talk) 13:50, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Also important to note that the article appears to be incorrect. Female does not only relate to humans - based on the first source in the article. CT55555 (talk) 13:52, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Female covers the biological sex meaning. Gender is WP:OOS for that article, supporting a WP:WHENSPLIT to cover Female (gender) meaning. The void century (talk) 13:58, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Female covers both meanings, and in so doing is neatly able to mean either or both when woman is defined as female. It's just that a few wanted to make it too heavily tilted toward gender when the article naturally has a lot more to say about non-humans because humans are covered at woman. There is no reason to imply that gender is completely disconnected. Crossroads ^-talk- 14:16, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Unless you're dealing with cosplay or other speculative fiction, I'm pretty sure that Female (gender) only applies to humans. Newimpartial (talk) 14:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  Female (gender) only applies to humans. But when I commented, the article said that female (it did not limit to gender, it just said "female" at the time, it's since been changed) only applied to humans. It's since been corrected in the article. I think this updating corrections does support my draftification suggestion CT55555 (talk) 14:37, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• Keep. The current contents are entirely neutral and unobjectionable. I find the claims otherwise to be completely mystifying. The only valid question is where this valid content belongs. The only other option might be a merge. Plausible merge targets might be Female, Woman or Gender but I'm not sure which would be best and maybe that's the argument for it being stand-alone. If there was a valid discussion that led to a decision to make this a stand-alone article then we should respect that. If the authors would like to make it a draft then that's fine but I see no reason to force them to. Maybe just let the people working on it work in peace and see what they come up with? It's only a few sentences so far but there is nothing to indicate that they are headed in the wrong direction. --DanielRigal (talk) 14:52, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
• Keep. There clearly is a long history to this article based on the first edit summary. We should let it grow for a while before deciding what to do with it at least. Immanuelle 💗 (please tag me) 14:59, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose deletion. Female gender used to be a redirect to Gender as well. It has history — Tazuco ✉️ 15:20, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
• Keep. Given the discussion that led to the creation of the article, in which it was agreed to by editors of differing views as a way forward, it deserves an opportunity to grow before it is pounced on with an AFD. The accusations of it being a POVFORK or ACTIVIST editing above don't hold up when considering the article's origin, and certainly can't be based on the article's content, because it hasn't had the chance to be developed yet. Such accusations instead seem to be the result of editors projecting their own preconceptions and baggage from previous disputes onto something that may (or may not!) end up being a useful article. Please try to WP:AGF, just a little.--Trystan (talk) 16:34, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
• Delete as a PoV fork. Crossroads covered every argument I would make, in more detail, so I won't regurgitate it. I'm not terribly opposed to redirecting to Trans woman or Gender (an argument can be made that someone familiar with our disambiguation practices might try the title "Female (gender)", and should arrive at which ever is the better article to send them to).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:36, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  A POVFORK of what, exactly? Where do you think this Notable topic should be covered? Newimpartial (talk) 16:39, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• Keep On Wikidata, female (Wikidata:Q6581072) is used in "sex or gender" (P21) to indicate that the human subject is a female, which I think can be more clearly described as "having a female gender identity". It is distinct from female organism. It currently points to this article: Female (gender). If Female (gender) is deleted, Q6581072 could point to Female gender again, like it used to, and redirect to Female again, but that is the subject of female organism (Q43445), and clearly wrong, because here we're referring to the gender identify of humans, not the sex of organism. In this context, female is an instance of gender identity. There many different instances of gender identity. For a list, see [1].List of gender identities lists Male and Female, which are not articles about the gender identity of a human, but the sex of an organism. We ought to be able to make the distinction between those two. It would be an omission not to have an item that would refer to the largest group of gender identities: humans who identify as female. There is abundant literature about the subject. Vexations (talk) 16:59, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  If this article is kept, Male (gender) would also be a logical counterpart to create. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:11, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Nowhere in Wikipedia policy are Wikidata entries relevant to whether an article here should exist. Wikidata is WP:UGC and not a reliable source. Crossroads ^-talk- 17:14, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

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