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Hi there! There seem to be a lot of subsections in this article, particularly in the overview, that are incredibly short and could be combined into a larger subsection of sociological and psychological debates of how masculinity is developed and encouraged. Particularly because it is not a "given" or particularly simply answered question of origin, I think that it is misleading to try and put all of these different and contrasting ideas into the "Overview" section. Similarly, trying to integrate these ideas could give the reader a better idea of the sides of the debate, rather than having them scattered throughout the article. Ballinm ( talk) 17:41, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Hi, all! Just like a few of the editors above, I am also doing a few evaluations for a class. I noticed that Connell's Masculinities is referenced in the article, but the only masculinity discussed is hegemonic masculinity. This leaves out subordinate, marginalized, and complicit masculinity from the discussion on Connell. I also noticed that there was a distinct lack of discussion on how masculinity varies between races, as race also informs masculine performance, as well as female masculinities. Would anyone be opposed to adding these topics to the discussion, and if not, what sources might we begin to consider bringing in? Nicrlove ( talk) 06:17, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Maybe ethnicity and nationality instead of race, as social scientists generally are moving away from the idea of biological race. But I think that would be a good addition to this article. AnaSoc ( talk) 02:11, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
The machismo page notes that there are both positive and negative aspects to the concept. In the intro to Maasculinity, we should either note that fact, add it as a subsection below, or delete it altogether. Looking for neutrality here. Your ideas? AnaSoc ( talk) 02:07, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
Fellow masculinity editors. I am in the process of drafting edits to the masculinity entry. One important, yet missing, line of inquiry in the existing entry concerns the "social construction of masculinity." The entry does have some material that suggests some of this theoretical idea, however, I believe the entry could be more streamlined with the addition of a new subsection with this header. I am inclined to insert this section in the Overview section, immediately after the Nurture versus Nature subsection. It makes theoretical and readability sense to include it here. Any thoughts on the addition of this section? I will include some key ideas in this section, but would of course love additional material to expand it. Michaelramirez ( talk) 17:50, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
I agree that there needs to be a social construction section, and I also like the idea of putting it after the nurture v. nature subsection. AnaSoc ( talk) 02:09, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
Hi everyone, I see we talked about a psychological view of masculinity as were as its roots. But, why not add a section on the sociological part of masculinity and why the behavior is portray and taken in , in such way. Emphasizing on the theoretical functions which includes but is not limited to - functionalist perspective, social perspective, economical perspective, and symbolic interactionist perspective. RealWorldddddTalk ( talk) 02:09, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
The text attributed to "Psychological Androgyny: Theories, Methods, and Conclusions." by Taylor and Hall is tagged as dubious. What is dubious about it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sewblon ( talk • contribs) 00:58, 30 March 2018 (UTC) Sewblon 01:02, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
The statement in the introduction:
Has the problem of featuring an idea from gender sociology and politics too highly, wherein masculinity and femininity are just "social constructs" that have nothing to do with 'male biology.' This is inserting gender politics, particularly of the kind which denies that male and female qualities have any relation to physiological and psychological reality. With physiology comes psychology, male or female. And the offered similar terms are in detail different. "Masculinity" is an innate quality, whereas "manliness" is an observed quality that is of wide variance in its meaning, and "manhood" is a social status and rank. So masculinity is first a natural property of males, and later its a sociological property and a component in various political theories. The sources need improvement, with the two references being from an very short outline on women' health on the WHO website, and the other from a sociologist dealing with a very wide overview of sociology. The article continues:
This is vague and goes on to further promote this idea that masculinity and male body and mind have nothing to do with each other. - Inowen ( talk) 10:21, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
distinct fromis not the same as
nothing to do with– that's a false equivalence). The World Health Organization is one of the most reliable sources around. See also the sources quoted under § Biological or social construct?, above. If you want the article to present a different summary, then it's up to you to find sources of equal weight and reliability to these that present an alternative view, or ideally an overview of the relevant scholarly consensus. —14:30, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Inowen. The article at present only presents a sociological view of masculinity, and leaves out the considerable body of biological work on this topic. Cleisthenes2 ( talk) 09:44, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
The statement that "masculinity is a social construct" is itself a political position, and highly debatable. This statement is a politicized redefinition of an existing dictionary word. Political positions such as this belong in separate articles linked to from the main article. The political position does not belong in the lead paragraph to this article. Retaining the sentence in that place contravenes Wikipedia's dedication to unbiased fact. ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.109.230.37 ( talk) 03:21, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
I don't want to rain on your parade ladies'n'gentleman or other. But unless you all want me to politely slap a NPOV Wikipedia:Neutral point of view tag on this controversial addition, I would recommend staying at least neutral with the equal and yet opposite section of femininity. Where the best they were willing to edit this was "Femininity is partially socially constructed, being made up of both socially-defined and biologically-created factors" without invariably causing any debate. For the worthy sake of neutrality. I ardently recommend an equivalent and final edit of this intention until a less controversial, better credited and a more neutral point of view can be added without pushing a political POV on a sociobiology based topic. They have sources and citations that are more relevant and specific to the topic. eg. [1] [2] [3] NZ4Life ( talk) 22:52, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
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The material about Ty Cobb the baseball player is not based on sources about the "role of masculinity in sports". According to Hunter Hampton's review, the book is a biography that "gives primacy to questions of causation, contexts, and consequences" in terms of Cobb's own career as a player. [1] That doesn't make it about sports and masculinity writ large.
The material already exists at Ty Cobb#Legacy. Duplicating it here would be a content fork: "the creation of multiple separate articles (or passages within articles) all treating the same subject. Content forks that are created unintentionally result in redundant or conflicting articles and are to be avoided" (emphasis added).
Wikipedia articles are not places to promote one's favorite characters from history or sports, nor are they an indiscriminate collection of times an author uses a concept as a framing device. Sources should focus on the topic of the article at hand. Therefore, I've removed the material. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 01:05, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
To clarify: if either Tripp or Hampton elaborate on how sports and masculinity themselves are related, then such information may be pertinent to the article. But if we want to give the impression that Cobb himself is seen as a canonical example of a certain type of masculinity, then I think we would need higher-level (e.g. tertiary) sourcing from authors that focus on masculinity in general. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 08:29, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
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I proposed a change yesterday that I think improved the lead of the article, it was blocked by Nblund. At the time of propsal the lead of Femininity read the exact same way (as my edit), and I stated as such. After blocking my edit, Nblund never having contributed to Femininity before, changed the lead of the Femininity to match the previous version of Masculinity I thought to change. Nblund clearly sought to check and fix it after I pointed out that it contradicted their beliefs. User Crossroads attempted to write in a compromise on this language for both articles and Sangdebeouf reverted the edit on both articles (also having never contributed to femininity before). It's obvious that Nblund and Sangdebeouf are of the same opinion and dare I say abusing their station on this site. I have a legitimate concern about the content of these articles and took it to "talk" as they both are seem to reference on their reverts, which I'm finding is just an excuse to maintain their preferred wording. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Webmaester ( talk • contribs) 18:04, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Commented in the "Social construction and biology" section above. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 02:53, 21 October 2019 (UTC) ____
References
Information on masculinity as a social construction should be confined to the section Social Construction of Masculinities, not in the lead of the article. Webmaester ( talk) 17:29, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
There is a section on the Social Construction of Masculinity. It isn't about gender politics so much as it is the lead of an article should contain only universally accepted facts on the subject as an introduction. Additonally,
Really the sentences regarding Virility, Machismo, and the sentence, "Standards of manliness or masculinity vary across different cultures and historical periods." Do not belong in the lead of an article as the former are plugs for seperate, yet related topics, with the latter being an obvious statement about differences across cultures and historical periods.
Suggestions: 1) Scrap "Standards" it has it's own section under History. 2) Create a new section for related aspects of or principles associated with masculinity. Webmaester ( talk) 17:34, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
Psychologists strive to recognize that masculinities are constructed based on social, cultural, and contextual norms.Nblund talk 18:08, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
→== Social construction and biology ==
The statement "Masculinity is socially constructed, and is made up of both socially-defined and biologically-created factors" is self-contradictory; "socially constructed" in the first part rules out "biologically-created" in the second part. The second part also seems unduly weighted in the lead section; it rephrases part of § Nature versus nurture containing some weaselish wording (and omits the part about "exaggeration" of biological differences). Can anyone show which parts of the sources verify a consensus of "scholars"? [1] [2] [3] — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 15:26, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
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Preferences for certain colors, toys (trucks or dolls), or types of play (physically active versus social) are sometimes assumed to be inherent because they typically appear when a child is as young as three or four years of age. Psychologists and biologists often point to hormones, genes, and other biological factors as the underlying causes....My research shows that, even at a young age, “nature” and “nurture” already interact....If biological development is influenced by a child’s environment in this way, “nature” and “nurture” are no longer distinct. They are a developmental unit, two sides of the same coin. Rather than talking about nature versus nurture, we should ask: How is nature being affected by certain kinds of nurturing events? And instead of viewing gender as something inherent and fixed, we should understand it as a developmental process involving the ongoing interaction of genes, hormones, social cues, cultural norms, and other factors.-Crossroads- ( talk) 16:43, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Some aspects of masculinity are socially constructed, on account of certain average differences between males and females. It’s pragmatism and common sense. To say it is completely a social construct is willful ignorance. Biological differences in the sexes exist on a distribution and typically differentiate around puberty. Society and culture are human constructs, they are merely a byproduct of our intelligence and how we organize ourselves in groups. Fretting over language and paying more attention to statistical outliers than the general pattern is a disservice to explaining the topic. They should absolutely be mentioned in as much detail as people are willing to dig up, the same can be said for every conceivable aspect of masculinity. The purpose of this article, in my opinion, is to provide information about masculinity to people who wish to learn about it. It makes sense to begin with the basics and expand. Aiming to define the exact essence, technically, or politically correct view is treacherous because there is no way to not leave anything out. Start with the general cursory overview of the topic, and expand. Leave political views out of he introduction and allow readers to investigate the topic with an open mind. Webmaester ( talk) 17:38, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Like I stated here, this "What do we mean by 'sex' and 'gender'?" source from the World Health Organization (WHO) is simplistic. The issue I see with stating "Femininity is socially constructed" or "As a social construct" and leaving it at that is that although social science is still its own thing, researchers today rarely look at behavior as socially constructed only. Masculinity and femininity make up what people and sources think of with regard to gender, if not defining gender based on sex. Stating "As a social construct" or "Femininity is socially constructed" does imply that there is no biological basis.
To drive home my point on "it's not only social," I cite this 2018 "Scientific research shows gender is not just a social construct" Quartz source. It points to this 2017 "Sex differences in children's toy preferences: A systematic review, meta‐regression, and meta‐analysis" source.
Quoted text from Quartz, based on a systematic review, meta‐regression, and meta‐analysis source.
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It states, in part, "A study published (paywall) in November 2017 suggests that these sorts of girly toy preferences aren't simply a reflection of gendered social pressures. A meta-analysis of research, reviewing 16 studies on the subject that collectively included some 1,600 children, found that both biology and society affect boys' and girls' toy choices. The researchers found a huge effect size (1.03 for boys playing with boys’ toys more than girls, and 0.9 for girls playing with girls toys more than boys; anything above 0.8 is considered 'large') across geographical regions. 'The size of sex differences in children’s preferences for male-typed and female-typed toys did not appear to be smaller in studies conducted in more egalitarian countries,' says Brenda Todd, a study co-author and senior lecturer in psychology at City University London. Countries rating extremely low on the Gender Inequality Index, such as Sweden, showed similar differences in toy preferences to countries with far greater gender inequality, such as Hungary and the United States. This runs counter to the popular narrative that gender differences expressed in childhood play are determined entirely by social expectations. Social factors certainly do have influence, and the paper found evidence of this: For example, as boys got older they were increasingly likely to play with conventionally male toys, reflecting the impact of environmental rather than biological causes. But overall, the data reflect broader findings in psychology, which show that biology and society interact to cause gendered behavior. In other words, contrary to the popular progressive belief, gender is partly socially constructed—but it's not just a social construct. 'The 'nature versus nurture' idea is a false dichotomy,' says Sean Stevens, social psychologist and research director at Heterodox Academy, an organization of professors focused on promoting political diversity in academia. 'I don't know any real researcher of human behavior who would say it's all nature or all nurture,' he adds. Despite this empirical truth, researchers who study the biological basis of gender often face political pushback. 'Many people are uncomfortable with the idea that gender is not purely a social construct,' says Todd, who notes that her work has faced 'very critical attention.' There's a political preference—especially on the left—Todd believes, for gender to be only a reflection of social factors and so entirely malleable. Evidence that gender has some basis in biology, though, in no way implies a strict gender binary, nor negates the existence of transgender and non-binary identities. Many biology-based gender differences originate from the hormonal environment within the womb, which is very different on average for boys compared to girls. But there's a huge variation in these environments, says Alice Eagly, psychology professor at Northwestern University. 'Within boys there will be a range and within girls there will be a range. To say it's biological doesn’t mean it’s perfectly binary,' she says." |
What I see with the aforementioned 2010 "Masculinity and Femininity in the MMPI-2 and MMPI-A" source, from University of Minnesota Press, pages 14 to 18, is it discussing biological influence and possible biological influence on gender, including masculinity and femininity. For example, on page 16, in its "A Complexity of Influences" section, it states, "Social and cognitive factors represent mechanisms beyond biology through which gender identity or masculinity-femininity is potentially shaped. In conjuction with biological influences, these forces create a pervasive context for development of one's sense of self and of the world." On page 17, it then goes on to mention that gender identity research indicates that biological factors are involved and that a complex interplay of factors lead boys and girls to identify as and behave the way they do. The source also speaks of transgender people and how most experts believe that biological factors are at play with regard to their gender identity, and that transgender people give some insight into gender identity and masculine and feminine behavior.
I think that if we are to add that masculinity is socially constructed to the lead, which I agree that we should, we should also add that what society considers masculinity may be biologically influenced. The lower part of the article should expand on this. Of course, "may be biologically influenced" is vague, just as it's vague when speaking of gender identity, unless we go into aspects like how a fetus may be affected in the womb. But the lead is simply meant to summarize, not go into all of that. If we can't agree on this approach, then an RfC is in order. And that RfC should probably be centralized per WP:TALKCENT to address both the Femininity and Masculinity articles. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 02:53, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
I am tagging the article as unbalanced. It focuses quite heavily on scholarly critiques of the perceived ills of masculinity. I am also tagging the history section, which is so random and incomplete in its current form that the article would be better off without it. I have tagged the section on hegemonic masculinity as confusing, although a tag that said "This section consists of meaningless nonsense" would be more appropriate. SunCrow ( talk) 06:11, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
" that women can become men hormonally and physically"
er... NO. Physically? "Female to Male" is biologically impossible (as is "Male to Female"). Mentally, you can be anything you want but you cannot magically transform into a male (or female) just because you think you are. You CANNOT make testes (and its plumbing), a prostate (or a uterus, fallopian tuber et al. ) and certainly not change your chromosomes for XX to XY (or from XY to XX for that matter). To even have that quote in wikipedia... utterly shameful (don't not surprising). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.193.217.25 ( talk) 17:49, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
I replaced the image of Heracles with an image of Mars, the Roman god of war and masculinity. The male-female gender symbol is based on Mars and Venus. Mars represents masculinity and the male symbol, while Venus represents femininity and the female symbol. Also, the Femininity WP article already has an image of Venus on it. It only makes sense for the Masculinity article to have an image of Mars. TrynaMakeADollar ( talk) 06:44, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
The last couple of days, I've tried to correct for political bias in the lead section by adding some nuance to the following statement:
Although masculinity is socially constructed, some research indicates that some behaviors considered masculine are biologically influenced. To what extent masculinity is biologically or socially influenced is subject to debate.
This statement is contradicting itself, as the first sentence established the 'fact' that masculinity is socially constructed (not an ounce of nuance in it), while the next sentence debunks this by saying that some research does not agree. I do not want to discuss the politics of this statement, but only want to see a less biased page, in such a way that both ways of seeing gender/sex are emphasized in the lead section.
Unfortunately, user Mathglot has reverted my changes with the reasons 'lacking verifiability' or 'forcing opinions', while the statement is contradicting itself and no opinion is forced upon wikipedia readers by adding nuance to a very strong statement.
I want to emphasize that all sources are present, and the sources themselves also have contradicting conclusions about the nature of masculinity. Therefore, it simply cannot be stated as a fact that masculinity is completely a social construct. Likewise it cannot be stated as a fact that masculinity is completely not a social construct.
Again, to remove bias, I would suggest to make a linguistical change to this sentence, such that it emphasizes that no consensus has been reached in the scientific or political fields and no contradiction is present:
Although some research indicates that masculinity is socially constructed, other research indicates that some behaviors considered masculine are biologically influenced. To what extent masculinity is biologically or socially influenced is subject to debate.
I see that some other users added comments and changes to this article as well about a bias towards gender-neutrality. Please take these users seriously, as it makes or breaks the credibility of Wikipedia as a source of unbiased information. Seeing the talk and change log on this page raises some serious doubts about that. 217.105.45.100 ( talk) 20:47, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
I added the words "considered by society" in the sentence in the lead "Although masculinity is socially constructed, [1] research indicates that some behaviors considered by society as masculine, are biologically influenced" but it was quickly reverted. Can I ask why it was reverted. Leaving these words out of the sentence does not make sense. Who if not society at large created the concept of masculine traits? Patriciamoorehead ( talk) 01:32, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
Muedemum.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 03:34, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
Hi there! There seem to be a lot of subsections in this article, particularly in the overview, that are incredibly short and could be combined into a larger subsection of sociological and psychological debates of how masculinity is developed and encouraged. Particularly because it is not a "given" or particularly simply answered question of origin, I think that it is misleading to try and put all of these different and contrasting ideas into the "Overview" section. Similarly, trying to integrate these ideas could give the reader a better idea of the sides of the debate, rather than having them scattered throughout the article. Ballinm ( talk) 17:41, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Hi, all! Just like a few of the editors above, I am also doing a few evaluations for a class. I noticed that Connell's Masculinities is referenced in the article, but the only masculinity discussed is hegemonic masculinity. This leaves out subordinate, marginalized, and complicit masculinity from the discussion on Connell. I also noticed that there was a distinct lack of discussion on how masculinity varies between races, as race also informs masculine performance, as well as female masculinities. Would anyone be opposed to adding these topics to the discussion, and if not, what sources might we begin to consider bringing in? Nicrlove ( talk) 06:17, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Maybe ethnicity and nationality instead of race, as social scientists generally are moving away from the idea of biological race. But I think that would be a good addition to this article. AnaSoc ( talk) 02:11, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
The machismo page notes that there are both positive and negative aspects to the concept. In the intro to Maasculinity, we should either note that fact, add it as a subsection below, or delete it altogether. Looking for neutrality here. Your ideas? AnaSoc ( talk) 02:07, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
Fellow masculinity editors. I am in the process of drafting edits to the masculinity entry. One important, yet missing, line of inquiry in the existing entry concerns the "social construction of masculinity." The entry does have some material that suggests some of this theoretical idea, however, I believe the entry could be more streamlined with the addition of a new subsection with this header. I am inclined to insert this section in the Overview section, immediately after the Nurture versus Nature subsection. It makes theoretical and readability sense to include it here. Any thoughts on the addition of this section? I will include some key ideas in this section, but would of course love additional material to expand it. Michaelramirez ( talk) 17:50, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
I agree that there needs to be a social construction section, and I also like the idea of putting it after the nurture v. nature subsection. AnaSoc ( talk) 02:09, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
Hi everyone, I see we talked about a psychological view of masculinity as were as its roots. But, why not add a section on the sociological part of masculinity and why the behavior is portray and taken in , in such way. Emphasizing on the theoretical functions which includes but is not limited to - functionalist perspective, social perspective, economical perspective, and symbolic interactionist perspective. RealWorldddddTalk ( talk) 02:09, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
The text attributed to "Psychological Androgyny: Theories, Methods, and Conclusions." by Taylor and Hall is tagged as dubious. What is dubious about it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sewblon ( talk • contribs) 00:58, 30 March 2018 (UTC) Sewblon 01:02, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
The statement in the introduction:
Has the problem of featuring an idea from gender sociology and politics too highly, wherein masculinity and femininity are just "social constructs" that have nothing to do with 'male biology.' This is inserting gender politics, particularly of the kind which denies that male and female qualities have any relation to physiological and psychological reality. With physiology comes psychology, male or female. And the offered similar terms are in detail different. "Masculinity" is an innate quality, whereas "manliness" is an observed quality that is of wide variance in its meaning, and "manhood" is a social status and rank. So masculinity is first a natural property of males, and later its a sociological property and a component in various political theories. The sources need improvement, with the two references being from an very short outline on women' health on the WHO website, and the other from a sociologist dealing with a very wide overview of sociology. The article continues:
This is vague and goes on to further promote this idea that masculinity and male body and mind have nothing to do with each other. - Inowen ( talk) 10:21, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
distinct fromis not the same as
nothing to do with– that's a false equivalence). The World Health Organization is one of the most reliable sources around. See also the sources quoted under § Biological or social construct?, above. If you want the article to present a different summary, then it's up to you to find sources of equal weight and reliability to these that present an alternative view, or ideally an overview of the relevant scholarly consensus. —14:30, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Inowen. The article at present only presents a sociological view of masculinity, and leaves out the considerable body of biological work on this topic. Cleisthenes2 ( talk) 09:44, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
The statement that "masculinity is a social construct" is itself a political position, and highly debatable. This statement is a politicized redefinition of an existing dictionary word. Political positions such as this belong in separate articles linked to from the main article. The political position does not belong in the lead paragraph to this article. Retaining the sentence in that place contravenes Wikipedia's dedication to unbiased fact. ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.109.230.37 ( talk) 03:21, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
I don't want to rain on your parade ladies'n'gentleman or other. But unless you all want me to politely slap a NPOV Wikipedia:Neutral point of view tag on this controversial addition, I would recommend staying at least neutral with the equal and yet opposite section of femininity. Where the best they were willing to edit this was "Femininity is partially socially constructed, being made up of both socially-defined and biologically-created factors" without invariably causing any debate. For the worthy sake of neutrality. I ardently recommend an equivalent and final edit of this intention until a less controversial, better credited and a more neutral point of view can be added without pushing a political POV on a sociobiology based topic. They have sources and citations that are more relevant and specific to the topic. eg. [1] [2] [3] NZ4Life ( talk) 22:52, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
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The material about Ty Cobb the baseball player is not based on sources about the "role of masculinity in sports". According to Hunter Hampton's review, the book is a biography that "gives primacy to questions of causation, contexts, and consequences" in terms of Cobb's own career as a player. [1] That doesn't make it about sports and masculinity writ large.
The material already exists at Ty Cobb#Legacy. Duplicating it here would be a content fork: "the creation of multiple separate articles (or passages within articles) all treating the same subject. Content forks that are created unintentionally result in redundant or conflicting articles and are to be avoided" (emphasis added).
Wikipedia articles are not places to promote one's favorite characters from history or sports, nor are they an indiscriminate collection of times an author uses a concept as a framing device. Sources should focus on the topic of the article at hand. Therefore, I've removed the material. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 01:05, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
To clarify: if either Tripp or Hampton elaborate on how sports and masculinity themselves are related, then such information may be pertinent to the article. But if we want to give the impression that Cobb himself is seen as a canonical example of a certain type of masculinity, then I think we would need higher-level (e.g. tertiary) sourcing from authors that focus on masculinity in general. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 08:29, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
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I proposed a change yesterday that I think improved the lead of the article, it was blocked by Nblund. At the time of propsal the lead of Femininity read the exact same way (as my edit), and I stated as such. After blocking my edit, Nblund never having contributed to Femininity before, changed the lead of the Femininity to match the previous version of Masculinity I thought to change. Nblund clearly sought to check and fix it after I pointed out that it contradicted their beliefs. User Crossroads attempted to write in a compromise on this language for both articles and Sangdebeouf reverted the edit on both articles (also having never contributed to femininity before). It's obvious that Nblund and Sangdebeouf are of the same opinion and dare I say abusing their station on this site. I have a legitimate concern about the content of these articles and took it to "talk" as they both are seem to reference on their reverts, which I'm finding is just an excuse to maintain their preferred wording. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Webmaester ( talk • contribs) 18:04, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Commented in the "Social construction and biology" section above. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 02:53, 21 October 2019 (UTC) ____
References
Information on masculinity as a social construction should be confined to the section Social Construction of Masculinities, not in the lead of the article. Webmaester ( talk) 17:29, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
There is a section on the Social Construction of Masculinity. It isn't about gender politics so much as it is the lead of an article should contain only universally accepted facts on the subject as an introduction. Additonally,
Really the sentences regarding Virility, Machismo, and the sentence, "Standards of manliness or masculinity vary across different cultures and historical periods." Do not belong in the lead of an article as the former are plugs for seperate, yet related topics, with the latter being an obvious statement about differences across cultures and historical periods.
Suggestions: 1) Scrap "Standards" it has it's own section under History. 2) Create a new section for related aspects of or principles associated with masculinity. Webmaester ( talk) 17:34, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
Psychologists strive to recognize that masculinities are constructed based on social, cultural, and contextual norms.Nblund talk 18:08, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
→== Social construction and biology ==
The statement "Masculinity is socially constructed, and is made up of both socially-defined and biologically-created factors" is self-contradictory; "socially constructed" in the first part rules out "biologically-created" in the second part. The second part also seems unduly weighted in the lead section; it rephrases part of § Nature versus nurture containing some weaselish wording (and omits the part about "exaggeration" of biological differences). Can anyone show which parts of the sources verify a consensus of "scholars"? [1] [2] [3] — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 15:26, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
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Preferences for certain colors, toys (trucks or dolls), or types of play (physically active versus social) are sometimes assumed to be inherent because they typically appear when a child is as young as three or four years of age. Psychologists and biologists often point to hormones, genes, and other biological factors as the underlying causes....My research shows that, even at a young age, “nature” and “nurture” already interact....If biological development is influenced by a child’s environment in this way, “nature” and “nurture” are no longer distinct. They are a developmental unit, two sides of the same coin. Rather than talking about nature versus nurture, we should ask: How is nature being affected by certain kinds of nurturing events? And instead of viewing gender as something inherent and fixed, we should understand it as a developmental process involving the ongoing interaction of genes, hormones, social cues, cultural norms, and other factors.-Crossroads- ( talk) 16:43, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Some aspects of masculinity are socially constructed, on account of certain average differences between males and females. It’s pragmatism and common sense. To say it is completely a social construct is willful ignorance. Biological differences in the sexes exist on a distribution and typically differentiate around puberty. Society and culture are human constructs, they are merely a byproduct of our intelligence and how we organize ourselves in groups. Fretting over language and paying more attention to statistical outliers than the general pattern is a disservice to explaining the topic. They should absolutely be mentioned in as much detail as people are willing to dig up, the same can be said for every conceivable aspect of masculinity. The purpose of this article, in my opinion, is to provide information about masculinity to people who wish to learn about it. It makes sense to begin with the basics and expand. Aiming to define the exact essence, technically, or politically correct view is treacherous because there is no way to not leave anything out. Start with the general cursory overview of the topic, and expand. Leave political views out of he introduction and allow readers to investigate the topic with an open mind. Webmaester ( talk) 17:38, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Like I stated here, this "What do we mean by 'sex' and 'gender'?" source from the World Health Organization (WHO) is simplistic. The issue I see with stating "Femininity is socially constructed" or "As a social construct" and leaving it at that is that although social science is still its own thing, researchers today rarely look at behavior as socially constructed only. Masculinity and femininity make up what people and sources think of with regard to gender, if not defining gender based on sex. Stating "As a social construct" or "Femininity is socially constructed" does imply that there is no biological basis.
To drive home my point on "it's not only social," I cite this 2018 "Scientific research shows gender is not just a social construct" Quartz source. It points to this 2017 "Sex differences in children's toy preferences: A systematic review, meta‐regression, and meta‐analysis" source.
Quoted text from Quartz, based on a systematic review, meta‐regression, and meta‐analysis source.
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It states, in part, "A study published (paywall) in November 2017 suggests that these sorts of girly toy preferences aren't simply a reflection of gendered social pressures. A meta-analysis of research, reviewing 16 studies on the subject that collectively included some 1,600 children, found that both biology and society affect boys' and girls' toy choices. The researchers found a huge effect size (1.03 for boys playing with boys’ toys more than girls, and 0.9 for girls playing with girls toys more than boys; anything above 0.8 is considered 'large') across geographical regions. 'The size of sex differences in children’s preferences for male-typed and female-typed toys did not appear to be smaller in studies conducted in more egalitarian countries,' says Brenda Todd, a study co-author and senior lecturer in psychology at City University London. Countries rating extremely low on the Gender Inequality Index, such as Sweden, showed similar differences in toy preferences to countries with far greater gender inequality, such as Hungary and the United States. This runs counter to the popular narrative that gender differences expressed in childhood play are determined entirely by social expectations. Social factors certainly do have influence, and the paper found evidence of this: For example, as boys got older they were increasingly likely to play with conventionally male toys, reflecting the impact of environmental rather than biological causes. But overall, the data reflect broader findings in psychology, which show that biology and society interact to cause gendered behavior. In other words, contrary to the popular progressive belief, gender is partly socially constructed—but it's not just a social construct. 'The 'nature versus nurture' idea is a false dichotomy,' says Sean Stevens, social psychologist and research director at Heterodox Academy, an organization of professors focused on promoting political diversity in academia. 'I don't know any real researcher of human behavior who would say it's all nature or all nurture,' he adds. Despite this empirical truth, researchers who study the biological basis of gender often face political pushback. 'Many people are uncomfortable with the idea that gender is not purely a social construct,' says Todd, who notes that her work has faced 'very critical attention.' There's a political preference—especially on the left—Todd believes, for gender to be only a reflection of social factors and so entirely malleable. Evidence that gender has some basis in biology, though, in no way implies a strict gender binary, nor negates the existence of transgender and non-binary identities. Many biology-based gender differences originate from the hormonal environment within the womb, which is very different on average for boys compared to girls. But there's a huge variation in these environments, says Alice Eagly, psychology professor at Northwestern University. 'Within boys there will be a range and within girls there will be a range. To say it's biological doesn’t mean it’s perfectly binary,' she says." |
What I see with the aforementioned 2010 "Masculinity and Femininity in the MMPI-2 and MMPI-A" source, from University of Minnesota Press, pages 14 to 18, is it discussing biological influence and possible biological influence on gender, including masculinity and femininity. For example, on page 16, in its "A Complexity of Influences" section, it states, "Social and cognitive factors represent mechanisms beyond biology through which gender identity or masculinity-femininity is potentially shaped. In conjuction with biological influences, these forces create a pervasive context for development of one's sense of self and of the world." On page 17, it then goes on to mention that gender identity research indicates that biological factors are involved and that a complex interplay of factors lead boys and girls to identify as and behave the way they do. The source also speaks of transgender people and how most experts believe that biological factors are at play with regard to their gender identity, and that transgender people give some insight into gender identity and masculine and feminine behavior.
I think that if we are to add that masculinity is socially constructed to the lead, which I agree that we should, we should also add that what society considers masculinity may be biologically influenced. The lower part of the article should expand on this. Of course, "may be biologically influenced" is vague, just as it's vague when speaking of gender identity, unless we go into aspects like how a fetus may be affected in the womb. But the lead is simply meant to summarize, not go into all of that. If we can't agree on this approach, then an RfC is in order. And that RfC should probably be centralized per WP:TALKCENT to address both the Femininity and Masculinity articles. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 02:53, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
I am tagging the article as unbalanced. It focuses quite heavily on scholarly critiques of the perceived ills of masculinity. I am also tagging the history section, which is so random and incomplete in its current form that the article would be better off without it. I have tagged the section on hegemonic masculinity as confusing, although a tag that said "This section consists of meaningless nonsense" would be more appropriate. SunCrow ( talk) 06:11, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
" that women can become men hormonally and physically"
er... NO. Physically? "Female to Male" is biologically impossible (as is "Male to Female"). Mentally, you can be anything you want but you cannot magically transform into a male (or female) just because you think you are. You CANNOT make testes (and its plumbing), a prostate (or a uterus, fallopian tuber et al. ) and certainly not change your chromosomes for XX to XY (or from XY to XX for that matter). To even have that quote in wikipedia... utterly shameful (don't not surprising). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.193.217.25 ( talk) 17:49, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
I replaced the image of Heracles with an image of Mars, the Roman god of war and masculinity. The male-female gender symbol is based on Mars and Venus. Mars represents masculinity and the male symbol, while Venus represents femininity and the female symbol. Also, the Femininity WP article already has an image of Venus on it. It only makes sense for the Masculinity article to have an image of Mars. TrynaMakeADollar ( talk) 06:44, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
The last couple of days, I've tried to correct for political bias in the lead section by adding some nuance to the following statement:
Although masculinity is socially constructed, some research indicates that some behaviors considered masculine are biologically influenced. To what extent masculinity is biologically or socially influenced is subject to debate.
This statement is contradicting itself, as the first sentence established the 'fact' that masculinity is socially constructed (not an ounce of nuance in it), while the next sentence debunks this by saying that some research does not agree. I do not want to discuss the politics of this statement, but only want to see a less biased page, in such a way that both ways of seeing gender/sex are emphasized in the lead section.
Unfortunately, user Mathglot has reverted my changes with the reasons 'lacking verifiability' or 'forcing opinions', while the statement is contradicting itself and no opinion is forced upon wikipedia readers by adding nuance to a very strong statement.
I want to emphasize that all sources are present, and the sources themselves also have contradicting conclusions about the nature of masculinity. Therefore, it simply cannot be stated as a fact that masculinity is completely a social construct. Likewise it cannot be stated as a fact that masculinity is completely not a social construct.
Again, to remove bias, I would suggest to make a linguistical change to this sentence, such that it emphasizes that no consensus has been reached in the scientific or political fields and no contradiction is present:
Although some research indicates that masculinity is socially constructed, other research indicates that some behaviors considered masculine are biologically influenced. To what extent masculinity is biologically or socially influenced is subject to debate.
I see that some other users added comments and changes to this article as well about a bias towards gender-neutrality. Please take these users seriously, as it makes or breaks the credibility of Wikipedia as a source of unbiased information. Seeing the talk and change log on this page raises some serious doubts about that. 217.105.45.100 ( talk) 20:47, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
I added the words "considered by society" in the sentence in the lead "Although masculinity is socially constructed, [1] research indicates that some behaviors considered by society as masculine, are biologically influenced" but it was quickly reverted. Can I ask why it was reverted. Leaving these words out of the sentence does not make sense. Who if not society at large created the concept of masculine traits? Patriciamoorehead ( talk) 01:32, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
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