This article is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Gender studies Start‑class This article is part of WikiProject Gender studies. This WikiProject aims to improve the quality of articles dealing with gender studies and to remove systematic gender bias from Wikipedia. If you would like to participate in the project, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.Gender studiesWikipedia:WikiProject Gender studiesTemplate:WikiProject Gender studiesGender studies articles Start This article has been rated as Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. To-do list: Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Assess : see Unassessed Gender studies articles and Unknown-importance Gender studies articles Cleanup : edit to see Collaborate : see /Collaboration Copyedit : edit to see Deletion sorting : see /Sexuality and gender Expand : edit to see Infobox : see Gender studies articles needing infoboxes Merge : edit to see Notability : edit to see NPOV : edit to see Orphans : Brannon Masculinity Scale · Holy Virility · Media and gender · Michael Kaufman (author) · Women's education in Saudi Arabia Photo : see Wikipedia requested photographs of gender studies Split : History of feminism Stubs : see Gender studies stubs Translate : see /translation Update : edit to see Verify : Riot grrrl Needs attention : see Gender studies articles needing attention Human rights Start‑class Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Human rights, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Human rights on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Human rightsWikipedia:WikiProject Human rightsTemplate:WikiProject Human rightsHuman rights articles Start This article has been rated as Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Updated introduction for clarity and included more information. Removed the bit about historical roles of men relating to their physical capabilities, not germane to the introduction but might have a place elsewhere. LikaTika (talk) 17:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why does the MR intro say "claimed by men/boys" whereas the WR article says "claimed for"? This seems inconsistent and introduces subtle, yet important bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzz90210 (talk • contribs) 03:30, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, this seems like a badly worded sentence. The men and boys aren't necessarily doing the claiming, but rather the claims are made on behalf of men and boys. But the whole article has incredibly badly worded sentences, some of which devolve into factual error. I don't have the time or inclination to fix them, as I only clicked here because I thought it might be the page for the philosophical concept. OptimistInChief (talk) 12:24, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that it probably makes sense to move most of the content in this article to a page on the MRM or MRA's, and change this page to a disambiguation between human rights and MRM/MRA's (so that most people who enter 'men's rights' will be able to find whichever they are looking for.) For this reason, I'm not going to worry terribly much about WP:UNDUE etcetera on this page for now. I'm also going to stop removing poorly sourced content for now, to give some time for the new wave of SPA's to settle down (and hopefully source some of the unsourced stuff, and create some good content in the process.) Sometime - probably at some point next week - I will set up the move unless anyone raises major objections or anyone does it first, and will go through the content and weed out that which still fails our content policies. Our core content policies do - and will continue to - apply in this area. (If you want to work on content in the interim, I would suggest that you read WP:NPOV and WP:RS at a bare minimum, so that you don't waste your effort.) Kevin (talk) 17:27, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would object to that strongly. This article is being continuously improved, there is no need to move the article and once again I question the motives behind such a suggestion. I realise this is a controversial subject but the edits are as well-sourced as anything else on Wikipedia. It looks to me like you're holding it up to standards you wouldn't expect others to meet. Hermiod (talk) 19:32, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note that Men's rights movement is currently full-protected due to copyright violations that were happening there. If you guys come up with consensus content that you wish to create and/or move there (with attribution, for the love of pete!), please give me a heads-up on my talk page and I will unprotect the page so you can edit it. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:43, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A handful of the edits are well-sourced, although many are not. However, WP:UNDUE requires that "each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views." Unless you would like the final state of this article to talk about MRA positions only as much as is warranted by the prominence of MRA viewpoints, a move and disambiguation will be necessary. WP:UNDUE doesn't say represent viewpoints in proportion to how correct you think they are - it says represent viewpoints in proportion to how widely held they are in reliable sources. Kevin (talk) 19:50, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There as well sourced, especially when NPOV comes in to mind, as any article on Feminism I've seen on Wikipedia, and surely that's the benchmark here? Academic articles on Mens Rights are the absolute LAST place you should consider NPOV. The hostility towards men's issues coming from universities is the subject of a court case here in the UK. Any article on men's rights is going to have prominence placed on those who have an actual interest in the subject. Were Wikipedia's articles on random episodes of Star Trek written by people who aren't fans of the show? Are Wikipedia's entries on New York Yankees players written by people who aren't interested in baseball? Your issues with NPOV do not make up a sufficient reason to move the article.Hermiod (talk) 05:51, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The benchmark here is our codified content policies. Whatever sourcing issues you perceive in articles about feminism are irrelevant here. You would do well to remember that irrelevant arguments are not considered in forming WP:Consensus. You will also not have any luck arguing that academic articles are not acceptable sources here. We consider academic articles sources of the highest quality - changing that is way out of the scope of discussion here. WP:RS is not up for negotiation on an article by article basis, although you're welcome to start a broader discussion about problems you perceive in the policy at an appropriate noticeboard. Kevin (talk) 08:05, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You consider academic articles to be of the highest quality yet several reference articles used as sources have been removed. None of this is an argument for moving the page. Please do not do so without going through the applicable formal dispute procedure. Hermiod (talk) 08:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I think it is a good idea to move the article. That's what was decided with regard to the Fathers' rights movement, and I think it was correct. This way the focus can be on their claims and points, methods etc. But I would strongly urge, based on my experience with that other article, that editors agree that only high quality secondary sources be used. There are actually lots of these available: academic and scholarly articles, newspaper and magazine articles, which provide some distance and perspective on the rhethoric, and help to determine the significance of particular points for and against, and undue weight issues per NPOV. Using either men's rights or feminist websites as a major source for material is not a good idea. --Slp1 (talk) 20:03, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be a good idea to merge this article with Men's movement (or Masculism) as there seems to be too much overlapping content already. I oppose moving the article to Men's rights movement when there is a men's movement article with basically the same arguments and sources.

Agree with Slp1: Academic and scholarly articles would be great but since they don't always say nice things about the men's movement I doubt that the SPAs will let you add and keep some of those. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 20:25, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree that there is overlap, I think the men's movement page is and should be broader than the MRAs. There are various men's movements including "Men's liberation", the Mythopoetic, pro-feminist men etc. A few of good academic sources about this are [1][2][3]. You are likely correct that MRA editors aren't likely to be happy with some of the content from academic sources, but so be it. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines for a reason, and generally editors learn fairly quickly to follow them or they don't- ie leave or are blocked. One of those policies is that WP prefers high quality sources such as scholarly books and journal articles to activist websites. --Slp1 (talk) 20:48, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• A diambig page would make sense and would enable people to find Men's rights movement, father's rights, Men's liberation, human rights, rights of man etc quickly.
  Whether the best of the former content here should be merged to Men's rights movement or moved to Men's rights activism, or not, is, to my mind, a separate question - I'd personally consider a stub for Men's rights activism (which will grow as 3rd party scholarly reliable sources deal with the subject) the most logical option (since they call themselves Activists - this is what an article should be entitled per (WP:NAME)--Cailil ^talk 21:33, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really sure why this is so ambiguous. There are clear distinctions here. First, you have Men's Rights which is analogous to Women's rights, a list of areas where men receive negatively unequal treatment by the laws of the various nation states around the world. Second you have the movement to correct such inequalities, analogous to Feminism the most common name for that being Men's Rights Activism or masculism. However, as Feminism does not focus exclusively on women, neither does the equivalent men's movement. Third, you have the broader concept of masculinity, analogous to femininity, which should focus on more general topics such as male gender roles, media portrayals of men and so on. Finally, you have areas such as father's rights, 'intactivism' (the movement to end the circumcision of male children) and other such groups specifically focused on single issues that affect men. If anything, men's rights, masculinity and related subjects should be an entire project of their own as it is large enough a subject to justify it. Hermiod (talk) 10:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As there do not appear to be sufficient sources to support those articles, they, in fact, would not be justified and fall under WP:UNDUE. As you may be able to see from my user page, I have been working on a separate article for the men's rights movement, but many/most sources do not meet wikipedia's guidelines and thus can't be used. The topics you discuss, MRM, intactivism, and so on, are fringe movements and it seems that having their own separate pages would simply be advocacy, and not appropriate. You say MRM is "analogous" to feminism when that is move definitely not the case, as the respective sizes of those movements would make very clear. LikaTika (talk) 06:34, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source? That sounds as much like an unverified statement as anything else said here so far. Hermiod (talk) 06:00, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to continue assuming good faith, but a lot of the discussion here seems to be generated by people who are trying to trivialise the subjects discussed in the article and eventually censor that discussion through obscurity. Discussion of moving the article to a place where it will be more difficult to find, removing genuine men's rights issues and replacing them with out of context discussion of men in ancient Greece, demanding citations to show that water is wet, holding the article up to higher standards than articles on women's rights have ever been expected to show and more.

There is nothing wrong with this article that a bit of honest work cannot fix. Most of the people contributing here have done so in good faith. It's frustrating, therefore, to see edits undone by a minority who have a political axe to grind on some of the issues mentioned. Hermiod (talk) 06:03, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. Its obvious that most of the recently interested users are acting in bad faith. Any one who thinks most of the above users are not biased is kidding themselves. I find it particularly amusing how everything in the marriage section was removed and replaced with a single snarky sentance about the right to divorce your wife by text message. Anyways, I think this will actually be a boon for those of us interested in an informative article, the article was in a less that perfect shape before, and well, I don't know about you, but I'm dedicating myself to clean up the mess left by the hacksaws. extransit (talk) 07:02, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hermiod - you have been told, multiple times, that is inappropriate to continue speculating on the motives of other editors. Stop doing so. To reiterate for you: continuing to make allegations about the motives of other editors after having been asked to stop is a violation of Wikipedia's community standards; continuing to violate Wikipedia's community standards, especially after being asked to stop, results in you being unable to edit Wikipedia. Kevin (talk) 07:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please discuss the topic at hand rather than threatening users with bans. "This page in a nutshell: Do not stop other editors from enjoying Wikipedia by making threats, repeated annoying and unwanted contacts, repeat personal attacks, intimidation, or posting personal information." Hermiod (talk) 08:22, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just hearing about some kind of uproar over this article, so I want to start out by saying I'm coming to this late. That being said, reading through the Talk page, Kevin seems to be one of the main voices keeping this discussion on track. Arbiter, no, but an exemplar of proper editing & article curation. Citing the lede-- as you mention-- it seems to me to be a mirror of the current Women's rights page. mordicai. (talk) 20:01, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I personally worked on the lede and edited it per discussion here that many seemed interested in having this article "look" more like the women's rights article. I would argue that instead of making it a "parody" it makes the article, it improves it, and makes it clear that what rights are. Is someone trying to argue that rights are not freedoms and entitlements? That's actually the definition of right. LikaTika (talk) 06:14, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to propose that the introduction to this section contain some mention of the social context of Feminism and Feminist-driven public policy that has been enacted in Western societies over the last 3-4 decades. Most of what is understood to be "Mens rights" in the context of modern Western discourse relates to changes in law and public policy over this time period, and is to a large extent a reaction to those changes. This is not a whole-of-world view, however is applicable to most modern Western countries, and it seems like an ominous omission to leave out this important context which is really quite vital to understanding contemporary MR movements in Western countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzz90210 (talk • contribs) 02:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but only in regard to what is found in WP:Reliable sources. There should not be a construction of a new argument made here, only the summary of an existing one. Binksternet (talk) 03:28, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Again, assumption that a user does not know the rules. Hermiod (talk) 05:54, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why should he know the rules when he's only made a tiny handful of edits and only to this page? You could put a welcome template on Zzz90210's talk page and gently walk him through the five pillars of wikipedia. Other useful pages are WP:NOTFORUM, WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NPOV,WP:SYNTH, WP:OR and WP:NPA. Mathsci (talk) 08:20, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The three most critical and relevant rules here, WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV are linked to at the top of this page. No need to keep repeating them at every new person who joins this discussion. It's a shame it doesn't also link to the best two rules of them all - WP:IAR and WP:BURO. Hermiod (talk) 08:43, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hermiod, when one arbitrator and one ex-arbitrator have rung alarm bells about the editing here, you should take a step back and stop making tendentious statements about wikipedia policies. It is highly likely that this article will be placed under community probation. Perhaps now is the time for you to start exercising a little more care, as you could very easily be banned from editing this article and its talk page. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 03:07, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

After this debacle, and what has been demonstrated to be acceptable behaviour from some very experienced editors, it's very likely that I will not be contributing to Wikipedia again anyway. Hermiod (talk) 05:55, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hermiod, the behaviour demonstrated by "experienced editors" on this article is precisely why contributors like yourself are needed to make Wikipedia a better place. Zzz90210 (talk) 03:33, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Zzz90210, please could you redact this comment as it is clearly against the terms of the topic probation currently in force? Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 03:37, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To the experienced editors on this page: please, PLEASE set a good example. I understand all of your suspicions and concerns, and (being an experienced editor myself) I even agree with many of them. But rule #1 of being 'civilized' is overlooking uncivilized behavior, even when you really don't want to. There are lots of admins watching this page, so be assured that problematic behavior will not get out of hand; take that as an opportunity to demonstrate the best side of the Wikipedia community.

Deep breaths, big smiles, helping hands, a disgustingly positive attitude all around - let's go for it! --Ludwigs2 04:14, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A list of notifications is available on the subpage: it includes two editors in this thread. In addition it is worth noting that KillerChihuahua and another administrator are providing guidance on how to edit this article on one of the Reddit pages devoted to "men's rights".[6] My own personal concern at the moment is with the BLP Tom Martin (activist), which is directly related to this article. Mathsci (talk) 04:54, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've bookmarked that article for observation. let me know of any specific concerns you have. And I cannot tell you how (...there's no good word for the bubbly feeling I feel...) I find it that admins are reaching outside of wikipedia to instruct people in proper wikipedia editing. I frankly love that idea, in (and because of) its absolute absurdity. that thought is going to make me giggle for days. --Ludwigs2 05:23, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think this article is missing a section dealing with the sexual abuse of boys and surrounding issues. These issues include:
- historical beliefs that boys/men essentially cant be sexually abused/raped by women
- the large number of boys abused within various Churches, and the difficulty in getting such abuse recognized
- the historical and present lenient treatment of female sexual abusers of boys in Western countries
- physical abuse of boys as part of punishment regimes that did not target girls, such as corporal punishment within schools
Zzz90210 (talk) 04:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzz90210 (talk • contribs) 04:41, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read our policy on verifiability, or reliable sources? We can only include sources information, so if you'd like to add something to the article you'll need to present sources. N^oformation ^Talk 04:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you assume he is not already aware of that? It is not necessary to reply to every comment with nothing but policies. Hermiod (talk) 05:49, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please WP:AGF and don't assume you know what I assume. I'm pointing it out because if he does know, can shrug it off, but if he doesn't know, he will either get sources or not waste his time. They don't sign their posts, just like new users. Also, he didn't present a source in two different threads, which is usually indicative that someone isn't aware that you need to source information here. If s/he has a problem with what I wrote, they can take it up with me, but you have no reason to comment when someone explains to a user an important policy. N^oformation ^Talk 05:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I did assume good faith, at least on his part. I am getting really tired of being told to follow a policy by people who aren't following it themselves. Hermiod (talk) 05:59, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, which policy exactly did I not follow? Scratch that, I'm not entering the WP:BATTLEGROUND with you. Have fun. N^oformation ^Talk 06:00, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AGF Hermiod (talk) 06:02, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was actually thinking a similar thing when I first read the article although I do not believe we should concentrate on boys. This is a wider issue which includes the treatment of sexual assault of males both below the age of consent and above, whether by females or males. Currently, our article mentions this to some extent in 'prison rapes' but it's clearly something beyond prison rapes. The 'rape laws' section only seems to consider issues surrounding male perpetrators and female victims. There's some mention of this in Rape by gender including of alleged double standards and some of the sources there may be useful but you'll need to find sources to link it to the subject as well. Nil Einne (talk) 16:26, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And let us not forget one very important right that most men are denied, that is the right to marry another man. That is really sort of a double whammy - two men denied in one swoop. Surely we can all agree this is is intolerable. Carptrash (talk) 00:36, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry but I disagree. This article should deal with rights issues specific to men - however the inability to marry someone of the same gender/sex is a right lacked by both men and women in many countries, and should probably be under "LGBT rights by country or territory" or even "human rights". Zzz90210 (talk) 03:48, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sustained struggle over a subject has often led to administrative supervision of editing. User:Fred Bauder Talk 14:20, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

community sanctions have been proposed on WP:ANI. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:40, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problem in this editing war is a lack of consensus as to what the topic paramaters are to begin with- is it about the work and perspectives of the uniquely contemporary Men's Rights Movement, or is it about the History of Men's Rights? Currently the above edit war appears to consist entirely of those editors wanting to conflate the long history of male power (especially over women) with the almost exclusively contemporary phenomenon of men's right's collectives and thier concerns. Any editors refusing to consider a disambiguation to solve this matter are doing so out of confusion regarding these paramaters. If "Men's Rights" were divided into two seperate articles as suggested then the fight for narrative supremacy could cease for those editors who care to cease it. 58.170.59.250 (talk) 23:26, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think this will only work if both factions agree to follow wikipedia policy. The rampant disregard for policy by some interested parties does not make me hopeful that the split will solve the problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheAmazing0and1 (talk • contribs) 00:16, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is no "History of Men's Rights". The concept of 'rights' (as something inherent to an individual or group) is effectively non-existent before the advent of Liberalism, and prior to the mid-19th century was just a way of talking about the relationship of the individual citizen to the state (it just so happened that the 'individual citizens' under discussion were almost exclusively male, caucasian, and propertied, but the discussion was rarely cast in gendered terms). In the latter part of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century liberal practices expanded to included people regardless of gender, race or wealth: that created frictions, and there were reactions against that broadening of effective citizenship, but there really isn't anything remotely like a concern over "men's rights" until after the sexual revolution in the 1960's and 70's, when women's rights started to extend into the home and relationships. Once men started losing the implicit authority they had always held over wife and family, it was possible for them to see themselves as victims and meaningful for them to raise issues about their own rights. At that point we can start talking about men's rights.

I'm not averse to the concept of men's rights in general (a liberal society has to balance rights carefully on all sides, and that is often a whale of a struggle), but perspective please: trying to push men's rights any farther back into history than the late 20th century makes no more sense than claiming that Cleopatra and Joan of Arc were feminists. --Ludwigs2 00:27, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ludwigs2 is entirely correct.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:58, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely agree with you. Hermiod (talk) 06:22, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have to actually disagree, as Men's rights (not the movement) definitely has a history. If we are attempting to make this only about the movement, then I'd agree, but if this is going to be about general men's rights, then it definitely has a history. Just because the term was not existent at the time does not mean it stops the history. Look at Women's Rights in Ancient Greece as an example. TickTock2 (talk) 14:11, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed it again; there is no article here on Women's Rights in Ancient Greece, and while some feminist authors may have discussed that. somewhere, such material can only be used with proper attribution and context. It cannot be asserted as fact without verification. Please read the comment I made above; it should help you understand the limitations of what we can put in the encyclopedia. --Ludwigs2 14:32, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please see This Article on Women's Rights (with Greece Subsection), Take for example source 7, it does not have a source relate to Women's Rights, but it is a fact and is included, are you missing the link between Ancient Greece and Men's Right or what exactly are you limiting? TickTock2 (talk) 14:54, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One thing that needs to stop happening on this page is the appeals to the women's rights page. That is a separate article with its own talk page and if it needs to be improved that's something that can be taken up over there, but it has absolutely zero bearing on this page. Wiki articles are guided by policy, not by reference to what other pages do. N^oformation ^Talk 16:18, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm new to Wikipedia so I'm trying to understand a little more about policy an, I'm using other Wikipedia articles that I know are in good standing as an example. I'm asking what information is missing to provide the link as this is relating to men's rights (once again NOT the movement). We also have another article "template" to go off of, in the sense that Women's Rights provides history on Women's rights, while segwaying into the movement very smoothly, why would that approach not work here? TickTock2 (talk) 16:25, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough on being new, and welcome to WP. Women's rights is a different subject with its own sourcing, scholarly background and research, and because the sources don't overlap, we will likely not be able to mimic (nor is that necessarily desirable) that article. You pointed out what very well might be a flaw in the women's rights article, and I'm saying that any flaw on that page should be discussed on that page as it has no bearing here. This article's discussion should focus solely on applying policy to the content of this article; it's the nature of this project that every page is likely to have a mistake here or there, and some pages have more than others, and because of this we cannot say "look it's done a certain way on article X so we should do that here too." There are certain small exceptions to this rule. For instance, articles about albums will generally have a similar format because widespread community consensus dictated a certain stylistic approach. But content wise, the only thing that matters here is what the sources on this page say and how we report them. For future reference, if you ever have any questions or need policy explained please feel free to visit my talk page! N^oformation ^Talk 16:39, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And yes, while looking at and comparing with the Women's Rights article isn't on topic or helpful, I'll point out that source 7 comes from a chapter called Women and Democracy in Ancient Greece, and its first sentence is "Women were excluded from political rights in Ancient Greece". --Slp1 (talk) 16:55, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And there you have it N^oformation ^Talk 17:29, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be precise, allow me to add that women's rights has a century or two of head start here. Women's rights were being discussed starting (depending on how you measure it) in the mid 18th or 19th centuries: you can start with Wollstonecraft and the women's suffrage movement or delay to the more effective women's movements in the 19th century, but in any case the recognition that women were being denied rights is at least 150 years old, and there's a lot of scholarly theory written on the issue. The same simply is not true of men, because there's almost no discussion of men being denied rights (as a class of people) until (as I noted) the 1970's. It just wasn't an issue until then. --Ludwigs2 04:26, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the topic parameters should be anything that has mainstream recognition as a Mens Rights issue, E.g. issues around divorce, child custody/access have huge mainstream recognition and coverage as Mens Rights issues. There are non-mainstream issues, for example there are groups that believe men should have the right to marry multiple wives - the fact this is illegal in most places does not make it a mainstream Mens Right issue that should be covered on this page (of course polygamy gains mainstream coverage, but usually in the context of womens rights). I dont know why "history" is seen as so contentious a topic - if there are historical mens rights issues that can be sourced, include it, if not then dont. The history section doesn't/shouldn't make or break this article IMO. Zzz90210 (talk) 03:03, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since this talk page and the greater article are the subject of this, I propose that all administrative discussion of this article be archived and any further discussion unrelated to the improvement of the article itself should be held there. I do not see how we can draw a line under this unpleasantness otherwise. The appropriate banners and links to the ongoing administrative discussion should remain, of course. Hermiod (talk) 07:58, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for discussion related to the improvement of the article; AN/I is for discussing things unrelated to content that require the attention of administrators and, in this case, neutral editors. N^oformation ^Talk 08:51, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, which is why I suggested leaving appropriate links to that ongoing discussion on the page so it can be found. As it stands, this talk page is currently unusually long.Hermiod (talk) 08:53, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I completely misread what you wrote. I thought you were suggesting that we bring the AN/I discussion here. N^oformation ^Talk 08:55, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, no, just trying to prevent the current administrative discussion taking place in two places at once. Discussion of the ANI business should take place over there, discussion of improving the article should take place here - at least that's what I think. Hermiod (talk) 09:06, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My current proposal is to move the entire page to Archive 6 so that the version history is preserved. Archive 5 has already been created which prevents use of the move tool here, unfortunately. After this, I would copy/paste back the sections entitled "Requested Move" and "ANI" so that the discussion surrounding moving the page is not disrupted. Please let me know if there are any objections. Hermiod (talk) 10:46, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This talk page contains extensive discussion of problems with content currently on this page. This proposal does not particularly make sense. Kevin (talk) 15:54, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Object: suggest setting up Mizabot archiving. Please note this talk page, like most article talk pages, has not been archived via move but rather through paste. This way, the entire history is available through one page history here. Further, autoarchive helps prevent premature archiving, as only threads with no recent activity are archived. KillerChihuahua^?!? 12:23, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever happens, the archiving could do with happening sooner rather than later. Hermiod (talk) 12:54, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Whatever happens, I've set up 1 month old auto-archiving. Hipocrite (talk) 12:30, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, that works for me too. Thanks. Hermiod (talk) 12:52, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Miszabot works fine with me. Kevin (talk) 15:54, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This article has been placed under community probation, and editors not adhering to a high standard of conduct will be subject to sanctions, including blocks, topic bans, and site bans. Please familiarize yourself with the probation at Talk:Men's rights/Article probation. I will now unlock the article for editing; any edit warring or disruptive behavior will not be tolerated. Please discuss desired changes on the talk page and reach consensus before making any significant edits. KillerChihuahua^?!? 13:47, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does this include editing out entire sections (such as the History section)? TickTock2 (talk) 14:34, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Review WP:BRD. Hipocrite (talk) 14:34, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please review what was said directly above this, if we are going to disregard the probation already it seems wrong to have done it in the first place. I'm trying to assume good faith and ask that we discuss major changes BEFORE making them, not AFTER. TickTock2 (talk) 14:39, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Like I explained on my talk page - I am engaging in WP:BOLD editing. I have no concerns with other editors reverting me - I'm not going to engage in revert wars. I made my edit to the article, and I'm not going to edit it again for about 24 hours while you (hopefully) discuss. In about 24 hours, I'll make another, probably differet edit, which you'll either accept or revert - if you revert, we can discuss some more. I specifically don't have the article on my watchlist (only the talk page), because I don't even want to think about back-and-forth reverting on an article under probation. I believe my strategy to improve this article will be widely praised. I don't know what your strategy is - I hope it involves discussing my problems with the article in your preferred form. Hipocrite (talk) 14:58, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to revert to bring History section back. I believe we need to settle what this article is about (the current movement, men's rights as a whole or both) before making big changes. I'd also ask that big changes not be made to the article without discussion. This includes huge edits to remove entire sections. TickTock2 (talk) 14:24, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The history section has got to go. We cannot use sources that do not use the concept of Men's Rights to write a section on Men's Rights. It is WP:SYNTH, and simply not permissible. IF you find a book about the History of Men's Rights then you can rewrite the section based on that.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:06, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am concerned the history section has nothing to do with Men's rights at all, and is generally synthesis. I'll go section by section.

Objection to major changes without discussion

If you want to have this discussion I'm okay with that, but please start by reverting the article as changes should be met by consensus and major changes should NOT be done without discussion. TickTock2 (talk) 14:36, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(subheader mine) Are you saying you will only discuss when the article is in your preferred form? Hipocrite (talk) 14:36, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No I'm asking that you AGF and actually have this discussion instead of making blanket changes to the article when the article is on probation. TickTock2 (talk) 14:40, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

TickTock: the material is prima facia original research. stuff like that can always be removed on sight. you have the right to argue for its re-inclusion (using policy), and I'll even help you with your argument if you like, since you're new. But please don't worry about immediacy; the issue is getting it right in the long run, not in this instant. --Ludwigs2 14:45, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Then what does probation do, if entire sections can be removed (with 4 subsections under it)? This seems a very strange way to push probation, especially consider we are discussing the actual scope of the article above? (ie Men's right or Men's Rights (the movement). — Preceding unsigned comment added by TickTock2 (talk • contribs) 14:49, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Probation is a way of protecting the encyclopedia by enforcing proper behavior on the page. it's not about protecting particular elements of content. It's an unfortunate fact that real world activism, personal conflicts, and other editor issues sometimes interfere with the development of informative, neutral articles. Sometimes when that happens we turn to stronger measures to obviate the editor issues and allow the content to develop. See the probation for what it is: I will get in trouble just like you if I step out of line on this page, so the only recourse the two of us have left is reasonable discussion. --Ludwigs2 15:00, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ludwigs is correct; for a specific example, if you'd reverted a second time, I could have blocked you for edit warring immediately without discussion. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:01, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• The time to be discussing is now, not as a condition to restore your desired content, TickTock. You added content which is disputed. Two editors have expressed concern about policy violations in that content. As the person desiring to add the content, the onus is on you to persuade others the content belongs, not on them to persuade you it does not. KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:43, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Make that three editors. That section is pure synthesis and cannot be allowed to stand as is.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:09, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article was that way before, that was not a new addition. I thought the desire was to discuss before making sweeping changes? I would say that removing an entire section of the article as large change right? I would agree with you if I was adding the information now, or if the article was not under probation, but the line is not clear to me as to what changes are allowed and what are not. TickTock2 (talk) 14:47, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not here to mentor you; try to resolve content disputes between yourselves. That said, Ludwigs has offered to help you learn how this all works, and both Hipocrite and Ludwigs are very experienced editors who are trying to assist you in your learning curve. Avail yourself of their experience, knowledge, and willingness to help. Note however that the onus, as I said above, is on the editor desiring to add (or retain) questionable content. KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:58, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ancient Greece

• What right is implied in the statement "Men who served in the military were considered full citizens with the right to vote, take part in legal proceedings, enter into contracts, and have full property ownership?"

• How is it a right to be "required to provide their own arms and armament."

• How is it a right that "men became wards of the state at age 6, moving into a military barracks of 64 other boys until the age of 30 and were required to complete 12 years of military service."

Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 14:32, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll start with the first one, That was a requirement to be a full citizen that men must fulfill in order to be considered full citizens. It's an obligation to obtain rights. The 2nd, is in conjunction with the first, and additional requirement put on men to obtain citizenship. The 3rd are the "rights" they have to give up by being born in the state. TickTock2 (talk) 15:16, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If we are JUST discussing the Men's Right movement then, these should not be included, but if we are discussing Men's Rights in general then they should be included. Does that clarify my stance and why I included them now? TickTock2 (talk) 15:19, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What does an obligation to obtain rights have to do with rights? Were these rights considered rights of men, or rights of people, while women lack them? I'd note that in Athens, Women were not people, and so the concept of Men's rights really dosen't exist. It appears, in fact, that the entirety of the article was taken from the Women's rights section, and then inverted - that's really bad editing practice. Is there any review literature about Men's rights that would justify the inclusion of a History section? Hipocrite (talk) 15:23, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry what? I would imagine that what you have to do obtain said right is relevant to the right itself. These are rights that are required offered to Men alone. This article is NOT about women, it's about men and their rights. The concept of men's rights does not change that men had certain rights (and obligations to obtain said rights). I did not start the sections, I've only added to them, such as the the above three statements, I can speak for them, the inversion you speak of I spoke in objection to as well if you review the talk page above. I provided more sourced facts in relation to the time period. TickTock2 (talk) 15:28, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If the article is about Men's rights then it should use sources about Men's Rights not general history books - because that is Original Research.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:11, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this article is supposed to be about Men's rights. However, the construct presented about Ancient Greece has nothing to do with men's rights. Given that you apparently agree with me that modeling this article around not-women's rights is inappropriate, I question why you are restoring a section on Ancient Greece, where the rights in question were defined as "people have these rights; women are not people." Hipocrite (talk) 15:33, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain how it does not have to do with Men's rights, as it is an action the state requires to have the rights, that by definition would relate to men's rights. How is that not related to men's rights? What are you talking about? what quote are you talking about when you say "women are not people"? TickTock2 (talk) 16:29, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Hi TickTock2. I want to thank you very much for all the great work you did to find all this information about men's rights etc through the centuries. It must have been a lot of work, and I have absolutely no doubt that you were and are acting in good faith to improve the article. It makes total sense at one level to try and parallel the Women's rights article, and all credit to you for the effort you put into improving Wikipedia. I see that you are quite new, so it is totally understandable that there is something of a learning curve: I certainly had a fairly step one when I began. I think the important thing to understand is that Wikipedia doesn't engage in original research. In other words, we only have articles about subjects that others have found notable, and we don't gather information to make new arguments. For example, I guess it is possible to have an article called Famous purple hats, by looking through books about millinery and those who wear them, and finding appropriate content. But since the topic hasn't been studied and discussed by experts in the field, we can't either. It's similar here: the list of (individually interesting) historical events etc that you have added haven't (as far as I am aware) ever been seen or discussed in the context of men's rights. I'm sure your edits are accurate, and in the future a scholar may well survey history and pick out these points as being key in the history of men's rights. But at the moment they are original research, because nobody has connected these facts to the subject. Does that make sense? I do agree with Hipocrite, Ludwigs2 (and GabrielF and others in the Move section above) that this historical information should not be included unless we can find reliable secondary sources that make the link to this topic. But I recognize that this is more than annoying given the effort you put into writing it. I wonder if the information can be moved to other articles where they will be more appropriate? --Slp1 (talk) 16:29, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can you clarify? Would a source talking about rights in Ancient Greece/Athens/Sparta work, as that would be a secondary source about rights, about ancient Greece etc, or what qualifies it to "link" to Men's Rights? TickTock2 (talk) 16:45, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No it would have to discuss the topic of "Men's Rights" explicitly, in order to qualify. General rights and duties is not the same thing. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:51, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Slp1 for the "Famous purple hats" analogy. When I attempted to offer the content provider previously, I was using the content that had not been rejected as an example of what could be done (after all, I figured if it couldn't be done, it would have been edited out). To be given an example of what counts as an original research violation will help me when I strive to offer more content this weekend (provided a scope of the article has been decided by that point)--Kratch (talk) 01:27, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kratch: the easiest way to think about original research (which is one of those 'deceptively' easy concepts) is like this: it it's you saying it, it's original research; if it's a published author saying it, it's not. So for instance, the material about circumcision was original research because there were no published authors presented who talked about 'freedom from circumcision' as a male right. what was given was editors presenting 'circumcision' as something that men ought to have personal control over, which is pure editor opinion. One good book in which an author clearly lays out how foreskins are something that men should have individual control over is all that's required - cite that book and say what the author says, and you've mostly satisfied [[wp:V|verifiability)] (which shows that it is a public scholarly opinion rather than your own personal viewpoint). there will still be further discussion about weighing and balancing that book to put it in its proper perspective (because sources cannot be presented as more prominent or less prominent than is realistic), but satisfying verifiability is a necessary first step.

essentially, wikipedia does not want to say anything on its own. It only wants to repeat what other people have said, and only for the purpose of public information. Find and present credible voices on the topic, avoid trying to argue for particular points on your own assessment of their merits; you'll do fine. --Ludwigs2 04:44, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's clear that this article has been strongly damaged recently, as the center point of a vicious attack by outside activists. I suggest that the current article is basically an embarrassment, and that we should strongly consider reverting to the last stable version - [7], and working from there. While that article has some glaring, obvious POV problems ("Very little has been done to formalize what men's rights are, or to protect these rights."), it's far better than what we have here, with the substantial attempts to revise this article to compete with the Women's Rights article. Hipocrite (talk) 15:37, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Although I wouldn't dispute that this version of an article is a bit of an embarrassment, that version of the article is far worse. I would be perfectly fine with stubbifying the article and working on content in a sandbox pending the outcome of the move discussion (which sure looks like it's going to close in favor of) but that version has such significant problems that I cannot see how reverting to it would be beneficial. Kevin (talk) 15:50, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that that version is very problematic too. I mean, references to Facebook!! It is also the subject on a discussion on a men's rights blog ] about how it had been nicely "fleshed out" by editors there, including User:Jayhammers (currently blocked here for harassment), so I think the version you'd like to revert to is one outside activists would actually prefer. Kevin's OR, V deletions were mostly from something very similar to this. --Slp1 (talk) 16:07, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Stubbyfying the article seems to be the best approach towards improvement.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:08, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. I'd prefer stubifying and rebuilding, but as demonstrated above, that's going to be harder than moving the article to the actually notable thing (the activism). Hipocrite (talk) 16:10, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Added after the edit conflict: a move discussion is in progress. Work on content for the actual notable thing can occur in a sandbox until it occurs. The original version of this article was grossly unacceptable, even as an article about the activism. So, a sandbox would be an appropriate place to develop new content that doesn't murder our content policies. Kevin (talk) 16:13, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I have to run, but I do think stubbifying to a verifiable bare minimum and then working on content in a sandbox is the best way forward for now. Can one of you start a new talk page section proposing it if you have the time currently? Kevin (talk) 16:13, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: The article is no longer protected, since the community probation went into effect; no sandbox is necessary. KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:17, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My thought was that it appears likely that the move will achieve consensus, and content developed for that article will be substantially different than content developed for this article. I don't feel comfortable closing the move discussion myself given my degree of involvement - especially since a name hasn't been universally agreed on - and thought it would be weird to totally transform this article in to an article explicitly about MRA's/the MRM before the article is at a new title. So I figured that in the interim, a sandbox to develop content for that new article would be useful. Kevin (talk) 16:56, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, without getting dragged down into content discussion, it does appear that "Move" is winning over "don't move" but I see no arguments really for "split". This would be a redirect if this article is moved. If there is a split, then it would be wise to consider what content would remain here if the article is moved; meanwhile edit this article normally. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:59, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Although this is discussed earlier on this talk page, I'm starting another section with my objections because the previous one is kind of cluttered (and a new section at the end of talk will ensure all interested parties see it.) To be clear, I'm not currently talking about the Carol Liu stuff (although that stuff is also hugely problematic,) just the actual sentencing disparities stuff. (Of course, this same problem is present in much of the content in this article.)

Currently, the section has four sources. The first source does not discuss the issue of men's rights, explicitly disclaims its reliability, and is used to support synthesis. (Without a reliable source saying so, we don't get to suggest that a fact is meaningful.) The second source, although it certainly discusses sentencing disparities and looks reliable to me, does not discuss them as a concern about men's rights; it only observes that they exist. The third source specifies that it is a working paper which means that it is not peer reviewed and has an unknown level of editorial insight; it fails WP:RS. The fourth source, although it's hosted on a .gov domain and may be reliable, literally does not specify what it is or where it is from, so it is not apparent that it has the editorial oversight required to be a WP:RS. The fourth source also, again, doesn't talk about the issue as a men's rights issue explicitly. Some of the sources in this section note that differences exist, but none of them talk about them as a men's rights issue. Selectively using sources to advance a conclusion not present in any of those sources is synthesis, and isn't appropriate in a Wikipedia article. To quote WP:SYNTH: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources. This would be a synthesis of published material to advance a new position, which is original research."

I'll be waiting 24 hours before making any changes to the article, so that hopefully someone can either explain why I am wrong that this is synthesis, or rewrite the section to be acceptable. Kevin (talk) 16:10, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the section on Sentencing disparities fails to be sourced. While it might be relevent for an article on Men's Rights Activism, it is not at all clearly related to anything but gender disparity in sentencing, which should be properly located in Criminal sentencing in the United States. Hipocrite (talk) 16:17, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kevin, this is an example of why there has been a backlash against both Wikipedia and yourself in particular regarding this issue.

This is your position: "It's demonstrably true that men are given longer sentences than women for the same crime in USA at the very least(and presumably other countries). It's also demonstrably true that in USA (and presumably other places) everyone has the right to equal treatment under the law, and there is explicit writing that specifically outlaws inequal sentencing.

However, we must not mention this in the wikipedia page about men's rights. Why? Because we have not found an academic / mainstream source that says 'Men are given longer sentences than women for the same crime, the rights of men are infringed upon due to this phenomenon.'"

You may be technically correct that the Wikipedia policies support your deletion of the sentencing disparity section. However, can you actually tell me with a straight face that Wikipedia is improved if someone comes to the men's rights page wanting to learn more and DOES NOT learn that men are given harsher sentences than women for the same crime?

Really? Can you honestly tell me that? That this article, and Wikipedia as a whole, is better off if that information is not included? As you must know, the rules are irrelevant - the only thing that's relevant is making a better encyclopedia. So please explain me to me how it is better to remove the information that men are sentenced more harshly than women in the article about men's rights? Celdaz (talk) 22:09, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Second warning, Celdaz: either be more civil and less dismissive of your fellow editors' views, or you may be facing sanctions. Tone down the rhetoric, please. KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:15, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To you, this is a completely obvious issue. To some, it's a completely obvious issue that Obama is a Muslim or that Bush is an idiot or that there's a secular conspiracy to destroy Christian values in America or that there's a Christian conspiracy to destroy secular values in America. Even if you do think that this is a completely obvious issue, I 100% guarantee you that there are people who edit Wikipedia who think things are completely obvious that you don't agree with. Banning original research allows us to focus on creating an encyclopedia that is (for well-written articles) no more insane about any given subject than the balance of reliable published sources that deal with that topic are. It allows editors with different personal views on a topic to collaboratively create high quality encyclopedic articles.

Yes, sometimes reliable published sources are biased or are flat out incorrect. Yes, there are some articles that I think would be more accurate if I could introduce original research to them. It's perfectly possible that there are articles that would be improved if we didn't have to use already published reliable sources. We have decided as a community that the benefits presented by requiring sourcing in this fashion far outweigh these problems. We have decided as a community that these represent an acceptable loss. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with a Wiki that allows original research or adopts a particular world view, but it's simply not Wikipedia. Some that do so exist and are successful to varying degrees - conservapedia, rationalwiki, etc. Since Mediawiki is open source, you could even go create an MRA-wiki. Kevin (talk) 01:14, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SYNTH is not a policy [8] in itself, it is a part of NOR, and Compiling facts and information [9] is not original research. Furthermore, it is your burden to show that an original[10] thesis is produced [11]. Furthermore, Synth is not Obvious[12]--Kratch (talk) 02:02, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This talk page is not intended for finding loopholes or contradictions in wikipedia editing guidelines. To include a subject in the article, a reliable source should be found which discusses that subject explicitly in the context of "men's rights". Otherwise the material is just original research and synthesis, essentially a personal essay. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 02:25, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And what defines "discussing a subject explicitly in the context of men's rights" mean? Does an acknowledgment that a policy is a constitutional violation because it discriminates against men not count? Does a study (presuming it's an acceptable source) that acknowledges that the law is not being applied equally based on gender not count? And why does my siting multiple relevant policies in order to defend the retaining of content count as "finding loopholes" rather that offering reasonable counterpoints? --Kratch (talk) 02:38, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Probably that the words "men's rights" should appear explicitly in the text. The same method would be used for civil and political rights. A search on google scholar or google books for "civil rights" gives lots of good sources. The same applies to racial discrimination. Mathsci (talk) 03:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would argue that such an interpretation ("Must have the words men's rights in it") is overly stringent. SYNTH does not say a thesis can not be proposed, it just says a thesis must not be original[13](And I'd argue that a thesis that men's rights are a risk of being violated based on sourcing an article that says there is a policy the risks a constitutional violation for discrimination, and that that discrimination is against men, is not an original thesis). Furthermore, Policy says an obvious conclusion is not SYNTH [14] (to which I would argue, stating a law, and then sourcing research that demonstrates that law is not being followed for a specific gender, fit under an obvious conclusion. An example of what is not SYNTH describes a source providing the size of the sun, a source providing the size of the moon, and then a conclusion that the sun is bigger than the moon (despite the fact nether source references the other celestial body). I would argue that the example provided for NOT SYNTH is very much the same as the situation described here).

I still have concerns about my arguments being referred to as "finding loopholes" and being told this talk page is not for such discussions when the original editor specifically asked for reasons why these paragraphs should NOT be considered SYNTH, which is precisely what I did?--Kratch (talk) 05:27, 21 October 2011 (UTC) EDIT cleaned up wording slightly--Kratch (talk) 05:33, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If it's not an original thesis, then you can surely find another reliable source that makes the argument that the evidence presented in this set of studies shows that men's rights are being violated. Claiming that such a conclusion is so obvious as to be completely apparent to anyone reading both sources is a really confusing argument to make when you have multiple people disagreeing with you that the conclusion is obvious. To claim that the suggestion is so obvious as to be unpublishable makes no sense at all. I'm not sure you read the burden point that you tried to link, but here's a quote from it: "The burden of proof is light: just explaining what new assertion is made will do, and then it's up to the other editor to show that your reading is unreasonable." I've done this already in this section, and will do it again: the sources that have been used support the idea that a sentencing disparity exists, they don't say what the cause is, and they don't claim that it's a men's rights issue. The section improperly synthesizes them, to assert that a sentencing disparity exists (which is in the sources,) is unjustifiable on the basis of the other facts of the case (which is suggested as one of several possibilities by a source) and that that unjustifiable disparity infringes on the rights of men (which is not in any of the sources.) You've been unable to show that reading is unreasonable.

I am removing this section, because I believe it is clearly synthesis, most other editors on this page who have made relevant arguments (slp, hipocrite, mathsci) have agreed that this is synthesis, and many other editors have expressed concerns on this page about the general excess of synthesis currently in the article. If you genuinely believe I am wrong, you should feel free to go ask for a second opinion at a relevant noticeboard. (And please note that generally the burden of proving content belongs in an article belongs to those trying to put the content there, so please don't restore the section without, say, having gotten consensus at WP:NOR/N that it is appropriate. (Consensus here that the argument is not synthetic would also work to restore it of course, but in all seriousness I don't think you can do that, so if you really do believe this isn't OR you would be better off asking at NORN.)) Kevin (talk) 18:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First off, you said you would delete the section unless someone could explain why you were wrong about it being SYNTH. I did that, and while I may not have convinced you, I did provide reasons which "should" have been cause to have you postpone deletion until the discussion was completed and a consensus reached. And the issue of sources was no listed in your criteria for stopping your deleting the content, and reasonable time to correct those sources and/or discuss them, should have been given (24 hours in the middle of the work week is not reasonable time for discussion).

Secondly, I did read the burden point, and it said that the burden of proof is light, all you needed to do was explain what assertion is made. Please direct me to where you state, precisely, what assertion is made, as opposed to simply stating that AN assertion is made, and leaving it to others to guess your meaning. Because it is incredibly difficult to demonstrate how a non-existent assertion doesn't count as synthesis. Because the only assertion that I have been accused of establishing was that the law and study citations were combined to make an assertion that men not being accorded proper equal sentencing is an issue of rights as it relates to men... To which I assert that is an obvious conclusion. You also claim that it's not obvious, because the paragraph is being challenged. But it isn't being challenged because the conclusion isn't obvious, it is being challenged (to this point, anyways) because the sources don't specifically make use of the words that have been deemed "required".--Kratch (talk) 02:03, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To quote myself: "The sources that have been used support the idea that a sentencing disparity exists, they don't say what the cause is, and they don't claim that it's a men's rights issue. The section improperly synthesizes them, to assert that a sentencing disparity exists (which is in the sources,) is unjustifiable on the basis of the other facts of the case (which is suggested as one of several possibilities by a source) and that that unjustifiable disparity infringes on the rights of men (which is not in any of the sources.)" You state that this is so obvious as to not require a source; I disagree with you, as do several other editors here. The standard is obviousness and not correctness, the fact that multiple editors disagree with you that it is an obvious point seems to be a fairly strong indicator that it's not a point so obvious as to not necessitate a source. If you would like additional outside opinions, feel free to ask at a relevant noticeboard. Kevin (talk) 07:41, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The paragraph you deleted does not imply anything about the cause of the disparities, merely that it is happening (which you don't dispute). So that thesis is not presented as part of the paragraph you deleted, there was no SYNTH involved. As to it claiming it is a men's right issue 1: the paragraph never claims it is a men's rights issue, just that it is happening in violation of the law (which is supported by the sources). 2: As you have made abundantly clear, this is not an article about the men's rights movements issues, but of the rights men hold in general. Discussing how those rights are not being upheld (supported by the sources) seems rather relevant. I'd also like to point out that you didn't provide that thesis until 1 minute before you deleted the paragraph. I would argue providing a rule that notes you need to provide something that can be argued, and than your doing so, meets your "unless" clause. Again, as to the "obviousness", it's not how obvious the conclusion is that's in dispute, it is the fact that "men's right"s, those words specifically, are not included in the source, that has caused certain editors to object to the content. How obvious a conclusion is depends on what the conclusion being discussed is, and the fact this is relevant to the rights that men are granted is a conclusion that IS obvious. You haven't objected to that conclusion, you've objected to it being assumed it is a men's rights issue, which is a conclusion never implied in what you deleted (I'll acknowledge it was implied in the "the erosion of men's rights" section title you deleted much earlier, a title who's removal I did not object to because you were correct (erosion at the least WAS a very loaded word), but that conclusion was never implied in the content of the paragraph you just deleted), so it isn't a matter of obvious or not, as that conclusion does not exist to be defended.--Kratch (talk) 19:52, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kratch, having the information here on the page is claiming that sentence discrepancy is a men's rights issue, by its very presence. We simply can't include things such because it is obvious to individual editors - and as Jimbo says "If your viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts". Surely you can see the problem. Let's say that I come here and argue that it is a infringement of men's rights that they have to pay more for shoes because their feet are bigger. It's proveable that men's feet are typically bigger than women's. People should be treated equally, and it isn't fair that men should be penalized for something they can't control. It's obvious to me that this is a men's right issue, so I should be allowed to include it, right? Well, the answer is "no" I shouldn't, because nobody else but me has made this point (I'm guessing!!!), and I am trying to use WP to make my argument. We need external sources that make the claim that this is a men's rights issue or this article will be a free for all. If it is really a men's rights issue it will be possible to find sources. It really isn't that difficult to find sources to make the key points about men's rights issues. I don't have time to take this particular topic on, but honestly the time spent arguing about this would be better spent finding reliable sources about men's rights issues. They are out there, quite a lot of them. --Slp1 (talk) 21:20, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not a men's rights "issue", just relevant to men's rights. And yes, we can include things when they are obvious [15]. --Kratch (talk) 01:09, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As SLP said.. the mere inclusion of a section on this page claims that whatever is discussed in that section is a men's rights issue. A section that does not deal with a men's rights issue doesn't belong on this page in the first place. So, take your pick: it should be deleted because it's irrelevant, or it should be deleted because it's unsupported synthesis. Kevin (talk) 21:56, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the very inclusion of a section in this page indicates it is relevant to men's right's. THAT is the conclusion that is made by the deleted pargraph. That is the conclusion that is obvious. And that conclusion has yet to be challenged. It is the conclusion of it being an "issue" that you have all been challenging. Whether it is an issue or not was nether suggested in the paragraph you deleted, nor is it required in order to be on this page, as this page is not restricted to the issues regarding men's rights. If you see in that paragraph a claim that it is an issue of men's rights, that is a conclusion you have come to of your own, perhaps, because it is such an obvious conclusion, but it was YOUR conclusion to make, not something that paragraph suggested. THAT's why I'm not jumping through your hoops. Doesn't matter that you set a clause to stop you from deleting the content. Doesn't matter that I met that clause and gave reasoning (at least enough for discussion to ensue), Doesn't matter that this page is under probation, it's your page, you'll do what you want--Kratch (talk) 01:09, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how to make it any clearer. I do not agree that that conclusion is obvious. Multiple other editors disagree that that conclusion is obvious. I have told you why the material as it stands is inappropriate, and multiple other people have agreed. I have even told you where you can go to get additional outside opinions if you disagree with us.

As you mentioned: this page is under probation. The probation includes an explicit mandate to "avoid discussing other editors, discuss the article instead." You are aware of this. Please stop making posts like your last post. If you do not, I will be asking an uninvolved administrator to sanction your behavior under the terms of the article probation. Kevin (talk) 03:35, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And how do you respond to the sources I found here? NCFM talks about sentencing disparities in specific relation to discrimination against men: http://ncfm.org/2011/04/issues/criminal-sentencing/ As does this site, which explicitly discusses "gender discrimination"" http://law.jrank.org/pages/2051/Sentencing-Disparity-Studies-documenting-illegitimate-disparities.html Celdaz (talk) 00:14, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To deal with the last link first: please go read WP:RS. Some random website that gives no indication of they are, does not attribute an author, has no indication of editorial oversight, and has no established reputation is not a reliable source for anything, ever, in any context. For the second: I think you have missed that I have not said that a sentencing disparity section doesn't belong in this article. All I've said is that the current one was unacceptably synthetic. The NCFM link is a perfectly acceptable primary source for saying that the NCFM considers it a men's rights issue. When the page move discussion closes and this becomes a page about men's rights activism, then a mention of it will totally belong in the article. An example of what such a mention might look like: "The National Coalition for Men, the United States' largest men's rights organization, considers disparities in sentencing between genders a men's rights issue, pointing to research showing that men in the United States receive higher sentences than women do for the same crime, even when all known mitigating factors are accounted for." (I wouldn't consider it particularly appropriate to use the NCFM link to support a section in the current article, since it won't be a secondary source RS by our standards. But it'd be perfectly appropriate in an article about MRA's - which is one reason why I want the move.) Saying "this section is currently poorly sourced unacceptable original research" is completely different from saying "this section can never be in the article." Kevin (talk) 00:38, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kevin, the examples you gave are in fact irrelevant, and here is why. All your examples are either demonstrably false, a subjective matter of opinion (Bush's intelligence), or lack evidence to prove them true (conspiracies). Therefore, whether they are "obvious issues" is irrelevant - they must be excluded from Wikipedia for one of those three (very significant) reasons.

Sentencing disparities, on the other hand, are none of those three. They are demonstrably true and not a matter of opinion. The right to equal treatment under the law is likewise demonstrably true and not a matter of opinion (that is, the existence of such right as written under US law is not a question of opinion). That is why your explanation fails.

Now, up until this writing I believed that a strict adherence to Wikipedia policy dictated that sentencing disparity be excluded. However, after reading Kratch's elaboration and citation of further rules, I see that in fact, the rules clearly allow the section to remain. The analogy of the sun and the moon seem to be analogous to sentencing disparities and equal treatment under the law.

"Source 1 says the Sun is this big. Source 2 says the moon is this big. Therefore the Sun is bigger." = OK under the rules.

"Source 1 says we have the right to equal sentencing. Source 2 says men are given harsher sentences. Therefore men's rights are being violated." = OK under the rules. Celdaz (talk) 16:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's best to stick with the policy pages than delving around on essay pages. The latter are the opinions of one or more editors, and don't have consensus of the community, unlike the policy pages. The actual OR policy says: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources." If neither of source 1(A) nor source 2(B) state "Therefore men's rights are being violated" the article cannot say it or imply it. Your sun and moon analogy is of a different form; I am sure a logician can explain clearly and concisely why, but even from lay point of view they are not equivalent. It is to do with "bigness" being the predicate position in both propositions and forming the conclusion too. --Slp1 (talk) 17:20, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Neither source A nor B specifically say "men's rights are being violated", correct. But source A says that "everyone (by definition including men) has the right to equal sentencing" and source B says "we have proved that men don't receive equal sentencing." The rules of logic clearly indicate that the conclusion "men's rights are therefore being violated" is just as inevitable and reasonable as "the sun is bigger". I really do not see see how this arguing about technicalities and removing valid information helps make a better article - Kevin's explanation about "obvious issues" above was a failure as I explained previously. Celdaz (talk) 17:35, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that you would have WP make an exception to our policies for this edit and this page, and we simply can't do it. If you'd like to change the policy, then the place is the talkpage of the WP:OR page, not here. It's a question of what WP's role and purpose is, and it simply isn't the place to make new arguments and draw new conclusions. If nobody but men's rights activists have noted this as a violation of "men's rights" then WP won't be the first place to do so. --Slp1 (talk) 17:46, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:CALC for why we can say "2 (the volume of the moon) is less than 3 (the volume of the sun)," but not "It is only fair for men to have the right to an abortion." Hipocrite (talk) 17:44, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All kinds of conspiracy theorists believe that what they believe in is so well supported by the available evidence as to be obvious. For instance, these guys believe that legal action taken against them is invalid because it's taken against JOHN Q SMITH (who they believe is a fictitious entity) and not John Q Smith. To be clear, I don't think MRA's are conspiracy theorists, but I do believe that the argument "But it's so obvious when you look at these sources that it should be included in Wikipedia without a reliable source having stated it" is not an argument that we can ever accept for claims of this nature partly because it's so hard to define a line. The tax conspiracy guys believe that the straight facts prove their point 100% obviously beyond any reasonable doubt, and I suspect that you'd look at their claims and think they are crazy. Requiring reliable sources for all arguments stops us from having to draw a line.

Anyway, there's another significant problem: including a section that has not being discussed in reliable sources also isn't something that we do. Even if this whole section wasn't unacceptable synthesis (and it is), Wikipedia articles are supposed to "fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint." Also please note, I editconflicted with everyone who has replied recently, so this whole reply was written before the new replies. Kevin (talk) 18:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I still hold the position that this pedantry is a net harm to the article and that if the sentencing disparity section is removed, the article will be worse off. That said, the NCFM talks about sentencing disparities in specific relation to discrimination against men: http://ncfm.org/2011/04/issues/criminal-sentencing/

As does this site, which explicitly discusses "gender discrimination"" http://law.jrank.org/pages/2051/Sentencing-Disparity-Studies-documenting-illegitimate-disparities.html Celdaz (talk) 00:54, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Just butting in here - Celdaz and Kratch what is being pointed out to you is that sources themselves must treat sentencing disparity within the context of men's rights. Nobody is arguing whether or not sentencing disparity exists just that third party reliable source have not as yet treated this in a way that gives wikipedia a reason to mention here on the men's rights page. And as a point of order neither of your sources even mention the term 'men's rights' (even if it mention's gender discrimination it does not examine the issues wrt men's rights and thus using it to do so is a synthesis). Unless a source frames itself as being about men's rights issues using it to talk about that is originl resaerch and while that could make a good blog post, news article or book it is not appropriate for a wikipedia article. Continued arguentation about it is a dead-end and is coming to the point of tendentiousness--Cailil ^talk 01:31, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the entire section on religion [16] for the following reasons:

• it was confused: it did not distinguish between positive rights (the right to do something, like have multiple wives) and negative rights (the right to be free of something, such as being circumcised). This is a problem that pervades the rest of the article as well, incidentally.
• Religious mandates in advanced societies are almost never challenged on the grounds that they violate secular male rights. The only time I can think of this happening is in the case of Mormon polygamy, and that was resolved mostly because the Mormons themselves gave it up as a matter of mainstream doctrine. Generally speaking, religions are free to impose anything they like on their own congregations as a matter of principle; where secular rights intercede, it is usually only to guarantee that people can leave the faith if they so choose.

Comments welcome, as always. --Ludwigs2 17:25, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

P.s. I removed the circumcision section [17] for the same reason. even setting aside the problematically weasel-worded "It is considered by advocacy groups to be a euphemism for male genital mutilation", there is nothing about male rights in the entire section, except for the apparent conviction that this ought to be an issue for male rights. on-point sourcing of some sort is needed. --Ludwigs2 17:31, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed this, because apart from the main claims being utterly unsourced, it is completely irrelevant to this article. It is clearly ridiculous to have a section pointing out that men are more likely to be raped in prison, without equating this with the likelihood of either gender being raped in general. I have added a caveat to the Cancer section, although I'm unconvinced that this needs to be here either. Black Kite (t) (c) 17:39, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason why the following sentence belongs in a section about the low spending of money on prostate cancer: "However, this has to be seen in the context that breast cancer mortality rates are significantly higher, and that screening is more expensive than that for prostate cancer." It is silly to say anything "has to be seen" in any light whatsoever. That is a call to the reader to adopt a position which is influenced by an unbiased perspective. This article is not meant to be a debate about the validity of complaints over men's rights. Furthermore, this statement contains nothing quantifiable. I might think differently if there was quoted a mathematical model showing the ratio in quality-adjusted life years for each cancer, vs. the ratio in spending for each cancer. Until such quantification is made available, I am removing the statement altogether. Divergentgrad (talk) 17:03, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

what should we do with the healthcare and paternity leave sections? While I can't disagree with the discrepancy (I haven't checked the sourcing, but I do believe this should easy to source), it's a myopic perspective on the topic. For instance, a balanced perspective would recognize that less money may be spent on male cancers than female, but far more attention is spent on male reproductive health than on female reproductive health.

I'll add that no real effort has been made to tie these sections to the topic via sourcing, but (unlike much of the rest of the article) there's at lest the glimmer of a possibility here. --Ludwigs2 17:41, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If someone can find a source that makes it a rights issue - it may turn out to be so in the UK, which has a notorious postcode lottery for certain types of expensive healthcare, which may mean that men cannot access medical treatments. There's no need to mention women, if men in Richmond, North Yorks can't get the sort of treatment for their bits that men in Richmond, Virginia can, then that's a men's issue alright. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:28, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Only if it is discussed in a source that frames it as an issue of men's rights.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:54, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dominic Raab (MP) fought for paternity leave (until recently, men got 2 weeks paternity, unpaid, nothing more) in the UK under a banner of equality/equal rights. I will attempt to produce an acceptable source soon (I don't have a lot of time during the week, so likely on the weekend). Don't know of any acceptable sources that outs healthcare as a "rights" issue for men yet, unless menshealthnetwork.org or a proposal to the white house for a counsel for boys to men [18] that makes mention counts (if the council proposal does count, it might actually be a very helpful source all around)?--Kratch (talk) 02:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"far more attention is spent on male reproductive health than on female reproductive health" - would you care to expand on what you mean by this, perhaps by way of examples? Zzz90210 (talk) 02:48, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the US, federally subsidized patients generally have far easier access to male impotence drugs than to things like contraception and abortion, and there's always some effort in Congress to limit women's care further. As a rule in the US, pregnancy related issues (be it prevention, prenatal care or likewise) are lowest on the totem pole and first on the chopping block, while issues related to male sexuality are usually matters of significant investment and deep concern. Good enough, or do we need to get into apparent entitlement of basketball stars and French dignitaries to sexually assault hotel maids? --Ludwigs2 05:13, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How many of the sources that we have on the page right now can be considered reliable and are actually about the topic of men's rights, in specific? I've gone through a few and found that they are either primary sources that don't phrase the subject in the context of men's rights or they are men's rights activist sources. The reason I ask, is that if the sources are of sufficiently low quality, it might be better to just wipe the entire article, stub it and start from the beginning rather than remove sections one by one, as this might just leave the article in a completely nonsensical format. Thoughts? N^oformation ^Talk 19:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Very very few of them are, and even fewer are ones that I would consider adequate to establish the claims that they make. I do think that consensus will be achieved to move the article to an MRA related title, so I think that we should be approaching content creation as if that will occur. I just updated the history section a bit - there are some sources available for it, and actually a huge number available for the history of the movement in India. Outside of the history section, I would support wiping most stuff and starting to write an appropriate article from the ground up on men right's activism, since support for a move is very strong. (We will also need to examine how much of an article about MRA's can be appropriate spent discussing the specific claims that they make.) Kevin (talk) 19:15, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kevin, since a lot of us are new here and you seem to be well beneath the mire, would you be willing to compile a list of sources that you deem appropriate and post them here so that we can all go through them and get an understanding of where this article is going? N^oformation ^Talk 19:17, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll look at compiling a more detailed list later, though I don't have time right now. I think that, in general:

• MRA sources are acceptable as primary sources for uncontentious details about MRA groups/history. MRA sources should be limited to groups or people whose notability and relevance has been established by secondary sources - so, something from the national coalition for men is OK, something from a random MRA blog isn't. (There also have to be secondary reliable sources that would support us talking about this stuff in the first place.)
  • MRA sources that happen to meet our normal WP:RS standards are of course acceptable as sources in the same way that normal RS'es are. This includes stuff like the Hoffman books. However, unless it's a statement of uncontentious fact, stuff taken from these sources needs to be explicitly framed as taken from them, and not presented in an editorial voice. (We can say in a relevant place "Christina Hoff Sommers believes that feminism is harming children" but we cannot use Sommers to say "Feminism is harming children.")
• News stories about MRA's are acceptable as sources of information about MRA groups/history/claims, and that kind of stuff. For a new article about MRA's, news articles used should either be explicitly be talking about MRA's or should be talking about people or groups who self-identify as MRA's.
• Although it's okay to talk about MRA claims, they shouldn't dominate the article. We should probably base the amount we talk about them on whatever is standard protocol for articles on advocacy groups - I haven't looked enough to be sure what it is. At a bare minimum, we should only talk about MRA claims that have been discussed in reliable secondary sources. The primary gist of the article shouldn't be "these are claims that MRA groups make" but rather "This is what MRA is, this is some of what they believe, this is their history, this is their reception"
  • Discussions of MRA claims need to neutrally represent what is relayed in reliable sources. The article has had a lot of problems with attempting to present MRA claims as fact.
• Academic sources that are specifically about MRA's are awesome. It's been argued that we can't use academic sources because they are biased against MRA's, but this doesn't connect well with sourcing policies, since we're supposed to represent viewpoints that have been published in high quality secondary sources and not try to create novel ones. There are a decent number of academic papers about this sort of thing that will come up on jstor searches.
• We should only cite stuff like academic research in to domestic violence rates if it has been brought up in relation specifically to MRA stuff. This article has at various points had massive problems with editors trying to use the results of research studies to support points. Unless the same studies have been brought up in RS'es, this is original research. It's beyond our scope as Wikipedia editors to try to sort through the literature and find studies that we think prove or disprove MRA points.

All of this is premised on developing an article on MRA's, and not men's rights itself. I think those bullets would be a good way forward towards developing an encyclopedic article about MRA's that plays nice with our policies and is balanced and neutral. (They're also not meant as an inclusive list of everything we need to do, and since I wrote this in a hurry it's perfectly possible some of them are silly or wrong.) Kevin (talk) 19:49, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the article structure is fine. The contents listing provides a good list of Mens Rights issues that enjoy mainstream recognition and coverage, and that a reasonable person would expect to find covered in an article titled "mens rights". The actual contents obviously needs improvement and better sourcing...but I would oppose reducing the article to a stub as the structure is very valid IMO. Zzz90210 (talk) 02:42, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Redditors in Men's rights have noted the unprotection of this page.[19] If we have new editors, please remember to start with a welcome message, and don't bite the newcomers. Thanks all for helping keep this page civil, and my job easier. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:27, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Should we perhaps make a custom welcome message for this topic with an outline of the relevant policy or would that be an AGF violation? Also, evidently we're all feminists. N^oformation ^Talk 19:50, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Use standard templates; if the first edits are contrary to policy we have welcome templates to cover that. Look on WP:WT under Specialized messages if you don't feel that {{subst:welcome}} will cover it. I don't see that anything other than {{subst:Welcomelaws}}, {{subst:welcomenpov}} or {{subst:Welcomeunsourced}} will be needed. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:59, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! I am a new editor here. I just voted in the move thingy and it was very exciting. How many votes do we need to win? Do the women have to get permission before they can vote? This biting stuff. Kinda seems canibalistic, reminds me of vampirism. Gross. Anyway, could someone please tell me how do i get one of those neat "welcome" templates? – Lionel ^(talk) 21:11, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lol KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:48, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Many sections of this article are not about "Men's rights," but rather are about "things where women are advantaged over men." For example: Military Conscription, Refugees, Paternity leave, Social security and retirement, Cancer, Sentencing disparities, Rape laws, most of Reproductive rights, Male parental rights, Political representation, and Domestic Violence do not generally refer to Mens rights, but rather "things mens rights advocates would like changed." This is not acceptable for an article on mens rights. Unless a unique and specific justification for each and every line that is something like "Women get this extra right, men don't" is created, I intend to remove them all tomorrow. Hipocrite (talk) 19:54, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's true that an advantage is not the same thing as a right, much like the fact that less white Americans are incarcerated compared to black Americans is an advantage but not an issue about rights (in itself). However, you're quite wrong in your position. You state that conscription is not a men's rights issue. This is ridiculous.

We can all agree that personal liberty is a right. In many countries, men are denied that right to personal liberty because they are forced into the army regardless of their wishes. For you to stand there and say "Men are disadvantaged over women in that regard, but I cannot see how it is an issue of men's rights" is unbelievable. Celdaz (talk) 21:57, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would think that 'in country X, men are denied the right to refuse military service' would be sourceable and a clear area where men in country X are denied a right that men in other countries have (no need to involve women at this point). Many countries with conscription or national service have options for men who do not wish to serve in the military - that should be sourceable too.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:24, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Hi Celdaz. The thing is that here on WP our personal opinions about what are men's rights and what aren't are really irrelevant. What we need is sources, good secondary sources. That's what Hipocrite is asking for, quite rightly. Luckily, this section from a scholarly book mentions that conscription and some of the other topics above are viewed by MRAs as evidence of the cost of masculinity. I personally haven't been able to find reliable sources showing that these are considered by anybody other than MRAs to be a "right". Perhaps you will have better luck, and I will keep looking as I have time. But that's what this article requires: reliable sources that directly connect these topics to men's rights, rather than simply as talking points of MRAs. --Slp1 (talk) 22:37, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Slp1, I don't understand what you are saying. Hipocrite has made the assertion that conscription, among other things, is "unrelated to men's rights and instead men's grievances." and therefore the subject does not belong in this article.

I have disputed that assertion by pointing out the fact that personal liberty is a universal right and logically, conscription violates that right, therefore it should be discussed here.

You are now telling me that "well, what we need is reliable sources." Reliable sources for what exactly? That men are conscripted? Easy enough. That personal liberty is a right? Again, easy enough, the United Nations has a bunch of documents about human rights. What are you saying, exactly? Celdaz (talk) 23:14, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No you need a source that says that conscription is a violation of human rights, and in order to include it here you need to say that it is a violation of Men's rights specifically. Documents about human rights ar enot documents about Men's rights.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:52, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The issue of conscription is one of sexual discrimination applicable to men, not one of forced labour (although that could be considered an issue in a different context). Zzz90210 (talk) 02:34, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I understand your frustration but our personal logic doesn't come into how we edit here. That's because it opens the door for person 1 to say "It's a right" and person 2 to say "It isn't a right" and we have no idea who is right (haha). What gets included needs to verifiable, and not original research. Finding sources for men being conscripted would be fine for the conscription article, but if you want to say that conscription is a men's rights issue and should be included here, then you need to find a reliable source making that statement. Directly. Your idea of finding one source for men being conscripted and another one for personal liberty being a right would be the epitome of synthesis, which is not allowed. And though the article is rife with original research and synthesis currently, we don't want to add more! If you haven't read them already, I'd advice checking the links I've given, as they set out WP's policies in all its ghastly detail. I know it isn't a problem finding sources to say that MRAs complain about conscription as being discriminatory, but it doesn't appear that others agree that this is a rights issue, and in fact the gendered draft was upheld by the Supreme Court in the US, I believe. But like I said, I may not have looked in the right place yet. I hope this explanation helps.

One final thing to add. Usually when writing an article it is best to find the best possible sources about a topic and then write the article depending on what is found. It can be a dangerous POV practice to start looking for sources to "prove" points. I just say this as a caution, because I've been suggesting you look for sources when really in my heart of hearts, I don't think it is the best way to proceed. I think there are quite a lot of advantages with Hipocrite removing the sections: then we can start afresh using the best sources as our starting point. --Slp1 (talk) 23:41, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Celdaz, I am sure there is a source from the Vietnam era that links conscription/the draft as a rights violation. Others, if such a source was produced, would this be sufficient to have the subject included?--Kratch (talk) 02:29, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hipcrite, the right to equal treatment, or equality among persons, is at the foundation of most or all modern rights movements, be it black rights in the US, women's rights around the world, or treatment of minorities in various cultures. In other words, issues where men are subject to unequal treatment with respect to women (including in most of your examples) can therefore easily be identified as Mens Rights issues. If you genuinely want to help improve this article (and through doing so Wikipedia), your efforts might be better spent in helping source content rather than taking a chainsaw to everything you disagree with. Zzz90210 (talk) 02:22, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd ask you all to keep a clear and focused eye on the word 'rights', which is an incredibly slippery word. For instance, I have heard the arguments that conscription is a violation of men's right's, that military service for gays is a violation of the rights of male soldiers who voluntarily enlist, that military service for women is a violation of the rights of male soldiers, and that the failure of the military to place women in combat roles is a violation of women's rights. it's largely balderdash. in a free society the notion of 'rights' implies that each person has the same rights regardless of personal characteristics like gender, and so the encroachment of one group on the sinecures of another group is not a violation of the second group's rights (even though it is often interpreted that way). Military service is often considered a privilege: it confers status, respect, and benefits that do not accrue to the rest of the population, and is often a matter of great personal pride. treating it as though it were a universal anathema is unrealistic and over-simplified. --Ludwigs2 04:57, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really understand your comment. The word 'sinecures' has no meaning to me so I cant really respond to that sentence, you may want to try and explain your point in a simpler and clearer manner. I agree that purported rights that have little or no mainstream recognition should probably not be included (I have never heard mainstream views that the existence of woman soldiers are a violation of Mens Rights). Wikipedia is not a place for expressing personal opinions, so whether you or I actually believe that a given Mens Rights issue is genuine/legitimate or not is really quite irrelevant - what is relevant is whether or not the issue has mainstream recognition as a Mens Rights issue, if it can be sourced, and if a reasonable person would expect a articled titled "Mens Rights" to cover it. This talk page exists to discuss the article, not debate the subject matter - so I am not going to argue with you about whether military service is a "privilege" or a "universal anathema" - however if you are aware of any mainstream sources documenting that debate it would be a good source for the article. Zzz90210 (talk) 07:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Zzz: you can't really talk about 'rights' at all unless you understand the need to distinguish rights from other concepts (like sinecures, entitlements, privileges…). quick rundown of terminology:

• Right: an assumedly invariant capacity shared (in liberal societies) by all citizens or all humans, granted and protected by the state, though often attributed to a higher moral code. Rights can (ostensibly) never be taken away, though all but the most liberal nations play fast and loose with that point. This breaks down into two loose categories:
  • positive rights - the ability to do something: e.g. the right to pursue happiness or bear arms
  • negative rights - the ability to be free of something something: e.g. the right to life or liberty
• Privilege: something that looks much like a right, but is granted to specific groups or people for specific reasons. Driving a car on public highways in the US is considered a privilege: one must be licensed to do it and the license can be taken away. Privileges can be positive or negative (see Jim Crow laws for examples).
• Entitlement: A benefit given to a group as a matter of expectation. When these are mandated by the government (e.g. social security) they are called entitlements; when they are a matter of cultural practice there is more varied terminology (including 'sinecure'). the glass ceiling is an example of a sinecure: women have trouble reaching the highest echelons in government and the business world because those positions are traditionally reserved for men.

When you take something like military service, you have a complex mix of these issues to deal with. for the short list:

• life (a positive right which compulsory service threatens)
• the ability to pursue a chosen career in the military (a traditional a sinecure for men which has been reinterpreted as a positive right for everyone)
• military benefits (college funding, veterans assistance, etc. which are privileges granted to soldiers for service, and viewed as unjust when service is a sinecure for men)
• avoidance of unpleasant issues in close quarters (a negative right which has historically been used to bar gays, women, and minorities from military service. this has largely dissipated due to changing social norms, but it has not disappeared as a factor).

I understand that there's an urge (particularly in the US) to view rights in 'I-me-mine' terms, but historically and theoretically the concept of rights is designed to be social: asserting a right for yourself automatically implies asserting and respecting that right for everyone, because doing otherwise is actually asserting a privilege or entitlement. Much of the material on this article has nothing to do with rights per se, but discusses sinecures, entitlements and privileges that men have had historically which are now being threatened. Unsophisticated authors will refer to these as rights (because it's such a nice oomphy word), but we have to be careful to draw these distinctions out. --Ludwigs2 13:33, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I understand this man Michael Flood has written several academic, peer reviewed papers about the men's right's movement which may provide source material for constructing the Men's Rights entry. For what it's worth. 58.170.59.250 (talk) 07:41, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You mean these?

123.211.181.170 (talk) 07:52, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The is a link to Flood's Men's Biblipgraphy [20] which might be useful for sources. Carptrash (talk) 15:31, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the links. Kevin (talk) 17:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Role the dice and take your chances citing Flood. This is not meant as a threat, but as an observation that MRA's deplore Flood, and will attack this page, again requiring sanctions, if they believe that this page was gutted, and supplemented with Flood, who is considered by MRA's to be anti-male. You've been designated for termination (talk) 15:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to say it but not using good sources out of fear of public backlash goes against what wikipedia stands for --Guerillero | My Talk 15:46, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you, Guer. And, luckily, now that community sanctions have been put in place, it will be very easy to get rid of anyone who comes here to 'attack this page.' Kevin (talk) 17:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are they in fact good sources for men's rights issues if the articles in question are in fact highly critical of men and men's rights? I could find peer-reviewed academic articles from anti-transgender feminists - would that be appropriate source material on the article about trans rights? Celdaz (talk) 16:41, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We represent all major points of view that have been talked about in reliable sources. We give each point of view roughly proportional coverage to that which they have received in reliable sources. We do not avoid sources simply because they like or dislike the subject. Kevin (talk) 17:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Celdaz, the answer is that yes, you can use peer-reviewed academic articles from anti-transgender feminists, assuming they are talking about trans rights issues, in an article about trans rights. --Slp1 (talk) 22:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As it stands right now, this section is really awful. It says, as uncaveated fact, "In many jurisdictions, domestic violence is seen as men assaulting women and female violence is systematically minimized and denied." It does have sources, and there really are reputable sources that do claim this, but it's not at all an uncontroversial claim - although there are definitely reliable sources that support what is current said in the section, there's also very strong support in reliable sources for the exact opposite. The section currently makes no effort what so ever to accurately represent the state of the literature - it consists of cherrypicked sources used to advance a point of view. I don't have time to rewrite the section right now, but I am commenting it out until someone does.

Domestic_violence#Gender_aspects_of_abuse although not perfect is a hell of a lot better, and will give you some idea of how weird this section as it currently stands is. That page may also be a good place to start getting ideas about how to rewrite this section in an acceptable manner (although with a page move likely happening, it may not be a good idea to do a full rewrite before we figure out the scope of the new page...) Kevin (talk) 18:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you feel that it is missing the other side of the issue, but don't have time to add to it yourself, you could NPOV tag it, but removing it when you admit that it has reputable sources is a bit much. I'll be doing the R in BRD shortly. Arkon (talk) 18:33, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As it stood, it was a grotesque misrepresentation of the literature. For now, I have simply swapped the content that was in the section with the first paragraph of Domestic_violence#Gender_aspects_of_abuse. Please feel free to do a further import of content from that page if you think it's warranted, or to revert me if you think that the initial content was more balanced than the new stuff is. I'm not intending to edit war about it, it's just did a colossally poor job at representing the main POV's present in reliable sources as it was. (I would've actually done this the first time if it had occurred to me, instead of just blanking it.) Kevin (talk) 18:42, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I won't be reverting that section again. But you probably shouldn't have either. Arkon (talk) 18:46, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you think the prior version of it was better, please revert to it - or just let me know and I will selfrevert. I usually would not repeat an edit similar to one that had been rv'ed so soon, but it hadnt occurred to me to import content previously, and it seemed vastly preferable to either other option. If you disagree that its a better option, let me know. Kevin (talk) 18:52, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The version before was perfectly accurate. Did you read my citations, they were impeccable. The Florida Law Review, Psychological Bulliten, Routledge. Your version uses domestic violence advocates to give an out of context assertions that all claims of equal rates are only because of women's self defense, but that is true at all. As per the extensive discussion about this before "Dobash is not a reliable source. He merely dismisses data that he doesn't like. He presents no evidence. He is notable enough that his criticisms should be mentioned, but certainly not notable enough to simply dismiss the great bulk of the research on this question." How about what a non activist source says? Well, Archer (2000) which has been cited over 1000 times (Google), or more than 680 (per WebOfScience) says

It has often been claimed that the reason CTS studies have found as many women as men to be physically aggressive is because women are defending themselves against attack. A number of studies have addressed this issue and found that when asked, more women than men report initiating an attack (Bland & Om, 1986; DeMaris, 1992; Gryl & Bird, 1989, cited in Straus, 1997) or that the proportions are equivalent in the two sexes (Straus, 1997). Two large-scale studies found that a substantial proportion of both women and men reported using physical aggression when the partner did not (Brush, 1990; Straus & Gelles, 1988b). This evidence does not support the view that the CTS is only measuring women's self-defense.

Sources that reliable sources say have a history of misrepresenting issues are not reliable sources for refuting the idea that misrepresentation has gone on. Lifetime domestic violence advocates and feminists are hardly reliable sources because of an obvious COI. Family researchers like Archer or Frieze (who does call her self a feminist) and criminal psychologists like Motz are. I am reinstating my version. extransit (talk) 20:06, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm bringing the sources here for reference

"The denial or trivialization of violence by women against men and the knowledge that women can also be violent imply that what is happening to the male victims of violence needs to be examined."

• Frieze, Irene (2000). "Violence in close relationships—development of a research area: Comment on Archer (2000)". Psychological Bulletin 126 (5): 681-684.

"Despite the wealth and diversity of the sociological research and the consistency of the findings, female violence is not recognized within the extensive legal literature on domestic violence. Instead, the literature consistently suggests that only men commit domestic violence. Either explicitly, or more often implicitly, through the failure to address the subject in any objective manner, female violence is denied, defended and minimized."

• Kelly, Linda (2003). "Disabusing the definition of domestic abuse: How women batter men and the role of the feminist state". Florida State University Law Review 30: 792-793.

"Why does society deny the fact of female violence? This book explores the nature and causes of female violence from the perspectives of psychodynamic theory and forensic psychology."

• Motz, Anna (2008). The psychology of female violence: Crimes against the body. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-203-93091-6.

"selective inattention by both media and reaserachers [make women's] victimization more visible."

• Straus, M. A., Gelles, R.J., & Steinmetz, S. K. (1980). Behind closed doors: Violence in the American family. New York: Doubleday/Anchor.

extransit (talk) 20:16, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Dobash is not a reliable source. He merely dismisses data... This is what a Wikipedia editor wrote about a study. Surely you do not believe that this is good enough to dismiss criticisms of the Conflict Tactics Scale? Getting cited is not such a great thing when many of the authors who cite your research do so to criticize your survey tool.

As you very well know, Russel P. Dobash is by far not the only researcher who has criticized the CTS. Even the National Institute of Justice has explained that the CTS "may not be appropriate for intimate partner violence research because it does not measure control, coercion, or the motives for conflict tactics; it also leaves out sexual assault and violence by ex-spouses or partners and does not determine who initiated the violence."[21] The CTS does not measure the motivation for violence (a person who acts in self-defense scores one point on the scale just as the person who initiates violence); the CTS does not measure sexual violence (if you push your partner after she/he raped you then you get a point but not your partner); the CTS does not measure control, violence among ex-partners etc.

The issue is more complicated than you present it. Straus (the person who invented the CTS) cites studies that say that more women than men report initiating an attack. Other studies found that women are more willing to report their use of violence because "women tend to recognize such behavior as a violation of their socially prescribed gender role and readily confess to their transgression of the norm for their behavior; men, on the other hand, tend to minimize their violence against female partners"[22] and that women tend to underestimate victimization while men tend to overestimate theirs (see Frude, N. (1994). "Marital violence: An interactional perspective. In Male violence (ed by Archer). Routledge Press. London, England; Rouse, L., Breen, R. and Howell, M. (1988). "Abuse in intimate relationships: A comparison of married and dating college students. Journal of interpersonal violence. 3 414-419; Schwartz, M. (1987). "Gender and injury in spousal assault." Sociological forum. 20. 61-75; Ferrante, A. et al (1996). Measuring the extent of domestic violence. Crime Research Center, University of Western Australia. Hawkins Press. Perth, Australia etc.)? Just because Archer defends his research and his methodology does not mean that criticisms of the CTS are "debunked" or something.

A domestic violence section that is exclusively based on CTS studies (without even mentioning their limitations) does not accurately represent the current state of literature. To be more precise, CTS studies do not examine domestic violence. They examine domestic violence minus sexual violence minus self-defense minus violence by ex-partners etc. It's a completely different definition of "domestic violence". --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 21:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, you arguments are somewhat irrelevant as the section does not make an argument for gender symmetry (yet). It just says that women's violence against men is minimized. As for your assertions about the CTS, approximately one hundred studies that have not used the CTS have found the same thing (see Fieberts bibliography). extransit (talk) 22:00, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The quote you presented (for the third time) makes that argument. "Approximately one hundred studies"... Is that a guess? Thousands of studies have been conducted on domestic violence. Many of them by organizations such as the World Health Organization etc. I do not object to including CTS studies in this article. What I request is that we add a global perspective (most if not all CTS studies are from the United States), criticisms of CTS, large-scale, preferably international studies that include measures of motivation, control, sexual violence etc., and statements on claims of "gender symmetry" by organizations such as the National Institute of Justice.

Please also note that CTS studies do not look at domestic violence in a crime context but frame violence in relationships as lovers' quarrels (quote from Straus: "No matter how well a couple gets along, there are times when they disagree, get annoyed with the other person, or just have spats or fights because they’re in a bad mood or tired or for some other reason. They also use many different ways of trying to settle their differences. I’m going to read some things that you and your (spouse/ partner) might do when you have an argument. I would like you to tell me how many times ... in the past 12 months you ..." (Straus 1990b, p. 33) The CTS does not frame domestic violence as a crime and therefore a violation of anyone's rights whereas national surveys supported by National Institute of Justice, Center for Disease Control, and Bureau of Justice Statistics are conducted within a safety or crime context (and clearly find more partner abuse by men against women) (again see NIJ source). --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 22:52, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I find it amusing that you accuse me of making up numbers, when I actually did not (I counted, earlier back on talk:DV. Fiebert's bibliography has 282 entries. 147 use the CTS, 19 use the CTS2, 126 use other methodologies), and then go on to make up your own "thousands of studies"....

I don't understand why you want to keep arguing about the CTS. Aside from the fact that criticism of the CTS is almost all political, aside from the fact that 126 studies that did not use the CTS came to similar conclusions. My version here has nothing in it about prevalence so arguing about prevalence is beside the point. extransit (talk) 23:03, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I also agree that this section is deeply problematic. I have several concerns about WP:Verifiability, and would like more information. This section appears sourced but when I look at the sources I can't find the information. Page numbers and links would help.....

• can you please give a page number in the Motz book to support "In many jurisdictions, domestic violence is seen as men assaulting women and female violence is systematically minimized and denied"? I looked fairly closely and don't see anything.
• Same thing for "This means that support networks for victims of domestic violence are often only available to women and that in mutually abusive situations only the man may face legal consequences" What is the page number of Cook's Abused Men where this appears? I've also looked for Rosenthal (2006) also cited there. I can't find the source, and so perhaps you could find a better link or reference. The portion of the text cited there "Even when couples violence is mutual or minor, domestic violence programs typically discourage partner reconciliation" bears little or no relationship to the content it is supposed to source.
• What is the page number of from the Nathanson and Young book for "It has also been alleged that dishonest information and tactics by activists contibutes to an unjustifiably negative image of men and misandry". I can't find this information as related to domestic violence in particular in the book at present

There is also the problem of cherrypicking of information, apparently to push a POV.

• For example, why is "Men aged 20 to 24 were just as likely to be the victims of domestic violence as women" noted from this source but not "overall women are more likely to be abused in general and to be the victims of stronger physical violence. Across all age ranges, one in four women have been abused compared with one in six men" which comes just after?

Finally, there is the major problem of original research, which has been pointed out repeatedly on this page as a criticism of much of the content of this page. Virtually none of these sources make the connection with men's rights. Various bits and bobs seem to have been put together to advocate for a position. Can you point out where these links to men's rights are made in the various sources please?

I'm going to wait a while to get the page numbers and clarifications so that I can check some of the sources before removing all or part of this section. Thanks for your help. --Slp1 (talk) 21:45, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your criticisms are easily addressed.

• On your first point, as the purpose of Motz's book it to answer the question "Why does society deny the fact of female violence?" and includes discussion of domestic violence I'd say it damn well supports "female violence is systematically minimized and denied". The first part of the sentence is supported by the first two citations, Kelly and Fierze.
• About Cook's book. See page 102 ("few regular support groups exist"), page 89 ("male options are more limited"), and page 72 for a discussion of how such stereotypes hurts men. It is easy to see how the Rosenthal citation supports the sentence (although I admit I should have picked a better quote). The article talks at length about how things such as the VAWA only focus on women. I will improve that.
• Third. That is what the whole book is about and I do not see how you can honestly challenge that citation. Just read the the product description from Amazon. The thesis of the book is that the media and others are spreading misandry and gives a number of ways they do this including domestic violence myths.

Now, you evidence for a cherry picked POV makes no sense. The current version does not cover the prevalence of domestic violence so I don't understand how linking me to a BBC article that says men batter more is at all relevant. If you would like to introduce the issue of prevalence in, please go ahead.

Finally about synthesis. If you read WP:SYNTH, it says articles should not go X and Y therefore Z. This section does not do this in any way! You instead seem to be making the claim that if a source does not contain the title of an article it can not possibly be on topic? Well, go trim out about 15% of Wikipedia's content then. In the Women's rights article for example many of the sources used to used to write the voting section only talk about "suffrage" not womens rights ('oh noes! SYNTHESIS! how can we know the sources are on topic if they do not use the phrase "women's rights"??'). The issue of men and domestic violence and unfairness or bias (which all the sources discuss) is appropriate for an article on men's rights both by common sense (Wikipedia:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue) and by the extensive bibliographies of writers such as Warren Farrell. extransit (talk) 22:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit conflict) They may be easily addressed, but not so easily accepted, I fear.

• First: "Female violence" can mean all sorts of things, including female serial killers, for example. What is the connection to domestic violence? If you can't provide a page number from the Motz book, that links this directly to the claim that "In many jurisdictions, domestic violence is seen as men assaulting women and female violence is systematically minimized and denied" it needs to be removed as a citation.
• Second: Thanks for offering to improve. I will wait for you to do so.
• Third: Yes, you are right that the whole of Nathanson and Young is about how misinformation has affected the perception of men etc... but you've quoted this in a section about men's rights and domestic violence. Where do they discuss this topic? Which page number? Per WP:V you need to provide a source that "directly supports it", including "page numbers where applicable". It is the epitome of original research and advocacy to collect together disparate reliable sources, none of which make the specific point, to make a new argument.
• Cherry picking: of course your preferred version makes a point. Instead of summarizing the article accurately and neutrally, as required by all editors, you have chosen to pick out one point, ignoring all the rest.
• Synthesis: The Women's rights article is irrelevant, so I have no idea whether your point is correct or not, though I'd point out that a synonym for suffrage is voting rights. Complain at the Women rights article if you have issues with the content of that article. As far as this article is concerned, an article about Men's rights needs to be about things that secondary sources have identified as men's rights. Collecting together various facts (even if sourced) in an article is original research. See WP:OR "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." The sources need to make the connection and point to men's rights. Otherwise it appears that you are collecting together various bits of information to make a point. I (and others) am challenging your sources and your sourcing and your conclusions, so references to "common sense" is not appropriate. --Slp1 (talk) 23:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The pedantry of your arguments is incredible and off-base.

• About Motz. Section three in her book is entirely about domestic violence. Would any reasonable person conclude that when said she "violence" she was including domestic violence? Yes. Would any reasonable person conclude that that was what she intended? Yes. Reading a text as it is supposed to be read is not synthesis.
• About Nathanson and Young, ditto with above.

You say "It is the epitome of original research and advocacy to collect together disparate reliable sources, none of which make the specific point, to make a new argument", please explain how I am doing that? I have assembled a number of sources arguing that men are being neglected or treated unfairly over the issue of domestic violence and used their arguments. Men being treated unfairly by the legal system is topical for the article per common sense and the definitions from Farrell, as I said above. I also reject you calling me pointing out the standard practice of using sources that cover a topic even if they do not use the exact term as "irrelevant". extransit (talk) 00:17, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose it is true that the Motz reference is not as topical as it could be so I am going to replace with another citation to Cook. extransit (talk) 00:25, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's the same arguments being used to justify deleting the Sentencing disparity section. If the sources don't specifically say "men's rights", it's off topic. [23]. I suspect this issue (are these SYNTH? or is SYNTH being used excessively stringently?) will need to be resolved before this article can possibly move forward.--Kratch (talk) 02:16, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, no they are twisting WP:SYNTH. I'm going to start a new section about this in a bit; this tactic for whittling away the content needs to be bitten off at the head. If something is topical is a question for reliable sources, but once topicality is established it does not need to be reiterated in every single citation. Take a look at, say, Nuclear safety or Aftermath of World War I, hardly any of the sources used contain the title of their respective topic yet we use them because we know they are topical. We do need to demonstrate first that something is a men's rights issue (if someone could get their hands on some Farrell then we would be set for life), but once that is established with reliable sources then using sources that discuss only that issue is appropriate. extransit (talk) 03:09, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, well I have given 90 minutes that I didn't have to compose something about men's rights and domestic violence that is sourced to high quality sources. All the sources talk about both men's rights and domestic violence, and thus there should be no synthesis now. It really wasn't that difficult to do: it's just a question of looking for the right sources. BTW, extransit, you don't need to find articles with men's rights in the title. It just needs to be part of the topic of the paragraph, page, or whatever.--Slp1 (talk) 18:47, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I came here to look at the RFC - over a page move. The discussions - pro and con - seem to have some kind of partisan MRA/feminist agenda behind them, but for the life of me I can't see what benefit there is to either party in either name.

Looking at the vast amount of text it does seem fairly evident that there is a lot of uncertainty as to what belongs here though.

For that reason I would suggest that there are a bunch of basic ideas that need articles:

1. The men's rights movement, which should present a historical overview of the personalities, groups, campaigns etc.. (With other movements I have read about this is always an interesting story.)
2. Men's rights or lack thereof qua men, in various societies - for example when various groups of men achieved suffrage, a man's rights over his wife's property.
3. Men's rights or lack thereof as opposed to women's, in various societies - for example a man's rights over his family's property, lack of right to sue for alimony, polygamy without polyandry, polyandry without polygamy, matrilocal vs patrilocal.
4. Discrimination against men, both rights based, which overlaps the above, and societal which does not.

I would assume that item 3 would de-facto cover both genders, and may already exist. 1, 2 and 4 would or should be part of a matched pair. Rich Farmbrough, 22:44, 21 October 2011 (UTC).[reply]

I think this is a great suggestion and may solve the issues with scope that seem to plague this article. I have been working on a men's rights movement article on a userpage at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:LikaTika/men%27s_rights_movement and would sincerely appreciate any feedback and assistance developing it. I think at the very least, it will help make things here much clearer. LikaTika (talk) 01:30, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll just note that only the first point (and maybe the fourth) can be done without engaging in wp:original research. Point three has sourcing, but not in the context of men's rights; point two sounds like it would involve creating a set of unprovable theses in anthropology. --Ludwigs2 16:01, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Any of these except the first will be exceptionally difficult articles to write in a fashion appropriate for a Wikipedia article, and especially with the second and third I'm not sure that it is even possible. So far, I have not been able to find (and if anyone else has they haven't posted them here) a suitable selection of sources that cover 2 and 3 as coherent topics to be able to write articles about them that are not original research. I'm not sure that we can have articles on subjects that no secondary source has treated as a coherent subject.

4 will represent different difficulties than 2 and 3, and its difficulties may be surmountable, although I'm not sure. However, since most of the content previously contained in this article was explicitly focused on 'things that men's rights groups of the 20th and 21st centuries in the industrialized world view as men's rights issues' I feel that the existing stuff from this article would be more productively covered in an article about men's rights activism or the men's rights movement. (It'd also still present really fun problems of scope.) Kevin (talk) 20:05, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone reviewing the edits, and the comments in the blanked out pieces can see this has been a hatchet job by some feminists and supporters. Why they keep insisting, I don't know, eventually there will be a backlash. I used to think wikipedia was pretty ok, but since I've started editing I noticed how pov-pushing is everywhere. I don't care much about men's rights, but wikipedia is going down the hill, wonder how long it will last DS Belgium (talk) 21:30, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This Wikipedia article has been the subject of two articles [24][25] on the mainstream Men's Rights website A Voice for Men. Like the previously added press template for the Jezebel (website) [article http://jezebel.com/5850903/mens-rights-fight-breaks-out-on-wikipedia] I added templates for these articles but my edits were summarily reverted by Hipocrite claiming the were links to "pressure groups" (whatever that even means.) The summary deletion of these links (as if the talk page were the article itself), along with the tacit approval of the Jezebel link illustrates the very problem with this article as I see it. Editors construe the feminist publication Jezebel as somehow being a "more valid" media source than A Voice for Men -- in the article on Men's Rights no less. Notwithstanding the fact that the WP Jezebel (website) article itself is deficient in pointing out the strong feminist bias in the Jezebel blog, it bears mentioning that Jezebel, itself, has been the target of frequent criticism at A Voice for Men and several other mainstream sites in the Men's Rights movement for its manifest misandry.

By a doctrinaire and oppressive citing of Wikipedia policy this article has become "Men's Rights as Defined by Feminists." The same violates, or should, WP:Undue. Ninety percent of this article is written from a feminist perspective. If the problem with that is not immediately clear I must question why you are even on this talkpage. Radical feminism is one of the primary proponents of violating the very rights enunciated by men's rights activists. If you do not appreciate this fundamental aspect of the article's topic you will not be able to effectively edit it (outside of some copyediting.)

Once it is appreciated their are two opposing sides to the topic of Men's Rights (ie believers in men's rights issues and detractors) we can have some chance of creating a balanced article. I have no problem with including well-sourced feminist inspired "research" in the article, as long as they are qualified as such and not given undue weight in the article.--Cybermud (talk) 17:52, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A voice for men is nothing more than a glorified blog. Jezebel is a product of Gawker Media, a reliable source. Hipocrite (talk) 17:59, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Without delving deeply into the way you are inappropriately categorizing, and minimizing AVfM and it's relevance to the article's topic, it's worthwhile to mention that Jezebel, itself, is a glorified blog. In any case your comment also serves to illustrate my point about how sources that are actually about advancing Men's Rights are not just marginalized or dismissed, but deleted altogether, whereas feminist sources are held up as "reliable" for the topic of Men's Rights. It's like calling medical literature produced by Tobacco companies "reliable" while, simultaneously, failing to explicitly acknowledge the source of the research, much less its clear conflict of interest in relation to the topic.--Cybermud (talk) 18:19, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

'Feminist sources', as you label them, meet our sourcing guidelines as laid out at WP:RS. These guidelines are content-agnostic. If you are aware of pro-MRA sources of equivalent quality, please share them so that they can be incorporated in to the article. We consider academic sources to be the highest quality, so it would be fabulous if you could post some pro-MRA academic sources. Neutrality does not require that we represent all viewpoints equally. We represent viewpoints in a way that is roughly proportionate to how they are represented in reliable sources. If reliable sources represent primarily one viewpoint, that's fine, and our article will then represent that as the mainstream viewpoint. Kevin (talk) 19:18, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In case you missed it, I'm ok with feminist "research" as long as it is identified as such. Pretending it's the "mainstream" view is not ok though. Regarding "content agnostic" policies you are aware that policies can be facially neutral but disproportionately affect one group or another in adverse ways or be enforced in ways that are massively and pervasively biased? The examples of such are legion, but you may want to take a look at way blacks and whites are treated by the American legal system and the disparity in punishment in drug laws against crack cocaine versus powder cocaine (in spite of them both being the same drug.) Further, while your giving editorial advice and dictating policies to others you may want to suggest to the editors that seem to share your opinion on what this article should look like that they shouldn't refer to other editors as "activists" (for men's rights or anything else.) In closing, allow me to remind you that this is a TALK PAGE. WP:RS is for article space, not talk page content. If and when you see me cite AVfM in articles you can copy and paste this noise about how AVfM is not a project of Gawker Media (the relevance of such is beyond me though.. American Media publishes several reliable sources... it also publishes the National Enquirer.. ---Cybermud (talk)} previous comment was unsigned, signing for him for clarity

I asked you earlier to do so, but to ask again: please post some pro-MRA academic sources so that they can be incorporated in to the article. Wikipedia articles are supposed to represent all points of view present in reliable sources in a way that is roughly proportionate to the fraction of reliable sources that hold them. To quote Jimbo, "If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts." (We consider academic sources to be of the highest quality. Pro-MRA papers published in peer reviewed academic journals would be ideal, and pro-MRA sources published by academic presses would be great too. Other sources like news articles and popular press books can be informative too, but the backbone of this article should really be coming from scholarly sources.)

You are perfectly correct that this is a talk page and not an article. As I explicitly mentioned in a comment below this one, I do not think that WP:RS is relevant for deciding what media links to include on a talk page. The comment that you responded to was entirely about the content of the article, not the content of this talk page.

Please make an active effort to follow the terms of the article probation in any future responses that you may make. Parts of your post seem like you are deriding the comments of other editors, which could have you run in to trouble. Kevin (talk) 19:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:RS, Jezebel is a reliable source. A voice for men, while it's very important for you, as a Men's Rights Advocate, is nothing more than a blog. Hipocrite (talk) 18:27, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd actually be interested in a discussion on the RSN about Jezebel, if you happen to have a link. If it hasn't been brought up yet, I'll try to do so soon. Arkon (talk) 18:31, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Search for "Gawker Media," and you'll see that all the other sub-sites are typically seen as reliable. Jezebel hasn't come up because it hasn't been used - however, let's be explicitly clear, while there might be some reasoned discussion from informed parties about Jezebel's reliability, there would be no doubt that A voice for men is not a reliable source for anything. Hipocrite (talk) 18:36, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To be equally clear, Jezebel's reliability is what I am questioning. AVFM certainly isn't. Arkon (talk) 18:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind that reliability depends on context. I wouldn't think that Jezebel would be reliable for everything, but I do think that they will meet RS in at least some contexts, since they have an editorial staff, are run by an established company, and have a reputation for at least decent coverage. That said, I don't think that Jezebel has to be a RS to be worth mentioning as a media mention. It has full time staff, editorial oversight, and a very substantial viewership. (If there's coverage in other equivalent sources, it should be mentioned... but AVM is not an equivalent source.) Kevin (talk) 19:18, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll bring it up on the RS/N unless someone beats me to it. Arkon (talk) 19:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, it'd be a good idea for everyone to remember that this article is still under probation. The terms of the probation can be viewed here. Please keep this in mind while editing and don't do things like refer to other people's editing as 'doctrinaire and oppressive.' Kevin (talk) 19:23, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi cybermud. I'm not familiar with the source you've provided but it sounds like it's being rejected as a reliable source because it's more of an OP-ED type of site. However, if you disagree with this assessment and find yourself unable to build a consensus to use it here, you can get neutral, uninvolved opinion at our reliable sources notice board. There, the editors will probably give you a more in depth response than you might find on any given talk page. Good luck. N^oformation ^Talk 20:58, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings to all - I added an external link to the Men's rights page and it appears to have taken all of 14 minutes before someone removed it (the link was to a site I created - www.menstribune.com). An email to me suggested there was a conflict of interest with the supposed neutrality of of the Wikipedia site. I find this to be a little short of remarkable. The title "Men's rights" is inherently biased towards men and resources on the subject should be expected to so biased. Yet links to men's rights sites are removed and under "See also" we have links to "Feminism" and "Women's rights" which are not only biased on their face but are in opposition to men's rights. The idea that a site entitled "Jezebel" is a "reliable" source for men's rights is like saying Lucifer is a reliable representative of God.

I belong to no organization but because I speak on men's rights someone could say I am naturally biased because I am a man. But then the same could be said of women, and because we are all male or female everyone could be said to have a bias one way or another and therefore no one may speak on the subject. Furthermore, I have no commercial interest of any kind and engage in no self promotion (Although it could be said that anyone who signs his name to an article is engaging in self promotion to some degree). I do promote the interests of a group - i.e. men, but Wikipedia promotes the interests of women with its link to "Women's rights". I must add that I do not find the articles on Feminism and Women's rights to be the least bit reliable. The idea that women are pursuing "equality" is an outrageous lie, or worse - a half lie. Wherever men have had an advantage feminists insisted on being on equal terms with them. But when the advantage was woman's no such claims for equality were made. There are something like 16 men in prison for every woman; I ask you - have you every heard a feminist campaigning for a quota system to put equal numbers of women in prison? I know this is not the place for political argument but anyone can claim something is a "lie" or that something is "reliable" without proof so I thought I would make just one point to give my charge some merit.

Lastly I would like to address some of the reasons/methods/devices employed here to ironically deny men their rights to free speech and of the press here on the Men's right's page. We live in a society dominated by women, so the larger and more established and more mainstream something is the more it will be biased in the interests of women. If the norm and status quo are permitted to be the only rule of conduct no change can ever be made for every new idea goes against established thinking. No oppressed minority group could ever get their equal rights if they need be established before making their claims. I am a self appointed men's rights activist because I have to be. There are no national men's organizations to speak of that could elect me. No national media agency or university would dare hire me for fear of offending women. It is true that for some things the established media is for reliable. I have no hookup to a weather satellite, I cannot afford to hire reporters to fly around the world to cover events. I can remember as a young boy (I am 54 now) that you can only believe about 10% of what you read. I don't know which is worse the media member who begins with a legitimate unbiased fact and puts such a spin on it so as to cause it to promote a certain view, or the college professor who hides his biased agenda in the most high-sounding, sanitized academic language. - Tom Pollock — Preceding unsigned comment added by Men's Tribune (talk • contribs) 02:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the very first paragraph, I replaced the phrase "logical opposite" with "natural complement."

The "logical opposite" of women's rights is "not women's rights," which could mean many things--none of them "men's rights."

Divergentgrad (talk) 23:27, 30 October 2011 (UTC)divergentgrad, 30/10/2011[reply]

I agree that 'logical opposite' didn't really work - men's rights are not in logical opposition to women's rights. I also feel iffy about 'natural complement', but it's definitely better at least. Thanks for making the change. Kevin (talk) 18:42, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The phrase "natural complement" seems rather disingenuous to me. While the original Men's liberation movement in the early 70s was about opposing all forms of sexism, that movement split into 2 factions - pro-feminist and anti-feminist. The current "men's rights movement" (which this article is substantially about), falls decidedly in the 2nd camp. While men's rights and women's rights may sound complimentary on paper, they seem to be opposing factions in reality. Kaldari (talk) 19:37, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kaldari, if you want to discuss how the "men's rights" movement is anti-feminist, you have to tell us to which branch of feminism you are referring. Obviously neither the men's rights movement, nor this article, are decidedly against women's rights, which many feminists describe feminism as being about. We should not be surprised, however, that some faction of the movement described in the article is against some level of hatred of men, which is espoused by some feminist groups. So even if this movement is anti-misandry, it is not necessarily by-and-large anti-women's rights. And therefore it is still accurate to describe men's rights as complementary to women's rights, even if you take the position that men's rights and women's rights are only terms being used to describe specific movements.

Anyway, even if I accepted your premise, to me it would still be a distortion to say men's rights is the "logical opposite" of women's rights. If you have a better way of saying that "there are men out there who want to work for men's rights in the same way women have worked for women's rights," my brain is open. 173.133.187.36 (talk) 13:23, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, looking over the article in detail, you will see that the so-called "men's rights movement" to which you refer is hardly mentioned except in the History section, which is hardly a paragraph. So you would need to make a stronger case that this article is "substantially about" the "men's rights movement" which began in the US.173.133.187.36 (talk) 13:27, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely wouldn't support "logical opposite". Both "logical opposite" and "natural compliment" seem overly simplistic. Clearly the relationship is complicated. If it wasn't complicated, we could just merge men's rights and women's rights with human rights. (And we wouldn't have people on this talk page complaining about a "feminist" or "men's rights" agenda.) The complication is that these rights are being defined and fought for within the context of specific movements, and these movements don't seem to see eye to eye. Kaldari (talk) 18:03, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Kaldari, neither is a good choice. There is nothing either logical or natural about this topic. If anything it is a political opposite, and a social complement. But it is more correct to say that it is presented as a reaction to women's rights.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:06, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would disagree with that, as it's not a "reaction" to women's rights, that's a simplification of a complicated matter as well. If your talking about the movement, then it's a reaction to what they see as an oppression of men's rights, (not actually a response to women's rights movement, as if MRAs didn't believe their rights were being infringed the movement wouldn't exist) I personally think we are making a opinion without supporting source and should completely remove that part. TickTock2 (talk) 19:05, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be fine with doing so until a source is brought up. Kevin (talk) 19:19, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, removing as I've seen no objections. TickTock2 (talk) 14:43, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have to admit, I see nothing wrong with the statement that "men's rights is a subset of human rights and a complement to women's rights." In fact, without counting people whose sex is neither male nor female, in the strictest sense of all the words used in that sentence, that statement is axiomatically true. The set of human rights can be partitioned into women's rights and men's rights (all humans are either male or female under our assumptions) and the complement of men's rights is women's rights. If you like I can draw a diagram.Divergentgrad (talk) 17:16, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But do you have any sources for any of this? This whole thing seems like clear original research to me. Let's find some sources saying what men's rights are, rather than trying to make up a definition ourselves. Also I'd suggest waiting to write the lead until the actual article is done. The lead is supposed to summarize the article, and the article is such a mess it doesn't seem worth the effort at present to try and finalize anything in the lead yet. --Slp1 (talk) 23:20, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there's no reason to work on the lead right now. My point in editing first was to correct something false. But there is no OR in noting that, if "humans' rights" are "the rights of men and women," and we want to know the Complement_(set_theory) of "women's rights," then it is, axiomatically, "men's rights." That is, again, assuming we take all humans to fall under the categories "man" and "woman," which is not really true when people use very precise language(we have to decide about children, intergender, etc); but there is unlikely to be a discussion about "girls' rights" and "boys' rights," and "intergender rights" will likely belong to some combination of subsets of "queer rights," and therefore belong to both men's and women's rights, thus destroying the whole partition idea. My point being, there is no OR since it is axiomatic given the assumptions--completely aside from the debate over whether or not the statement is needed. (My feeling is no, since it's such a trivial observation anyway.)Divergentgrad (talk) 01:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

... really the whole formulation is problematic. The above is not really true. Sure, the set of humans might be partitioned thus; but their rights, let's hope, cannot be in the sense implied above. Nonetheless I stand by my observation that the loosely understood "complement," as that which completes, needs no source to be used in its sense. When you combine women's rights and men's rights, assuming all humans to belong to either of those sets, you surely get human rights.Divergentgrad (talk) 01:28, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am surprised not to see anything in this article about education. If anyone is willing to put in some digging through the recent sociology literature, there has been some work done recently relating lower success rate in school for boys to the lack of male teachers in early years--especially in communities where fathers or both parents are absent for one or another reason (in particular, work or prison).

There is also no discussion on this page about how Title IX affects boys' sport teams in high schools, though I have seen numerous news stories about (in some cases) the 1) lack of demand for girls' teams, coupled with 2) the need to meet Title IX requirements, resulting in boys being unable to play sports locally. Only a few weeks ago I read about a boy who wanted to play field hockey, and had to ask to play on the girls' team because there was no funding available for a boys' team due to Title IX requirements. (Naturally, he was not allowed to play.)Divergentgrad (talk) 17:12, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be interested in a section on Title IX, I just haven't worked up any good sources to do so, I'd welcome any addition to the article about it. TickTock2 (talk) 17:54, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why this article doesn't cover this subject? That is a very important point and needs to be addressed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_circumcision

http://menshealth.about.com/od/genitalsexualissues/a/circum_comp.htm

http://www.circumstitions.com/Complic.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.230.156.66 (talk) 19:40, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad you think it's important, however the source has to discuss it in relation to Men's Rights, which I didn't see any of yours that did so. If you have any we'd welcome any useful additions. TickTock2 (talk) 20:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've added in a brief section on circumcision. Note that 2 of my 3 sources directly relate the concept of "men's rights" to circumcision. See, it's not that hard! Interestingly the best reference was actually an article on genital mutilation from a feminist magazine. It included quotes like: "Women’s defense of men’s right to bodily integrity and their work against MGM [circumcision] will not have a negative impact on their struggle against FGM" and "When women acknowledge that gender issues include men’s rights as well, more open-minded men will support women’s rights." Kaldari (talk) 07:12, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kaldari, I'm not sure it makes sense to include the phrase, "including feminists." In context, it is a rather pointed statement--if it weren't, it would be similar to say, "including Muslims," or, "including grocers," and equally irrelevant. Whether it was meant to prove a point about feminists or not (I think it probably serves the former purpose), I recommend removing it.Divergentgrad (talk) 16:00, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just thought it was an interesting bit of information since the men's rights movement typically portrays feminists as being unsupportive of men's rights (indeed our article says this twice). I'll remove it for now. Perhaps a more in-depth explanation could be given about the intersections between the anti-FGM and anti-MGM movements at some point in the future, as it is an interesting confluence. Kaldari (talk) 17:31, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about the men's rights movement. But if this article is trying to be about "men's rights," which it appears to doing at this point, I think it's good to leave it out. What's anti-FGM and anti-MGM?Divergentgrad (talk) 00:00, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-FGF means anti-female-genital-mutilation and anti-MGM means anti-male-genital-mutilation. I just learned this yesterday :) Kaldari (talk) 02:24, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Going back for a second to the health section, it was brought up previously that someone would try to find sources that tie the cancer section to men's rights but this has not been done and I'm skeptical that it can be done. There are no "rights" to have people research a particular cancer that affects one gender or another, and the section doesn't make sense in a rights context, at least in the way that "rights" is normally used. If someone can get sources for this we maybe should keep it depending on the sources, but we should remove it otherwise. N^oformation ^Talk 20:40, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, at least for the United States. Since funding for cancer research comes from the government, and thus taxpayers, I think it relates perfectly to rights. Men may feel that money is taken from them on the good faith that it will be used to benefit the health concerns of the people of the nation in a way unbiased toward a particular gender. If money is not spent in a way that benefits men and women equitably, then this is a violation of that trust. Divergentgrad (talk) 21:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I am going to change the figures quoted in the cancer section to reflect numbers from a more trustworthy source (currently, the reference is a Businessweek article--hardly worthy). The American Cancer Society estimated in 2010 there were 39840 deaths to breast cancer and 32050 deaths to prostate cancer. That coupled with the fact that more men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and the vastly disproportionate spending, I think that this is a case that needs to remain in the article. Let me reinforce that: this page (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/NCI/research-funding) shows that less than half the amount spent on breast cancer is spent on prostate cancer. This page: (http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurveilance/documents/document/acspc-026210.pdf) shows that there are more than 80% as many deaths from prostate cancer each year (as of 2010, but the number climbs) as there are deaths from breast cancer.Divergentgrad (talk) 21:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More interestingly, when you add up the dollars and deaths on prostate, testicular, and penile cancer, and compare them to the dollars and deaths on breast and female genital cancers, the disparity is undeniable.Divergentgrad (talk) 21:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's not relevant. Do any reliable secondary sources discuss cancer with respect to Men's rights? (Again, this problem would go away if this article was about the Movement). Hipocrite (talk) 22:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hipocrite, can you suggest an article where this section belongs? Certainly it belongs somewhere; it is known, and therefore has a place in an encyclopedia. Let's not delete it before we find or decide its proper home.Divergentgrad (talk) 22:16, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could you list your other wikipedia accounts, please? It belongs in an article about the fringe group of "Men's rights activists," as one of their outlandish claims. Hipocrite (talk) 22:18, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Debates about the relevancy of this section aside, I think your suggestion that the two separate documents from the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute are somehow coming from fringe, "men's rights activist" groups is a little silly. Could you explain to me the link between the ACS, NCI, and fringe "men's rights activist" groups? (To answer your personal question, I have no other Wikipedia accounts. I have made note on your talk page of your personal attacks here and I hope you will answer my request for at least a note of apology or acknowledgment of wrongdoing.)Divergentgrad (talk) 02:51, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This edit was highly problematic OR by SYNTH - specifically, "Thus, while more than 80% as many deaths occur due to prostate cancer, less than 50% as much money supports prostate cancer research," which is a comparison not drawn by any of the presented texts. Hipocrite (talk) 22:13, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

These are just numbers. 300 is half of 600 and 32 is 80% of 40 (I only approximate here for brevity; no such approximation went into the statement). There is no "synth" other than that of putting, nearly literally, one and one together to make two.Divergentgrad (talk) 22:16, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They are multiple numbers squished together in violation of WP:SYNTH. You do a ratio, then another ratio, and say that the difference in those ratios has meaning. No source discusses the difference in those ratios. It's really textbook. Hipocrite (talk) 22:18, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fine, then--leave the ratios in and take out the "yet"! The ratios belong to their respective papers, and not to me. They remain true, especially in the context I gave them: namely, "American Cancer Society reports X," "National Cancer Institute reports Y."Divergentgrad (talk) 22:22, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Either way, the original statement here is biased. It suggests that prostate cancer has a relatively low death rate without saying how much lower, and that spending is lower without saying how much lower. And the source for this statement is still not very good.Divergentgrad (talk) 22:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Again, a textbook violation of OR by SYNTH. Please read WP:SYNTH. Hipocrite (talk) 22:25, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will happily take out the last sentence of my edit. The rest of my edit was true and not OR.Divergentgrad (talk) 22:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please do get back to me if you have any objection to my writing, "The American Cancer Society reports that X is spent on," etc., and "The National Cancer Institute reports that X people die of," etc. Otherwise we just have this biased and poorly-sourced statement that suggests that this concern is not really valid.Divergentgrad (talk) 22:30, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it was. Review WP:SYNTH. Unless you have a source that compares the two ratios, stating them next to each other is begging the question (and the question is wrong, and embarrassingly so, to you, given the onset age and treatment rate of breast cancer and prostate cancer. Your comparison ignores both of those major factors, to your unknown embarrassment). This will be my final edit here, except to state that I am right, and if you restore the comparison without strong consensus, I will seek to have you banned from further editing. Hipocrite (talk) 22:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have read WP:SYNTH. Perhaps my comparison ignores those factors, but yours is sourced no better than mine; the Businessweek article gives no indication of sources. If you will not allow my edit to be placed, then I will ask you to delete the offending sentence entirely, or provide a better source for it. Your threat itself is bullying and I don't know to what extent that is tolerated on Wikipedia.Divergentgrad (talk) 22:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No. Buisnessweek is a reliable source. If it were not, we must remove all content sourced to Buisnessweek. Hipocrite (talk) 22:36, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of the WP:SYNTH issue, the cancer section has nothing to do with Men's rights. Men's rights are defined in the lead as "an umbrella term, encompassing the political rights, entitlements, and freedoms of males". How much is spent on prostate cancer and how much the media covers it isn't a right. Unless you have a source explaining how this is connected to men's rights, it should be removed. Kaldari (talk) 22:37, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly agreed. Hipocrite (talk) 22:38, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As do I. Slp1 (talk) 23:33, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This looks like it's covered elsewhere, such as in this article. Might be some good sources too, such as this. Arkon (talk) 22:49, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's pretty simple: breast cancer research has a highly organized, vocal, politically savvy activist community behind it. Prostate cancer research does not. So breast cancer research gets more publicity and more federal funding. That shouldn't surprise anyone, and that's basically the gist of the BusinessWeek article.

FWIW, regarding the BusinessWeek article, I think it's a bit misleading to compare the number of drugs on the market to treat breast vs. prostate cancer. Breast cancer is highly chemotherapy-sensitive, whereas prostate cancer is notoriously resistant to most forms of cytotoxic chemotherapy. So there will inevitably be more drugs which are active against breast cancer. That's not evidence of discrimination, but simply a consequence of basic tumor biology. (As a second quibble, Velcade treats multiple myeloma, not leukemia... but now I'm nitpicking).

More to the point, the BusinessWeek article doesn't tie this issue to the men's rights movement. I'm not sure how one would view this as a men's rights issue, except perhaps in the narrowest of terms. After all, even if one is male, one presumably has female friends, family, and loved ones who would benefit from advances in breast cancer research, so it's not exactly like throwing money down the drain. If you're looking for imbalances between the incidences of specific cancers and their level of research funding, there are far more glaring disparities than breast vs. prostate cancer. Hell, the NIH spent $30 million investigating chelation therapy for heart disease, even though we've known since the 1960s that it's ineffective and dangerous. These decisions are political, but I don't see gender bias or a men's rights issue here, and I don't see that reliable sources point to one either. MastCell ^Talk 23:22, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sheesh, now that is a lot of OR. Arkon (talk) 23:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Well, the Masculism article isn't anything to emulate, and the business week article is all about a prostrate cancer group arguing that they want more funding and attention to their cause, and comparing what they get to other illnesses (including breast cancer). Not exactly a surprising activity for an advocacy group. There's no mention of men's rights, at all. That article might be a suitable source in the prostrate cancer article, but it has nothing to do with this one. Slp1 (talk) 23:33, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The entire article is riddled with references to the "Gender Gap" in regards to this area. I am quite confused how this wouldn't be relevent in an article about Men's rights. Arkon (talk) 23:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. The only actual mention of "gender gap" is in the title. And the article is not about a gender gap but about the attributed claims of the National Prostrate Council, an advocacy group for Prostrate cancer. --Slp1 (talk) 23:42, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about that, misspoke on the riddled, though "cancer gap" is mentioned in the body as well. However, this is a RS, making straight comparisons between how a men's and women's health issues are treated with regards to cancer. I am going to need some convincing if your position is that it's not relevent to this article. Arkon (talk) 23:54, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how to explain it more clearly: a prostrate advocacy organization is complaining about a "cancer gap" in order to get more funding for their cause. Do you really think that is a good source for an objective claim that there actually is a men's rights issue here? When the prostrate organization doesn't claim there is a men's rights issue? When the more neutral voice of businessweek actually points out the some of the reasons for the discrepancies? That has been the whole problem with this article: editors pick out various stats from sources and claim that there is a men's rights issue because there is some sort of discrepancy between genders. We don't do that kind of original research here. We need sources that mention the issue of men's rights, as has been pointed out over and over again on this page by numerous experienced editors. Slp1 (talk) 00:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I really believe that this is published in a RS, yes, and is clearly related to this article. Your opinion of the organizations motives is meaningless. As you've noted, it's titled 'A Gender Gap in Cancer', reflecting, as the article notes "glaring disparities" in awareness, funding, media coverage, and research between prostate and breast cancer. If the source lists reasons for some of the discrepancies, include that too. No, we don't need every source to explicitly say 'This is a men's rights issue', you are misrepresenting what OR is. Arkon (talk) 00:17, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We should have references that do refer to men's rights in regards to the subjects at hand. If we could declare that something was a men's rights movement "issue" without a reference to men's rights in that subjects source, then we could declare anything a men's rights issue. SarahStierch (talk)

Not too important considering the comments below, but I don't believe we should ever declare anything to be...anything. Related reliable sources will do that. I appear to have made the mistake of thinking this article was something it was not. Most seem to want to follow the definition of "the political rights, entitlements, and freedoms of males", which IMO is so broad it becomes meaningless. Arkon (talk) 01:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The existence of a gender gap does not make something a men's rights issue. What makes something a men's rights issue is a reliable source saying it is. The problem is that activist editors are attempting to channel their righteous indignation about how terribly men are treated into the article - this very much needs to stop. 00:25, 3 November 2011 (UTC)Hipocrite (talk) 00:20, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) There's no question it is a reliable source, and I've never disputed it. Please avoid strawmen. The "glaring disparities" is a quote from an advocacy organization, and the complaints about funding, media coverage is directly attributed to them as their opinion. It isn't a fact... it is an attributed opinions, and clearly presented as such. And no, we do not connect the dots between random injustices and men's rights without reliable sources making the claim. It is the very essence of verifiability and [[WP:OR|original research. --Slp1 (talk) 00:32, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please see below. Arkon (talk) 00:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In light of the discussion here, I advocate that the entire Health section be removed.Divergentgrad (talk) 23:36, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As consensus appears to be against the cancer section at least, I've removed that paragraph. Kaldari (talk) 23:44, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This section was started 3 hours ago. I haven't read the section you've removed yet, but if it is properly sourced, or can be, I will be restoring it to give others time to weigh in. Arkon (talk) 23:56, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, let's give it a day. If someone can find a source showing that the "cancer gap" is related to men's rights, maybe the consensus will change. Kaldari (talk) 00:10, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this section should be added. If this is all that can be provided...it really doesn't show anything in regards to "men's rights." And advocacy groups really can't be considered neutral resources, IMHO. The information in the article doesn't touch on that, and just shows that prostate cancer gets less funding but has a higher survival rate. I really can't understand how this is problem. SarahStierch (talk) 00:13, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Outdenting (EC). I would like a clear statement of what you fellow editors need before you accept a source to be related enough to be included. Apparently, one explicitly stating a difference in how a men's health issue is treated versus a women's health issue, even using the term 'Gender gap' (BTW, I think you'd find the disambiguation page informative on that), is not related to Men's rights. If it's about 'Bias against men', or 'laws that are unfair to men', would that be good enough? Or must the source have the (quite vague) term men's rights throughout?

I have to think I am misunderstanding something, because OR and SYNTH are being thrown around in ways I've never ever run into before. If possible, could you please tell me what you think this article should be about, because I think my idea must be wrong. Arkon (talk) 00:33, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't the Bias against men article. It the men's rights article. Men's rights is currently defined as "the political rights, entitlements, and freedoms of males". If you have a source that explicitly relates the "cancer gap" to the political rights, entitlements, and freedoms of males then it will be relevant. Otherwise I don't see any reason for it to be in the article. As an analogous example, women have a lot more choice when it comes to buying blue jeans. There are about 100 different styles of blue jeans marketed to women, while there are only about 2 for men. Should we add a section on the "blue jean gap"? Or the "lacy underwear gap"? Sure, cancer is a lot more important than blue jeans, but it still doesn't have anything to do with rights. Kaldari (talk) 00:49, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Kaldari, if others share your opinion, I would think this article shouldn't even exist. Arkon (talk) 00:54, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My personal opinion is that it should exist, but probably under a different title. Oh well. Kaldari (talk) 00:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Thanks for your good questions: I have to run but I am sure somebody else will have time to explain in more detail. But I'll just add my 2 cents that I don't think it is entirely clear what this article should be about yet. There is a suggested move to Men's rights movement above, which should it succeed will clarify the article much better, in my view. But for the present, and to explain the problem, when this fuss started there was lots of information in the article about the rights and privileges held by men at the expense of women! It is certainly one way of interpreting the concept of "men's rights", isn't it?!! Because of this and the other original research claiming various discrepancies in the other direction as "men's rights", we are mostly agreed that we need to find the best sources about "men's rights" and summarize them, rather collecting things that individual editors think are discriminatory and listing them here. Slp1 (talk) 01:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks S1p1, from both of the above comments, I'm drawing a blank on what I would even include in this article. So, I'm generally going to bow out, though I reserve the right to be a nuisance in the future :) Arkon (talk) 01:38, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest searching for "men's rights" on Google books and see what turns up. Kaldari (talk) 01:40, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Haha, if only! It turns up a whoooole lot of stuff which has already been said to not fit in this article. Arkon (talk) 01:44, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I know of one book that discusses cancer in relation to Men's rights and it's Men and gender relations by Bob Pease. I don't have access to it right now, can anyone obtain a copy? TickTock2 (talk) 16:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll see if I can get it. Kevin (talk) 18:57, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with SLP that the article should be moved, and I think that the move discussion has pretty much established a consensus. Unfortunately I've been very busy lately, so I haven't had much time on-wiki lately, but do think the move would be good. Generally, I agree with Kaldari/Hipocrite/SLP on policy issues here. Kevin (talk) 18:57, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you referring to the Cancer section of the article or the entire article itself? If you are talking about the entire article, I believe the move has failed to reach any sort of consensus. TickTock2 (talk) 19:15, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think this discussion has wound down at this point. The consensus still seems to be to remove the cancer section for now. If anyone tracks down Men and gender relations and it proves to be a useful source on the issue, feel free to create some new content on this subject. Kaldari (talk) 02:29, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is there much discussion of stay at home dads (particularly those in a heterosexual relationship where the mother is working) in relation to mens rights? Discussion on this mens right site [26] seems to concentrate on issues arising in divorce which we already touch on. There's obviously the issue of paternity leave which we also touch on but a whole host of other issues, Stay-at-home dad#Disadvantages touches on these to some extent, e.g. social support networks and social acceptence both of which seem to lag quite far behind that for mothers in the workplace in many countries (this may be significantly related to the numbers but it can obviously be a problem) but I don't know if the sources relate it to men's rights. Nil Einne (talk) 14:36, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe there has been any discussions about this. Obviously we can't use the mens rights website as a source, but, if you can find reliable secondary sources that document how stay at home dads relate to the mens rights movement, perhaps it can be added to the article! SarahStierch (talk) 15:05, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is actually a great addition to the article, I'd recommend starting with International encyclopedia of men and masculinities By Michael Flood p192-195. I'm sure there is plenty of good information there about it. (Not to mention there are LOTS more out there, but it's just the first one that came to mind that I had handy). TickTock2 (talk) 15:17, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]