Talk:Gender studies/Archive 1

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Physical_attractiveness

I'd like to ask someone watching this topic to have a look and maybe discuss the page on Physical_attractiveness, as it seems to me that many arguments exposed there are clearly biased. In doubt, also check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias

--

Since this particular issue may come up more than once on this topic, I'll note that "him" and "his" are the correct singular, neuter, third-person pronoun and possessive adjective for the English language (this is true for both American and British English). Using "a person's characteristics reflect their true nature" is incorrect because of number disagreement, "person's" being a singular possessive adjective and "their" being a plural possessive adjective.

I'm not going to revert/edit unless I have something substantive to add to the entry, but (popular or not), using "his" or "him" is proper for situations in which there is one person of unknown gender because those words double as both the masculine and neuter singular pronoun and adjective.

Some people who take issue with this fact have begun to use "hisser" instead of "his" and "himmer" instead of "him" (hisser being a bastardized contraction of "his or her", himmer being the same for "him or her"). Neither of these alternatives is formal English at this time so using them in an encyclopedia may not be appropriate, but then again those words won't become official MW or OED English until they're widely used so maybe footnoted usage in this particular entry would be an appropriate starting point for them.

This would be probably a good reason for starting a new topic on language planning geared at removing androcentric structural features of language (in which work and data gathered by Deborah Cameron or Anne Pauwels, amont others, could be mentioned).

-- Endlessnameless

Sigh. Grammatically they are probably not correct. I am sure that many proponents of gender neutral pronouns already know this, but "him" is not really an acceptable term to use. And to avoid this blowing up into a full debate on whether to use gender specific pronouns or not, I think I'm going to reword that sentence to remove reference to gender... Dysprosia 04:42, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think I'm going to reword that sentence to remove reference to gender. Probably the best solution... and a pretty good job of it too. I still think our language needs to develop (or choose) distinct neuter adjectives and pronouns.

-- Endlessnameless

Thanks. And I heartily agree on that last sentiment :) Dysprosia 08:06, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

-This article needs more detail and it should be joined with gender and womens studies, and queer studies. ~

POV Check: Bias flag

I hope I wasn't overstepping in flagging this page as biased. What it looks like to me is that the entire field of psychology is portrayed as supprting the conclusion that evironment plays a much greater role in development than genes. If this isn't the case, if this section is just representing the view of "gender studies," and not psychology in general, that needs to be made much more clear.

Problems:

a) Badly worded. It should stick to talking about the relevance to gender studies, and not try to address general questions of nature vs. nurture. There's a seperate page for that.

b) Badly predicated. This is a really simplistic and fallacious view of the nature vs. nurture debate. "Pernicious dualism" is the relevant term here. Saying that environment plays a greater role than genes just doesn't make any sense; they both play a role in every behavior.

c) Non-NPOV. This is NOT the perspective of modern psychology, and a few references to possible roles for genes does not make it neutral. Maybe it's the perspective of modern gender theory; if so, that needs to be indicated.

d) Uninformed. "Some differences in brain size..." ?! Brain size is not a determinant of anything. This sounds like it's based on 19th century neurology.

Daniel Leavitt 12:06, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I reworked the section. The following two passages oversimplify the debate and are unsourced:

"In general, personality and behavioral differences are believed to be due to learning and conditioning or modeling and imitation rather than purely biologically-based tendencies"

and

"It is widely believed that the environment that a person experiences has a much greater impact upon the development and personality of that person than genetic factors"

"Widely believed" by whom? If these passages cited a review of the literature demonstrating that, say, 80% of articles attributed differences to nurture, I'd be inclined to keep them. But without such a citation, I think they are misleading. My rewrite attempts to keep the references to learning & conditioning and modeling & imitation while putting them in the context of the broader debate. I have not removed the NPOV tags, but I think it might be fair to do so. Jbelleisle 21:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

You weren't overstepping at all. This page is biased. Gender theory is a front for radical gender-feminist political power plays (see misandry and many other dissident feminist writers who weigh in on this such as Wendy McElroy's Sexual Correctness). Many sex-related differences between the sexes have been shown that call into question the whole idea that ALL sex-difference are caused by gender socialization as purported by gender feminist ideologues.

The above unsigned (I can't find any reference to an editor in this talk page's history) comment is biased. There are problems with this page, primarily its lack of depth and the imprecision of its language. These problems need to be addressed. However this not an appropriate place for generalized attacks on gender theory.

An important point about Gender Studies that is lost due this article's poor writing is that 'Gender' is a piece of terminology used to refer to all non-biological (and therefore social or cultural) elements of masculinities and feminities. See Gender. The term "gender" in Gender Theory does not refer to body parts. Gender Studies has its roots in post-feminist and post-structuralist philosophies. Fundamental to its thinking is the Lacanian concept that: Gender is an idea, one created by discourse, one that only exists in langauge. One of the semnal Lacanian influences on Gender Studies has been "sexuation".--Cailil 21:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

history of gender studies?

It seems like this page could benefit from having a section on how gender studies evolved and came to be part of so many universities. This would also give some context to the criticism section. I think it would also make sense to include some of the more conservative criticisms in their too, if there is going to be a criticisms section.

Dfziggy 20:10, 10 August 2006 (UTC)