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Gender studies Unassessed

This article is part of WikiProject Gender studies. This WikiProject aims to improve the quality of articles dealing with gender studies and to remove systematic gender bias from Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate in the project, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.Gender studiesWikipedia:WikiProject Gender studiesTemplate:WikiProject Gender studiesGender studies ??? This article has not yet received a rating on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. To-do list: Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Assess : see Unassessed Gender studies articles and Unknown-importance Gender studies articles Cleanup : edit to see Collaborate : see /Collaboration Copyedit : edit to see Deletion sorting : see /Sexuality and gender Expand : edit to see Infobox : see Gender studies articles needing infoboxes Merge : edit to see Notability : edit to see NPOV : edit to see Orphans : Brannon Masculinity Scale · Holy Virility · Media and gender · Michael Kaufman (author) · Women's education in Saudi Arabia Photo : see Misplaced Pages requested photographs of gender studies Split : History of feminism Stubs : see Gender studies stubs Translate : see /translation Update : edit to see Verify : Riot grrrl Needs attention : see Gender studies articles needing attention

newsletter issues missing?

The Backlash Times is in 8 libraries (, as accessed 1-30-10); I consulted just one. It's unknown if there were other issues published than my nearby library has. As it happened, I think I attributed at least one statement to each issue available there, so the citations can be used to determine to which issues I had access. I hope someone has access to other issues and can add to this article. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Womanews research?

Probably, Womanews, a New York City feminist newspaper that's probably on microform at a library, covered FFP, including a mention of the controversy of FFP publishing porn imagery in its newsletter. If someone has it, please add to the article. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

NPOV and need for cleanup

First off, I want to say that this article is a detailed and well-referenced contribution, fleshing out details on a minor but historically important group in the 1980s "porn wars". That said, the article suffers from a choppy (cut and paste?) writing style and, more seriously, serious WP:NPOV issues. Sentences like "Pornography provides the training for incest, assault, and rape" is presented as undisputed fact, rather than the opinions of the organization in question. This could be a good article with some strong re-editing. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 03:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll get to it in the next few days. The statements I think you're questioning as POV are actually FFP's or Page's as presented by the sources cited, so I'll clarify that. The statement on 1990s/2000s that you deleted as NOR I'll leave out; it is based on my knowledge and otherwise doesn't have a source. People were often getting WAP and FFP mixed up and statements about one were often only about the other.

I also have to figure out why the bot that followed you replaced quote marks in the form of & # 0147 ; (without spaces) etc. with numbered boxes, which makes passages hard to read. If you have ideas about that, please clue me in.

Thanks.

Nick Levinson (talk) 08:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I think I've fixed what you had in mind, and, unless I see a reply otherwise, will delete the two notices in a few days. Let me know if specific issues are left for correction.

The fixes are renaming of the Issue section to Issue Position, clarifying of to whom the position statements belong, copying a ref from the next sentence to make support clearer, tense at one point, combining of identical refs, replacing of numbered boxes with original &# 0145–0148 ; (spaceless), and replacing an erroneous closing quote mark with the opening mark.

I paraphrased closely from the Village Voice article when I didn't quote because quoting too extensively from an article raises copyright issues, since fair use's length limit is determined not by whether much of the newspaper is quoted but by whether much of one article in the paper is quoted. This is also a problem with Backlash Times, in which probably most articles are quite short, not to mention copyright on what that newsletter reprinted from other media. I don't recall a copyright notice in Backlash Times, but that's not dispositive; there's still copyright in it. I don't want to jeopardize Misplaced Pages by quoting too much from copyrighted works. So I do paraphrase when I'd rather quote more, but you'll see that the paraphrases are within the authority of the cited sources.

The writing style's choppiness is because WP is for information; it is up to readers to elucidate the meaning they get from the topic's information, so I don't invest a lot in writing style. I focus on making the information clear, accurate, and well-organized for later finding.

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, really what the article needs is a brief summary of FFP's positions rather than a list of direct quotes. I can do this in the next few days, once I have time to get to it.

Also, part of the problem with the writing style is the "one sentence paragraph" style. There's no flow to it. Again, I can fix this once I have time. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 06:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thank you very much. As long as the content stays, if you can make it flow better, I'm happy with that. And, you're right; usually, when I sit on a draft for a few days, I find occasion to put separate paragraphs together into one. Best wishes. Nick Levinson (talk) 06:42, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

FFP's later years until closure?

Does anyone know FFP's later history? I saw her for years tabling and she did keep active as an advocate to electoral campaigns, but eventually she stopped. I think that was in the late 1990s or in the 2000s decade. Unfortunately, various print reports confused Feminists Fighting Pornography with Women Against Pornography, which makes some reports unreliable. I don't think WAP ever did much tabling, but you wouldn't know that from what little reporting mentions the tabling. If you know, thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Basically, if you don't know, then don't speculate, per WP:NOR. Just go with what the published sources tell you and no more. BTW, is there anything that gives information on why she split off from Women Against Pornography and founded her own group. Any substantial positional or political differences from WAP? If any of your sources give this, that would be of considerable interest. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 06:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

That's an overcriticism. I didn't source it and I should have if possible but it didn't go beyond what I know. Saying words like "probably" doesn't exceed knowledge; they qualify it. But you're right that NOR requires a source apart from a contributor's own knowledge.

On the split, the best published source is probably Womanews, which was a local feminist newspaper that's been defunct for many years and which I believe was microformed, but I don't think anyone indexed it (unless the publisher had a morgue, i.e., their own clips topically sorted, but I don't know who'd have that now, if anyone). I checked the Village Voice's indexing in Access for circa '80-'87 for FFP, her, and the bill, and didn't see it there, so VV probably didn't cover it. There's a smaller possibility that off our backs covered it (smaller because they're Washington, D.C.-based) and they're indexed, but I don't have the gender-media index that I think includes oob that far back (either ProQuest or EbscoHost) and I've forgotten the index's name. A library near me used to get it but dooesn't anymore.

Rumor was that the split was strategic; she preferred the street. There's more, but stating it might be libelous against someone or other. It's also clear that they differed on legislative remedies, but the research I did for this article suggests that may not have been a difference until she found herself getting nowhere trying to get legislation passed with a feminist definition of porn.

There's also a website that says why she left altogether and purporting to quote her. Maybe it's true. But I don't want to use that without a reliable source that that statement is really hers. The porn field has its share of deliberate misrepresentations.

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 07:15, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Corrections

I corrected some information based on an email from one of the involved parties, VRTS ticket # 2010042010031009 refers. Guy (Help!) 16:34, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Does OTRS override a published law journal? The link you provided doesn't reveal an email, but my login didn't work for OTRS today, so I can't see what's supposed to be there. In general, an email not publicly available doesn't override in WP, so please clarify the role of OTRS in determining facts. This isn't BLP. If there's simply either two events or two evidence-supported positions, both can be cited.

The spelling "Kunzler" seems dubious. Should it be "Kunstler"?

By 80th, do you mean 80th Street?

And, as the article stands now, the law journal citation has to be relocated or edited as it doesn't support the new information but may or may not support other main text; and it may be appropriate to contact the journal article author on a factual dispute.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:39, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

OTRS overrides pretty much everything, at least on wikipedia. Off2riorob (talk) 01:41, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

In relation to the 1989 arrest, I've seen a number of sources which discuss the information table at Grand Central Terminal and the involvement of the NYCLU. However, those sources don't mention an arrest, instead saying that the FFP were ordered not to display pornography on their table, and the NYCLU became involved in order to defend them. Is it possible that the 1989 arrest on 80th and Broadway was a separate incident to the one described involving the NYCLU and Grand Central Terminal, and that they were previously conflated? - Bilby (talk) 01:51, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I reindented the last reply above and moved out something else into a new section, which follows. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:34, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

statement on bombing insufficient

Is this a quote? "Even so, bombing is insufficient, because men's views of women and of power must change." It's not in quotes, but it's written as if it should be. The source is paper-only and thus I can't check. —Soap— 01:42, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

No; it's a close paraphrase. I did not want to violate copyright; there was much of use in the article. Since it doesn't say that bpombing is good, I don't think it's so controversial as to need to be quoted. The source is on microfilm, as shown in the endnotes to the article ("op. cit." refers to the fuller note). Public or academic libraries near you may have the microfilm.

Please don't start what's functionally a new section within an existing section. It confuses replies. That's why I moved your question out (and unindented it).

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:34, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I've replaced the paraphrase with a quotation. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:58, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Notability

I do not believe this group satisfies the notability policy, having looked at the provided references. The majority of them are primary sources, many of them seem to be letters to the editor and such (which cannot be used to establish notability), some of them are quite malformed and link to proquest, which is useless to anyone who does not have a proquest account and cannot therefore be verified. There's also a personal website in there, which is not a reliable source. I am considering sending this to AfD. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 05:22, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, lets send it to AfD and see what others think. Atom (talk) 05:27, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I just realized that this article has only been around since January of 2010. Four months is not very much time for others to develop the article and find references. We should give it more time to get cleaned up. Atom (talk) 21:29, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

We should retain. It's notable.

It cites a major article from the Village Voice, available on microform for free in a public library. The ProQuest citations can be checked for free via a public library card for a library system that subscribes, so those cites are verifiable. Other citations include JStor, available at some public libraries, and the N.Y. Times, available online.

The count of letters to the editor is one, from what I see. It was in the Wall St. Journal, which was not a subsidiary of FFP.

The only malformations I saw were a lack of italicizing of publication titles. That's easily remedied; and that's not a notability issue.

The personal website is of someone who observed FFP on the street, thus illustrating their presence with an example, and discussed two sides of the issue presented by FFP. The cite does not make this non-notable.

FFP and Women Against Pornography were competitors and well-known on the issue in their years in New York City, although they generally had different legislative agendas, publicity tactics, and people. The positions of both were controversial. I read various books and articles that mentioned FFP's tabling but without naming FFP, often describing the tablers simply as women against pornography, thus leading to confusion about exactly who was at the tables, FFP or WAP. WAP is the subject of a closely-related article in WP, and properly so. Both belong.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 22:42, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

A personal web site does not satisfy the Reliable Source policy. Anybody can make a website and claim whatever they want. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 05:29, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

If the malformations you meant were the lack of italicizations, that's been fixed. If they're other than that, please specify what. References being specific is not malformation; it's information.

Your only response to my last post above is about the personal website, so I guess you agree on the rest. As to the personal website, that's addressed in the discussion on the nomination of the article for deletion. I trust I've addressed your concerns.

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 02:29, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

serial killers as passionate for porn

This was deleted:

Testifying in support of the bill in a ] hearing in July 1992, Page Mellish reported that ] tended to share "a passion for pornography."<ref name="ABAJ-Feminists-Back-Bill" />

The edit summary given was "Serial killers comment not on topic". As a correlation, it may be disagreed with, e.g., on the ground that porn relieves sexual tension or on the ground that the correlation has not been proven, although there are arguments parallel to these that porn harms women's civil rights and that the correlations have been proven. Resolving those disputes is not important to this article. Instead, the relevance is that the statement was part of the FFP leadership's legislative testimony for a bill central to FFP's work and as such may support Congressional intent in passing the bill and, had it been enacted, court decisions in interpreting and applying it. Thus, the statement reflects FFP, which is the subject of the article.

I propose putting the quotation back, perhaps clarifying the context per this discussion.

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 21:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I took it out because the topic of the article is an organization. The quote, as written here, discusses Mellish' opinion that serial killers have a passion for pornography. First the quote is not on topic as it says nothing about the organization (FFP), nor does it make any conclusion about what she might have meant by that. As far as I know there is no study, or recognized expert who claims that either people who are serial killers have a higher preference for pornography than other people, or that people who favor pornography have a higher incidence of becoming serial killers. With no clear causal link in either direction, and he not an expert on the psychology of serial killers, is it even notable if used in the correct context? If either of those were true, it would be useful in an article about pornography, or about serial killers, but not in this article.

If Mellish was acting on behalf of the FFP at the time, and this was part of some legislative agenda that might be on topic. But the quote says that Mellish testified. it does not say that FFP testified, or that Mellish, acting on behalf of the FFP testified. If she did testify on behalf of FFP, then towards what purpose? It does not indicate anything about a legislative agenda.

If there is some reason that the quote is applicable to the FFP, and that applicability is important, then it should be clear to the reader what that is. Atom (talk) 05:51, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

That FFP supported the passage of antiporn legislation is stated in the article. Testifying in Congress is part of building political support and getting the bill passed.

Congress allows testimony only if it feels like it. Unlike in courts, Page didn't have a right to give testimony. She was invited or accepted by the Senate because her testimony was important for who she represented, and she was generally representing FFP. The same explains her testimony being discussed in the American Bar Aassociation Journal. Her testimony didn't contradict FFP's work and wasn't irrelevant to it. For example, if she had testified on traffic accidents being due to drunken driving, it probably shouldn't be reported in an article on porn or FFP, but that wasn't her testimony as reported here.

We could probably dig up the official Senate report of the committee hearing for her introduction. Unless we think the cited ABA Journal source is wrong, and no one has said that, seeking the Senate report is a nice touch but unnecessary.

What she meant by it is at least inferrable, although we don't want to publish original inferences in WP. And the testimony may contain inferences. But the uttering of the testimony is not an inference. In it, she's stating a connection useful for political purposes, one political purpose being the enactment of the bill. It is not necessary that Congress passes a bill only if its rationale is scientifically valid. If there's no scientist or other scholar who agrees, that doesn't matter, legally or politically. They can pass laws on polygraph examinations and many other subjects regardless of scientific evidence or scholars available. The judiciary has been clear on what is permissible for a rational basis for passing classificatory legislation. Laws that classify so as to affect people's rights must meet at least the rational basis test of the Constitution's 14th Amendment's equal protection clause, the courts are loathe to intrude within the sphere of responsibility of a coequal branch of government such as Congress, and the rational basis test is not very tough. Under it, it is enough that Congress reasonably believes that there may be enough of a connection between facts and a proposed remedy to warrant legislating it. If serial killers may have a passion for obscene content (and I think executed gynocidal serial killer Ted Bundy said about as much), Congress may consider that in deciding whether and how to regulate obscene content. It is not necessary to prove the connection in order to withstand strict scrutiny. Since obscenity is outside of the Constitution's First Amendment free speech or free press protection, Congress may regulate obscenity, including because of a belief that people are more likely to be sexually-driven serial killers if exposed to obscenity, even if no peer-review-level expert confirmed a connection.

A demand for a test proving causality from porn to rape should be responded to with a demand for a design for such a test, a design that is ethical. Absent that design, we need to use the best information available.

This wasn't Page Mellish sitting in a disco and telling a jitterbugger that she thinks there's a connection; this was her testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee to that effect, thus gaining for whatever she said much more weight in the political legislative process. The statement thus gains much more importance. This is comparable to news reports of elected politicians announcing positions that are identical to those of many ordinary neighbors who never make the news; it becomes newsworthy because of who says it when and where, not because it is any truer.

If the statement is unsupportable in scholarship, it probably does not belong in a WP article on murder or porn, because it would be her original research (OR) or point of view (POV). But because she made the statement to Congress, which doesn't require a scholarly standard, and because her role was as the principal of FFP, which opposed porn and wanted the bill passed, the statement of a connection is relevant in an article on FFP.

I'll consider including the above, briefly, in a rewrite of the passage.

Nick Levinson (talk) 02:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC) Corrected syntax and one misspelling and clarified one mention of a person for his relevance: Nick Levinson (talk) 02:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

tagging as CoI

Please be specific about what conflict of interest you believe applies and who has it. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 21:42, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi, did you write it? It is no big deal, I just thought that it was written by someone who was involved in the group. The same for the fan site template they were adding just to get editors to look at those kind of issues and hopefully improve any content related to that kind of thing. I see it was started with some content from Women_Against_Pornography. This was the original article creation edit. Off2riorob (talk) 22:44, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Seems like this content was removed from the women against pornography article on the same day this article was created.

Feminists Fighting Pornography, led by Page Mellish, was another New York City-based group. They are best known for their 1989 arrest for openly displaying pornography as part of an anti-pornography information table in Grand Central Station. The New York Civil Liberties Union (the state affiliate of the ACLU) successfully contested the arrest and established their legal right to display such material. ref,Strossen (1993), p 1135–1136. doi:10.2307/1073402. Feminists Against Pornography was a different group, active in Washington, D.C. during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Is this group notable? The article just seems a bit fluffed up and over written. According to Page Mellish, according to Page Mellish and so on. Off2riorob (talk) 23:03, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I have sent this article to AfD as I mentioned I may do above. Please feel free to participate in the discussion. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 05:42, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I did start the article. I agreed with FFP's basic agenda and with Women Against Pornography's, but both groups probably considered me a serious opponent of theirs because they opposed each other in parts and therefore apparently concluded I must be an opponent of both, too, because I supported both. I saw FFP tabling often for years but we rarely spoke. I may have sent both small financial donations but I don't think I signed any petitions for them. So I don't think either group ever considered me an ally and that doesn't add up to a conflict of interest.

Content about any organization should be in an article about that organization rather than in another organization's article, with some exceptions not relevant here. If the WAP article needs more about FFP in it, please add it there.

If one-sidedness is present, it's because the main criticisms of FFP are of the particular legislative solution and of whether porn is harmful, and both, I think, are amply addressed elsewhere in WP, as they should be, and the FFP article itself describes the legislative choices and links to the pornography article, which presents the debate on criminal effects and the debate on the opposition.

The name Mellish turns up nine times in the main text. I cited her name in each place for attribution or clarity. In some cases, it might be hard to determine from a source whether an action or a statement was FFP's or hers, but because they appear together the proper treatment often is to use both names. This is often the case with small organizations that despite informality are real, present, and reasonably effective. She was the principal for, I think, the whole history of the organization. Her fingerprints, so to speak, will be on a lot of its work. I included her first name often because of a feminist tradition of using full names and not just family names with or without initials, and the use of her full name is justified where used. I did not use her first name by itself except in one discursive endnote about its proper spelling. The article was about FFP. I don't think I found any encyclopedic information about her that wasn't about FFP or FFP's work.

Keeping FFP as a very junior discussion within the WAP article, when FFP had split from WAP if they were ever together and separate sources about FFP were available, didn't make sense. Because feminist antiporn work was widely reviled, it was common in New York to mix the two groups into one stew, with claims that WAP had been seen tabling when I don't think WAP did much or any tabling. WAP had other forms of outreach, such as a slide show, which I saw, and WAP had arguably more famous leadership. People would mention WAP when they meant FFP. (There's a commercial business equivalent: one year CNN TV discovered that viewers thought they had seen certain news events on another network, so CNN started putting its letters on the screen inside news footage.) The result is confusion in potential sources. That didn't occur in sources I cited but it limited what other sources I might have found.

The Grand Central incident is now disputed.

Nick Levinson (talk) 20:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, as I said it was more of an indicator than a big issue, your comments are appreciated and in good faith I will remove the template. Off2riorob (talk) 21:28, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

copyediting wanted?

The article is tagged as in need of copyediting. I've done some. What copyediting is still being requested? Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:44, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I haven't seen a reply, it's been a week, the tag was put up by a user who has been on WP in that time, so I'm about to delete the tag. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:26, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

wikification wanted?

The article is tagged as in need of wikification. I've recently linked more words and phrases than were linked before. I took out the tag but it was put back in, so I assume more is wanted. What wikification is now being requested? Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:49, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I haven't seen a reply, it's been a week, the tag was put up by a user who has been on WP in that time, so I'm about to delete the tag. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:31, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

• Unassessed Gender studies articles
• Unknown-importance Gender studies articles
• WikiProject Gender studies articles
• Unassessed Pornography articles
• Unknown-importance Pornography articles
• Unassessed Unknown-importance Pornography articles
• WikiProject Pornography articles