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This article was the subject of an educational assignment in 2013 Q3. Further details were available on the "Education Program:University of Toronto/INF-KMD Knowledge, Media, Culture and Society (SP14)" page, which is now unavailable on the wiki. |
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 January 2022 and 18 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Guancong lance li ( article contribs).
A fact from Chinese dama appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 14 April 2022 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
|
There should be a very good reason for 'Dama' to be capitalised thus. Or if not, we change it to the humble status of a regular noun 'dama'. Onanoff ( talk) 12:13, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
The result was: promoted by
Theleekycauldron (
talk) 21:38, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
The article notes: "Eschewing the volatile stock markets, dama prefer the stability of hard assets and the ability to hand wealth down to their children, but their fervor is causing an unintentional side effect—as reported by Want China Times, these eagle-eyed women “have been credited with driving China’s gold market and the 28 percent global fluctuation in gold prices” in 2013. Their buying spree resulted in a 41.4 percent national increase in gold consumption last year, leading China to surpass India as the world’s largest gold consumer."
The article notes: "Dama, literally means 'big mama,' referring mainly to married women between the age 40-60."
5x expanded by Cunard ( talk). Self-nominated at 10:14, 30 December 2021 (UTC).
ALT1: ... that big mamas caused China to become the biggest purchaser of gold?
A more concise version of the original hook that takes into account Andrew Davidson's feedback below about ALT1 about how "big" means "outsize or fat in a western context".
General: Article is new enough and long enough |
---|
Policy compliance:
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation |
---|
|
QPQ: Done. |
Overall: Thank you for this very comprehensive article on the dama. In response to the above conversation, I have struck ALT0. ALT1 is fine, and is sourced here and in the article by the same citation.
Update: Although my question about length has now been resolved, I have had a re-think about my above review, and I have seen another issue. I shall return shortly and explain. My apologies for any inconvenience caused because I missed something earlier. Storye book ( talk) 10:46, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
My apologies for hesitating a little while before explaining this re-think. It is a seismic change to my attitude to this article, and I wanted to be sure that I was doing the right thing. I am not one of those who are happy to delete articles or to drastically diminish them, and because I appreciate the great effort that it takes to produce a well-written article, I do not like to heavily criticise a creator's work. Therefore, please be patient with my attitude here. Let's think of it in terms of getting things right, and not of any attempt by me to destroy the article.
I have now realised that the general tone and attitude of the article is one that reflects the kind of misogyny towards older women that Western history has seen hundreds of years ago with the concept of witches, and more recently with the concept that older women who knit are stupid, useless, non-persons, with the skill of knitting itself being diminished in the process. That kind of generalisation is always going to be a lie, and in the case of knitting the critics themselves tend to be those who cannot knit themselves, it being an acquired skill requiring mental skills as well as physical ones. Misogyny (in my opinion) is a process of both unfair generalisation, and of intentional diminishment.
This article is carefully written, and as far as I can see, the creator has made a great effort to be fair, to use authoritative citations, and to cite everything conscientiously. The problem, then, is what has been left out. For example (re China and the Chinese diaspora only, of course) omissions include:
I think that an examination of the above would reveal that the much discussed dama image represents only a tiny fraction of middle aged Chinese women, and (I'm guessing) represents very few middle-aged women in the Chinese diaspora.
Another way to balance the neutrality of this article would be to look at the percentages of other types of middle-aged Chinese women. For example:
Now, I am not saying that the dama type does not exist, but the concept of the dama does not come from women who fit the dama type. It comes from outsiders who are not like them, and who are more likely to be men than women, because every Chinese woman is going to be middle-aged eventually and they must be aware of that.
Perhaps the most important point here is that Chinese women of the dama type are not given a voice. There is only one commentator (Teng Wei) hidden away at the bottom of the article which says that "It's ageist, classist — and it's time to stop".
Conclusion: I don't think that I can pass this article for DYK until its neutrality is balanced to the extent that if any middle-aged Chinese intelligent businesswoman were to read the article, they would not feel that all Chinese women of middle age were being generalised as potentially a dama who is potentially some sort of uneducated clown. If you are happy to adjust the article for neutrality, I would be happy to wait until you have completed that task, and to re-assess it. I repeat that the article is beautifully-written, and I can see the excellent work that has gone into it. The problem is just that there is so much missing that it is unbalanced on the side of misogyny.
I must add that all of the above, that I have written today, is my opinion. Should you wish to dismiss me as a reviewer, and request another reviewer, I shall respect that. Storye book ( talk) 17:47, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
Regarding "Perhaps the most important point here is that Chinese women of the dama type are not given a voice", I reviewed and cited numerous news articles, journal articles, and books. Some of these authors may have been written by middle-aged Chinese women (I did not check their ages). But I could not find a single source where the author(s) self-identified themselves as "damas" so I cannot call them damas in the article. "Dama" has become a pejorative term like Karen (slang) which may be why people generally don't self-identify.Shortly before leaving Chengdu, the capital of China's southwestern Sichuan province at the end of 2017, I sent an informal survey to some friends on the popular Chinese messaging platform WeChat. This survey contained only one question: “how would you describe a dama?” ... The differences in people's responses did not catch my attention as much as the fact that nearly everyone who received the survey offered an answer. The specifics varied, but each person held a clear and developed picture of a dama in his or her mind's eye. On another occasion, my friend Xia— an educated and well-traveled woman in her late twenties, told me that it's impossible to pin down an exact description of a dama because “they like to dress differently for different occasions,” but that “you know one when you see one.”
Although I do not agree that the article is "unbalanced on the side of misogyny", I agree that like all Wikipedia articles, the article has a lot of room for improvement. I agree that "the much discussed dama image represents only a tiny fraction of middle aged Chinese women, and (I'm guessing) represents very few middle-aged women in the Chinese diaspora". There was no intention for the Wikipedia article to convey this message. Perhaps some of the wording could be made more clear that this is a stereotype and a pejorative term that in no way represents all Chinese middle-aged women, so I welcome examples of sentences that convey the wrong message and should be reworded. Perhaps the article can be expanded to include more perspectives from damas themselves. But to do that, sourcing has to be found to support this information.
You say you have insufficient sources for the provision of balance, and you ask me to suggest new wording for you. This is a long and complex article, and I am supposed to be reviewing it, not re-writing such a large piece. If you are unable to improve the balance of the article for whatever reason, I feel that I cannot find it in my conscience to pass it for DYK as it stands. – I went through the article myself and do not find anything unbalanced or biased. I asked you to point out any sentences you find to be unbalanced or biased in case I overlooked anything.
I suggest that you find another reviewer. – yes, I would like another reviewer. I cannot act on the suggestions made so far without violating Wikipedia:No original research and WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS.
I'm picking this up as a reviewer. Here are my initial thoughts:
More anon. Andrew🐉( talk) 17:01, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Note again that the Chinese Wikipedia disambiguates, to treat these as separate topics. If we run that through Google Translate, it renders it as
Aunt may refer to:
This loses something in translation, of course, but shows that the Chinese think that these are separate. So my point is that we perhaps need to be more careful in conflating them.
Sorry to be pedantic about this but it seems essential to clarify what the topic is exactly. I suppose it's #5 in the list above but we need to define this more clearly at the outset.
Andrew🐉( talk) 11:30, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
"Chinese damas" is a term that has had multiple meanings over time. This article discusses those multiple meanings. I don't think discussing the historical background of why the term has multiple meanings violates WP:DICDEF.
Regarding, "some of my Chinese friends and acquaintances who have lived and worked for some years in several of the largest cities in China tell me that they have never heard of da ma's behaving in the way described in the article", this is original research. The article is based on what reliable sources say about damas. From Wikipedia:No original research#Verifiability, "Wikipedia's content is determined by previously published information rather than by the personal beliefs or experiences of its editors."
I've removed the photo.
Cunard ( talk) 08:36, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
Time to cut this knot: I find the article to be good enough and neutral enough, not unfairly representing matters. I also find that Tbhotch's ALT1 hook is the hookiest, and that the addition of quotation marks removes the direct reference to a stereotype that is widely held in some but not all communities where English is one of the main languages. Drmies ( talk) 18:19, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
ALT1 to T:DYK/P1This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article was the subject of an educational assignment in 2013 Q3. Further details were available on the "Education Program:University of Toronto/INF-KMD Knowledge, Media, Culture and Society (SP14)" page, which is now unavailable on the wiki. |
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 January 2022 and 18 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Guancong lance li ( article contribs).
A fact from Chinese dama appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 14 April 2022 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
|
There should be a very good reason for 'Dama' to be capitalised thus. Or if not, we change it to the humble status of a regular noun 'dama'. Onanoff ( talk) 12:13, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
The result was: promoted by
Theleekycauldron (
talk) 21:38, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
The article notes: "Eschewing the volatile stock markets, dama prefer the stability of hard assets and the ability to hand wealth down to their children, but their fervor is causing an unintentional side effect—as reported by Want China Times, these eagle-eyed women “have been credited with driving China’s gold market and the 28 percent global fluctuation in gold prices” in 2013. Their buying spree resulted in a 41.4 percent national increase in gold consumption last year, leading China to surpass India as the world’s largest gold consumer."
The article notes: "Dama, literally means 'big mama,' referring mainly to married women between the age 40-60."
5x expanded by Cunard ( talk). Self-nominated at 10:14, 30 December 2021 (UTC).
ALT1: ... that big mamas caused China to become the biggest purchaser of gold?
A more concise version of the original hook that takes into account Andrew Davidson's feedback below about ALT1 about how "big" means "outsize or fat in a western context".
General: Article is new enough and long enough |
---|
Policy compliance:
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation |
---|
|
QPQ: Done. |
Overall: Thank you for this very comprehensive article on the dama. In response to the above conversation, I have struck ALT0. ALT1 is fine, and is sourced here and in the article by the same citation.
Update: Although my question about length has now been resolved, I have had a re-think about my above review, and I have seen another issue. I shall return shortly and explain. My apologies for any inconvenience caused because I missed something earlier. Storye book ( talk) 10:46, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
My apologies for hesitating a little while before explaining this re-think. It is a seismic change to my attitude to this article, and I wanted to be sure that I was doing the right thing. I am not one of those who are happy to delete articles or to drastically diminish them, and because I appreciate the great effort that it takes to produce a well-written article, I do not like to heavily criticise a creator's work. Therefore, please be patient with my attitude here. Let's think of it in terms of getting things right, and not of any attempt by me to destroy the article.
I have now realised that the general tone and attitude of the article is one that reflects the kind of misogyny towards older women that Western history has seen hundreds of years ago with the concept of witches, and more recently with the concept that older women who knit are stupid, useless, non-persons, with the skill of knitting itself being diminished in the process. That kind of generalisation is always going to be a lie, and in the case of knitting the critics themselves tend to be those who cannot knit themselves, it being an acquired skill requiring mental skills as well as physical ones. Misogyny (in my opinion) is a process of both unfair generalisation, and of intentional diminishment.
This article is carefully written, and as far as I can see, the creator has made a great effort to be fair, to use authoritative citations, and to cite everything conscientiously. The problem, then, is what has been left out. For example (re China and the Chinese diaspora only, of course) omissions include:
I think that an examination of the above would reveal that the much discussed dama image represents only a tiny fraction of middle aged Chinese women, and (I'm guessing) represents very few middle-aged women in the Chinese diaspora.
Another way to balance the neutrality of this article would be to look at the percentages of other types of middle-aged Chinese women. For example:
Now, I am not saying that the dama type does not exist, but the concept of the dama does not come from women who fit the dama type. It comes from outsiders who are not like them, and who are more likely to be men than women, because every Chinese woman is going to be middle-aged eventually and they must be aware of that.
Perhaps the most important point here is that Chinese women of the dama type are not given a voice. There is only one commentator (Teng Wei) hidden away at the bottom of the article which says that "It's ageist, classist — and it's time to stop".
Conclusion: I don't think that I can pass this article for DYK until its neutrality is balanced to the extent that if any middle-aged Chinese intelligent businesswoman were to read the article, they would not feel that all Chinese women of middle age were being generalised as potentially a dama who is potentially some sort of uneducated clown. If you are happy to adjust the article for neutrality, I would be happy to wait until you have completed that task, and to re-assess it. I repeat that the article is beautifully-written, and I can see the excellent work that has gone into it. The problem is just that there is so much missing that it is unbalanced on the side of misogyny.
I must add that all of the above, that I have written today, is my opinion. Should you wish to dismiss me as a reviewer, and request another reviewer, I shall respect that. Storye book ( talk) 17:47, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
Regarding "Perhaps the most important point here is that Chinese women of the dama type are not given a voice", I reviewed and cited numerous news articles, journal articles, and books. Some of these authors may have been written by middle-aged Chinese women (I did not check their ages). But I could not find a single source where the author(s) self-identified themselves as "damas" so I cannot call them damas in the article. "Dama" has become a pejorative term like Karen (slang) which may be why people generally don't self-identify.Shortly before leaving Chengdu, the capital of China's southwestern Sichuan province at the end of 2017, I sent an informal survey to some friends on the popular Chinese messaging platform WeChat. This survey contained only one question: “how would you describe a dama?” ... The differences in people's responses did not catch my attention as much as the fact that nearly everyone who received the survey offered an answer. The specifics varied, but each person held a clear and developed picture of a dama in his or her mind's eye. On another occasion, my friend Xia— an educated and well-traveled woman in her late twenties, told me that it's impossible to pin down an exact description of a dama because “they like to dress differently for different occasions,” but that “you know one when you see one.”
Although I do not agree that the article is "unbalanced on the side of misogyny", I agree that like all Wikipedia articles, the article has a lot of room for improvement. I agree that "the much discussed dama image represents only a tiny fraction of middle aged Chinese women, and (I'm guessing) represents very few middle-aged women in the Chinese diaspora". There was no intention for the Wikipedia article to convey this message. Perhaps some of the wording could be made more clear that this is a stereotype and a pejorative term that in no way represents all Chinese middle-aged women, so I welcome examples of sentences that convey the wrong message and should be reworded. Perhaps the article can be expanded to include more perspectives from damas themselves. But to do that, sourcing has to be found to support this information.
You say you have insufficient sources for the provision of balance, and you ask me to suggest new wording for you. This is a long and complex article, and I am supposed to be reviewing it, not re-writing such a large piece. If you are unable to improve the balance of the article for whatever reason, I feel that I cannot find it in my conscience to pass it for DYK as it stands. – I went through the article myself and do not find anything unbalanced or biased. I asked you to point out any sentences you find to be unbalanced or biased in case I overlooked anything.
I suggest that you find another reviewer. – yes, I would like another reviewer. I cannot act on the suggestions made so far without violating Wikipedia:No original research and WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS.
I'm picking this up as a reviewer. Here are my initial thoughts:
More anon. Andrew🐉( talk) 17:01, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Note again that the Chinese Wikipedia disambiguates, to treat these as separate topics. If we run that through Google Translate, it renders it as
Aunt may refer to:
This loses something in translation, of course, but shows that the Chinese think that these are separate. So my point is that we perhaps need to be more careful in conflating them.
Sorry to be pedantic about this but it seems essential to clarify what the topic is exactly. I suppose it's #5 in the list above but we need to define this more clearly at the outset.
Andrew🐉( talk) 11:30, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
"Chinese damas" is a term that has had multiple meanings over time. This article discusses those multiple meanings. I don't think discussing the historical background of why the term has multiple meanings violates WP:DICDEF.
Regarding, "some of my Chinese friends and acquaintances who have lived and worked for some years in several of the largest cities in China tell me that they have never heard of da ma's behaving in the way described in the article", this is original research. The article is based on what reliable sources say about damas. From Wikipedia:No original research#Verifiability, "Wikipedia's content is determined by previously published information rather than by the personal beliefs or experiences of its editors."
I've removed the photo.
Cunard ( talk) 08:36, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
Time to cut this knot: I find the article to be good enough and neutral enough, not unfairly representing matters. I also find that Tbhotch's ALT1 hook is the hookiest, and that the addition of quotation marks removes the direct reference to a stereotype that is widely held in some but not all communities where English is one of the main languages. Drmies ( talk) 18:19, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
ALT1 to T:DYK/P1