Talk:Misandry

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microsoft spell check add

I've added that one since the majority of computer users of the world use this program for some decade already and somehow this word didn't get there? I think this is a solid enough statement to have it present.

I'm also wondering if anyone is up to starting feminist censorship article. I think it should have been there ages ago, but have no time at the moment to start one from scrap. Lost Angel 14:20, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for contributing. Incidentally, Spell checker#Functionality will give you a more likely reason for excluding an uncommon word than "censorship". "Feminist censorship" as an explanation for anything here should be sourced; presumptions of such may be considered original research.

Do notice I put the two things in separate paragraphs. It is for a good reason. I am not making any censorship claims in the article itself, that's a different point that I am inviting people to discuss if they think there is enough material for it.Lost Angel 05:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Also (and this is a small concern about which I'll prattle overlong), even tho it's reasonable to assume almost everyone reading Wikipedia uses computers, be careful not to assume a norm where everyone "gets" computers. We all know someone whose eyes would glaze over at a computer-related reference even as obvious as this one. Then there's the sort of technophobes who are predisposed to freak over things like the "NYC in Wingdings".

I'm over-critiquing cos I just had my coffee. Thanks again. Good add. / edgarde 15:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

This strikes me as original research. Jordansc 20:32, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It is factual if you have a PC with the product installed.Lost Angel 05:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I certainly do not. So this is a phenomenon you have seen, but I have not. That makes this original research. It needs to be documented in a secondary source. Hence the {{fact}} tag. / edgarde 05:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

you may get a trial version of the product and see for yourself - it is out there like a book in the library - that you have not gone there and read the book doesn't inavalidat it http://www.microsoft.com/products/info/default.aspx?view=22&pcid=9d273393-92c9-4807-be9c-515a0d152415 Lost Angel 07:40, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Great for some people, but I'm on dialup. And using Linux. I could really use a secondary source. So could people sufficiently non-technical that they can't do their own trail install, or people who simply wouldn't bother to do all this experimentation to verify a statement made in a Wikipedia article.

• you not being literate enough or well enough equipped to go to the library and read he book doesn't disqualify the book.Lost Angel 10:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Besides, how could they then judge the results? What do they know about how often a word is missing from a computer vocabulary? Does it happen all the time? Has it never happened before? Is there something this result probably means? Primary sources don't give any perspective. / edgarde 07:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

• nobody is asked to judge results or discuss how and when that happens - factually a software used by the majority of the computer-users doesn't contain this word in its spell check (would be interesting to see if it has ever been there in the first place). There should not be any "perspective" on it - wikipedia is not for POV. Stop trolling.Lost Angel 10:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is a valid predictor for a word being uncommon, so interpreting it as such an example might be WP:OR. It certainly would be OR if the implication were this somehow demonstrates a larger phenom (which I'm not seeing implied in the current text, but don't look forward to edit warring when the IPs have their say). I Googled up a couple sites, but they were self-published (contrary to WP:RS), and made a conspiracy theory out of the thing.

I wouldn't contest a removal, but we could use a really concise demonstration (or source) that this subject isn't common. A concise map of the ideological spaces where this is a hot topic might be even better (if harder to keep concise and NPOV). / edgarde 20:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Look, I'm not saying in the article why this word is missing - that's my pov. But it is, which is a fact, which points to how the word is not used/not considered worthy of being there. Lost Angel 05:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

There appears to be an edit war going on regarding the fact tag. One person thinks that citing a spell check doesn't meet our standards of a reliable source and another person disagrees. Why don't we leave the fact tag in the article until we can reach a consensus on this matter. The obvious solution would be to find a source that uncontroversially stands up to wikipedia standards. Alternatively, we could discuss the merits of using spell check as a source. But until we can all work together and agree, we should let the fact tag stand. Also, every try to discuss this matter civilly. If you disagree with someone, there is no need to insult or ridicule them. Thanks.-Andrew c 15:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Reference to spellcheck is not made as a reference to some idea, the source itself is verifiable - it is in open access. It is used as a factual evidence of lesser use of word misandry since it is not in a dictionary embedded into a program used by millions for over a decade. No claims beyond that are made that would require factual verification. Furthermore, German spellcheck has this word included.

To your second point - there is no ridiculing of a person - since I don't even know the person. If the claims are ridiculous - they speak for themselves. As to accusation of insult - the phrase regarding literacy does not allow for literal application, since the user obviously is literate, it however serves as an illustration of the situation by analogy. "You" is used as a synonym to "one" as in "you can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs".Lost Angel 15:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I have restored the fact tag because this dispute has not been settled yet. And reading through, I have decided that there is original synthesis. There is a sentence that says that misandry isn't discussed very often, and that statement is supported by the word being absent from two spell checkers. This implies that "if a word is missing from spell check, it must not be discussed very often". We do not have a source for that claim, hence the fact tag. Wikipedia is not included in firefox or Word's spell checker, but can we draw the conclusion that wikipedia not discussed very often?-Andrew c 16:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

If a word is missing, it means someone made a choice to exclude it or didn't know it to begin with, or considered it unimportant genuinely. In each case either the claim that it is underused (spell check guys probably have a clue about language, maybe...) is right or the claim of it being censored out is right (in which case it is less used because it is censored).

Plus and that's the nice of it - it is less used by people, who make spell check software for millions of people. And an earlier sentence claims exactly this - lesser use comparing to misogyny. I suggest you pull the tag off. And do reply to the edit on my talkpage reaction, if you will.Lost Angel 18:21, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Lack of sources

We can all probably check spellcheck but what we do with our observations is an interpretation or a POV. If I note that George Bush didn't mention, say, health care or Hurricane Katrina or dogs in his last speech, we can all go back to a transcript or recording of the speech --- but whether or not the absence of dogs in his speech is remarkable is another matter. If you're the first person to note that Bush has consistently failed to mention dogs, then it's original research. It might be true, it might be significant, it might be bleedingly obvious, but the experts haven't commented on it yet. As has already been pointed out, there are multiple interpretations of why spell check might not include misandry -- and since no sources have weighed in on the issue, there's no way to resolve the import of misandry's absence without resorting to our own POV's. And since no sources have mentioned it, it might not be important at all. If you can find a source that even mentions this absence, by all means include it. Jordansc 17:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

It is less used by spell check software makers comparing to misogyny.Lost Angel 18:21, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

That's part of what makes this a tough call. There are several sources for this information, but they seem mostly self-published, and not reliable by Wikipedia standards. And while the observation that the Word 2007 vocabulary lacks this term might be simple enough to let slide, these sources tend to really go to town with interpretation. / edgarde 18:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

There is a simpler way to explain it - we use words to discuss things - when word is not there - we can't discuss it, only the related concept put in another words. Here we have a case of a word not being there.Lost Angel 19:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

added the "or used" to comply with npov of the following passage.Lost Angel 18:21, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

While still raising a little bit of uncomfort with me, I could live with the something like the following: The term misandry is not commonly use. For example, some software spell check vocabularies do not recognize the word. And we'd need a citation that cites the software itself. I'm pretty sure our citing sources guidelines discuss how to do this, or if not a current edition MLA or Chicago style book would. How does this work for others as a compromise?-Andrew c 18:42, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion about the word (and its usage) is tangential, trivial for the lead section, and basicly belongs on Wiktionary (where a lot of definition cruft from this article was relocated). Lots of unusual words become Wikipedia topics, and it's not very interesting.

What is interesting (and stated) is that the subject of misandry isn't often discussed. However, as is correctly pointed out above, the MS-Office vocabulary may not be a good way to demonstrate this, which is why it presents an original research problem. / edgarde 18:46, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Word has to be known to be used, it has to be there to be discussed, people should know it. Editors should know it - now firefox's, msoffice's, gmail's vocabularies do not include the word, so these textual niches in linguistic sense have this discussion part either sanitized out -> censorship -> less discussion, or they're there because they're not known -> less discussion. No matter how you look at it. I opt for someone to put "or used" back!Lost Angel 19:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

If I note a bug in the software - one that anyone can see if they do X, X, and X - and I'm the first person to see this, it is original research. It's informative but it's not wikipedia material. I don't see how the absence of a word in spell check is fundamentally different. It's something that anyone can observe, but the methodology and interpretation are still questionable.

The same thing is true of a book: if I discover that X author fails to mention Y when talking about Z, it would still be my discovery and not something that just magically presented itself in the text. Or if I unearth a hidden code or explain an allusion or what have you. It might seem that the evidence is just waiting in the text to be uncovered but, really, the reader or software user brings his or her own biases, agendas, perceptions, etc, to the text and creates his or her own meaning out of it. That is to say, the fact that Misandry isn't present in spell check is only significant if we're (a) looking for it and (b) think it is. The same thing can be said of George Bush not mentioning Hurricane Katrina. To observe that Bush failed to mention Katrina in a given speech isn't just looking at something self-evident in the text, it's making political point Unless someone comes up with sources that discuss Misandry's absence, all we can do is pit our own opinions of its significance against each other. Did I miss someone providing sources? 24.164.77.105 19:46, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

But we aren't talking about author X talking about Z and not mentioning Y. We're talking about authors X including commonly used words for a language Z which has not included X. If the topic is language, and the article is an expression of language, then its lack of inclusion is notable, as opposed to a speech by a politician that, of course, can never include every topic in the known world. Is there an article on this website about straw man arguments? Jgda 07:08, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

My point is not that these examples are exactly the same thing but that observing an absence in a text or a piece of software can, in fact, be a POV statement. Noting that misandry is absent from Microsoft Spellcheck implies that it should be there - just as pointing out that Bush failed to mention Katrina in a particular speech implies that it should be there. These statements about spellcheck are clearly being made to support an agenda: that is, that the idea that misandry is actively excluded from discourse. That's what this is about, not whether or not a spellcheck includes "misandry," and the lack of sources to support or deny this claim makes it unfit for Wikipedia. Jordansc 18:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

(reply to parent by Andrew c) If we're going to note the commonness of the word itself, it should be considered in a lower section, not the lead. I don't think such is merited, but I'd settle for it in a section.

Several editors on this talk page have suggested this word is kept secret from the world, only recently unveiled by heroic truth tellers. I sure knew the term before I came here, and people I know recognize it. Even if they didn't, expressions like "hatred of" or "prejudice against" would fill in for most people. I don't think the presence or absense in computer or human vocabularies is any more significant than that of (clicking Random article a couple times here) Stattoo or Planctus. / edgarde 20:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Reference is not an original research in the sense that the word is absent there - fact. How to interpret it is subject to research, but it can be placed for the fact it is and for the relevance of how often the word is used.

Whether your friends knew the word before is absolutely irrelevant to this case.

When referring to actions of others that you label "heroic" - quote them, don't invent things, even if that might appear as a brilliant sarcasm to oneself.

If a word is absent from some vocabulary it signals lesser use of the word and discussion of something is not possible without the use of the word - something you've removed. Which pretty much illustrates how removing a word removes relevant arguments from discussion. I'm referring to "or used", which I hope will be brought back - currently you did 2 edits I don't agree on both unrv'd mind you at least one should be brought back. "or used" is factual.

There is research on how removing words and changing them silences certain debate and even human thinking and behaviour - look up politically correct speech, how it would supposingly reduce hatred if people won't have words to name this hatred with.

Someone else would take over, I herewith renounce editing wikipedia altogether.Lost Angel 21:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm too late. Noooooooooooooooo! RedRabbit1983 16:18, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Strangeness

I just hit upon this article and had a brief browse over it. Several things struck me as strange.

• Intimate misandry by women solely consists of the views of Judith Levine. Shouldn't this be a reason for it to be retitled Levine's views of misandry?
• The first sentence is very odd for a beginning: Judith Levine alternatively focuses on private manifestations of misandry in her 1992 book.
• The rest is like a book review. What is more important: her book or the subject at hand?
• Men as a class are considered irreformable, all men are considered rapists, and marriage, rape and prostitution are seen as the same—Is this serious?
• There doesn't seem to be much in the way of definition in the section that is supposed to be about just that.

The article doesn't get any better after that. RedRabbit1983 16:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

'tis passing strange. The problem, as it has always been, is in the controversial nature of the topic for wikipedians generally. The article has been shaped by a kind of reverse-Darwinian intellectual catabolis that has required almost every sentence be justified to maintain the NPOV required. The amusing part is that, every now and then, someone pops up and pretty much says what you have said (you can scan the archives if you're really bored). If the result is crap, then 'tis crap-by-consensus... Jgda 23:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The article isn't perfect but it's loads better than what it used to be. I'd rather it be an idiosyncratic & narrow but well-sourced article than an expansive collection of quote-mined material copy-pasted without examination from unsourced partisan web sites and mixed in with some OR'ed editorial opinion. The article might not represent your personal conception of misandry but its present state better conforms to Wikipedia standards. And, if you'll notice, all of the well-sourced material remains. N+Y even have their own article now. Jordansc 02:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

You are (of course) guilty of exactly what you claim to be against, but unlikely to ever realise it: you refer to only one isolated section of the previous article. And what a grand victory it was. 'Long battle'? Don't get too carried away... It was deleted and it was gone. The quote you mention below was perfectly representative, but had important applied apologetics mashed into it, therefore, I agree: it now conforms to Wikipedia standards, as opposed to being particularly useful to anyone. I mean, have you people actually read an encyclopedia entry lately? A real one? No problem: but you must live with the result. The material, as RedRabbit (and others before...) has noticed, is so freakin' well sourced now as to be pretty much all source (sauce?) and no meat (meet?). Fortunately, despite your long battle, it's very unimportant. Jgda 08:34, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

"Loads better"? How much shitter can it get? It is a copy-pasted book review, the kind that doesn't even make it into student magazines. It would better conform to standards if it were reduced to a stub, for it would have less worthless material. Jdga, I'm not bored enough to browse the articles. RedRabbit1983 11:06, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

"Copy-pasted" from what? I'm also not sure how it's a "book review," it's more of a summary of Levine's views on misandry - something entirely appropriate for the Misandry article. It's not great (why Levine?) but I don't think it's the shittiest thing I can imagine. If it's terrible to you, improve it.

The old version of the article had a lengthy section directly lifted - uncited - from a random web site. The section turned out to contain blatantly biased mispresentations of quotes. For example, one quote originally said that most men discriminate against women in some way and listed a range of things men have done, ranging from paying women less than men to crimes like brutal rape. But when the web site presented the quote, it deleted a few key sentences (i.e., all of the more common and less severe discriminatory practices like unequal wages) making the new quote say something to the effect of "most men rape women." And so on. That's how "shitty" the page could get. It was a long battle to get it removed and we still get people trying to reinsert chunks of this quote collection. Jordansc 15:10, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that I may have inadvertently given a false impression. The article is a summary in the vein of book review, since what is discussing is in fact books. I wouldn't say it is "the shittiest thing" that I've seen; the standard of shoddiness is much too low. And I doubt that the reward would pay off the work required to make the article stable and well-written. RedRabbit1983 16:29, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Examples of feminist misandry

I removed a section that was recently added that was simply a collection of quotations, with the header "Examples of feminist misandry". This section had the same problems that the former mythology section (look at page history back in december, or talk archives) and the literature section at misogyny had. We are doing original research by in essence 'quote mining' these books and saying that they demonstrate misandry. We'd, at the very least, need another source to make that claim to avoid original research.-Andrew c ^[talk] 04:53, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletions

If you don't understand why a section is in an article, or the placement of a quote, maybe you could ask on a talk page? Jgda 09:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The Levine summary piece could be expanded, and then attacked for its expansion, but I think it gives enough general information for a short article so that people can go away and find out more if they desire. It's certainly not 'incoherent babbling' whether people agree with it or not. Go to the source material and find out. It's a common error and one I have been guilty of myself. As for its appearance elsewhere on the web, with Google I could only find it on wikipedia related sites. Where has it been lifted from unedited? Jgda 01:25, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Caution

As I research this topic, I am discovering wide support from prominent feminists for Nathanson and Young. Such support is a particularly "good rap" for feminism, willingness to hear criticism, acceptance of responsibility, repugnance at hypocrisy. Young, of course, is a feminist herself, setting precisely this example.

Misandry doesn't "disprove" feminism, if anything it is based on feminist research and skills in identifying and eliminating sexism.

However, the issues are complex, the final word hasn't been said, and maybe it never will be. It is also clear emotions are high in public response to publications expressing any opinion either way.

At the current moment, misandry has a special meaning in publications, just as terrorism does. The words are loaded with all sorts of current issues.

In situations like this, Wiki needs to be cautious.

Andrew c's comments above are a good guide for this page. Reproducing N&Y's research by locating misandrous quotes in feminist works is extremely easy to do, there are a lot of them. Women expressing anger at rape didn't pull any punches. However, because there is published material on this topic, Wiki does not need to do such primary research. There are complexities to the nature of the current public debate that non-professionals can overlook. Wiki policy is against editors doing original research, because we can get it wrong and disappoint readers (not to mention angering them).

But the caution I'm stopping to post about just now is to do with what I'm finding in published media. A growing number of prominent women within feminist circles, and with broad public credibility are supporting Nathanson and Young. It's no surprise, Katie Roiphe and Christina Hoff Summers (both feminists) published similar stuff more than a decade ago.

So the caution is this. If anyone thinks Nathanson and Young are outside the mainstream, that is not what the literature says even now, and this is only likely to grow. Who cares whether they are right or wrong, that's not our question. Significant commentators are publishing regarding what they see as a specific trend, of which N&Y are relative late-comers. It's actually good PR for third wave feminism — critical reflection on the past is often viewed as maturity.

If we stick to the rules of Wiki and reproduce published debate without fear or favour, we will serve readers and do justice to professional researchers, some of whom will be wrong, but that's their responsibility, not ours. Alastair Haines 23:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Worth mentioning?

Is this worth mentioning in the article, that most obscene or profane words have a male background? Such as the following: bullshit, bastard, son of a bitch, dick, dickhead, john, jackass, cocksucker (often said between males) and prick. These words all have a male reference. Ohmega4K 01:34, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

No, without a source, it isn't worth mentioning. We cannot publish original research here on wikipedia. -Andrew c ^[talk] 04:46, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

A little research can go a long way

Just doing some grinding, thorough web trawling for citations of Nathanson and Young finally paid an interesting dividend. The Association of American University Presses offer what they consider the best of their annual publications to the American Library Association for selection of a short list of "the best of the best". This short list is not actually so short. However, although Spreading Misandry was published in 2001, it seems to have now been accepted into the mainstream in a very public review process. It was listed this year as one of "the best of the best" from the University Presses. It's unlikely to ever make the New York Times bestsellers, but it clearly has cred with those who stock the reference shelves of public libraries. Just thought this was pretty classic Wiki gold-standard evidence of notability, so I'm documenting it here for us. Alastair Haines 07:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Thick and fast they came at last and more and more and more ... Apparantly, Nathanson & Young were given government and private funding to research this subject. See Nathanson bio at MarriageInstitute (Canada). I wonder what Her Majesty thinks of this spending of government monies... Alastair Haines 09:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

This is not a forum

Editors are reminded this page is for discussing edits to the article Misandry, per Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. Please take private conversation to User talk pages. Please take soapbox posts to your blog. Thanks. / edg ☺ ☭ 01:46, 21 November 2007 (UTC)