Talk:Gender role/Archive 7

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Wikipedia Primary School invitation

Hi everybody. On behalf of the teams behind the Wikipedia Primary School research project, I would like to announce that this article was selected a while ago to be reviewed by an external expert/scholar. We'd now like to ask interested editors to join our efforts and improve the article before March 15, 2015 (any timezone) as they see fit; a revision will be then sent to the designated person for review. Any notes and remarks written by the external expert will be made available on this page under a CC-BY-SA license as soon as possible, so that you can read them, discuss them and then decide if and how to use them. Please sign up here to let us know you're collaborating. Thanks a lot for your support! --Elitre (WPS) (talk) 16:13, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Removal of the The impact of feminism on gender roles section

I don't think anyone else is here but I'm just going to stick this just in case. I am going to remove the entire last section of the article. It is entirely unsourced and, I suspect, a relic of the primary school project and a student who knows how to cite in APA but not on Wikipedia. I don't have enough information with simply a last name and a year to reliably find the sources in question. I have however made a concerted effort to source the claims in the rest of the article and suspect I will be able to remove the original research and verification tags...maybe tonight. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 05:39, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

What do you mean, Timothyjosephwood, by "a relic of the primary school project"? --Elitre (WPS) (talk) 09:15, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

As I was. Disregard. I see now that I misunderstood what the project was. I was under the impression that it was some kind of school project. What I meant was that it appear(ed) as if it was copy/pasted from an undergraduate essay. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 09:28, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

The Overview section

Timothyjosephwood, I have an issue with the Overview section you created. The first issue I have with it is that Wikipedia articles ideally should not have Overview sections; the WP:Lead is supposed to be the overview. The other problem I have with it is that it confuses gender with sexual orientation. Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual and asexual are not genders, at least going by how the vast majority of WP:Reliable sources define those topics; therefore, it is WP:Undue weight to call them genders. And hermaphrodite, which is a biological matter significantly more than it is a gender identity, technically is not a gender either; furthermore, the accurate term for human beings in this regard is intersex. Flyer22 (talk) 16:42, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest. Perhaps you are right, overview may not be the best term for the section. Background? I guess what I'm trying to do is further address issues that have been brought up about this article's neutral pov. While the feminist perspective is certainly important on this article, it is not the only perspective, and neither is the "completely socially constructed" approach the only game in town. I'm getting to all this, but I'm not really there yet. I want, whatever the section is called, to give a more broad perspective rather than simply a rehashing of a number of particular thinkers chosen for...some...reason over others.

I'm trying to back up a step before we get into specific franchises of theories and, well, emphasize that the concept is nebulous. For instance, as you point out, while you may not consider hermaphrodite a gender, the UN Women's World Conference did, and that's exactly the language they used; it's a direct quote. This shows just how variable conceptions are.

Further, can we really say that something like "gay" hasn't become a gender role in its own right? Is there not a widespread cultural expectation that "this is what gay men act like and if you don't act like this then you are not a 'proper gay'"? Timothyjosephwood (talk) 06:21, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

That heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual and hermaphrodite are not usually defined as genders is not a feminist matter; it's a general matter (meaning whether feminist sources are included or not). The same goes for gay; sources usually do not define gay as a gender or as a gender role. Like I stated, WP:Due weight (a policy, not simply a guideline), which is an aspect of WP:Neutral, comes into play here. I've mentioned more than once on Wikipedia, including in a recent discussion about applying WP:Neutral appropriately, that Wikipedia does not define neutral the way it is defined in common discourse. While it is fine to give a little bit of weight to less common viewpoints, we shouldn't give readers the implication that these less common viewpoints are more common than they are. We should always be clear what the majority viewpoints are. As for the section in question, while titling the section "Background" doesn't change that it is still essentially an Overview section, I like this new version of the section you created better than the previous one you created. That's much better. Flyer22 (talk) 07:27, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Well...A two second search .

I develop a conceptual approach to changes in masculinity that emphasizes the dynamics of the gender order as a whole. Homosexual masculinity is an important locus of these dynamics"

"Manuel Castells argues that the predominance of gay men in the creation of distinctly homosexual urban neighbourhoods reflects a profound gender difference.

"Challenging Lesbian and Gay Inequalities in Education. Gender and Education Series."

I mean, I'm not an expert, but I did minor as an undergrad in women and gender studies so I've done my fair share of reading up. I've not heard of this being a controversial thing. A gay male who doesn't fit the "gender role" of a gay male is no different than a straight female who isn't at all feminine.

I think part of the problem here is that you think I'm talking about gender per se, when what I'm talking about is a gender role. A hetero man who is effeminate does not cease to have a gender, he ceases to fulfill the gender role, the gender stereotype. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 08:56, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Put differently, "gay" is a male gender role. It's not a variety of sexual orientation when you are speaking of the role; it is a variety of male. Compare Hijras from Third gender:

"Like the hijra, the third gender is in many cultures made up of individuals considered male at the time of birth who take on a feminine gender role or sexual role. In cultures that have not taken on Western heteronormativity, they are usually seen as acceptable sexual partners for male-identifying individuals as long as the latter always maintain the "active" role.

You had heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual and hermaphrodite listed as genders in the section; I'm stating that they usually are not defined as genders; that statement is not an opinion, it's a fact. They also are not usually defined as gender roles. This is why we don't mention any such definition in the WP:Leads of those Wikipedia articles. In fact, such definitions are not yet in those articles at all. Now the Overview/Background section doesn't list heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual and hermaphrodite as genders; I noted that this is good. I never stated anything about "A gay male who doesn't fit the 'gender role' of a gay male is no different than a straight female who isn't at all feminine." Nor did I state anything about "[a] man who is effeminate [ceasing] to have a gender." I was not talking about the topic of gender roles in non-heterosexual communities. As for gay, the Gay article is clear about how the term is usually defined, and that it does not exclusively refer to males. Flyer22 (talk) 09:30, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

You are right in like eight different ways. I realized why you are right in trying to work out why I disagreed with you. Also I was reading the article cited about gays and asylum which lead me down a bunny trail. Mohammed was not expected to fulfill a third gay gender role, he was expected to be feminine, to be the anti-male. I was trying to shoehorn sexual orientation in there to make Mohammed relevant when it was both factually wrong and unnecessary.

My apologies. Working nights can screw with your brain.Timothyjosephwood (talk) 10:25, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

WP:Lead

Timothyjosephwood, I restored content you moved out of the lead here and I reverted you here because your version is a very inadequate lead. I already explained in the #The Overview section section what the WP:Lead is supposed to be. The Background section is essentially what the lead should be, though the lead should not be as long as the Background section. You stated, "More detail than necessary in lead. Multiplicity of genders not addressed at length in the body." But that bit you moved out of the lead is not "[m]ore detail than necessary." It adequately addresses aspects that should be addressed in the lead. And the multiplicity of genders is significantly addressed in the body, including in the Transgenderism section. Besides that, there is more that should be in the lead, considering that even the version I reverted to does not adequately summarize the article. Flyer22 (talk) 07:44, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Third gender is mentioned exactly once in the body (outside the duplication of the paragraph in question in the bg section). It is also not a reference to a third gender in the sense of third gender, but is a narrow reference to trans. The existence of more than three genders is not referenced or explored at all. WP:Lead states: "The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important aspects." Third, fourth, etc. genders are in no way a "most important aspect" of the article. (In actuality, most of the section on trans could be removed or moved, because it is a subsection of Politics and gender issues when fully half of the section simply explains what trans is without dealing at all with politics.)

If someone takes the time to flesh out a substantial section on non binary gender roles, then the paragraph should be in the lead. Otherwise it is enough to refer readers to the main article on gender and mention it in passing in the body and not the lead. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 08:35, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

You cut a lot out of the article while transforming the article, and you've undoubtedly made the article much better than it was. I'm not sure why you cut out so much third gender content, but the paragraph I restored is not only about the topic of third gender. It starts out stating, "Gender roles are culture based, and while most cultures distinguish only two genders (boy and girl or man and woman), some recognize more." That, or something like it, should be in the lead, considering that those are the most standard genders/gender roles. Then, an example should be provided on what "recognize more" means. This is where mention of third gender and/or genderqueer comes in. The fact that not all gender roles are the standard boy/man and girl/woman construct is one of the most important aspects of the topic of gender roles. The Background, Anthropology and evolution, Hinduism, and Transgenderism sections respectively address the topics of different genders, gender expressions, and focus on masculine and feminine attributes. Masculine and feminine attributes are discussed throughout the article. So, yes, the "Gender expression refers to the external manifestation of a person's gender identity, through masculine, feminine, or gender-variant or gender-neutral behavior, clothing, hairstyles, or body characteristics." sentence should be in the lead; or something like it should be in the lead. The Transgenderism section would be better titled Gender variance, since, although transgender is a broad term, people often use it restrictively. The term gender variance also covers all types of gender-variant people. And gender roles in non-heterosexual communities should be linked and/or discussed in the Sexual orientation section. Flyer22 (talk) 09:15, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

The "Gender roles are culture based" part is not needed, however, since that is already covered in the WP:Lead paragraph. Flyer22 (talk) 09:24, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Alright, I've done a total reboot of the lead. I believe it fairly addresses a number of issues: it gives a head nod to 3+ genders without spending almost an entire paragraph on a comparatively rare exception, it grounds the article more in a sociological context by adding links to related concepts like norms and social control, it covers cultural variability, it spends more than 11 words to John Money, it manages to admit that gender roles may not be 100% evil (npov), yet it still gives a nod to feminism as a huge player. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 10:38, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Although I prefer that "boy and girl or man and woman" be mentioned in the lead, and I prefer that sex be mentioned/linked in the lead (as seen here with followup edits here and here) because people are automatically assigned a gender role the moment they are born and their sex is known or thought to be known), I'm generally fine with your "total reboot" of the lead and how it currently looks. But I have a few concerns with it. Let's address this sentence: "These are usually centered around opposing conceptions of femininity and masculinity, although there are myriad exceptions and variations." I wonder if the "exceptions" and "variations" WP:Pipelinks (third gender and genderqueer) can be validly argued as WP:EGG violations, but I vote that they are not WP:EGG violations since readers will likely know that by "exceptions" and "variations," we are referring to gender/gender roles. Furthermore variations and exceptions are disambiguation pages. Still, perhaps it would be better to link the "exceptions" and "variations" part as "exceptions and variations" since the Genderqueer article covers the topic of third gender. There is one certain WP:EGG violation you added, however. By that, I mean that there is a Hermaphrodite article, so WP:Pipelinking the term hermaphrodites with the term intersex is a WP:EGG violation. Above ("The Overview section"), I also pointed to the fact that the using term hermaphrodite to refer to humans is generally considered offensive.

There is also more that should be in the lead, given what the article addresses; for example, there should be a summary of what the Politics and gender issues section states. When writing a Wikipedia lead, I summarize all of the most significant sections in the article; often, that means summarizing all of the sections. And, per WP:Lead, I don't let the lead surpass four paragraphs. Flyer22 (talk) 22:23, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I would not have used the term hermaphrodites had I not been talking about Money, for that's the parlance of his time and, in fact, it is in the title of the referenced work by him coining the phrase gender role. However, I don't think it's a vital point and I'm not opposed to changing it. It works just as well for me which ever term you use.

However, two points that I don't necessarily agree on. (1) I'm not completely satisfied with only linking to gender queer. I call the link exceptions because third gender is really about variations from the male/female dichotomy, they're really in a different dimension. If male and female are the x and y axes, third gender is a z axis. This juxtaposed to gender queer which is really largely about different ways of relating to male/female in large part. For example, bi-gender being male plus female. Still very much on the 2D x y axes, just maybe in a different spot than normal.

(2) I'm also not sure I'm fully on board with the necessity to include sex. When newborns are assigned it's not so much based on their "sex" so much as it is on their "perceived gender" as stated. "I perceive her to be of the female gender because she has a vagina." This more clear when you talk about the intersexed: "I perceive 'him' to be of the male gender because he has a penis, although we are aware 'he' also has ovaries." Timothyjosephwood (talk) 06:39, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

As for more general additions to the lead, I think I'm going to hold off on that for now until I do more work on the article itself. The structure isn't very intuitive. You still have things like the section on Disney that seem like a relic of the ambassador program, where an undergrad just plopped it in there without really thinking about how it fit into the larger scheme of the article or importance related to the subject. Would make sense in a larger section about mass media, but only if other movies/shows/etc. are also examined. Or maybe moved to a gender and entertainment article or something similar all together. Most of my work on the article so far has just been on the citations, need to get more in depth regarding the content and organization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Timothyjosephwood (talk • contribs) 06:48, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I figured that the reason you added the "hermaphrodites" wording to the lead is because of Money (yes, I'd seen the title of the reference) and because the term doesn't bother you. The Hermaphrodite article addresses use of the term as scientifically inappropriate when applied to humans, and so, because of that and its offensiveness when applied to humans, I would rather avoid the term unless necessary (by "necessary," I mean, for example, when relaying a quote that is best left not changed with brackets or when the term is applied to non-human animals). And I see that you've removed "hermaphrodites" from the lead.

Regarding "bi-gender being male plus female," well, I typically abide by the sex and gender distinction. I generally am not fond of the terms sex and gender being used interchangeably, no matter how common that interchangeability is. As for newborns, when newborns are assigned a gender, it's very much based on their sex; that's why we call it sex assignment. It's also called gender assignment, but it's the person's sex (or perceived sex) that makes one assign a gender/gender role to that person. That stated, it sounds like we are arguing semantics. I don't object to going with your "actual or perceived gender" wording.

Yes, I think that the Disney section was added by a WP:Student editor; I mentioned to you before that the Gender role article has had a lot of WP:Student editing. This link shows LouiseCameron213 (talk · contribs), one-time editor ("one time" so far), adding the Disney content.

On a side note: On your user page, you mention having forgotten your user account name and password. What areas did you edit in before? Showing up to edit around this time (early in the morning), you made me think of a different editor. Flyer22 (talk) 07:31, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Looks like I was timothyjwood. Didn't do much. Small things. Nothing like I have the time to do now working graveyard shift.Timothyjosephwood (talk) 12:02, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Mathglot, regarding this edit, just in case you aren't aware that using sex or gender was discussed in this section, I'm WP:Pinging you here. As seen above, I agree with using sex, but I don't feel strongly about the matter. Also, you WP:Pipelinked "sex assignment" under "sex," which is a bit of WP:EGG matter; but that pipelink should be fine since it's not too unexpected that a reader would go to the Sex assignment article when clicking on that link in the case of that sentence. Flyer22 (talk) 21:24, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, @Flyer22:. I realized that it was an issue, and I also don't feel very strongly about it either, although I do feel that if we're going to worry about nuance and minor distinctions between sex and gender anywhere, it should be in articles like this one. I guess my feeling about it is that babies are AMAB (assigned male at birth) or AFAB, the common expression of which in popular parlance is, "It's a boy!" or, "It's a girl!" even though we are really talking about sex, and not gender. That's just how we talk traditionally, I'm sure even Judith Butler would think it weird if a doctor slapped a baby and announced, "It's a female!" But really, the doctor is just using "girl" as a synonym for "female" the way we all do. That's perfectly normal, as the terms have existed for centuries ('male', 'female', 'boy', 'girl' all date to 1300-1400, the latter two origin unknown, the others going back centuries more to Latin) and nobody used "gender" for anything other than describing noun and adjective agreement until the 1950s. The Doc may say 'boy' or 'girl' based on external genitalia, but what is meant is male or female, the exact same way we sex a calf or a lamb (and then, the correct term is used). A baby is not able to perceive societal norms so they cannot conform to (or rebel against) a societal gender role, yet; that's all in the future. They have sex, but neither role, nor identity. For the neonate, I suspect the main reason we say 'boy' or 'girl' now is tradition, and secondly (or perhaps firstly) that religion was (and is) a major factor throughout human history, and these English terms grew up in Christendom, where any parallelism or suggestion of similarity or continuity of any type whatsoever between humans and animals was a big no-no, possibly even heretical and dangerous, so saying "It's a male" would sound wa-ay too close to what the vet says; saying "boy" or "girl" shows their humanity and descent from Adam and Eve, God's creation. And this was still true post-Darwin, and even today I would say.

As for the pipelink: I did go to both articles to see which one seemed more appropriate. The Sex article seemed way too broad for what was being talked about in this statement, not even being restricted to humans, and OTOH having a pipe link could be taken to imply that sex is the same as sex assignment, which clearly it is not. I didn't see a 100% perfect solution, so picked the one I deemed as the "more useful" to the reader, in finding what he wanted to know in connection with the use of the word "sex" in this sentence. I hope I made the right choice, but I could be persuaded to go the other way. Is this kind of the route that you took, when thinking about it? Do you think there's a better solution? Mathglot (talk) 23:35, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

PS, I looked at WP:EGG and I think maybe I use piped links too much; I'll probably have to scale it back in the future. In the meanwhile, not sure what to do about this one. Mathglot (talk) 23:40, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Mathglot, thanks for explaining your rationale. I understand perfectly well why you WP:Pipelinked "sex assignment" for "sex", though I think that readers would be fine being taken to the Sex article in this instance. The lead of that article explains well enough what is meant by sex in terms of biology/anatomy. That stated, I'm thinking that your "sex assignment" link is better.

On a side note: Since this article/talk page is on my WP:Watchlist, there is no need to WP:Ping me to it. I take it that the article is also on your WP:Watchlist, and that I don't need to WP:Ping you to it? Flyer22 (talk) 23:44, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. It's probably just enough to sway me to the flip side of the equation, and prefer the "sex" article next time.

As for watchlist—you know, I really haven't come up with a consistent policy for what to put on it. Seems I sort of float around WP in waves, hanging out here and there for a while, then moving on, then maybe coming back again later to see how it's doing. I used to put everything I touched on my watchlist, and that seemed to be too much cuz I could just look at my Contributions list instead, and in the end I would have too much stuff on it and then slash and burn every few months down to very small list, and let it build up again. If you don't mind sharing your method, I'm all ears. Oh--so yes, keep pinging me. ;-) Although I'll likely be here for a little while, till I move on to whatever else. Mathglot (talk) 03:28, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Transgender section too long

The Gender role#Transgenderism section is way too long; it was better (though unsourced) around six months ago, and was properly linked with a {{Main}} template to the article on Transgender at that time.

Not only is this section too long, but almost nothing in it has any discussion of the impact of gender role on transgender people (or vice versa) at all. There's an extended definition of what the umbrella term does, or doesn't include, talk about Oprah, Canadian legislative bills, U.S. bills, and what's going on in the Supreme Court of India. Not word one about roles. In addition, someone took a look at the bloated section, and now decided that this was about legal stuf, mostly (which it kind of is, now) and linked it with a {{Main}} template to the Legal aspects of transsexualism. Wrong!

The whole section should be chucked out with the exception of the first two sentences, possibly with another sentence, max two, added on to say something about roles, the {{Main}} template should point to Transgender article, and that's about it. Anything more is superfluous in an article about Gender roles.

Finally, the section should be named 'Transgender' (or, 'Transgender roles' or similar). *Transgenderism as it is currently named, is a problematic term. See http://www.glaad.org/reference/transgender and Ctrl+F / search on page for the term. Mathglot (talk) 10:44, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

"Better but unsourced" is an oxymoron. "Canadian legislative bills and what's going on in the Supreme Court of India" are entirely appropriate in a sub-section on "politics and gender issues". If you think there should be a section added that deals with transgender more broadly, then I agree, and would happily review any propositions for such a section. Any such section should, and undoubtedly would, point to the main article on transgender. However, the sub-section as it is currently written, is explicitly about legal issues and should reflect that in the main template. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 13:27, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I see your point but it's not really an oxymoron in this case as the old section could be improved simply by adding sources; there are plenty of articles that are basically very good, but need sources. I called it good because I recognized that short section as being verifiable, and sources could easily be ported out of the TG article and copied here.

Just because the section is called "politics and gender issues" doesn't mean it's appropriate to talk about legal issues here; that may be the section name, but it doesn't change the article name, which is Gender role. The other subsections ('Feminism and...', 'Mens rights and...') do talk about gender role at least somewhat, and so are less problematic. But to be honest, except for where they do talk about that, I think those sections also should be pared down, with the off-topic stuff being moved to a more appropriate place, perhaps in a new Politics section at Gender#Gender_and_society for example, where it would be a useful addition.

I don't think there should be a section in this article on Gender role that deals with transgender more broadly, *except* insofar as the information in the section deals with gender role in some way, and doesn't excessively duplicate already existing content in the Transgender article itself. The problem with this section is that there is nothing in it that deals with gender role, it deals with legal aspects. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the section content--it has good information about legal issues, it's well-sourced--it would be just fine in the Transgender article, it just is irrelevant here. You're correct that the section as currently written is explicitly about legal issues, but it didn't use to be, someone changed it to be about that and changed the template likewise to match, but it simply doesn't belong here. Having a section about transgender in this article is appropriate; it should briefly define it, briefly talk about what implications there are for Gender role for transgender people, and then refer to the main article for more information about that. There's no reason to duplicate the already existing article here, and stuff about legal issues are irrelevant here though would make a great addition in the other article. Mathglot (talk) 20:19, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Have at it. This article was massacred by an undergraduate class project. I've already deleted pages.Timothyjosephwood (talk) 13:30, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

No mention of soldiers, or the draft, and an undue focus on women?

It's pretty bizarre that the only mention of soldiering is a picture of female warriors/soldiers, which is by-and-large very unusual from a worldwide perspective. A soldier is a very classic male gender role, and continues to this day in countless countries requiring male military service, and exclusively males to sign up for the draft. This article seems to talk a lot more about female gender roles and females breaking into male gender roles than it does the "unsavory" gender roles, such as dangerous or hazardous occupations that tend to single out men.216.66.122.62 (talk) 14:10, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

To drive my point home on the undue emphasis on women standpoint, the article is about "gender roles" and literally every picture in the article is a picture either of women or entirely focused on women. Interesting.216.66.122.62 (talk) 14:17, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Tallies:

Pictures:

• exclusive/dominant female focus:6
• equal male/female focus: 3
• exclusive/dominant male focus: 0

Phrases:

• "Women" - 91 mentions
• "Men" - 51 mentions
• "Female" - 43 mentions
• "Male" - 44 mentions
• "Girl" - 10 mentions
• "Boy" - 8 mentions — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.66.122.62 (talk) 14:43, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I'll wait a few more days for responses on this. If I get no reasonable responses or see any positive action being taken, I'll be tagging the article with WP:POV.216.66.122.62 (talk) 13:05, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, it isn't bizarre. But rather than just tagging it, why not just fix it up if you think it needs improvement? I find the article to be a chaotic mess, needing improvement in all sorts of areas, although not necessarily in the same areas that trouble you.

From my PoV, the increased focus on women has to do with the fact that historically, men were dominant in hundreds or thousands of professions, while women were dominant in just a few (homemaking, child-rearing), followed in the 19th century with a few more (nurse, typist, schoolteacher). Obviously, the situation for women has changed dramatically in the 20th century, espeically the second half, as one barrier after another has fallen, and "newsworthy" pictures of women in professions previously barred to them became open, creating "photo opps" that were newsworthy. I still remember a picture of the first female telephone linesman (the ones who climb telephone poles and install stuff) in a pictorial in Life magazine in the 1970s. Now, you have women fighter pilots.

But since men, by dint of their very dominance, had virtually no domain that was excluded to them (true, you didn't see too many male "nannies" or "house-husbands" but that was more by choice than by being excluded) so there simply isn't as much change taking place among male gender roles, at least with respect to the professions, as there are for women. That means that in the news media, there's a giant pool of stories and photographs of women doing this or that for the first time, breaking some barrier by doing something heretofore not typical for their gender. The fact is, that there just aren't that many articles about men doing something analogous.

You want to add pictures of male soldiers, surgeons, airline pilots--or au pair boys, or kindergarten teachers--by all means, go right ahead! Just keep it relevant to the article. But there's no need to have a gender balance in the article between the number of photos or examples of women versus men; the point is to illustrate gender roles, and if 99 out of 100 times the reliable news stories are about women breaking down the gender roles, then to some extent it will be quite normal that the examples in the article will reflect that. Mathglot (talk) 11:05, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

If you're interested in soldiering and the draft, why not add a new subheading called ===Professions=== under section 3. Culture and talk about which professions men typically performed historically (that's a long list, from business, to sports, to government, to the military and more) and which ones women performed historically, and how that's changed over time. You could add comments about how military service has changed in certain countries earlier than in others (I'm pretty sure the old Soviet Union had women soldiers, maybe not combat, for along time, and so did Israel (still does); you could talk about the WACs and WAVEs in the U.S., and maybe how Florence Nightingale organized nursing in the Crimean War. Or go in whatever direction you want that fits well with the article. Good luck! Mathglot (talk) 11:14, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I've made a substantive attempt to address your POV issue. The article is still somewhat weighted toward feminism, mainly (IMO) because there is more out there on it and it is a more substantial political and social movement, with a great deal more literature produced than that concerning gender issues concerning males. I am going to remove the bias tag. If anyone protests we can discuss reinstating it.

I don't personally see any particular reason to single out "soldiering" in particular as a gendered occupation. (I say this as both a male and a soldier.) There are many highly gendered occupations throughout history. You could probably find similar gender disparities in welders as in soldiers or sailors. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 05:32, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Soldiering is a much older, and much more common profession than either welding or sailing. Soldiering is perhaps the oldest profession maybe tied with prostitution, unless you count "hunting" or "foraging" as professions. I think in the grand scheme it is a bit silly to compare the profession of welding or sailing to soldiering, for a wide variety of reasons. I could go on for a long time, but needless to say, your point is very silly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.66.122.62 (talk) 01:16, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I would completely be behind a section on how gender roles affect employment decisions generally. For example, the stereotype of the "ideal" woman is passive, nurturing, etc., and this may contribute to many women choosing professions such as nursing, caregiving etc. While conversely the "ideal" man is the protector, aggressor, etc. and men are overrepresented in professions such as the military, security personnel, etc.

Ideally, if the topic is approached from a sociological perspective, the article should include somewhat rough parity between content addressing men and women. The article should also, ideally, approach the topic from a value-neutral pov. That is, it should approach it as a phenomenon, not as a class struggle. Feminism is important and should get thorough coverage (which I believe it does), but men should also be covered thoroughly. The two sections I have contributed so far (the Lead and Background) tries to give fairly equal weight to men and women. If you want to do a section on gender roles and professions I would prefer that it also gives fairly equal weight. It does no good to "balance" biased content on women by adding bias content on men.

This article suffers from the same malady that many gender related articles do: namely that it has been a project in an undergraduate assignment. I would like to start (continue) renovating the article with this type of content. I have been sidetracked from this article by a lengthy (and so far unfruitful) debate on Talk:Sexism, but I am more than happy to work with you on this. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 22:36, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Review within the Wikipedia Primary School project

Hi all. As anticipated, some months ago Dr. Barbara Heer (University of Basel) agreed to review this article within the scope of the project linked above. You can find her notes in the PDF I just uploaded to Commons. We'd like to thank Dr. Heer for her work and for her helpful notes. We invite everybody to feel free to reuse the review to improve the article and/or to comment it here. Best, --Elitre (WPS) (talk) 06:37, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Disney section

Do we really need a section devoted to Disney films? Is that really pertinent to this article's subject matter? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MagicatthemovieS (talk • contribs)

Note: MagicatthemovieS removed the "Gender stereotypes in Disney films" section. He also removed it before, but Fyddlestix objected. This section has been briefly discussed before; see the "06:48, 9 April 2015 (UTC)" and "07:31, 9 April 2015 (UTC)" posts at Talk:Gender role/Archive 2#WP:Lead. I noted then that I think that section was added as part of a WP:Class assignment. I don't care much if it stays or goes. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:37, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

• I haven't read the section properly but it doesn't look particularly well-sourced to me. If it was, I would suggest it belongs in a Disney-related article, but I think it's definitely undue weight here and support the removal. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 22:26, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

John Money was a child abuser, offending paedophile and a fraud. He absolutely cannot be used as any kind of RS worthy of note

The David Reimer case did not include just "false reporting" but serious child abuse, as told by Reimer and his brother when they were older, sick abuse that continued for years, and had the effect of psychological torture and destroyed human lives.

I have seen Money used (by feminists? He was one of their pet "researchers" before the truth came out, as the sick man told them what they ideologically wanted to hear) as a RS, someone whose views are notable, even if criticism is included, on several articles. He should be absolutely out of bounds. He was not a scientist but a monster. His fraudulent and perverted actions and opinions deserve no space in a scientific context. Only in his personal article, where the emphasis should be on what human scum he was. 87.95.32.193 (talk) 19:06, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

An editor claimed that the above view is my "personal opinion" of John Money and thus no basis for editing the article. I suggest he/she reads this, and then repeats the claim: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer Read what Money did to those children, both of whom developed serious mental health problems and later committed suicide, and how he lied for years about the "case". It is beyond sick. If you disagree, read the article twice. This is true beyond any reasonable doubt.

I do understand that Money was a central authority in womens/gender studies, championed by Judith Butler among many others, and had a central position in most textbooks before the truth came out. The sick lie did not cost just the lives of the two Reimer twins, but countless others that were operated on as a result of Money's deceitful, abhorrent lies about the so called John/Joan experiment.

If such a person qualifies as a notable and reliable scientific source, worthy of a neutral place in the lead, deserving only the critical words of "false reporting", then go ahead. 87.93.96.57 (talk) 23:25, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

He was clearly notable and significant in the early development of the field. That it turns out he did some horrendous wrongs as well seems to be also true, but we can't make his contributions go away because he also did wrongs.

The field is working on figuring out if they want to rethink and reject all his work. Seems like it may. In that case, once it settles out perhaps the new view is different and he's not relevant anymore at the level of the intro. Obviously the historical role won't go away, but we can diminish his prominence in the article as the field decides his contributions were not worth carrying forwards, assuming they do so.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:57, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

In response to your criterion of "He was not a scientist but a monster," he most certainly was a scientist. No respected scientist, including those that disagree with his conclusions or methodology or ethics, would claim that Money was not a scientist. So you're certainly wrong about the first part of your statement.

As to the second part of your statement, "monster" is an ethical or moral judgment on your part, that some people share, and others don't. Whether he is, or isn't, a monster is irrelevant with respect to his viability as a reliable source, or to the verifiability of his publications. The guideline on reliable sources says nothing about disqualification for being a monster, so even if everyone agreed with your judgement of him, it wouldn't affect his reliability one jot.

Just because Phil Spector is a convicted murderer, doesn't make him less of a reliable source about the history of rock 'n' roll, and you could come up with innumerable such examples. John Money is a seminal figure in the study of gender, whatever his personal failings and whatever you think of him. As the editor you quoted said, your judgment of him is your "personal opinion" and is no basis for discounting his contributions to the field.

Feel free to add text to the article if you wish, about how scientists X, Y, and Z believe Money is a monster (along with source refs of course) if you believe that that is relevant to the topic of this article, and if you can gain consensus on that point. I, for one, do not agree that it is relevant here, although it might well be relevant to the John Money article. But you have a long, uphill battle if you wish to gain consensus that John Money is not a reliable source in an encyclopedia article about gender, as he more or less invented the field, and had innumerable publications about it. Mathglot (talk) 07:49, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Expert input needed

I just finished copyediting the section East vs. west. I request that an expert in gender studies take look at that section to make it flow better. Thanks. - BroVic (talk) 15:24, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

I did a bit of c/e. Unfortunately I don't have the sources in front of me, so I'm a bit limited on what I can do. I also tagged one source with {{Specify}} as the author looks like he's cited a few times and it's not entirely clear which one goes to this reference. TimothyJosephWood 13:04, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Great! — BroVic (talk) 14:11, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Relevance of some of the content in transgender and cross-dressing, and a lack of important relevant info

First, I'm so sorry I put my issue with this directly into the page. I went back to delete it right away after seeing that I could post on the talk page, but someone already had. Apologies also for the frustration expressed. The information is valid, but some of it is not so for this article, and I was disappointed in the lack of relevant data. By chance, did anyone read my points before deleting? I have a print-screen but can't upload until I get a wikipedia account. I might do that.

Thank you, K — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.209.217.65 (talk) 17:31, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Here is the relevant edit. Wikipedia is not a WP:FORUM for discussing these issues. If you have particular suggestions for improving particular articles, including supporting reliable sources, it is appropriate to post these suggestions on talk pages, along with the supporting references. TimothyJosephWood 17:37, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Gender roles and sexual orientation

Are gender roles all about sexual orientation? I want to suggest that we remove the rainbow flag - BroVic (talk) 13:32, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

This...may actually be a really good point. TimothyJosephWood 13:56, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

BroVic, by "the rainbow flag," I take it you mean Template:LGBT sidebar. That template is about more than sexual orientation. And this article addresses how sexual orientation and LGBT issues factor into the topic of gender roles; I'm assuming that's why the template was added. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:31, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Alright. - BroVic (talk) 22:45, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn, with all of the exceptionally nuanced debate in these topics regarding the difference between gender and sexual preference, is there no better option here for the leading image?..especially for mobile users who will see a full screen pride flag on an article not about sexual preference? TimothyJosephWood 00:15, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

The reason I raised this point is because it smacks of activism, which may not serve the greater interest of this wonderful encyclopedia. Just something for us to think about. — BroVic (talk) 08:54, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure I would call it activism, or even intentional. It's a sidebar that is applied to a range of sexuality related article, most of which are perfectly appropriate. I'm just not sure it's the best fit here. TimothyJosephWood 10:11, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

I note that the article on Gender doesn't use the LGBT side bar, but does use the Transgender sidebar about half way through the article in a related section. I would support a move of the sidebar in this article to the section of sexual orientation. Some of the article is explicitly about LGBT issues, while most of the article is not. So I think it makes sense to rearrange a bit, maybe even include the trans sidebar in the trans section if it doesn't clutter things up a bit. TimothyJosephWood 12:26, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Pinging @EvergreenFir: to the discussion as a regular on these sorts of things. TimothyJosephWood 12:48, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

I think your suggestion is the way to go — to keep it in the article but at the same time make it more focused. Thanks. — BroVic (talk) 14:14, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, having pinged two active users here for discussion and waited on it a couple of days, I'm going to go ahead and move the sidebar down to the section. If someone takes serious issue with it I'm happy to self-revert and we can discuss, but as of now there's been no objections.

I'm also going to use the same top image that's used currently on Gender. I perused commons a bit to find something that might be more appropriate and didn't come up with any clear winner. Suggestions are welcome. TimothyJosephWood 13:58, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Supported. — BroVic (talk) 16:13, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't mind the change. As for me not answering for two days, like I recently noted on my talk page, I've been taking two-day breaks from Wikipedia lately. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:54, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in reply Timothyjosephwood. I've been busy the past week. My initial thought is that the LGBT sidebar at least loosely applies as it covers gender minorities as well as sexual orientations (MOGAI). That said, I'm not sure that this is the best article for that template, but one dialogue about discrimination of LGBT folks is that it's based in gender role expectations (men as masculine and seek feminine romantic partners; women are feminine and seek masculine romantic partners). Same goes for discrimination against trans and queer folks as they are breaking gender norms and roles. A side note, the rainbow flag is most associated with gay pride, but it does represent MOGAI/LGBTQ generally so I don't think that's a big deal. EvergreenFir (talk) 03:51, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Opposed - The image might be relevant to Gender, but it's not pertinent to Gender role. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 22:10, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Suggest (without a hint of irony) an image covering "traditional gender roles" - a wedding photo; or some 1950s Americana (Mom cooking, Dad home from work, boy playing with truck or ball & stick, girl with dolls, etc); or a collage of traditional, gendered, dress from various cultures. Something with which to contrast the later, "subversive", genderqueer images. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 22:20, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

W.r.t. the wider discussion on the Template:LGBT sidebar, suggest that it would be better to include a bottom Navbox covering the same topics. While Gender roles are obvious relevant to LGBT (particularly the T) topics, they are not primarily so. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 22:26, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

• The current images are relevant if not ideal. Find new and better ones or carry on. TimothyJosephWood 15:21, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

My mistaken edit summary

Apologies - I just made an edit which made two changes, but I slipped up and only noted one of the changes in my edit summary. My edit summary was: "Re-adding back sentence that was removed in revision 655155771, in a clearer form." I should have also said that I reverted the next paragraph to an earlier form, as well. The reason for the reversion of the next paragraph was that a previous editor seemed to have mixed up social constructionism with its opposite, and thus the paragraph had become very confusing and misleading at best, and downright incorrect at worst. I felt that the older version was an improvement over the version that was there before my edit.--greenrd (talk) 08:26, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

@Greenrd: There's a solution for this: next time just do a dummy edit and use that edit to add the missing portion of the edit summary that you left off the first time. (If there are a lot of intervening edits, then it's helpful if you refer back to your original edit by using the timestamp, revision number, or both.) Mathglot (talk) 23:10, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Gender role vs. Gender expectation

The page is lacking the critique/development of the phrase "gender role" as it has been replaced by some scholars with "gender expectation." because the term "role" emphasizes agency over expectation. Pmorale4 (talk) 20:29, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Probably want to compile those sources and return with them. TimothyJosephWood 21:02, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

It's possible it's a relative neologism or perhaps hasn't hit the minimum threshold yet, but in any case, I don't see it. Mathglot (talk) 05:02, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Broken link to source #20

The link to source #20 ( Pate, J. s.d. "What everyone should know about gender and sexuality". jamespatemd.com.) is broken and cannot be verified as a reliable source. Pmorale4 (talk) 22:21, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, this is now fixed. Please read about link rot and how to repair dead links. Please also note the section about keeping dead links. Mathglot (talk) 05:13, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Deletion by IP editor

A sentence deletion by an IP editor is discussed at User talk:129.170.194.188#Gender role. Mathglot (talk) 05:29, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Critique of Gender Role Page

“Some systems of classification, unlike the WHO's, are non-binary or gender queer, allowing for more than two possible gender classifications.”
-Has the correct citation and explanation.
-Links work.
-Information comes from “Federation of Gay Games” and “Transsexual and Transgendered Policies in Sport”. The source is neutral and does not appear biased
“Gender roles can influence all kinds of behaviors, such as choice of clothing, choice of work and personal relationships, e.g., parental status”
-The citation/reference goes into great detail about parental relationships in regards to gender roles.
-Links work.
-Information comes from “Sociology of Fatherhood” another Wikipedia article. The source is neutral and does not appear biased.
“Through such tests, it is known that American Southerners exhibit less egalitarian gender views than their northern counterparts, demonstrating that gender views are inevitably affected by an individual's culture, and may differ among compatriots whose 'cultures' are a few hundred miles apart.”
-The citation/reference says it is in regards to Gender Role Egalitarian Attitudes in Beijing, Hong Kong, Florida, and Michigan. I feel that this source isn’t the best source that could have been cited.
-Link works and goes right to the citation.
-Information comes from “Gender Role Egalitarian Attitudes in Beijing, Hong Kong, Florida, and Michigan”. The source appears biased and does not seem neutral. It does not talk about southern states as much such as Arkansas or Kansas where prejudice is more apparent.

Samantha.Soballe (talk) 19:29, 10 October 2016 (UTC)Samantha Soballe

Some things (like chapter headings) are quite confusing

What I find confusing about this article is that it purports to being about gender roles, that is roles in society. However, in quite many places the article talks about behavioral differences. For example, "non verbal communication" talks about large differences that have been noticed in communicative behavior between male and female humans. It then sort of implies that these are caused by social roles, when that it most likely not the case. Behavioral differences are interesting but perhaps better described in the Wikipedia article "Sex and psychology", for example. I am sure that there are many research articles about what people think about how people should act considering their perceived gender. That kind of stuff would be more interesting. Not saying that social roles do not influence behavior at the end of the day, just that that shouldn't be the only issue discussed here. Perhaps the central thing should be describing what is meant by "social role", how that role (opinion of people) can be researched (questionnaires and stuff), how people's opinion changes in time and according to location at so on.

Also, and maybe this is related, there appears to be this slight anti-biology ideology here. For example, there is a photo of women soldiers from Dahomey, which is interesting but what if it were discussed in some wider context. Like, say, that for every ethnographic example where women soldiers are describe one can probably find a hundred ethnographies where women are forbidden to be soldiers? What scientific theoretical explanation is there for the fact that it is so much more common that the social role "soldier" is considered unacceptable for women than not?

Also why is the section "anthropology and evolution" called that? Does it mean that the section is about the discipline anthropology and the theory of evolution? Or does it mean that that chapter is about "the anthropology and evolution of gender roles"? Why would there ever be something like that? And furthermore, the content of that chapter is mostly not about anthropology and apparently has nothing to do with evolution... so? This is just one example, most of the other chapter titles are similarly oddly non-descriptive and vague. 88.195.243.29 (talk) 11:16, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I just changed the section to "Biological influences of social gender" because it appears to me that every sentence in that chapter is about that issue and it thus makes the heading more descriptive 88.195.243.29 (talk) 11:38, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Argument about equal work roles = equal capabilities just does not follow.

I marked the following statement with "dubious": The current trend in Western societies toward men and women sharing similar occupations, responsibilities and jobs suggests that the sex one is born with does not directly determine one's abilitie I see what this is trying to say. There are however some quality issues here. First, the sources don't actually claim that. Second, and more importantly, they do not claim that because it is impossible to claim that as far as I can see. Women and men do most of the same jobs in modern industrial nations. However, it in no way follows from this that they cannot be utilizing and depending on difference capabilities given that any job will likely require many different capabilities.

Actually, there is considerable discussion about how some research indicates that women are better leaders and bosses (for example) precisely because they often show a wider range of capabilities than males in equivalent positions. Such findings seem to be directly against what is stated here. However, that is another story. What is important to notice here is that what is claimed to follow from the observation does not truly follow.88.195.243.29 (talk) 11:53, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

You may to have a point, given the sources provided. The BLS report seems to be fairly dry labor statistics, and using it to support this conclusion is likely original research. The Lipton source, from page 2, appears to say quite the opposite: Moreover, sex - by which we mean not only the act itself but also sex as it applies to to gender-specific behaviors - has an impact on almost every aspect of human existence, intellectual abilities, child rearing, propensity for violence.

I have removed the content in question, and placed it below, in case other's would like to comment or investigate. TimothyJosephWood 13:16, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Content in question.
The current trend in Western societies toward men and women sharing similar occupations, responsibilities and jobs suggests that the sex one is born with does not directly determine one's abilities. References