Talk:Radical feminism/Archive 7

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West Berlin women's center

The recent edit by Lucida Grandissima (talk · contribs) totaling 5kb added three paragraphs to section Radical egalitarianism, and a longer section below it with a new H2 section header entitled, "Basic principles". This latter section is entirely devoted to the West Berlin women's center, and the heading "Basic principles" would have been appropriate (perhaps) in an article by that name, which does not yet exist; but that section title does not work here, and I changed the section name to West Berlin women's center.

I applaud this attempt to add additional perspectives from around the world to this article which has suffered from a narrow, Anglo-saxon regional focus. However, a detailed, point-by-point list of seven founding principles of a 1970s era feminist organization in Berlin is unduly long for this general article about Radical feminism.

The added material might make a good start for a new stub article which could be a child of some parent article in summary style. Or, the content might simply find a better home as a new section at Feminism in Germany. In either case, the material should be moved somewhere, and the section here reduced to a sentence or a brief paragraph, with links to a stub article (or a red link), or Feminism in Germany, or some other article, if appropriate. Mathglot (talk) 02:29, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

This article has a bias problem that has been identified as being too American centric. There really doesn't appear to be a solution to third other than a massive re-write that takes a more international perspective... or sticking in information that provides a narrative perspective outside the Anglo-Saxon default. :( Maybe put the overly US focused definitions and history into Radical feminism in the United States, summarize it more, and then once that is done, better see how the German content is scoped? Wikipedia is a very important source for information and the overly American approach to this can be problematic as it then ends up defining very different national feminist movements in an American perspective when it isn't warranted. In a Spanish context, radical feminism falls into third wave feminism but this article clearly exclusively situates it in second wave-feminism. :/ Unsure why, when there is a globalize tag because of the US perspective, the non-USA experience is the one that you want to mark for removal rather than addressing the broader issue of removing the perspective problem. --LauraHale (talk) 07:44, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

@LauraHale:, thanks for your comment. Regarding the globalize tag that appears in the article, I'm the one who placed it, so trust me, I'm interested in broadening the scope of the article.

I don't want to remove the part about Germany, rather, I worry that a narrow focus on one center in one city in one non-US country gives undue weight to a tiny portion of a big world. I do think it should be included, but don't you think the amount of content is too much for one women's center, and too detailed? OTOH, if this is all we get for now from Europe, then maybe it should be kept until we have more information from other German sources; I don't know. But it just seems way too detailed to quote their mission statement, or whatever those quotations are, in an article about worldwide Radical feminism. if we did that for every US and UK radfem organization for which we have data, the article would be millions of kilobytes long, as there are reams of data about this, and I don't think repeating the minutiae of the Berlin WC down to this level of detail really provides any useful encyclopedic information for readers, so yes, I think it should be cut back because of the weight issue. OTOH, the Feminism in Germany article has a much narrower focus than this article does, and there, a longer treatment would not be out of place by the principles of due weight; that's why I mentioned it might fit better there, with a Summary style synopsis in this article, with a {{Main}} article link to the other one.

Part of the problem in general, is figuring out what the proper amount of space to devote to different regions of the world is; it would be WP:FALSEBALANCE to have an equal amount per country, say, or per region, or by population or anything like that because it would be contrary to WP:NPOV policy concerning WP:DUEWEIGHT. Instead, the breakdown of the article wrt how much material is devoted to what country, should be roughly in proportion to the amount of reliable sources that are available regarding Radical feminism in those countries. Given the large importance of the U.S., it will probably always represent half or 3/4 of the article, and that's okay, if that represents its share of sources. The UK, Australia, and France would take a good portion, and Germany and other European countries a smaller slice. Are there significant sources about Radical feminism regarding the 2.5 billion people in China and India? If not, they get no mention at all, and that will be okay and perfectly according to NPOV policy.

One thing one could do without actually writing content for new countries, is to just find the sources first, and listing them here on the Talk page, perhaps organized by country or region. That could be a first step to broadening the regional scope of the article.

Finally, Lucida Grandissima (talk · contribs) has addressed this topic on my Talk page, but I don't have time to respond, now, but I will tomorrow (Actually, it's the same topic, and the discussion should really be consolidated here, as it's a content issue relevant to this article talk page.) Mathglot (talk) 09:36, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

@Mathglot:, Apologies for taking so long to respond. Yes, there is undue weight for the German information. At the same time though, there is an overall balance problem with the article with broader structural problems that almost demand a complete re-write. But the solution to the problem is not to remove to the German section but how to figure how to better situation everything... and dealing with the German section should also be done in tandem with the nationalist perspective. Both problems need to be dealt with, and the more pressing need appears to be the limited perspective of treating anglo-saxon feminism as the default. Once that's addressed, the obvious problem of too much German text should be dealt with. --LauraHale (talk) 15:39, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

The trigger for this debate

Many countries have their own Wikipedia article on their women's movement, listing all its directions such as socialist, equality and difference feminism with the subdivisions 1st, 2nd, 3rd. and 4th wave in historical sequence in that one country.

In an article on “radical feminism” however, it would be interesting to read how this particular direction of feminism has developed in different countries - e.g. you can see how in the West Berlin Women's Center the ideas coming from New York have been implemented. So, when I cite the West Berlin projects, it is not to write down the history of West Berlin's Women's Center, but to report on aspects that illustrate, make tangible, and bring to life the ideas of radical feminism in practice. I think women today are interested to see “radical feminism” at work. Therefore, I would like to contribute more topics here in this article, about what it meant to run a women’s shelter in a radically feminist way – as an example; or how 7 radically feminist summer universities involved 10,000 women, or how women’s music and film changed through radical feminism.

Why West Berlin? West Berlin is not just another spot somewhere in old Europe - it has played a similar role for Europe as New York did for the US: For decades it was the incubator of new ideas. In relation to continental Europe - what was created in West Berlin for the first time? It was the lesbians movement, Women’s Center, rape crisis center, women's shelter, self-defense center, women’s rock band, international women artist’s exhibition, feminist book distribution, women's health center, feministic bestsellers and feature films, feministic daily radioprogram…. all in just a few years.

The heading I gave to my contribution was “Basic Principles” and it illustrates these principles with examples of the Women's Center West Berlin. Mathgot deleted the heading and put “West Berlin women’s Center” over my text. Accordingly ideas from New York which fed the radical feminism should then get the heading "New York". Do we want that? 46.83.70.227 (talk) 15:44, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi, Lucida,

This looks possibly like a response to the section above rather than a new discussion, but more on that later.

You seem to be addressing two different topics here, as best as I can understand:

1. how best to organize inclusion of material from other countries (a goal I am very interested in myself, having placed the globalize tag currently on the article), and
2. The choice of article section title for the material you added in this edit, under the heading "Basic principles", and which I later changed to "West Berlin Women's Center" in this edit, judging (perhaps mistakenly) that the new section name better summarized the content you added.

Regarding the latter topic (section title): based on the style guide for section titles (MOS:SECTIONS), section titles assume the article subject as a superset; for example, in an article on Luxembourg, you don't want sections entitled, "Luxembourg Highways", "Luxembourg banks", and so on, but just: "Highways", "Banks", and so on. The reason I changed your section title, is that you seemed to be adding quotations by the West Berlin women’s Center, and pretty much everything in that section seemed to be about the WBWC. If you meant to illustrate universal principles of radical feminism, by using some examples from WBWC, rather than talk about WBWC itself, then you're right, the section title should go back to "Basic principles". The latter title would mean: "Basic principles of radical feminism" (but you wouldn't include the last two words, per MOS:SECTIONS). In this case, you couldn't use a whole bunch of quotations of the founding principles from one women's center someplace in the world, as a proxy for Basic principles everywhere; that would be giving one center way too much weight in proportion to all the other outposts of radical feminism around the world. So, if you want to keep the section entitled "Basic principles", by all means do that; but in that case, you're going to have to do a few things:

• clarify (here, on the Talk page) what you see as the purpose of the "Basic principles" section; i.e., what kind of content should go there?
• describe (here) if and how the content of the "Basic principles" section would be different than the content in the already existing Theory and ideology section;
  • If the goals of the two sections are different, then:
    • vastly cut down the information about WBWC in the section to no more than an illustrative sentence, or even better, a footnote
    • talk about Basic principles, and not the founding mission statement of a particular center in some city somewhere
  • If they have essential the same goal: merge any non-duplicate content from your new section into "Theory and ideology" (possibly as a subsection; === Like this subsection title ===)

Regarding your opening this [sub-]section: this appears to be meant to be a reply to the discussion in the section above, #West Berlin women's center? If so, please read WP:TALK about how to post on Talk pages, and in particular, the section on WP:THREADing replies. If you meant it to be a new discussion, then I find the section title The trigger for this debate opaque. It makes more sense as a followup to the previous section, in which case knowledge of proper use of colons for WP:INDENTation will help organize your response in the future. See WP:THREAD. Given where it is now, the best solution is probably to just demote the title to H3 level; I'll do that in a separate edit, so you can undo it if it is not what you intended. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 21:50, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Demoted section #The trigger for this debate to subsection under #West Berlin women's center; feel free to revert this edit, Lucida, if this wasn't your intent. Mathglot (talk) 21:55, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi Mathglot ,

thank you for your explanations. I need a few days to work out alternatives in the way you proposed.Lucida Grandissima (talk) 07:49, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

@Lucida Grandissima: Sure; take your time. And by the way: I'm just another volunteer editor, like you; maybe with more experience, but still. There may be other ways to look at this, and you could comsult Wikipedia policies and guidelines for advice, as well as other editors. Mathglot (talk) 09:15, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

More examples show principles & practice outside the USA

I have shortened my first edit as Mathglot ask me to, but I put “Basic Principle” over the existing “Radical egalitarianism” as this is in fact a part of these principles. I hope very much that the other principles mentioned are now seen as general and not a specialty of West Berlin.

In the Part “Action” I read of a sit-in, an action against Miss America, speak-outs, demonstrations – through which the movement gained momentum – but I miss the actions of radical feminists in the years to come. So I have started to list forms of actions we used in Western Germany – not that we were the only ones to use them - but they show the increasing seriousness of the fight. I hope you can accept it and do not have to dump them into a footnote or sort them under “Germany”.

"Social organization and aims" The article mentions until now: “squats”, “women’s centers in Australia”, “loosely organized university collectives”, “consciousness raising groups” (which by nature were not to stay, but to help new women to formulate their interests). This article shows only two sources: one “The movement also arose in Israel among Jews” and the second defining the aim of reproductive rights, not naming how radical feminists implemented this aim. Hence I think, examples of the implementation of radical feminist aims into the reality should here find a place, I would start with examples of West Germany. Scandinavian and Dutch feminists were very creative and should find room here too. Why is it so important that the article shows some concrete results? In the last decades we witnessed in the academic public an astonishing disregard for radical feminism not knowing of the achieved goals. Therefore it is not enough to formulate “Social organization and aims“ only vaguely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucida Grandissima (talk • contribs) 10:29, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Lucida, I think a lot of the content might be okay, but where you changed the section title from "West Berlin Women's Center" back to "Basic procedures", I think that's a mistake. Under that title, it implies that a series of items you list there are general, basic principles of radical feminism, where there is no evidence of this. You should call it something different, like "Germany", or "German principles" or "Berlin". Calling it "Basic procedures", would imply that the topics you list there such as grassroots democracy, "Immediacy", "Taking oneselves seriously", "Diversity of opinion", "Self-education, not indoctrination", "A movement of enlightenment", and "Autonomy" are the basic principles or "procedures" of radical feminism. You haven't shown this at all. All of the references in this section are from German sources, and half of them are from the West Berlin Women's Center. For example, in the section on "Autonomy" it says, Autonomy: Attempts to coopt the women’s center by institutions or leftist groups were warded off resolutely. This isn't talking about radical feminism in general, it is talking about something specific regarding the WBWC. By what token can this statement possibly be accorded to radical feminism in general? It cannot. The same is true for much of the other points in the section.

Secondly, not only is there no evidence given that this list of items are the "basic procedures" of radical feminism, there is no evidence even, that these are the basic procedures or principles of the German radical feminism, or even of the WBWC itself. "Basic procedures" is just the wrong title for this section. Perhaps it should be something like, "In Berlin", or "In Germany". I don't think you can even get away with "Basic principles in Germany" unless you can find a source that supports that.

Thirdly, where did that bolded list of terms you have leading off each paragraph come from? Is that in the source, or did you summarize it somehow? I mean, where do the terms "Immediacy", "Taking oneselves seriously", and the rest of the terms come from, are those your terms?

If you can come up with a better title for this section, please do so, but I'll change it back if you don't come up with something more accurate in the near future, as the current title is misleading.

As a separate issue, there are multiple problems with the footnotes, including three unlinked, bracketed numbers in the text (probably the result of copy-pasting rendered text, rather than the wikicode), as well as footnotes which have little or not content, and point to other footnotes. Can you please fix those up? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:21, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

No response for some time; renamed this section "West Berlin women's center" again. It still has all the problems previously addressed, but at least the section title isn't misleading, while those are waiting to be addressed. Mathglot (talk) 10:27, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

@Lucida Grandissima:, are you still thinking about this? I plan to cut back this section very significantly or remove it. Do you still have some thoughts about this? Mathglot (talk) 02:52, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Creation of new article West Berlin Women's Center

I've created a new article West Berlin Women's Center from meterial moved out from the Radical feminism article. It doesn't yet seem to make much sense there, either, but at least in its own article work can be done toward sort of resolution about the notability and relevance of this material.

If the West Berlin Women's Center is sufficiently notable to have influenced the entire feminist movement in a significant way, it is surely notable enough to have its own article. Could material that is about the general principles of radical feminism be put back here, with suitable cites, and material which is specific to this one particular group be put into its own article? -- The Anome (talk) 16:44, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Note: the German equivalent de:Frauenzentrum Westberlin is a more typical Wikipedia article. Maybe we can draw from that. -- The Anome (talk) 21:27, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Where is the material on the West Berlin Women's Center?

There is no stand-alone article for it and a Wikipedia search of the name returns a mention about it in Anarcha-feminism. Pyxis Solitary yak 01:20, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Claims not supported by citations, conjecture

>Some radical feminists, such as Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, John Stoltenberg and Monique Wittig, have supported recognition of trans women as women, which they describe as trans-inclusive feminism,[71][72][73]

Claim not supported by citations. Andrea Dworkin never once said that transwomen are women. She should be removed from that list. It would be good to check the writing of Monique Wittig too and see if she ever said such a thing. I know MacKinnon and Stoltenberg did.

>trans-inclusive radical feminists claim that a biology-based or sex-essentialist ideology itself upholds patriarchal constructions of womanhood. Andrea Dworkin argued as early as 1974 that transgender people and gender identity research have the potential to radically undermine patriarchal sex essentialism: "Work with transsexuals, and studies of formation of gender identity in children provide basic information which challenges the notion that there are two distinct biological sexes. That information threatens to transform the traditional biology of sex difference into the radical biology of sex similarity".[73]

Conjecture. The term "sex essentialism" is not used in Dworkin's writing and is not a clearly established term. Further, she does not say that a biology-based definition of womanhood "upholds patriarchal constructions of womanhood." The whole thing is conjecture based on one passage from her first book. (In other books she writes extensively about how female biology relates to women's oppression. See e.g. Our Blood, The Root Cause.)

I've tried to make changes to the page but apparently they need to be reviewed first. I don't trust this review process as pages on Wikipedia keep showing a high amount of bias in favor of transgender activists so I'm pointing out the factual inaccuracies here too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.230.142.115 (talk) 02:58, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree that Dworkin should be removed from the list of those who "have supported recognition of trans women as women". Dworkin never commented publicly about who should be admitted to women-only spaces and projects. Also, Dworkin does not use the phrase "trans-inclusive".

Another reason to omit the term "essentialism" when paraphraisng Dworkin is that it implies falsely that Dworkin agrees with the often made claim that radical feminism, generally, is essentialist.

There is no reason for secondary sources to be used in this section. Authors should be quoted directly when describing radical feminist views. Citing secondary sources in this case is a bad-faith ploy to insert the terms "trans-exclusionary" and "TERFs" into the section. These are terms that are not commonly accepted by radical feminists. When describing radical feminist views, the article should use the terminology preferred by radical feminists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:7BA4:C800:6C81:3F20:D54D:F4E4 (talk) 21:19, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

No - the preceding comment calls for violations of Wikipedia's preference for reliable, secondary sources and the Manual of Style, and should therefore be ignored. Newimpartial (talk) 22:59, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

"Authors should be quoted directly when describing radical feminist views." I don't disagree, because to do otherwise is to interpret their opinions, which is considered original research. However, all statements attributed to an author and all quoted material must be supported with reliable sources because they must be verifiable. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 10:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)