- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Have you discussed this on a talk page?
Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.
Location of dispute
Users involved
Dispute overview
An impasse has been reached at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Men's_rights_movement#Allegations_of_Rape_2
as to whether the statement,(which atm is),
"Some men's rights activists assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime".
The argument is over whether this statement is reliably sourced and/or of undue weight.
The section being
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_rights_movement#Rape.
Discussion has been lengthy and has clearly reached an impasse. There is a need for some impartial eyes. If anyone could help it would be appreciated. This page is under probation and deals with a controversial topic.
Have you tried to resolve this previously?
Apart from very lengthy debate, nothing else. This is the first appeal for help.
How do you think we can help?
Atm I feel an experienced neural editor could aid the discussion in reaching a consensus.
Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.
Inclusion of the statement that men's right groups support marital rape is clearly WP:UNDUE.
By analogy it is as if statement by one feminist that "All men are rapists, and that is all that they are" should be included in the article on the feminist movement because it represents an important platform of the movement.
In both cases, these are outlier statements that fall under WP:Fringe and WP:UNDUE Memills (talk) 20:23, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In my mind the issue is simple. The statement is: "Some men's rights activists assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime." WP:UNDUE gives us three scenarios:
- If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
- This viewpoint is not held in the majority. CSDarrow provided us with a long list of the most prominent Mens Rights organizations, none of which have a reference to it.
- If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
- "Some men's rights activists" is sentence that does not name adherents.
- If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article.
- The last option is does not belong in wikipedia.
WP:UNDUE therefore calls for us to remove the statement. If another editor wished to add the statement again, with specific "prominent adherents" named, as required by WP:UNDUE, I would not object to that. Without named adherents, the statement is certainly given undue weight.
Editing/Extending:
I will add that it appears that the statement may be true outside of the United States. Still, the use of the word "some" is necessarily prejudicial and the article is generally US focused (and reads as such). Perhaps naming countries where the viewpoint is mainstream, noting that it is not mainstream within the United States, and providing prominent adherents from the minority within the United States.
I also vigorously object to dated sources in the discussion. The Mens Rights movement in the United States is leaps and bounds from where it was 20-30 years ago. A history section noting view that were formerly mainstream would be a welcome addition to the article, but the article would be prejudicial to conflate current advocacy with advocacy of the late 80s and early 90s (as Cailil has done).
Lastly, I note that there are several variations on this viewpoint, not all of which are identical and which are easily misstated from sources:
- men's rights groups oppose marital rape laws
- men's rights groups feel that marital rape laws are often used for false claims as a weapon in divorce cases
- men's group opposes marital rape laws because they feel that accusations of marital rape are fundamentally irrefutable (as |Slp1 found a source for).
If the sources indicate that different men's rights groups hold varied opinions on marital rape, then we can state that, and provide a brief summary of the prominent adherents and their viewpoints. It seems slanderous to cover such a wide range of viewpoints for such different rationales with "some men's rights groups oppose marital rape laws"
Perpetualization (talk) 16:21, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.
Very simply, sources state that there have been (and are) attempts by Men's Rights groups to campaign against Marital Rape legislation. I listed the academic peer-reviewed sources and the relevant text from them (with page numbers) on the talk page[1]. Kaldari listed the material about current action by groups in India[2] related to this.
The interpretation by CSDarrow & Perpetualization of NPOV makes no sense. The point about "adherents to a POV" in that policy refers to sources. The construction being placed upon it is that we should find individual Men's rights activists who hold these views to prove the sources correct - that's original research.
As it stands the point about marital rape is sourced, and accorded the weight of one sentence in an appropriate section in the article. It is not being given undue prominent in the article itself or relative to the sources. I'll also note that this area is under probation and edits removing sourced content as well as tendentious argument are sanctionable.
I've stated on the page, as has, to the best of my knowledge, Kevin that we agree with the removal of the "marriage contract" piece but the sentence about campaigns about marital rape law is appropriate WRT to this site's policies. I've already suggested alternative wording ("scholars contend") to resolve the "some" issue.--Cailil talk 17:02, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
CSDarrow and Perpetualization appear to have a fundamental misunderstanding of various V, NPOV and RS policies. The same arguments keep getting repeated, and then the goalposts moved.
- First, WP's NPOV policy and Jimbo's cited comments do not support the deletion of this well-cited information. In fact WP:UNDUE says that "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint." As has been pointed out over and over again, multiple highly reliable academic sources include this information, so it actually would be undue NOT to include it. Jimbo's (cherrypicked) requirements have actually been more than achieved as for this possibly minority opinion (at least in the West), it is actually very "easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts".
- Nevertheless, when these editors asked for prominent adherents, other editors provided several examples of notable men's rights organizations and their officials who have made opposed marital rape (see Kaldari's comments).
- Attempts have been made to dispute what the reliable sources say by doing original research to prove them "wrong". The research was actually faulty since there are at least two of the websites listed that do oppose spousal rape laws (Kaldari mentions one, and here is another[3]). And in any case, original research by editors to "disprove" reliable sources, is simply not how we write an encyclopedia article.
- But now the goalpost has changed...We now have arguments that the sources about the US are out of date (20-30 years is mentioned), when the reality is that the US-based sources were published in 2005, 2003 and 1994. Not one is even 20 years old, and most are quite recent.
- We also now have arguments that the statement may refer only outside of the US. However, the key point is that's not what the sources say; and once again examples of the website of current US-based men's rights activists have been provided to show that this is false.(See Kaldari's comments)
- And now we have claims that this material might be libellous and slanderous. Well, if that is the case you might want to warn the scholarly presses that published the material in the first place. Slp1 (talk) 23:40, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have not been arguing this point. Binksternet (talk) 15:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
First, I would like to respond to a misleading argument above by Perpetualization:
- "CSDarrow provided us with a long list of the most prominent Mens Rights organizations, none of which have a reference to it."
- This is simply false. At least one of the pages linked to from CSDarrow's list does actually list decriminalizing marital rape as an agenda item: "Repeal all laws making men's sexuality, exposure, penetration, etc., into a criminal act unless there is demonstrable physical harm to a victim. Release and pardon all men who have been arrested for "statutory rape," "date rape," "spousal rape," "pornography," "soliciting a prostitute," and other weasel worded versions thereof. A woman's hurt feelings do not turn a man into a criminal."[4]
- Secondly, CSDarrow's list doesn't include any Indian men's rights organizations, such as SIFF which successfully campaigned against criminalizing marital rape only 2 years ago.
The statement under contention has met every criteria that has been offered. First of all, there are numerous reliable 3rd party academic sources that back up the claim (can't include quotations due to 2000 char limit):
- Current Controversies on Family Violence[5]
- American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia[6]
- Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure[7]
Despite this, some editors have insisted that WP:UNDUE requires that prominent adherents be named. Here are some prominent adherents (in their own words):
- Tom Williamson, founder of the National Coalition of Free Men: [CNN Interview] "First off, I don't think that there should be anything called marital rape laws."
- Virag Dhulia, Public Relations Officer of SIFF: [Speaking to the press about a proposal to remove the marriage exemption from the Indian rape law] "This means that the government wants police to enter bedrooms now, which is a sure shot way to break a marriage as no relationship will work if these rules are enforced."[8]
I'm open to revising the wording to address concerns, but I don't think there's adequate reason to remove the statement entirely.
Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.
I've been, unfortunately, too busy irl lately to involve myself in this article as much as I would like. I view this as a relatively minor issue compared to those the article as a whole suffers from. I have not studied this dispute in depth; I've reviewed the posted on-wiki sources and most of people's on-wiki posts, though. From what I've seen no one has made, so far, a convincing argument as to why this information shouldn't be included. Slp and Kaldari have found a pretty significant number of RS'es that contain this information. Some of them I would describe as high quality, some of them have recently been published, and most of them have been published recently enough that their age shouldn't cast doubt on their accuracy. Kevin Gorman (talk) 06:54, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Men's Rights discussion 1
Please do not use this for discussing the dispute prior to a volunteer opening the thread for comments - continue discussing the issues on the article talk page if necessary.
Hello. I am a dispute resolution volunteer here at the Wikipedia Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. This does not imply that I have any special authority or that my opinions should carry any extra weight; it just means that I have not been previously involved in this dispute and that I have some experience helping other people to resolve their disputes.
Right now I am waiting for more of the comment sections above to be filled in. In the meantime, I would encourage everyone involved to read the "Guide for participants" at the top of this page. Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 16:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi! I am another DRN volunteer and will be assisting Guy Macon in resolving this dispute. The participants should also be aware of WP: BRD. After all of the users involved make opening statements, a DRN volunteer will open up this discussion. --v/r Electric Catfish (talk) 18:37, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- While we are waiting for the opening statements, I would like to point out that This article has been placed on article probation. See Talk:Men's rights movement/Article probation for details. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:31, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Perhaps you missed it, I actually pointed that out in this section[9] above before you accepted this case so that anyone considering accepting it would be prepared, and so they would know to notify me or another uninvolved admin if sanctions were indicated. KillerChihuahua?!? 20:04, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Yup. Read right past it without it registering. Sorry about that. (Note to self: Next time, edit Wikipedia after smoking crack...) --Guy Macon (talk) 21:07, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Timing. It's all about the timing. KillerChihuahua?!? 21:54, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Hello, I am Amadscientist and will also be assisting where needed in this DR/N but to a lesser extent as the first two volunteers.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- WP:INFLUENCE covers editing while in a altered state of consciousness. Hasteur (talk) 15:34, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding waiting for opening statements, Binksternet has been actively editing other pages but has not responded here, Memills last edited Wikipedia on 30 September, and Memotype last edited Wikipedia on 14 September. How long should we wait? I want everyone involved to weigh in, but i also don't want to frustrate people with undue delays. Opinions? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:14, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- As both sides of dispute are here, the discussion may be opened IMO. The others may jump in later if they become active and/or willing to participate. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 18:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Sounds good. This thread is now open for discussion. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - [from uninvolved editor] I looked at the sources that are listed above to support inclusion of the material. They look satisfactory to me. The Segal source in particular, p 276, is conclusive (describing a campaign against laws which define marital rape). That source is published by the University of California. So, the essence of the sentence should be included. Can it be wordsmithed? Sure ... in situations like this it is always better if the specific advocates are named in the sentence. But WP:UNDUE does not exclude this sentence. --Noleander (talk) 19:33, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm open to the idea of including specific advocates or groups so that it doesn't sound like a sweeping statement about the movement in general. Kaldari (talk) 19:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I would like to discuss for a moment the citations for the current article's statement "Some men's rights activists assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime.[74][80][83][84][85]" (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Men%27s_rights_movement&oldid=515903480 in case it changes).
- When examining something like this, I start with the question "does the source say what we say it says" and I look at the quality of the sources.
- For Ref [74], the source supports the statement. It says that http://www.ejfi.org "demands .. to eliminate laws defining marital rape as a crime". I could not find evidence supporting that claim on the ejfi.org website. That's a typical problem when a source is more of an advocacy source that an academic source -- they don't say where to look on ejfi.org and they don't give the exact wording.
- For Ref [80], Google books gave me this error: "Restricted Page: You have reached your viewing limit for this book." Does anyone have a quote of the wording that supports the claim?
- For Ref [83], The section before it says "The rest of this article is only available to active members of Questia" does not support the claim. The "free one day trial" asks for a credit card number. Does anyone have a quote of the wording that supports the claim?
- For Ref [84], the source supports the statement. Again, an obvious advocacy publication, not academic research or unbiased reporting, and the source only says that some unnamed men's groups campaigned against the legal recognition of marital rape in 1994. That's 18 years ago.
- For Ref [85], The source supports the statement. The mens group is named; it is the Save Indian Family Foundation ( http://www.saveindianfamily.org/ and a person is qouted: Virag Dhulia. Furthermore, it appears to be from a legitimate news source rather than an obvious advocacy book and is less than 5 years old If it were me, this is the only cite I would use for this statement. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:39, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Without commenting on the issue, some of the editors seems to not be aware of WP:PAYWALL. Unfortunately, not all sources are available for free. Indeed, many high-quality sources are only available either by buying a book or article, or using an academic library. Wikipedia explicitly endorses the use of such sources. If you have trouble getting them, WP:REX can often help. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:55, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I am quite familiar with WP:PAYWALL. My philosophy is this: if you recently added a citation or you are vigorously defending a citation, then I can only assume that you have access, and it seems quite reasonable to ask you to look at the source that you can presumably access and give us an exact quote that supports the statement in the article. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:16, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I have access to all the sources and listed all the quotes on the talkpage of the article quite a while ago [10]. So did Cailil here. I disagree with the contention that books published by highly reliable academic sources can or should be marginalized as "advocacy" books, and I don't know of any policy or guideline that would support this. On the contrary, they are precisely the books that have the highest reputation for fact-checking etc (e.g. published by University presses) that we are supposed to privilege per the verifiability policy and Identifying reliable sources Slp1 (talk) 22:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Guy you've made some rather extreme comments above. You've inferred that nobody bothered to list sources and quotes when in fact, as Slp1 said, both she and I had done so - and I linked above to it above. You've dismissed a number of sources' reliability in a way that has no basis in policy.
In relation to your readings: Re ref 80 - try this link[11]; regarding ref 74 are we looking at the same source Current Controversies on Family Violence written by 3 academics and published by Sage? Furthermore a search using google of EJFI site for "spousal rape"[12][13] and "marital rape"[14] does indeed generate a number of hits. It is this source's opinion that this site is advocating something. It's not our job to go outside policy and do original research to prove OR attempt to disprove a source.
Regarding ref84 you've claimed that Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure is NOT an academic piece. It may be a feminist text but last time I checked that doesn't disqualify a source's as academic, or make it advocacy. That is your opinion and NPOV does not requires that sources are neutral - merely that they are reliable. Your conflation of these core policy concepts and dismissal of these sources is frankly incredible and raises questions about the ability of this board to handle topics under probation (which need extreme care and precision) - I will ping KC about this--Cailil talk 23:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- User:Cailil, please refrain from making accusations against the volunteers here. I do not see Guy's comments as extreme or suggesting anything of the sort. Remember this is where you show your sources and the article talkpage is seperate. We will not be jumping back and forth so please be prepared to share all sources here. If there is a paywall and sources are unavailable someone will need to provide the text and we, of course, will trust the good faith of the editors. Please do the same with the volunteers.--Amadscientist (talk) 03:42, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Amadscientist my above is not an attack on Guy - it's criticism. It's also quite fair. I'm taking the matter to the talk page. AFAIK there are no paywall issues - the relevant sources were listed and quoted from, albeit in a diff I presented in my statement - perhaps this was missed by you & guy--Cailil talk 16:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- User:Cailil. You may call your comments what you choose of course, but please do not overstate comments by myself or other volunteers. I did not say you attacked anyone.--Amadscientist (talk) 12:26, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- While I agree with Cailil that it is inappropriate both in policy and practice to seek marginalize sources based "I can't confirm it"-type statements, (most especially when we are talking about websites that may have changed a good deal), in the spirit of good faith, here is Charles Corry, the longtime president of Edfiin a 2007 ejfi article, mentioning the introduction of "the crime of marital rape in many localities" as one of the "false flags...used to insure that any action by a man can be used against him.". It can't be the original source for the book because of the date, but it shows the way the wind blows in that organization. Slp1 (talk) 23:47, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As a dispute resolution volunteer, I choose which cases to help with based upon the basic principle of having no opinion one way or the other about the topic of the dispute. And indeed, the actual question of what some men's group did or did not say bores me. I am just here to help you to resolve your dispute.
Attacking one of the volunteers who is working on your case accomplishes nothing (it doesn't hurt you either, BTW; we are all committed to be fair and impartial despite such behavior.) Please write about article content, not about user conduct. If you have s serious accusation concerning a volunteer's competence or impartiality, bring it up at Wikipedia talk:Dispute resolution noticeboard, not here in the middle of a dispute.
I have inferred nothing, and if anyone thinks that I have they need to go back and read the guide for participants at the top of this page again. All I am doing is confirming that the sources say what we say they say. I fully expect that they will, but I am still going to check. I have to start somewhere, but be assured that I will verify any claims made any party to this dispute. In the following, I may seem to be challenging one side of the dispute and not the other, but rest assured that this is just an artifact of my having to start somewhere. I will look at the claims of the other side of the dispute very soon. Also note that I have purposely avoided checking to see who wrote the text and added the citations I am examining. I don't want that to affect my evaluation.
I have not "dismissed" any sources' reliability. I have every intention of questioning every sources' reliability, which is not the same thing. In particular, in the above I am asking which of the following claims the citation to Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure supports:
- "Some men's rights activists[who?] assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime.[84]"
or
- "Lynne Segal, author of Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure, claims that 1n 1994 certain unnamed men's rights activists in Kansas City asserted that marital rape should not be considered a crime.[84]"
When I see a source that says
- "Their [men's rights groups] agenda suggests that the origins of these middle-class men's fears in women's growing readiness to abandon marriages with men who make them miserable, once they have some means of economic independence. They may be miserable because of men's emotional illiteracy..."
I am reluctant to accept that source as being reliable on the topic of the positions of those same men's rights groups. If you want Wikipedia to report that this source made that claim, the source is reliable for that. If you want us to use Wikipedia's voice to present that claim as an established fact, you need a reliable source for that, and this simply isn't one.
I am also concerned by the overall nature of that string of citations. Normally, we want to find a reliable source and report what the source says. When I see citation to a book criticizing a 1994 event in Kansas City followed by a 2010 news report from India, it makes me suspect that the conclusion came first and then someone started looking for citations to support it.
Again, I have every intention of giving any claims made by the other parties in this dispute the same level of scrutiny. This is just where I happened to start. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:31, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I apologize if you see my criticism above as an attack on you - it's not, it's a (very serious) note, not primarily about you Guy but, about this board. I will take that aspect of the issue to the talk page as you suggest, but for the record I do understand that you are acting in good faith and with very good intentions (but I'll remind you that the "road to hell is paved with good intentions")...
Guy perhaps you read past the part in my openning statements where I stated above that I already made a suggestion regarding the "some" issue and regarding the necessary attribution on the article's talk page. I agree sentence needs to read along the lines of: Scholars argue/contend that men's rights groups have campaigned against "marital rape" legislation.
Scholars may need clarification etc, but that's fine, and your suggests are good - however I'm not sure that listing all the individual cases is wp:due, whereas the overall point that different actions at different times have criticized/campaigned against marital rape is definitely due. However as you see below the actual dispute is not about wording but inclusion - and as we have all outlined in our statements above this rests on CSDarrow's novel interpretations of policy--Cailil talk 16:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Firstly I would argue the use of 'Scholars' here violates WP:IMPARTIAL , WP:WEASEL, in fact 'Scholars ' is prominently highlighted as a weasel word.
- Secondly the opinions of scholars are of little note unless they are indulging in scholarship. I am sure some scholars also think broccoli is revolting or that basketball is boring. Scholarship involves the use of a scholarly methodology Scholarly_method. Unsubstantiated opinions, on a matter of verifiable fact, concerning those you at ideological odds with is not scholarship. There is another word for it. CSDarrow (talk) 16:01, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm happy to wordsmith scholars but the rest of your point doesn't make sense CSDarrow. What your comments above and below do is attempt to disparage the work of academics that have opinions you seem not to like. The essence of NPOV is thus: wikipedia records all notable POVs neutrally (i.e we don't put our spin on them), according them appropriate weight as per how widely held they are in the mainstream (see WP:YESPOV). Your constructions on site policy are both tendentious and unreflective of those policies--Cailil talk 16:18, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I am glad we are in agreement on the use of the word "Scholar". As to the rest of your response, I am at a loss what to say. CSDarrow (talk) 17:40, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- No apology needed. There is a huge difference between claiming that a group has campaigned against marital rape legislation and claiming that a group says that marital rape should not be considered a crime. A cursory look at the websites of various men's groups shows a lot of talk about false accusations and the problem with accepting the word of the accuser without collaborating evidence, complaints about the name of the accused being revealed while the name of the accuser is kept secret, etc. I think those positions should be cited and put in the article, along with common counterarguments like the problem of requiring witnesses or physical evidence of a crime that by definition does not leave witnesses or physical evidence. That would be quite easy to document. So far, nobody has come up with a citation to a reliable source for the entirely different claim that some unnamed men's groups say that marital rape should not be considered a crime. All evidence suggests that there are no men's groups in any western country that hold that position. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:10, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes the distinction between the words crime and legislation is important and agree that "legislation" is the more sourcable one. However the "crime" construction is also sourced - did you get to read the Encyclopaedia of Masculinities entry that you couldn't access days ago, here's the link again[15] - this one uses the "crime" construction: "the status of marital rape as a crime" p.167. I can transcribe the whole paragraph if you can't get to read it--Cailil talk 12:19, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Guy, I have to say that I continue to strongly disagree with several of your comments here. WP doesn't use opinions about bias as determinant in determining reliability. Let's take another example. If an academic text or journal article came out against homeopathy would you really be "reluctant to accept that source as being reliable on the topic of [homeopathy]"? Assuming no, why is this different here?
- Please note that the disputed text talks about "men's rights activists" opposing the legislation, not "men's rights groups". While I strongly disagree that we should be trying to prove reliable sources "right" (or "wrong") with our own original research on websites etc, editors have already presented on this page direct, primary evidence from multiple sources that there is evidence that men's rights activists and groups in the west and elsewhere have and do opposed marital rape legislation. I linked above to a 2007 post from the president of EJFI above, an [16], Kaldari above linked to a list of men's rights objectives on the anti-misandry.com [17], and also above quoted the President of the National Coalition of Free Men who appeared on CNN stating that marital rape laws shouldn't exist. (For the record, CNN's introduction to the interview says "and we're going to meet the attorney who wrote the recent proposal to strengthen California's spousal rape law. And we'll meet the president of a men's rights group [Williamson] who believes that such laws should not exist.") (CNN transcript on Lexis-Nexis). I'm on a very slow internet connection, and can't do more at present, but it is indisputable from primary sources that (some) men's rights activists do oppose marital rape legislation and much more importantly from the point of view of inclusion, that this has been noted in reliable secondary sources, with four of them stating it in the particular format that they oppose marital rape as a crime " Other men's rights advocates have used family conflict research to justify demands [..] to eliminate marital rape as a crime (www.ejfi.org); "...some emphasized such issues as child support, the status of marital rape as a crime and....";this source has the founding of "International Men's Day by the men's rights groups, celebrated in Kansas City in 1994 as a day for campaigning against the legal recognition of 'marital rape'";"Much of [Hetherington's] support has come from men's rights organizations and conservative Christian groups, which tend to argue that a crime such as marital rape should not be on the books because consent to sex is part of the marriage covenant" --Slp1 (talk) 15:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- spl1, Concerning National Coalition of Free Men and the CNN interview, did Williamson state he opposed Marital Rape laws in a manner that suggested he felt a man should be able to rape his wife and be immune from prosecution? If so could you post the quote? I believe you have the transcript. CSDarrow (talk) 15:28, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Setting up a strawman argument is unhelpful. Neither I nor anyone else has ever claimed that Williamson said anything close to this. You can oppose the specific crimimalization of marital rape, while still recognizing that rape within marriage can happen. See [this 2002 commentary by yet another prominent men's rights activist who has opposed such legislation. Stuart A. Miller, the founder of the American Coalition of Fathers and Children, argues that "while there may be legitimate cases of marital rape" these are covered under existing laws and that additional marital rape legislation likely does more harm than good. (BTW this formulation seems eerily familiar, doesn't it?!)--Slp1 (talk) 13:23, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- So Williamson does not support a husband's right to rape his wife, thank you for confirming that. I would argue that most people understand word marital rape as the raping of a woman by her husband. In fact the Wiki page Marital_rape in essence defines it as that; Kaldari has been a content contributor to that page and a contributor to this discussion. Also since I merely asked you a question I fail to see how I could have been attempting to strawman you. CSDarrow (talk) 17:10, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Once again, because you have (and are) seeking to refute positions that nobody has ever held.
- This was the original formulation of the disputed sentence "Some men's rights activists question the criminal status of marital rape....". This is what it is currently: "Some men's rights activists assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime." In my view, both are eminently sourceable from secondary sources (with confirmation from primary sources too). But if your concern is that the sentences confuses views about the legal situation regarding marital rape with attitudes towards an actual act of a violent marital rape, then let's put the emphasis more on the former (which is how it was originally, actually). How about "Some men's rights activists have opposed legislation criminalizing marital rape."? Slp1 (talk) 18:51, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I am familiar with the legal systems of the UK, Canada and the USA. As far as I am aware there is no such crime designated "Marital Rape", and never has been apart from in 7 States of the USA; it is a legal oddity. In the West spousal rape is almost exclusively prosecuted under existing legislation for rape or sexual assault. The common definitions of the words in the phrase "decriminalize marital rape" are as follows
- Marital rape:- The raping of one's wife.
- Decriminalize:- To no longer make a crime.
- i.e its common meaning is:- to no longer make it a crime for a man to rape his wife. It beggars belief to suggest in an encyclopedic setting, in absence of other context or clarification, that it actually means:- to remove the legal oddity "Marital Rape " from the books and to prosecute the raping of one's wife with existing legislation. Up until I you asked for clarification, the only reference you provided that explicitly defined the term was from SIFF. SIFF's definition is immunity from raping one's wife. I am smelling equivocation in the air.
- "When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom" - Confucius
- CSDarrow (talk) 15:38, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- You've lost me, I am sorry to say. Where are you getting the idea that anybody is suggesting including stuff about "decrimimalizing" marital rape? It seems another strawman to me.
- For years and years, rape laws in the US and elsewhere in the West contained a marital rape exception which meant that husbands could not be charged under rape laws. Rape of a wife was simply not a crime a man could be convicted of. Between the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s, all US states and the federal government moved towards criminalizing that act: most did it by removing the marital rape exemption from their original rape laws, some eliminated marriage as a defense to the charge of rape, while others introduced separate marital rape legislation. Depending on the method used, there remain some exemptions or increased evidence requirements in cases of alleged marital rape as compared to rape of others. [18][19][20][21]. Some men's rights activists, including prominent leaders, have opposed these changes in legislation which have had the overall effect of criminalizing marital rape, and some of which have been incremental in nature, and we have multiple high quality sources for it. I really don't know how you can continue to deny it. Even the antimisandry.com site, which you yourself described as a "significant Mens Rights Organization" on the talkpage of the article, lists as one of their objectives |List to "End the criminalization of normal men's sexual behavior. Repeal all laws making men's sexuality, exposure, penetration, etc., into a criminal act unless there is demonstrable physical harm to a victim" and advocates the freeing of all men convicted of spousal rape. Since at this point I am just saying the same things over and over again, this is going to be my final post, until we hear from Steven. Slp1 (talk) 19:22, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Possibly because you edit reverted my removal of and vigorously defended the statement
- "Some men's rights activists question the criminal status of Marital Rape, arguing that sex within marriage forms part of the marriage covenant."
- The statement we are now discussing in DRN is the next version of the above and being 'supported' by the same references. That's why Slp1.
- CSDarrow (talk) 15:16, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Men's Rights discussion 2
Comment - Firstly I would like to thank all those participating in this discussion, in particular the volunteers for the giving of their time. My arguments are based on WP:UNDUE and WP:VERIFY . Sorry if this is a bit long, I have tried to be succinct.
(1) Undue Weight
My argument that the statement
- Some men's rights activists assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime.
is undue-weight is based Jimbo Wales' paraphrased statement from WP:UNDUE, I see nothing overriding this statement.
- If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts
- If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
- If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article.
In essence if a minority hold the view than you should be able to easily name prominent adherents, and imo the spirit of the statement is that there is an expectation to do so. With the possible exception of someone in India, no one can find any adherents of this view let alone prominent adherents. Despite not being able to demonstrate a significant minority holds this view, Cailil & Spl1 make the argument that the first statement applies and as such the second statement is now moot, (I am trying not to Strawman here). They absolve themselves of considering the 'significant minority' case by saying it requires original research even though it is patently not satisfied. If a minority do not hold a view I fail to see how a majority can hold it. Their stance imo is not in the spirit of WP:UNDUE. The first rule of Wikipedia is that there are no rules, a statement designed precisely for this sort case and for common sense to prevail.
In short if a majority or even a significant minority supposedly hold this view and hardly anyone can be found with this view, then a common sense test has been failed.
Furthermore claiming a group or individual campaigns for the decriminalization of marital rape, ie. impunity from the law for raping one's spouse, is a significant claim. Before any group is impugned with this view on Wikipedia, the burden of proof that the claim satisfies wp:Undue, wp:Reliable and wp:Verifiability should also be significant. Wikipedia also has a moral and legal obligation not to libel any individual or group. Atm all we have supporting this statement is the unsupported opinions of some who think Men Right's groups hold this view. This is entirely inadequate.
(2) Reliability of the Sources.
The claim is made here that because a source is 'Scholarly', 'Academic' or 'Peer Reviewed' that its reliability is beyond reproach, even if it fails any common sense test. There are many media through which academics publish their work such as:-
- Rigorously peer reviewed journals involving multiple anonymous reviewers. With any claims rigorously supported by citations
- Reviewed conference publications which are generally checked for appropriateness of subject matter, glaring errors , format and suitable citations.
- Unreviewed conference publications, the work is generally only returned if it is patently absurd.
- Journals and essay collections serving an ideologically based community eg, Journal of Marxism.
- Collections of papers or essays published by an Academic press, sometimes with a degree of meaningful peer review and sometimes none at all..
- Books by a single 'scholarly' author published by an Academic press, which usually have no meaningful review at all.
There is nothing wrong with opinionated work and limited peer review. Diversity of opinions are essential to debate and the life blood of new ideas. With the exception of sometimes the hard sciences, academics are not automatons deterministically sifting through evidence and logically coming to conclusions like Data from Star Trek. They play with ideas; try and say seeming absurd things; sometimes have strong ideological bases and are sometimes deliberately provocactive. Fully rigorous peer review is very time consuming and requires a lot of resources, having other less rigorous outlets of publication allows work to enter the melting pot of ideas that is Academia, Ultimately it is from this melting pot that we get :-
- Rigorously peer reviewed work involving multiple anonymous reviewers. With any claims rigorously supported by citations.
Which in general can be accepted as reliable without reservation. Other forms of academic publication require more scrutiny. A glaring example of scholarship gone awry being the Sokol affair.
In short just because a work is 'Scholarly', 'Academic' or 'Peer Reviewed' does not necessarily make it a reliable source. This very point is addressed in WP:SCHOLARSHIP.
- Care should be taken with journals that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view. A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs. Journals that are not peer reviewed by the wider academic community should not be considered reliable, except to show the views of the groups represented by those journals.
The notion that if the adjectives 'Scholarly' or 'Academic' or 'Peer Reviewed' can be attached to a piece of work then the source is reliable, is prevalent in certain parts of Wikipedia and is causing enormous damage imo. The notion is based on a lack of understanding of the way Academic publishing works. The sources cited here are not reliable and are the unsupported opinions of those the authors are at ideological odds with. Guy Macon has summarized my thoughts on these works succinctly.
Ultimately the reliability of these sources, or not, is largely an argument of opinion. If we can not reach consensus then I feel the matter should go to experts at RSN to adjudicate, the result of which I think will have a profound effect on Wikipedia. This is a serious precedent setting matter.
Thanks again CSDarrow (talk) 13:23, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- "With any claims rigorously supported by citations" is not something I have ever encountered. It's an entirely unreasonable claim - the primary aim of scholarly publishing is to present new knowledge, or, in Wikipedia terms, "original research". New claims need to be supported, sure, but not only by citations, but in particular by data and argument. And claims that are widely accepted in a given community are often published without any citations - we know that
 . --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:50, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- There is however an expectation to justify how that new knowledge was obtained with citations where appropriate. My list was a summary not an exhaustive description. CSDarrow (talk) 13:57, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Men's Rights discussion 3
It certainly seems like the pro-statement side have a number of citations with specific names on their side. Dismissing them because they come the world's largest English-speaking nation (which should have some importance to the English WP) hardly seems fair; and the whole Anti-dowry laws section is all about SIFF, so mentioning them in respect to martial rape laws doesn't seem unreasonable. Nor does it seem that the same standard is being held to other cites; Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements is 12 years old, and used it many, many times in the article. In the section "Military Conscription", it's the newest cite; the next most recent is Redeeming men: religion and masculinities from 1996.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:47, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- user:Perpetualization has addressed the issue of the Indian Men's Right movement above. From what I know it is many ways a separate movement from that in the West operating in an environment of different cultural mores and practices. Although there are intersections in the views of both movements there are also vast divides. I feel they should mostly be dealt with in a separate section, else their views could be pejoratively impugned on the Western movement and visa versa.
- Also before the SIFF statement is included it should verified that the view is also held by either a majority or significant minority of the Indian Men's Rights Movement, ie that wp:undue is satisfied. I know very little about SIFF and the quote was only recently added during the discussion of this section. Atm all we have is a report of one statement and little to no contextual background. Having someone with more than a passing knowledge of the Indian Men's Rights Movement would be helpful here.CSDarrow (talk) 15:41, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- From hereon in, I'll be handling this dispute. I have some more reading to do, so please bear with me. Steven Zhang Help resolve disputes! 23:25, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Re: taking over the dispute, I strongly approve. Re: SIFF, can we all agree that a citation that refers to the Indian Men's Rights Movement should not be used as a source supporting a statement that simply says "Some men's rights activists assert that..." without any mention of India? I would say the same if a reference was specific to men's rights activists in Saudi Arabia; some countries have cultural and legal frameworks that are different enough from the rest of the world that they really should not be lumped together with the rest of the world. When I read in Wikipedia that "Some men's rights activists assert X", that seems to imply that there is at least one men's rights group in the US, EU or Australia/New Zealand that asserts such a thing. Sort of like saying "some political organizations support a ban on women driving." --Guy Macon (talk) 01:43, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Sorry Guy I missed what you were saying here, but yes...you are correct. Just because a source says that the Men's rights group in India believes something, is not supportive of the statement unless it says the group is the India group itself. Otherwise this is original research and synthesis. Now I will comment no further...--Amadscientist (talk) 02:11, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Also strongly approve of Zhang taking this DR filing and will not be making further comment on the case.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:50, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- "When I read in Wikipedia that "Some men's rights activists assert X", that seems to imply that there is at least one men's rights group in the US, EU or Australia/New Zealand that asserts such a thing." Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ#Anglo-American_focus specifically addresses this and says it's a violation of NPOV. An Anglo-American bias is something to be avoided. There are one thousand crore people in the English speaking nation of India; that's more then in all the nations you mention combined. By all rights, the nations you list are the outliers and India should be the norm. In practice, instead of handling this in an ethnocentric way, we should take care to make it clearer which groups assert what; if there is a sufficiently clear distinction, US/Canadian groups (or whatever division) could be handled on a different page from Indian groups, otherwise an attempt should be made to make clear who's holding what positions in the single page.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:58, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Yeah, but nobody is trying to suggest that only the India reference be used to support the phrase. As has been pointed out over and over again, there are multiple reliable secondary sources pointing out that MRs activists and groups from the US and elsewhere have opposed such legislation. Recent primary sources from Western based Men's rights groups, activists and their leaders have also been presented. At this point, I am not going to relist them all yet again, but they are to be found here and on the talkpage of the article. Slp1 (talk) 13:33, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- If I see a Wikipedia page that says X with ten citations, and I point out that one of the citations does not support the statement, I don't care whether the others support it and neither should you. If indeed they do, that simply means that there should have been nine citations, not ten. If someone is able to knock down nine out of the ten as not being reliable sources, not supporting the statement, etc., that just means that it should be a statement with one citation. Each citation needs to stand by itself. Other nearby citations are completely irrelevant. --Guy Macon (talk)
- I agree wholeheartedly with your argument. But I'm really not sure of its point, as the other references have not been "knocked down" (as you put it) by most of the independent commentators here, have they? And here, for the record, are a couple more citations, this time from the UK.
- A Guardian article from January 24, 1994 available on Lexis-Nexis called "Women: who's afraid of the big bad women" notes the 1993 keynote speech by Roger Whitcomb at an International Men's rights conference, in which "he reserves particular venom for the House of Lords ruling on marital rape [which removed the spousal exemption in the UK] in 1991 ("A long-standing feminist dream")".
- A second, related article, also in Guardian on the same day, entitled "Men's rights" and listing the key features of the movement. Among the listed "anti-heroes" are "the law lords (for their decision on marital rape)" Slp1 (talk) 22:00, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- And the material about Whitcomb, who was the chairman of the UK Men's Movement[22] and his opposition the House of Lords marital rape ruling is retold in this 2000 Edinburgh University Press book. Not sure why it didn't show up on prior searches. Slp1 (talk) 02:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Concerning Roger Whitcomb and the UKMM
- The House of Lords decision on marital rape was with respect to a husbands immunity from prosecution for raping his wife. You have claimed in very enfatic terms that that was not what you have been talking about. Also your source is clearly an advocacy book.
- I see no other commentary by Whitcombe on this issue or any evidence of he or the UKMM 'campaigning', regardless of how you define the term.
- From what I can tell the UKMM is in fact an organization started by Whitcomb who simply chose the name 'UK Men's Movement'. Suggesting the UKMM represents Mens Rights views in the UK is simply untrue. The Mens Rights Movement is a grass roots movement which by definition has no central leadership.
- UKMM's web domain UKMM.org.uk is vacant.
- CSDarrow (talk) 15:56, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I've no idea where you get the idea that I haven't been talking about immunity from prosecution for rape of a wife. Of course I am. That legal decision by the House of Lords was what ended the marital rape exemption, permitting people to be criminally convicted of raping their spouse. It's the way the UK got rid of the marital law exemption, and that's what Whitcomb etc opposed. There are indeed other sources about Whitcomb and the organization available. In fact, when he died in the late 90s he left 150K pounds to the organization to continue legal battles through the European courts of Human Rights, according to various newspaper reports. All the sources aren't on line, however. Once again, a scholarly book from a University Press is not to be dismissed as an "advocacy book" per policy and guidelines. If you want these rules to change, you need to do the work on the policy and guideline pages, not here. I totally agree that the UKMM does not represent all men's rights views, but it clearly represents some of them, and given the extensive evidence of primary and secondary sources that these views in multiple men's rights groups and activists, it is amazing that you continue to try to try to marginalize source after source after source. But see below and the article for a new proposal.Slp1 (talk) 02:26, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment To my mind the discussion is becoming exhausted and losing focus. The stance is now being taken by some that the statement, (and it variants), is not infering that men should have impunity from the law for raping their wives. I feel the statement at hand, ie
- "Some men's rights activists assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime.",
in the absence of clarifying comments or context, would leave the majority of readers with the impression that the Men's Right movement supports impunity from the law for raping one's wife. This is not the case apart from possibly a very extreme fringe. Variants such as "..have campaigned against marital rape legislation" are also not sufficiently clear imo.
If others feel the Mens Rights Movement has campaigned for the removal of "Marital Rape Legislation ", with marital rape covered by existing laws, it is for them to present an entirely unambiguous statement supported by reliable sources that does not violate undue-weight. The "Scholarly/Academic" sources presented here are entirely inadequate by any measure, they are shocking examples of "Scholarship" that if need be should go to RSN. My sense is that the Mens Rights Movement has had little to say on the issue. My stance is still that the statement should simply be removed.
CSDarrow (talk) 14:03, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Apologies to all, I have been fairly absent from the discussion. A good comment was made about not being anglo focused, which I agree upon. However, that does not prevent two sentences
- "In India, men's rights groups generally oppose marital rape. In the United States, [whatever is true in the US]"
- with appropriate citations for each. I cannot say that I am in complete agreement with CSDarrow in all of his arguments though I do agree with many of them. I think the material on the British house of lords would make a great inclusion to the article written as you wrote it above rather than in a weasel worded statement (as currently). The unfortunate odor of finding cites for a claim rather than building a claim from citations lingers over this entire discussion. We don't have a word limit for articles and shouldn't shy from writing as much as a paragraph detailing the different opinions of mens rights movements in different countries (india, britain, us) and times (now, 20 years ago, 40 years ago). I would be disturbed to see sections upon sections for such a claim but there is to not have a few sentences (US, Britain, SIFF?), each somewhat more specific and sourced appropriately.
- Lastly, I wanted to bring back the rationale point (as it has been absent to the discussion). If the consensus is that mens rights groups oppose marital rape laws, the claim still seems insufficient on its own. Advocacy positions are formed in reasons and unfamiliar positions (like this one) should have their reasons stated. "some mens rights groups advocate against marital rape laws because they feel [feeling]." If that task seems impossible, I suggest it is the result of weak sourcing. A strong source would always spend enough detail to explain a position rather than just simply stating it. Perpetualization (talk) 21:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, I'm yet another DRN volunteer and I would like to probe for disputants' opinions on the following statements:
- US Men's Rights group used to oppose marital rape laws, though it is not the case now.
- UK Men's Rights group opposes marital rape laws.
- From the worldwide perspective opposition to marital rape laws among Men's Rights groups is currently not as prominent as the acceptance of such laws.
May we assume that these statements are supported by all disputants? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 00:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for trying to help Dimitrij. I really appreciate it!
- US Men's Rights group used to oppose marital rape laws, though it is not the case now.- Not agreed. Men's rights activists in the US have written lately as 2007 [23], 2008 [24] and currently [25] that they oppose them.
- UK Men's Rights group opposes marital rape laws.- Not agreed from a technical standpoint as the particular m men's right group (and activist) mentioned in the reliable sources is now defunct. Also see below.
- From the worldwide perspective opposition to marital rape laws among Men's Rights groups is currently not as prominent as the acceptance of such laws.- Impossible to say as none of them actually say "yes, we support and accept marital laws". In any case, this is the sort of analysis and interpretation of primary sources that is outside the scope of WP editors, and classified as original research. I think this discussion really needs to focus on the secondary sources, which should be the basis of the article.
- A suggestion to guide future discussions: note that the current disputed wording talks about "men's rights activists" not "groups". Nobody has suggested using the term "men's rights groups" (even though many of the activists who have made pronouncements on this subject have been leaders of prominent groups). Let's discuss something that is actually on the table.
- A final note of clarification for those who state "the unfortunate odor of finding cites for a claim rather than building a claim from citations". I added the original information in February while rewriting the "allegations of rape" section. I did general searches for "men's rights" and "rape" and the topic of "marital rape" came up several times in reliable secondary sources.e.g [26]. So I included a short sentence about it. As to the extra sources that have been found since: it's an inevitable artifact of people arguing the reliability sources that additional searches get done to confirm the original ones. --Slp1 (talk) 13:03, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Just a quick comment from an uninvolved editor. I've looked at these last few sources you've provided and it's clear from all of them that the criticism of these laws is related to false accusations. When you say things like "Men's rights activists oppose marital rape laws" it makes it sound like they want to be allowed to rape their wives, when in fact their concern is mostly about being falsely accused of doing that. It's a gross misrepresentation, and the sources do not support it. Reyk YO! 21:40, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- It's a simple statement of fact; it makes it sound as if MRAs don't believe that people should have legal recourse if they're raped by their spouses, which happens to be entirely true. Giving their justification is okay, though the fact that they oppose rape victims from having legal recourse should not be missed.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:42, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- None of the three sources I read say anything even remotely like "rape victims should not have legal recourse". That is entirely your own interpretation. Reyk YO! 02:06, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- You claim that "When you say things like "Men's rights activists oppose marital rape laws" it makes it sound like they want to be allowed to rape their wives" with no source, but when I say that removing martial rape laws will mean that people raped by their spouses won't be protected by them, it's WP:SYNTH?--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:33, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- There's a difference between making a claim in an article, and relating my impressions of an article. The former requires sources, the latter does not. The difference really isn't that hard to understand. I also think you're attaching implicit moral judgments to your interpretation of the sources and presenting those as fact. To take your statement "they oppose rape victims from having legal recourse" as an example, it's as if I reasoned this way: "Mr Jones wants a Fribblitude Law because of reasons A, B, C. In my opinion, this law will also have adverse consequence X. Therefore, I will claim that Mr Jones supports X and word that claim in a way that suggests X is the reason Mr Jones wants the law." That's exactly what you're doing when you leap from "MRAs criticise marital rape laws" to "they oppose rape victims from having legal recourse". Your silly "silence implies consent" statement from earlier suggests to me that you're perfectly happy to cast aspersions on Men's rights advocates based on nothing whatsoever and you should have a think about whether you're being fair. Reyk YO! 13:27, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- There's no "In my opinion, this law will also have adverse consequence X." MRAs who oppose marital rape laws are saying that the state should not have laws that criminalize martial rape. That is the logical meaning of what they're saying. The fact that you attack me does not change that. The fact that I think groups that stand for X, when other groups who stand for X also stand for Y, need to say "We don't stand for Y" or implicitly let the whole movement including them be seen as standing for Y, does not change that.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:36, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I have not attacked you. That is yet another false accusation. I am done with this conversation and with you. Reyk YO! 11:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- (edit conflict) I'm happy to support changes to the sentence, in part because of these concerns of ambiguity. I don't agree, however, that the sources present all speak about the opposition being based on concerns of false allegations. In fact none of the original sources sources do, and in fact one talks about something completely different - that sex is part of the marriage contract/relationship. That reasoning is echoed in part here here [27] and here [28] (and here are less reliable ones [29][30][31][32][33]). Indeed Warren Farrell in his The Myth of Male Power book, when writing about spousal rape says "But in a relationship this is especially true: Both sexes engage in "mercy sex". And that's the difference between having a relationship and not having a relationship - all good relationships require "giving in," especially when our partner feels strongly. The Ms. survey can call it a rape; a relationships counselor will call it a relationship". However, based on finding the Farrell source, I have a new version to propose, and I think I will do it directly into the article. I think nobody is terribly satisfied with the current version, and this way I can easily provide the quotes from non-online sources.Slp1 (talk) 02:26, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Giving their justification is more than simply ok, it should ABSOLUTELY be part of the article. The alternative is a very negative and untrue implication Perpetualization (talk) 18:58, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Dimitrij, thank you for entering the discussion. Your questions on the face of it seems straight forward and one would think lead us to to some consensus. However I feel trying to answer them we will lead to a nightmare of an argument over semantics and definition of terms. The questions are far more complex than they initially seem. Frankly I don't know the answer to the questions, and I am not trying to be obtuse here. Personally I don't think the Mens Rights Movement has had very much to say on "marital rape" regardless of how you define that term, and certainly not to an extent that satisfies Jimbo Wales criteria. But it not me who is making any claims here, it is others who in particular are making the claim
- Some men's rights activists assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime.
- which in my mind is ambiguous and does not satisfy wp:undue, (the suggested variants are no better imo). Which is why I have brought it to DRN. If others can come up with a variant that satisfies wp:undue then that is fine, in fact Jimbo Wales suggests this should be easy to do so if true. It is not for me to do research for others though I would, and to some extent have, if I thought it would resolve matters; however I don't think it will. This is clearly a contentious and complex discussion that will not be resolved unless it stays focused.
- CSDarrow (talk) 17:04, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Do you have any cites from groups that explicitly support marital rape laws? They would help balance it. If not, well, silence is easily interpreted as consent.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:42, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Again, that's putting words in their mouths and is unjustifiable. Reyk YO! 02:11, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Men's Rights discussion 4
- Part of the problem here is semantic. By "rape" most people think of forced sex, or sex under threat of physical violence. Virtually no one in the MRM endorses that (and a few outliers who might are just that -- outliers, and fall under WP:UNDUE).
- Rather, as noted several times by CSDarrow, this is a very complex topic that involves understanding context and other considerations. As noted by Warren Farrell (above), "mercy sex" happens all the time, but it is not rape; neither is having sex for non-sexual motives (which both sexes sometimes do). If the term "rape" is to be used it really should be defined as most folks think of it -- as physically coerced sex with a partner who has given a clear "no." Again, I don't see the MRM as supporting rape; those who do represent a outlier, fringe position -- and thus this falls under WP:UNDUE. Memills (talk) 04:08, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- No, that's not part of the problem here. I think everybody knows what "marital rape laws" refers to. The question is, do people in the MRM endorse repealing them and not passing them?--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:33, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Agreed. And much more importantly, the evidence according to multiple reliable sources is that some have and do oppose them, including some prominent names. That's what key here. The personal opinions of editors about what the MRM supports (most especially strawmen about "supporting rape"), or how most people would define "rape" are simply irrelevant. Slp1 (talk) 11:46, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Strawman? Then explain to me why you vigorously objected to my removal of "Some men's rights activists question the criminal status of marital rape, arguing that sex within marriage forms part of the marriage covenant", ie here [34]. My removal of this phrase started the whole debate.
- CSDarrow (talk) 15:50, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm really at a loss. I objected to the removal because removing well-sourced material for no good reason is not how we build an encyclopedia. And, surely that you can see that there is a huge difference between "questioning the criminal status of marital rape" and "supporting rape"? Try this parallel. Someone who questions the criminal status of marijuana possession, for example, isn't automatically a supporter of people possessing marijuana. Surely you can see that. Slp1 (talk) 16:53, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- 'I think everybody knows what "marital rape laws" refers to.' - I don't. CSDarrow (talk) 15:07, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Me neither. I have no idea how "marital rape laws" differ from "rape laws." A better term would be "marital rape exemption" laws. In some [countries] the forcible rape of a spouse is not a legal offense. However, a perusal of this list of countries is revealing: these are not countries with active MRM groups who have pushed or supported such legislation. And, in countries where forcible rape of a spouse is already illegal, I don't see evidence that MRM groups are actively supporting legislation to make forcible rape legal (again, perhaps with the exception of a few fringe outliers).
- Also, the comment above that "some have and do oppose them [marital rape laws] , including some prominent names." Are you referring to Warren Farrell? If so, that is a real stretch -- he most certainly opposes any form of forcible rape.
- Some may have concerns about what implications Implied_consent has with respect to marital rape, or the expansion of the definition of rape to include more ambiguous cases of post-sex regret, "mercy sex," or where consent was ambiguous. But who specifically supports decriminalizing the forcible rape of a spouse? No one that I am aware of.
- Let me propose revising the sentence in question from
- "Some men's rights activists question the criminal status of marital rape, arguing that sex within marriage forms part of the marriage covenant"
- to this:
- "While virtually no MRM activists question the criminal status of forcible rape, some have expressed concerns about the expansion of the definition of rape to include more ambiguous cases that may involve post-copulatory regret, "mercy sex," or where consent was ambiguous or implied (which may be especially relevant in cases of allegations of non-forced marital rape)." Memills (talk) 21:17, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Cites, please. This is not what the cites shown say. The cites say MRM activists have opposed women in marriage being protected under the law from rape by their husbands, rape of any type. Full stop. Bringing in the entire issue of the MRM movements attitudes towards rape in general seems off point.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:47, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't see the "rape of any type" or "full stop" claims in any cite shown. Would you be so kind as to tell us exactly where you read that? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:28, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I did not quote a sentence to be added to the article. But yes, for future reference, in English, when someone says they oppose marital rape laws, they're not saying they oppose marital rape laws of a certain type. To limit the type of marital rape they're talking about is to put words in their mouths.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:56, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Evasion noted. No, you are not excused from the requirement to provide evidence backing up your claims. If someone opposes a law, they are opposing whatever that law specifically says. Any marital rape law must differentiate itself in some way from the general rape laws in that country. If you have a law that specifies a $10 fine for stealing fruit, you don't pass a law that specifies a $10 fine for stealing apples. Just as any apple theft law must specify wow it differs from the existing fruit theft law, likewise any marital rape law must specify wow it differs from the existing rape laws. Thus it is fair to ask about the details of the law that they are opposing, and it is fair to ask you for evidence when you make specific claims about the law they are opposing. As a DRN volunteer I don't care what is in the article. All I care about is that whatever is in the article is supported by citations to reliable sources. You are not allowed to claim "The cites say..." and then wave your hands and evade the question when asked where in the cites it says that. ---Guy Macon (talk) 23:06, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- General rape laws historically didn't protect people from rape by their spouses. [35] explains exactly what marital rape laws are; they're laws that protect women from rape by their spouses, and provides a quote from a MRM person say that they're bad. (This is a cite that was brought up at the start.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:04, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is a prime example of what I am talking about. I asked you where in the cite you saw what you say is in the cite, and you ignored my request, provided a link,
and claimed the page at the other end of the link says something that it does not say.
Your claim: "[The cite] explains exactly what marital rape laws are; they're laws that protect women from rape by their spouses"
What the page actually says: "redefining rape by including sexual assault in any form in its definition [...] the proposed new law, besides terming sexual relationship of a man with a wife under the age of 18 as rape, also specifies ... that if a man commits sexual assault even on his wife, who is above 18 years of age, shall be punished with imprisonment"
Somewhat related, but not the same thing. Your cite doesn't say what you claimed it says.
Given the fact that we know that at times you claim that a citation says something that it does not say, I am going to have to insist that, from now on, when someone asks you "where in the cite does it say that?" that you respond by quoting the exact wording where you believe the cite says what you claim it says. This is not an unreasonable request. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:59, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Which I notice is not a requirement you put on User:Memills, who has never provided cites for anything I asked for cites for above.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Refusal noted. So it is your position that if someone else violates Wikipedia guidelines then you are free to do so as well? That's not how it works. You are required to follow Wikipedia policies (like not claiming that sources say things that they don't actually say) no matter what Prosfilaes does. That being said, if you can point to a specific example of Prosfilaes violating Wikipedia's policies, I will give it my full attention. And if I find that he has misrepresented sources, as you have done, he too will be required to quote the exact wording showing that the cite says what he claims it says. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:06, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I do not think Slp1 should be editing, as we speak, the phrase in Men's rights that's under consideration here. CSDarrow (talk) 15:18, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Agreed. We are waiting for feedback here. Memills (talk) 21:17, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Agreed in principal though I note that his edits have been moving the sentence in a productive way. I have also made a small number which I do not feel change the dynamic of this discussion. Perpetualization (talk) 19:04, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment:- This discussion has been going on for over a week. To mind it is going round in circles, losing focus and has become unproductive. It has become a discussion about the subject as opposed to the resolution of the conflict that was brought here. Spl1 has to stop changing the statement in Men's Rights so then we can decide the following:-
- Do the sources support the statement?
- Are the sources reliable?
- Is wp:UNDUE satisfied?
To mind in all its incarnations the statement fails all of the above. Unless we can move forward I feel the sources should be taken to wp:RSN for evaluation.
CSDarrow (talk) 19:44, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes -- time to wrap this up. Memills (talk) 20:55, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- It seems like Save Indian Family Foundation help block a proposal to remove a marital rape exception from the law of the largest nation in the world, home to 1/5 the world's people. Even if that were the only evidence brought up here--and it's not--that would over whelm WP:UNDUE massively.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:56, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- "It seems like" doesn't cut it as a reliable reference. Memills (talk) 18:10, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- SIFF successfully campaigned against criminalizing martial rape in India.[36] The argument (further up) that the PR spokesman for SIFF was only speaking for himself when discussing the issue with the media is the most absurd argument I've heard in a while. Regardless, the opinion is not limited to India. Antimisandry.com, which both sides of this argument have listed as a prominent Western men's rights group, lists decriminalizing martial rape as part of the men's rights agenda. I don't believe that it is the majority view in the West, but it is more significant than a fringe viewpoint. Kaldari (talk) 20:35, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- SIFF link you provided is apparently broken. Also, please give cite link for your claim re Antimisandry.com. Memills (talk) 21:11, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Please do not modify the article itself on this topic until there is some resolution to this issue. Feel free to add to discussion here, first. Memills (talk) 19:35, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Men's Rights discussion 5
Source Check I was checking some sources and had a question about source 88, which references the south china morning post quoting the "All India Harassed Husbands Association." I copied the name of the organization from the news article to attribute it to a specific group. However, I realized that I can't find the All India Harassed Husbands Association with a simple google search. I didn't look very thoroughly but does this organization actually exist? Perpetualization (talk) 19:19, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Searching Google for "All-India Harassed Husbands Association" (with the quotes) shows about 30 references, all from 2006. Every reference appears to be from someone with an axe to grind saying how evil this group is. There is no evidence that the organization was ever notable or even that it actually existed. (Who is the founder? Where is the headquarters? Can anyone name four members?)
- Alas, this is the state of a bunch of statements in this article: It is full of statements that are not supported by sources, and we have multiple editors who falsely claim that sources say things that they don't actually say. Often there is a long string of citations, none of which support the statement. Someone who is uninvolved in the current dispute with no strong opinions about the topic needs to go through the entire article, removing every statement that is not supported be the sources that are attached to it. Then the editors of the page need to decide that they will not allow any unsourced material back in. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:28, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree entirely - CSDarrow (talk) 17:51, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Further, much of the information presented in the article presumably about the MRM cite sources that are hostile to the MRM, rather than from sources from MRM writers/activists themselves. Memills (talk) 21:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Right; that's why it's called WP:NPOV, and not Sympathetic Point of View. That we do cite all sides is a distinction between Wikipedia and some of its competitors.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:54, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Problem is, not "all sides" are adequately presented or cited in the article. Most of the cites are from those critical of the MRM. MRM folks should be allowed to themselves identify what their objectives are, not have those hostile to it define (or mis-define) them for them.
- This is the very issue under discussion here. Critics of the MRM are cited here suggesting that MRM folks are advocating things (like forcible marital rape) that in fact the MRM does not (a few fringe, outliers excepted). Memills (talk) 03:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- And the solution to that is something that we here at Wikipedia have a lot of experience dealing with. Step one: make it so that every controversial statement is supported by a citation to a reliable source. If any editors are not willing to follow that basic principle, warn them and then apply a series of longer and longer blocks. Step two (only after step one is accomplished), work toward consensus about WP:WEIGHT.
- Note that as a dispute resolution volunteer, I have no position on the actual dispute, which I find rather boring, and I am not willing to devote a bunch of time to doing the above. If, however, someone who is interested (even if previously involved) is willing to put in the time and willing to set aside any personal opinions and make sure all statements are sourced, not just the ones from the other side, I am willing to spend a reasonable amount of effort advising and guiding that person or persons. She/He/they must be willing to take this in whatever direction the sources lead and to try really hard to be unbiased. Any takers? --Guy Macon (talk) 04:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- We have issues of fact not of opinion here, WP:NPOV has nothing to do with it. These semantic gymnastics are getting tedious. CSDarrow (talk) 15:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, we have a problem with WP:V and with WP:NPOV. First we have to fix the obvious problem of sources that don't support the statements they are attached to (WP:V, then we need to look at the remaining good sources and assign them the proper WP:WEIGHT, which I remind you is a part of WP:NPOV. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:16, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Regarding hostile sources Memills's complaint, my solution is only: find better sources. There is no rule against critical sources. In fact, both critical and supporting sources can be cited. It is the responsibility of editors adding content to ensure that the sources are adequate. The things that need to happen are the following: (1) sources checked and poor sources and incorrectly quoted sources removed (2) questionable/disputed sources discussed on the talk page - I'm not sure how WP:BOLD and article probation interact, but there will surely be arguments (3) Find new, quality sources that are pro-MRM (the POV that is sorely lacking from the current sources). Perpetualization (talk) 20:47, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree 100%, assuming (and I am pretty sure this is the case here) that the lack of pro-MRM sources are a result of editors pushing their POV and not an actual lack of sources. As for how WP:BOLD and article probation interact, WP:BOLD still applies, as does WP:BRD. (Actually the policy pages it summarizes apply, including WP:BOLD.) It is important to realize that BRD is for edits where you have no idea whether anyone objects to them -- to find out you BOLDly make the edit, and if anyone disagrees they will REVERT it and then you can DISCUSS it. BRD is not for cases where you know that someone will object. In those cases the basic rule is to discuss before editing. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:28, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- (Uninvolved volunteer comment - sticking my nose in) I thought I should mention that the BRD cycle is actualy for this very issue. When to use: Editing a particular page has many editors discussing with little to no progress being made. Editor's concerns are not addressed on the talkpage after a reasonable amount of effort. and "Your view differs significantly from a rough consensus on an emotionally loaded subject". Basicly, there is never a rule to discuss first and edit second, although it can be common sense not to poke a mad tiger. But the basic reasoning of BRD is to kickstart discussion. So if you feel that a BOLD edit is something you know for sure will be disagreed with but it is your true good faith opinion, it can be done....just very carefully and not something a new editor should attempt.--Amadscientist (talk) 22:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Amadscientist is entirely correct; I expressed myself poorly. What I was getting at is the common situation where there is a clear consensus against an editor's preferred version and a long history of him inserting it and being reverted (but not in the last 24 hours -- see WP:3RR). sometimes in such cases the editor with the minority opinion keeps trying to get it into the article again and again, each time arguing -- again -- for inclusion on the talk page and seeing -- again -- everyone else disagreeing. That's the sort of situation where WP:BRD isn't much help. WP:STICK may be of help, though... --Guy Macon (talk) 20:39, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, a single editor who cannot live with the consensus risks a good deal by attemting to edit the contribution back into the article after a clear consensus disagrees with their interpretation. Edit warring can be seen as a single edit if the editor is not listening to the legitimate arguments of others. It is true that Wikipedia does not recognize a majority rule, however if you cannot convince others then it can be a problem on the side of the individual who can't accept what everyone else has stated. Sadly, this is seen very often.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:14, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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