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Thread retitled from "Feminism and Misandry are not the same thing".
Look, I get that it's the official policy of Wikipedia to support feminism and characterize any criticism of it as completely unfounded and based on hate, etc. This is literally repeated over ten times in the article for some reason, as if it wasn't made clear enough in the opening paragraph. That being said, it is self evident that there are people out there with prejudice and dislike towards men, just like every other race and gender. This is even admitted by the article, although of course it's in the context of claiming that fewer feminists are misandrists. The entire article about misandry contains zero discussion about misandrists other than to paradoxically claim that there are less misandrists among feminists while also claiming that misandry does not exist? The "psychological study" presented consists essentially of asking a group of feminists if they have negative feelings towards men and reporting their answer. Can we really think of no reasons that individuals who are part of a political activist group would avoid damaging their own movement by associating it with politically unpalatable ideas or be in denial about their own prejudice? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dekadoka (talk • contribs)
The official policy of Wikipedia is to base it on the most reliable academic sources. In the reality of 2024, the most reliable academic sources harshly criticize antifeminism, and encourage feminism. It was different once upon a time, and it may be different sometime in the future, but today Wikipedia will write as the most reliable academic sources write as of 2024. There are more than one source that suggests that antifeminists are more hostile to men than feminists. This is also indicated by Peter Glick and Jessica Whitehead in their article "Hostility toward men and the perceived stability of male dominance". Antifeminists, generally speaking, very often show hostility and even hatred towards those men who do not conform to the ideals of hegemonic masculinity, don't they? In general, one could create an article Hostility towards men based on psychological literature, which is not quite the same as hatred of men, but at least it is something that has been studied as a verified thing by serious psychologists, such as Peter Glick and Jessica Whitehead. Please don't forget to sign your messages. --Reprarina (talk) 12:29, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize for the frustrated tone of my initial comment. I agree with you that Wikipedia should aspire to represent the content of quality academic sources, and that generally these sources are highly critical of antifeminism. That being said, I think an article about misandry should at least attempt to discuss misandrists. Instead what we get is a denial that misandry even exists, a claim that if it does exist it does minimal or no harm because it is not identical to misogyny, and finally a poorly supported claim that there is no link whatsoever with feminism. The term's alleged links with feminism and use to support antifeminism certainly deserve a section in the article but making almost the entire article about these things leaves out important information. Misandry exists and causes harm independent of any false equivalence to misogyny. There are harmful and false male stereotypes which have been examined academically. For example:
1. "All men are fundamentally driven by sex." A recent meta analysis of 211 studies found that while men do have a higher average libido than women, male and female libidos follow a bell curve and the average is quite close. One in three women has a higher libido than the average man. This stereotype may partially arise from the greater tendency of high libido men to interact with large numbers of women.
3. "Men are (insert small group of men who do bad thing)s." Lack of recognition male vs female variability and its effects on the extremes of the bell curves. Although men and women are quite similar on average, men have greater variability in the areas of cognition, physical attributes, and personality.
Some discussion of this is warranted. This data suggests that most of the individuals found at the extremes of human behavior, good and bad, are likely to be men. Hence, it is inaccurate to represent men using only the bad side of the curve. A more accurate view would characterize men as simply being more variable in good and bad ways. — Dekadoka (talk) 15:12, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
These citations don't appear to mention the term 'Misandry' at all. Have a look at Wikipedia's policy on original research. Wikipedia cannot make a logicial leap to label the examples you cite here as 'Misandry' - we can only make points which are directly supported by citations. Discussion of this could well be warranted, but we do not have citations here that would allow it to be done in a way which meets Wikipedia's policy requirements. MrOllie (talk) 15:24, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The first sentence of the article: "Misandry is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against men or boys."
Prejudice: "a. : a favoring or dislike of something without good reason. b. : unfriendly feelings directed against an individual, a group, or a race" - Merriam-Webster
"To demonstrate that you are not adding original research, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article and directly support the material being presented." - Original research policy
Examples on the topic of antimale prejudice and the false stereotypes surrounding it aren't welcome in a discussion on misandry because they don't include the term misandry? Feels a bit like a Catch-22, no?
Example 1: Stereotyping men as overly sexually driven is incorrect. The reason this is a topic of research is because the stereotype exists. It should be self evident that false stereotypes are potentially harmful. Here is another article that challenges it even more directly:
"Not only is the idea that men have higher sex drives an oversimplified notion, but it’s really just not true"
Example 2: Conclusion/Topic from source 1: Men and women have less empathy for men than women. (see title and last sentence of abstract) Dislike, unfriendly feelings, see above definition of prejudice. If someone has access to the full articles and relevant statistical knowledge, they could also pull the percentage of people surveyed who reported negative feelings towards men references under "psychological research" and in the final paragraph of the current article.
Conclusion/Topic from source 2: "This study finds dramatic unexplained gender gaps in federal criminal cases. Conditional on arrest offense, criminal history, and other pre-charge observables, men receive 63% longer sentences on average than women do. Women are also significantly likelier to avoid charges and convictions, and twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted. There are large unexplained gaps across the sentence distribution, and across a
wide variety of specifications, subsamples, and estimation strategies."
Conclusion/Topic from source 3: "Results show that, when comparing students who have identical subject-specific competence, teachers are more likely to give higher grades to girls. Furthermore, they demonstrate for the first time that this grading premium favouring girls is systemic, as teacher and classroom characteristics play a negligible role in reducing it."
Can we agree that all three of these relate to "favoring or disliking [men] without good reason" or "unfriendly feelings directed against [men]" and hence are at least debatably examples of prejudice which is an example of misandry?
Example 3: I agree that referencing the variability hypothesis itself is not directly related and directly supportive, so I think this one would need a better reference. Perhaps a better direction for this would look at individual examples, such as social conditioning factors which lead to male criminal behavior, and the strong correlation between fatherlessness and violent crime? Dekadoka (talk) 16:58, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You're wasting your time, here. WP:OR is a core policy on Wikipedia. That these examples are misandry in your opinion or fit a definition is completely irrelevant if you cannot bring sources that make points directly. MrOllie (talk) 17:08, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nowhere does the article, let alone the lead section of the article, deny that misandry even exists. The study called "The Misandry Myth" asked adults of both sexes to "report their feminist identity and explicit attitudes toward men". That's not the same as asking a group of feminists if they have negative feelings towards men.Wikipedia already has articles on sex differences in humans that would be more relevant to this discussion, including human sexuality, sex differences in crime, and sex differences in psychology.The first sentence of the article needs to be changed to rely less on dictionary definitions; whatever society's attitudes towards men might be, "misandry" is mainly an MRA talking point used to attack feminists. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:00, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the term has unfortunately been contaminated by it's association with antifeminists. This is perhaps why academic articles discussing prejudice and negative perceptions of men don't use the term except in the context of defending feminism. But I suppose if WP:OR requires the exact term to be mentioned in order for an academic article to meet the directly related/directly supportive criteria for relevant information, this information cannot be included under Wikipedia's policies. Makes sense. On the other hand, do we consider the phenomena of prejudice against men worth discussing at all, and, if so, where can it be mentioned in a neutral fashion without the comparison to misogyny or linking it to feminism? I feel that there is still relevant academic information that should be presented even if we keep in mind that misogyny is more harmful/systemic/etc.
@Sangdeboeuf The article states that the term was invented by antifeminists for the purpose of criticizing feminism, which implies that it does not describe a real phenomena independent of criticism of feminism. My mistake if I misinterpreted, but this does not appear to be clarified anywhere in the article.
"The Misandry Myth" Just read the questions on the survey if you don't believe me. Question 1: "Are you a feminist?" Question 10: "How warm/favorable or cold/unfavorable do you feel towards men in general." Question 11: [do you] “like men,” “dislike men,” “trust men,” “distrust men." There were other questions on the survey so I perhaps I oversimplified, but I think my point stands. Dekadoka (talk) 23:54, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no reason in principle to consider this source unreliable. It does not contradict other sources. It has not been harshly criticized in the academic community. Moreover, it does not avoid calling misandry misandry, but directly uses the word misandrist in relation to some feminists. It is in the interests of those who are for men's rights, and not for the demonization of feminism, to insist on increasing the weight of this source in the article rather than decreasing it. Reprarina (talk) 00:16, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I shall oppose. The first sentence of the article is quite correct, misandry is the hatred of men, and the article should be primarily about man-hating. And we should not write the article as if MRAs came up with some word instead of using one that already exists in non-MRAs-written dictionaries. In addition, the article should include studies of racialized hatred of black men, since the most general source in the article, namely Ouellette, mentions racialized misandry in his article. And racialized misandry is far from being portrayed in Black male studies as something falsely equivalent, non-systemic, etc. By the way, the Misandry myth article doesn't directly mention MRAs at all. Reprarina (talk) 00:07, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Misandry was an obscure word before it was commandeered by MRAs as a tool against feminism. The meaning the MRAs applied to it is the meaning that stuck: feminists who supposedly hate men. Sources focus primarily on women as notional man-haters, much more than man-hating men, despite the original word allowing for any gender to hate men.
Again, racialized misandry against black men is best saved for another topic page. Otherwise this page will be stretched to mean two different things. It should be mentioned briefly with a link to the other page. The primary meaning of misandry is the one that represents a backlash to feminism. Binksternet (talk) 00:16, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In what world is "misandry" the same as "racialized misandry"? Nonsense. The misandry topic is primarily devoid of race as a factor. When race is introduced, it becomes a different topic. It's the same as Feminism versus White feminism, Black feminism and Multiracial feminist theory. The root term is about gender rights, not race-related. The weaponization of the word misandry by MRAs is this page's main topic. Binksternet (talk) 19:11, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Misandry myth article already say that some feminists have claimed that misandry is a legitimate, even necessary aspect of the movement. It is naive to think that there are not and will not be sources on this aspect. The section on misandry in art is certainly not about MRAs, but for some reason we didn’t write a word in the preamble regarding this aspect. Reprarina (talk) 00:47, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And yes, the authors of the Misandry myth article quite calmly cited Robin Morgan as an example. Morgan never wrote that misandry is legitimate, using the word misandry. She wrote that man-hating is an honorable and viable political act. However, the authors have calmly turned man-hating into misandry. And we should. Because these are synonymous words. Reprarina (talk) 01:03, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What I don't quite understand here is why the article titled "discrimination against men" is not facing anything like the political opposition we see here, considering that this very article (correctly) describes misandry and discrimination against men as synonymous.
Oddball question—if this isn't the article to include these facts on, which one is? I'm not saying the converse of WP:V (i.e. the negation of WP:ONUS, that every verifiable fact must fit in somewhere) is true—but it does seem like there should be some place where information like this is naturally fit in. Remsense ‥ 论04:22, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In the end, what you're saying here is largely correct. Even a cursory examination reveals that the academic consensus holds prejudice against men, as generally understood, as an essentially invalid or non-existent concept, and that discussion of it represents a morally reprehensible attempt to divert attention from the much more severe problems faced by women. Certainly that is more or less what this article currently represents, although I still think it could be better written. If that's the goal, this article should be written in much the same way that, say, the article on the flat earth is written, to make it abundantly clear that Wikipedia's position - correctly reflecting the academic consensus - is that it is describing something that is culturally pseudoscientific. At that level, there is a question over whether this article should exist at all, although, as I say, there's one on flat earth. 188.74.98.182 (talk) 20:18, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I assume you are aware that peer-reviewed research, i.e. the reliable sources that Wikipedia takes up the cause to use predominantly, are very biased at the moment? There is a massive amount of data indicating that misandry, which btw is not the same as anti-feminism, is a real problem, but in the peer-reviewed literature, papers evaluating such data in an unbiased way is very hard to find or not at all. I was in academia and I would go so far as to describe the situation as censorship. So my question is: Isn't an encyclopedia supposed to be politically neutral? --Felix Tritschler (talk) 22:37, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You misunderstand Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, which is about fairly representing significant views that have been published by reliable sources. We are not going to discard that policy based on one Wikipedia user's personal experience. Nor do we publish original research, no matter how many internet randos claim to have been censored by academia. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:45, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't misunderstand this at all. The thing is that this policy relies on the assumption that the gross of sources sanctioned by academia is politically, and e.g. regarding genders, neutral. Assume for a moment this is not the case - then of course any such source asserting that the gross of other such sources is neutral, isn't worth anything, right? But I see that it doesn't make sense to discuss this any further - Just one more thing: I'd like to send greetings to future readers of this (in case these comment pages are preserved long enough), who live in a time in which they look back at 2024, shaking their heads about how ridiculously obviously things went wrong and way too far in a direction that was initially justified and good, just the same way we from 2024 shake our heads looking back at the times before e.g. women had the right to vote (in which btw of course all sources the public opinion was influenced by, was deemed neutral and totally fine, by opinions from these same authorities). Good bye. --Felix Tritschler (talk) 23:18, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
First, my comments concern the quality of the article and are thus well suited for a Wikipedia talk page.
Then, your statement "There's nothing at WP:NPOV" = 'Wikipedia: Neutral point of view' "that says reliable sources have to be neutral." a) is obviously paradoxical, and b), because it is sadly exactly what happens on Wikipedia (sources deemed reliable by Wikipedia are not neutral, neither politically nor regarding gender), that even goes beyond confirming my argument from above (that self-evaluations of a pool of biased sources that claim neutrality are irrelevant): You even imply and thus admit that these sources, on average, are not neutral!
It is preposterous that this is not considered a huge problem here and so I stop further supporting Wikipedia financially. I have also copied the whole page to put it into a time capsule. --Felix Tritschler (talk) 17:46, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to have misunderstood what WP:NPOV means. It means Wikipedia reflects the POV of the mainstream sources. Note in particular that WP:FALSEBALANCE, (which you appear to be seeking here) is expressly not what is done on Wikipedia. The sources are not 'neutral' on lots of topics - one often cited example is Modern flat Earth beliefs. You'll note that that article isn't balanced either. In other words, if academia is biased, so is Wikipedia, and editors here are fine with that. MrOllie (talk) 17:54, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You repeated what Sangdeboeuf already wrote. So instead of repeating myself, I refer to my other reply (see above). Further, WP:NPOV literally contains the word "neutral" and this is meant so (just that in practice it isn't) and in WP:FALSEBALANCE there's nothing countering it. What's written there is that obvious nonsense (my wording) like flatearth-theories are not worth being represented in articles as valid alternativ theories etc. - These have no meaningful data to support them (!) and aren't even on the spectrum from left-wing to conservative/right-wing or female to male interests - On the other hand, misandry and e.g. counterpositions to the current "Man or bear" Wikipedia article and related topics have a lots of solid data to support them, e.g. domestic violence against men, which occurs with ~50% of the frequency of DV against women, the latter of which is btw cited as an example for misogyny in the respective article here. --Felix Tritschler (talk) 23:51, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I am pretty sure that I now read everything relevant in this regard and have to say that there was nothing new to me (since I skimmed over these pages completely already before, as far as I could see). So I'd have to ask you what specifically you meant that I did not understand. Thanks. --Felix Tritschler (talk) 10:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The parts explained above. NPOV means that the sources are reflected. When they are critical, so too will be the Wikipedia article. If you are correct that the reliable sources are very biased at the moment as you wrote above, that means the article will lean very strongly in one direction, just as we lean very strongly against things like Homeopathy. See WP:GOODBIAS. MrOllie (talk) 14:56, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I already considered that (e.g. flatearth theories, see above) - and with neutral, I meant politically neutral and regarding genders, and this is actually how I understood Wikipedia's neutrality. It's obvious to me that pseudoscience, i.e. homeopathy, flatearth theories, preastronautic, wokeism etc. isn't even part of a question regarding neutrality. They are obviously non-scientific, alone because they all lack vital principles of the scientific method, most importantly they are not falsifiable, the latter being one of the, if not the most important trait of science.
This is not the case for Misandry, as part of sociology - there's no principle of 'untouchability' like in wokeism, where they say that any criticism is to be disregarded because it comes from a privileged position. - So how do you justify mingling Misandry with the pseudosciences you mentioned? It's got nothing to do with each other - the problem is that academia at the moment is heavily biased politically and so no publications that follow a liberal and feminist narrative are passing the peer-review process. But there is no political influence at work when papers on e.g. preastronautic fail to pass the peer-review-process in important journals.
Isn't it obvious that it's dangerous if certain topics are censored, alone due to political reasons?
If academia is heavily biased politically then so too will be Wikipedia. There is no mechanism to determine the 'type' of bias. We follow the bias of the reliable sources, full stop. That is what you are not understanding. You're trying to get Wikipedia to work in a way that is counter to how it is designed. All manner of scientific disagreements have some political dimension - for example COVID vaccinations have become a highly politicized issue. But Wikipedia is still going to follow what medical sources say, even if one side of the political argument doesn't like that. The same applies here. If that is 'dangerous' we'll just have to live with it. MrOllie (talk) 00:07, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
MrOllie is using homeopathy as an example to show that Wikipedia does not give equal validity to all points of view on a topic, as you are evidently proposing we do with misandry. Wikipedia does not aspire to be politically neutral, which is another term for false balance. Wikipedia follows published, reliable sources. Go read WP:NPOV again. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 14:25, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How did I attempt to extort anyone? I refuse to tolerate such an unsubstantiated allegation. I won't further financially support this organisation for obvious reasons, that's all - also, this is no reason to disregard my comments. --Felix Tritschler (talk) 23:59, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to request a minor edit to a passage under "Psychological Studies" to adjust the punctuation slightly, for clarity, as below:
Hostility toward Men was split into three factors: Resentment of Paternalism, the belief men supported male power; Compensatory Gender Differentiation, the belief that men were supported by women; and Heterosexual Hostility, which looked at beliefs that men were likely to engage in hostile actions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BrianTung (talk • contribs) 08:26, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
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