Talk:Masculism

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There is a request for comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gender studies#Navigation templates: masculism related to this page. Please join the discussion there. Thank you. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:03, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

The RfC has ended, and is archived at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gender studies/Archive 5. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:55, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose the merging of Meninism into Masculism. Both articles are already quite short, and I think that the subjects of both articles are doubtless similar enough to justify a merger. —Entity137 (talk) 09:17, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

I think this might be a good idea. I think we would just have to make sure the discussion of the actual term meninism, apart from the discussion of the term masculism, is discussed somewhere in the article. BappleBusiness (talk) 00:37, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I concur, there's no reason for this article to exist separately. LΞVIXIUS💬 18:56, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree the two pages should be merged. Chrisisreed (talk) 14:39, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Conscription and military service

There is nothing in the article about gender discrimination related to conscription and military service. Arty32 (talk) 07:17, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Probably because the sources don't mention it. You are free to add such material to the article that is supported by an independent reliable source. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:04, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Feminist perspectives

Might be nice to include feminist perspectives about masculism, since the article includes masculist perspectives about feminism. For instance, many feminists would argue in favor of men's rights and say that women are not the only people oppressed by patriarchy. And others might make critiques of "men's rights" as a distraction. 4kbw9Df3Tw (talk) 03:13, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Definition

The simple fact is that there is no one agreed-upon definition of this term; the "definition and scope" section goes into a great deal of depth on this. Some tweaks to the lead might help make this more clear, but overall it lists the most prominent definitions that appear in the body of the article - most of the recent edits seem to have been pushing to rewrite the lead and parts of the article around just one definition and one source as if it were definitely correct, which isn't at all supported by the wide variety of sources and differing definitions in the body. --Aquillion (talk) 22:36, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Responding here both to this and the broader set of Jamarr81's changes. I agree that tweaks might be helpful, but the overall effect of the changes was to worsen the NPOV of the article. Sources do not primarily define masculism as a "movement that seeks gender egalitarianism", and we should not be inserting the view that the OED has done something "mistakenly", unless that view is very well supported by reliable sources. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 00:25, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

@Jamarr81: wanted to make sure you're aware of this discussion. Aquillion and I are not vandalizing, we just disagree on your approach to the article so far. Please self-revert and make the case for your changes here. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 00:28, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

The references from this page disagree with your interpretations. Despite this, I've reiterated the normative definition of these terms under the Talk:Masculism#Masculinism section. Feel free to discuss any uncertainties about these terms there. Jamarr81 (talk) 01:20, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

As I said, though, the sources don't agree with your revision. Many sources treat them as the same thing and as forms of antifeminism. I even added an additional one to the article, which you removed. You can't just pick one source and rewrite the entire page around it, ignoring everything to the contrary said everywhere else (let alone using your own voice to overtly describe the sources you disagree with as wrong in the article voice!) We could very slightly tweak the lead to make it clear that not everyone treats Masculism and masculinism as interchangeable, definitely, but enough high-quality sources do that your personal belief that they're definitely mistaken to do so can't be stated in the article voice, and their perspective and usage is prominent enough to go in the lead. Similarly, your removal of antifeminism from the lead is baffling - it is extremely well-cited in the body and mentioned numerous times; when you removed it you implied that you personally consider the scholars who make that connection to be engaging in "misandery", but that's WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS editing. They say what they say, and we have to reflect that. --Aquillion (talk) 10:42, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not make normative claims. NPOV means summarizing the views of reliable sources fairly and proportionately. Not fixating on sources that happen to align with one particular POV or pointing out "mistakes" by otherwise reliable sources. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:18, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Masculinism

User:Firefangledfeathers, if you are adamant about conflating these terms and retaining ambiguities on the page between Masculism and Masculinism, you should provide citations sufficiently refuting the existing references on the page that currently provide sufficient context for disambiguating these terms. If you are unable or unwilling to counter the existing references, please leave the new Masculinism section alone. Thank you.

To reiterate, from the references in the page itself:

The concept of masculism, a term common to the early days of second wave feminism and especially related to men’s movement activities, presents one interesting asymmetry that uses feminism as the positive pole. Most closely associated with men’s movement activist Warren Farrell, the concept initially promoted gender egalitarianism and the promise of mutual benefit.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamarr81 (talk • contribs) 01:09, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I think the Duerst-Lahti chapter is a great source, but it is one scholar's analysis, and we've been citing it with attribution as is proper. You are certainly of other sources that use the terms interchangably, since you've engaged already with the Dictionary of Media and Communication source. You suggested that I might be "unable or unwilling to counter the existing references", but you're the one who has inserted uncited analysis contradicting a reliable source. I am not adamant about conflating the terms, and I think we should be very clear about who views them as synonymous and who does not. There is ambiguity in the sources, so we should not pretend like there is certainty. These are the basic of NPOV writing. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:45, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

One other issue with D-L is that it cites this Wikipedia article. We should be careful not to get into a WP:CIRCULAR problem, which at the very least will entail not using it to support your proposed "It is most closely associated with men's movement activist Warren Farrell", as the corresponding line in the source is directly citing our article. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:50, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

You are being extremely disingenuous and this behavior is antithetical to Wikipedia's position on presuming edits are made in good faith. Rather than using the Talk pages to discuss specific topics/changes I've made, you two have been irrationally blanket-reverting my efforts without sufficient citation. My efforts to improve this page's organization and to disambiguate or clarify the numerous ambiguities on this page are being halted by you. This highlights the question of why this page is so poorly written, considering there seems to be a history of poor-faith reverts both of you have made to this page. It's starting to feel like extremist feminists might be maliciously gatekeeping or brigading this page. Jamarr81 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 16:20, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

To further reiterate, from the Oxford reference on the page itself:

In its most general meaning, the word 'feminism' refers to promotion of the interests or rights of women, and a reasonable definition of 'masculism' would have it refer to promoting the interests or rights of men... A more precise definition of both would be something on this order: 'the belief that women/ men have been systematically discriminated against, and that that discrimination should be eliminated'. Evidently, such a definition for 'feminism' is commonly understood, and among the few who apply the term 'masculist' to themselves, such is also their intent. Of course, under these meanings there is no necessary conflict between them... both forms of contemporary masculism promote equality between men and women as its adherents envision it. Of course, whether they are mistaken about what moral equality would consist in, or even at some level dishonest about that being their goal, is another matter—as it also is for feminists. This leads us to the extremist versions of masculism and feminism, those that promote some degree of male or female supremacy, and are generally based on belief in the inferiority of the other sex...

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamarr81 (talk • contribs) 16:20, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

You haven't really answered any of our objections, though. I've pointed to (and added citations to!) numerous sources that disagree with your definitions. I even added a note to the lead as a compromise to make it clear that not all sources treat Masculism or masculinism as interchangeable; but clearly a significant number of them do. You also haven't even made any effort to defend your removal of antifeminism from the lead, even though it is well-sourced both there and in the body. And ultimately the WP:ONUS is on you to get consensus for disputed changes; you need to slow down and argue your point piece by piece rather than repeatedly trying to force it through via revision. Both of us have conceded that there is some room to clarify the range of views on masculism or masculinism, but your edits go way too far, remove many things that are clearly well-established in the sources, and overtly try to describe some sources as wrong based on nothing but your personal preference to favor others instead. --Aquillion (talk) 17:11, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Claiming that a term or socio-political philosophy is _contemporarily_ antifeminist, sourced from an extremist feminist, is not a sufficient or valid source to justifying claiming that _contemporary masculism_ is in any way antifeminist. The topic of antifeminism is already covered under the #Early History section, and then some.

If the actual intention is to respect Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view, why are you so adamant about ignoring and denouncing the more contemporary definitions by more neutral sources/authors? Jamarr81 (talk) 17:32, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

First of all, it's important to note that we don't say that masculism is always or entirely used to refer to a form of antifeminism, just that that is one of the things the term is used for. One thing that we keep coming back to is that the term is used by many different people for many different things. That said... feminism is entirely mainstream. There's nothing odd about citing feminist scholars - it would be like saying that we cannot cite scholars who support democracy on articles that discuss autocracy. And if your argument is that masculism is not considered antifeminist, then you contradict yourself by arguing that we can't cite feminist scholars on it - is it in alignment with feminism or not? In any case, we cite more than one scholar; Melissa Blais, Francis Dupuis-Déri, and Robert Menzies were all already cited in the article to describe its antifeminist usage. Are they all extremist feminists? Even beyond that it's easy to find additional sources; I've added another but it's a matter of choosing from the dozens who have covered this. --Aquillion (talk) 22:18, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

As Aquillion already pointed out above, there is no one agreed-upon definition of the term(s). The article already cites several sources that equate masculism and masculinism, including Chandler & Munday (2016). As for the recent major rewrite defining masculism as a socio-political movement that seeks gender egalitarianism, the cited work by Duerst-Lahti explicitly makes a distinction between such early use of the concept and more recent anti-feminist discourse that is decidedly non-egalitarian (my bolding):

Most closely associated with men’s movement activist Warren Farrell, the concept initially promoted gender egalitarianism and the promise of mutual benefit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masculism). Later, many feminists came to see masculism as a threat, an assessment aided by conservative ideologists of the men’s movement who decried women’s civil rights and family role advantages under the banner of masculism.

The first sentence is also circular sourcing, as Firefangledfeathers mentioned already. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 17:50, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

References