Not sure if this will produce a new thread or attach to the existing one (I've checked
my spam folder, there's nothing there) but anyway....
Tim: I just wondered whether you regard this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemi…
...as a lack of civility or a gender gap issue?
In particular this comment:
"...As has been indicated on the talk page of the proposed decision, repeatedly,
there is some question as to exactly which
women this group seems to be reaching out toward, specifically, whether
it is more or less of a more or less radical feminist perspective...."
I thought it summed up in a nutshell what the GGTF was really up against. It's a kind
of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
* Are you now or have you ever been a feminist who believes that sex work is the opposite
of feminism?
Anyone who answers yes that question is judged to be a "radical", a subversive
who wants to push POV and therefore they are fair game.
On WP's list of feminists there were a very odd mish-mash of categories of feminist
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_feminists&oldid=5441… and lots
of names missing e.g. Gail Dines. I did a major rewrite to organize it chronologically and
it meant that "anti-pornography feminists", "anti-prostitution
feminists" and "socialist feminists" could go onto the list
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_feminists&oldid=5456…
The list has recently been changed to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_feminists and I'm working with a couple of
editors to see how we can improve it further.
I've largely avoided trouble by sticking to admin based work such as this, and similar
work:
Cleaning up bibliographies, e.g. Joseph Schumpeter, from this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Schumpeter&oldid=6335…
to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Schumpeter&oldid=6343…
Creating an article for the International Association for Feminist Economics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Association_for_Feminist_Econom…
and improving the article for the Human Development and Capability Association
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_and_Capability_Association
then creating biographies for past presidents of IAFFE and fellows of the HDCA.
Adding DOBs to notable scholars and then adding them to Wiki's calendar (births).
These organisations / individuals argues against sex work on the grounds of the perception
of women that is generated (i.e. as a thing / object). The problem with the MRA, pro-porn,
pro-sex work POV is they have no problem with anti-porn etc. POV provided it is in a box
labelled "mad" or "religious" with a sub-text that the only people
that could possibly support that POV are from the moral right and are probably racist and
homophobic as well. The other problem that the MRA have is that, human development and
capability, which includes feminist economics / inequality / care work etc. collectively
constitutes a 'single broad topic' (WP:SPATG), so they are unable to stop editors,
who wish to edit in this area, from doing so. The natural place for this work is within
the Gender Studies project. Which is why they write nonsense like this:
http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/fighting-wikipedia-corruption-censorsh… (if there
were really the kind of censorship that they are talking about on WP then there would be
no Pornography Project).
Any attempt to show 3 distinct POVs
(a) Pro-sex work
(b) Right-wing anti-sex work (on moral / judgemental grounds), and
(c) Left-wing anti-sex work (on negative perception grounds) - the POV that dare not speak
its name
... is met with a steel fist hammered onto the table.
I made a video for use in the article "sex wars", an article which is all about
the separation between (b) and (c)
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Feminist_sex_wars&oldid=5469…
It was deleted instantly on the grounds that the "Video makes little sense and does
not add to informational value of article." I dispute that it "makes little
sense" and why does it even need to add informational value? Why can't it just be
to add aesthetics to the article as pictures and videos often are?
As soon as I step off the path of admin related tasks that the MRA-mob can't get me
for, and stray into article content I am jumped on, obstensibly for technical reasons but
they are almost exclusively by editors whose other edits are connected to porn and
sex-positive feminism, who have pretty much hijacked the Feminism project and they are
trying to do as much damage as possible to the Gender Studies project as they can as well.
It may be time for an article on "fourth-wave feminism" which is separate to the
"history of feminism", but the article would have to say that the term is used
by both (a) and (c),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism#Fourth_Wave .
You're not supposed to mention (c), you're only supposed to mention (a) and (b) -
and then arch your eyebrows at the moral and out-of-touch group that is (b). Anyone trying
to create it would run into the MRA trying to lump (b) and (c) together. The talk page
would be full of stuff like, "well the article should say that, 'group (b) have
been called fourth-wave, but it is just a very, few number of places and the term is far
more attributed to group (a) than any other group of feminists'.
This message is longer than I originally intended it to be but I do think that there are a
lot of well meaning editors on WP who are either unaware or a bit naïve when it comes the
antics of the people that we are talking about. It is also naïve to think that they are
not co-ordinating their handiwork off-wiki.
Marie