Talk:Gender/Archive 11

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Archive 11

Biopsychosocial

I made a bold edit to the lede here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender&oldid=1142732257

Gender can be thought of as a biopsychosocial construct, especially by more scholars and sources recently. If the edit stands, here are some sources that could be added to support the definition:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Gender_Trauma/ySnqDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=9781787751071&pg=PA67&printsec=frontcover

https://www.academia.edu/en/58598916/Integrative_Problem_Centered_Metaframeworks_Therapy_I_Core_Concepts_and_Hypothesizing

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24309556_Introduction_to_the_Special_Section-Gendered_Power_in_Cultural_Contexts_Capturing_the_Lived_Experience_of_Couples Born25121642 (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Edit: Here is another source, which appears to be a very good source:

https://transreads.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/2019-04-11_5caf4e9054c15_390340273-How-to-Understand-Your-Gender-a-Practical-Guide-for-Exploring-Who-You-Are.pdf Born25121642 (talk) 02:14, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I reverted this edit; however, there could be a good place to put this word elsewhere in the lead or article. However, the existing first sentence seems to explain it well without it; I don't think it necessarily adds clarity there. Crossroads ^-talk- 02:17, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm thinking about MOS:FIRST. To start off with "Gender is..." vs. "Gender includes...". I believe that a clearer definition at the start of the article could be good.

How about something like this:

Gender is a biopsychosocial construct that includes aspects of being a man, woman, or other gender identity. Born25121642 (talk) 02:37, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I encourage review of the extensive Talk discussions above that helped develop the broader first sentence, including the sources that were discussed in support of a broader introduction of the concept. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 02:51, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I did read over all of the discussions. Replying to Crossroads: In the mean time I have added the content about gender being biopsychosocial to the end of part of the lede. Born25121642 (talk) 02:52, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

My rationale is that gender is not just a social construct. There are social elements, and its good to name them. I believe that greater clarity will benefit readers, even if biopsychosocial is a big word.

One source that I didn't see in the discussions above is Alex Iantaffi and Meg-John Barker's How to Understand Your Gender, which was illuminating to me in understanding this. Born25121642 (talk) 02:56, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

With the lead, we try to summarize the content of the article, per the MOS:LEAD guideline and WP:NPOV policy ("which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic"), and I agree with Crossroads that a section about the biopsychosocial perspective may be appropriate to include in the article (and then proportionately included in the lead). Please let us know if you have questions. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 03:02, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Merger proposal - from Gender identity

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Much of the content between Gender and Gender Identity is largely the same. I believe the two pages can be tactfully merged and it would be positive, so that editors don't have to double check between the two pages (EDIT: Before making edits), and readers have a better experience. Born25121642 (talk) 05:08, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Oppose - Gender is the larger concept article, and gender identity is a component. The concepts and article contents are very different. Per WP:NOMERGE, this merger of discrete subjects does not appear to benefit readers and would create a long and unwieldy article. Beccaynr (talk) 11:24, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Oppose This article, Gender, already has a "readable prose size" of 9,954 words (63 kB). As per WP:SIZERULE, being over 9,000 words and 60kB, this article "Probably should be divided ..." as it stands, before making any additions.
Gender identity has a "readable prose size" of 5,430 words (35 kB), so if they were combined, even allowing for some omission of duplicated material, there would be further pressure for this page to be divided. What would it be divided into? - An obvious split would be into Gender and Gender identity, so we would be back where we started, after a lot of unnecessary work. - Arjayay (talk) 11:31, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Oppose. It makes sense to have two separate but related articles for two separate but related subjects when each subject merits a substantial article, as these both do. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:48, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Oppose, these are distinct topics - the nature of the overlap is not enough to justify attempting to merge large articles together. And per above. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:20, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Oppose. I agree with everyone else who opposes. Masterhatch (talk) 21:37, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Gender identity is not the same as gender. It is merely a component of it and it would be scientifically wrong to merge these two pages that explain two different subjects… 76.65.140.121 (talk) 17:51, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

It looks like there is basically unanimous opposition.

Born25121642 (talk) 19:53, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wiki Education assignment: Intro to Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies-17

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 February 2023 and 19 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): LuciBee123 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by LuciBee123 (talk) 16:13, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Decisiveness of the leading line

The leading line gives a rather broad description of gender, but still relatively decisive. As is clearly indicated by the entire article, it is not too agreed upon how gender should be defined, besides a few overlaps. I think this is the key concept that should be incorporated within the description.

The most problematic phrase is 'or other gender identity.'

1. Neither of the two sources mention this, although I assume it is instead just summarising parts of the page, so not a massive point.
2. The leading line on the 'gender identity' page is "Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender." Incorporating that definition gives: "gender includes the ... aspects of man, woman, and other personal senses of one's own gender," which is circular and not particularly helpful.
3. Is not neutral. Given gender is not widely agreed upon. Points of contention should be highlighted. E.g., not everyone agrees that there is more than two genders.

There are several other problems:

1. 'Man' and 'woman' are not the best choice of terms. Usually refering to 'adult male', but really 'male' is the more precise term. This is discussed in the first source.
2. The category/label and concept of gender is used interchangeably and sometimes ambiguously. I think it should clearly say that it's talking about the concept.
3. Discussion of non-binary/gender binary. There just isn't enough material on the page on this topic to justify this being a large part of the lead.

I'm not a particularly good writer, but this can outline atleast some changes that could be made, even if written in a better fashion:

• The concept of gender refers to the social, cultural, psychological, and behavioural aspects of being male or female; although may include other groups (i.e. non-binary), or other aspects (i.e. biological). It is a relatively recent invention in human history, with its recent growth in usage commonly attributed to the influence of feminism.

I think from here, it should be discussed on what the different usages of gender is. Gender binary should be a short sentence about how in some societies there are other genders, and the term non-binary is used to include these genders. It's a bit late for me write now, so I can't write up a suggestion on how to write that. Vituluss (talk) 15:59, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Lack of transgender

This article has a sidebar claiming that it belongs as "part of a series on Transgender topics", but the concept is never properly addressed, only mentioned in passing deep within. Is this not a glaring omission?

In comparison, 'Non-binary gender' is linked and explained in the opening paragraph; the 'Nationality' article addresses changes of nationality and how nationality is assigned in its second paragraph, not that that is perfectly analogous. PurpleQuaver (talk) 15:26, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Number of genders in the lead - missing

While I expect the exact number is a matter of dispute, it would be good to address this in the lead somehow. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:56, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

It can't go in the lead unless it is already in the body and I'm not seeing it there. Also, it isn't even a meaningful thing to try to include because most conceptions of gender (other than those that insist on their being only two) do not see it as an enumerable set of discrete entities. If you ever see three people arguing about whether there are 2, 5 or 17 genders then you can safely ignore all of them as they are all making the same mistake. That said, I don't think that you ever will because I have never seen anybody seriously trying to count all the genders. (Although I have seen people doing that as a joke or as a way to be annoying.) The lead is currently doing a good job by saying "man, woman, or other gender identity". This correctly tells the reader that there are two extremely popular named gender identities, which they are presumably already familiar with, and also a range of others. I'm not seeing how we could improve on that. --DanielRigal (talk) 17:39, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Past discussions of lead

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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fyi: Talk:Gender/Archive 9 and Talk:Gender/Archive 10 include extensive discussion that helped form the compromise to develop the current lead:

Gender includes the social, psychological, cultural and behavioral aspects of being a man, woman, or other gender identity. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender expression.

References

Beccaynr (talk) 16:58, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wiki Education assignment: Gender and Culture

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2023 and 18 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jenjmo (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Jenjmo (talk) 17:42, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Irrelevant image; suggesting deletion or alteration

File:SF gender symbols.png#globalusage

This image, used under the Social Categories heading, is irrelevant. The Male / Female / Transgender symbols in the first column are widely used, however the remaining symbols in the second and third column are "Made up symbols for gender / sex in SF articles", in the words of the image's creator.

These made-up symbols are not adding anything of value to the page, and are only confusing/misleading.

Proposed solutions:

a) delete the image entirely

b) crop the image so only the Male / Female / Transgender symbols are present

c) replace the image with a different chart (perhaps something like this https://img.freepik.com/free-vector/gender-symbols-set-outline-black-signs-isolated-white-background-simple-illustration_171739-336.jpg?size=626&ext=jpg )

d) replace the image with a collection of pride flags that represent various genders (i.e. transgender, demiboy, demigirl, non-binary, agender, etc)

I think (a) or (b) or (d) are most suitable.

(c) has the issue where gender symbols (in my lived experience as a trans person) do not have common community agreement and are not frequently used.

(d) is a better solution, since the flags have community support and are well-understood icons.

(a) is simple and easy solution. Creature-of-cozy (talk) 17:18, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I think you are right that there is something off here. Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with the image itself, but that it is confusing in this context. It is slightly different versions of the same four symbols in three variants but a reader might not realise that. Your option C has a mix of gender and sexuality symbols and so that would be confusing as well. Option D, pride flags, is not so good as not all genders have pride flags (and we don't want to encourage trolls to add their dimwitted monochrome cis or straight flags). So that leaves A and B. Just removing it would definitely be a valid option but something like B would be better. Even better still, I think we already have the image we need on the Gender symbol article which we can reuse.

I am going to swap that one in, because I think that is clearly a step in the right direction, but that doesn't have to be the last word on this. If anybody has any further ideas then please say. --DanielRigal (talk) 18:51, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, that wasn't as easy as I had hoped. The image wasn't an image at all. It was symbols in an infobox. I have transplanted it as best I can. Maybe it shouldn't be an infobox? If so, does anybody know how to changeit into something more appropriate while keeping the contents as they are? --DanielRigal (talk) 19:19, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Opening sentence - are "man" and "woman" genders?

The opening sentence isn't quite clear: "social, psychological, cultural and behavioral aspects of being a man, woman, or other gender identity."; does this therefore imply that being a man or woman is a gender?. It seems very ambiguous to imply that men and women are genders outright, given that this is in the first sentence in an article entitled simply "gender". Zilch-nada (talk) 14:45, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I.e., why does the sentence employ "man" and "woman" instead of "male" and "female", which are the terms generally used regarding the gender binary? Zilch-nada (talk) 14:47, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

You may wish to review past discussions of the lead, which are collected and linked here: Talk:Gender/Archive 11#Past discussions of lead. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 18:17, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Semiotics aside, a good reason to prefer the current phrasing is that "being a man ..." more clearly communicates "embodying the male gender" and is less ambiguous than "being male" which could be confused with "being assigned male at birth". Doesn't help that our article Male is about sperm-producing organisms, something which has given gender-related articles immense strife over the years. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 18:42, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

The article on male closes the lede by saying In humans, the word male can also be used to refer to gender, in the social sense of gender role or gender identity. I honestly think "man, woman" in this article should simply change to male and female, as it is clear that the gender-binary refers most commonly to male-female, masculine-feminine, and not man-woman. One can embody the male gender as a boy as well... Zilch-nada (talk) 11:11, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Additionally, I'm sure you'd agree that there is ambiguity in the current wording; it is unclear whether or not "man" and "woman" are genders Zilch-nada (talk) 11:12, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I have made the change to the article with my reasoning in the edit summary. I don't think (as I mentioned last month) that "man" more clearly communicates "embodying the male gender" as that clearly excludes boys. Furthermore, "male", while it may redirect to the male sex, this article specifically refers to the social, psychological etc. nature of being male, therefore unambiguously ruling out male (as in gender) as being biological. (Gender is described as the socialised obverse of sex). Thirdly, "male" and "female" are very commonly used to describe the gender binary, more often than man/woman: e.g., Fourth, as I stated in February, defining - let alone describing - gender in relation to "man or woman" is even more ambiguous, as that will perhaps imply that "man" and "woman" are genders, but that is not clear, not elaborated upon. Zilch-nada (talk) 19:03, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

@Beccaynr Please explain - as you reverted my edit - why you think "man"/"woman" is more suitable than "male"/"female" in defining gender. Zilch-nada (talk) 19:06, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

The lead reflects the contents of the article, and there does not appear to be support in sources nor the article to alter the first sentence to male and female, which are articles predominantly about organisms generally. The first sentence was developed after extensive discussion and is also written broadly, i.e. uses the word "including", so it is not an exclusive statement. The first sentence is also not expected to include every detail (see e.g. MOS:FIRST), and more than one source is considered when developing the lead (see e.g. MOS:LEADREL). This is a contentious topic, so particular care needs to be taken to reflect the weight of reliable sources. Beccaynr (talk) 19:22, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I have two things to comment upon there:

• "which are articles predominantly about organisms generally"; but they are also generally used regarding gender; similar to what you said, not exclusive.
• As the article specifies the social, psychological (etc.) aspects of male/female, I therefore think it can't be ambiguous for male/female to be used; however, the use of the word "including" which you support creates significant ambiguity, as I have said above, as it does not a) actually define gender, and b) say whether or not "man" and "woman" are genders.

Zilch-nada (talk) 19:26, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, what I think we should do is to summarise as many sources as possible describing gender as relating to a) men / women, b) male / female, and c) masculine / feminine (although more so under "gender expression"). There are admittedly sources like the WHO that employ men / women (alongside "boys and girls"), as well as a significant amount of sources that employ "male and female" in defining gender. So I don't think this is set in stone yet, either my proposal for the usage of male/female, nor the current men/women wording. I.e., I think this must be gauged by summary. Zilch-nada (talk) 19:30, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

The man and woman articles both include human children, so the concern expressed about not including children in the first sentence seems addressed by the lead formed by consensus after extensive discussion. This is an article about gender; your proposal in the context of the male and female wikilinks seems to suggest making a fundamental and unsupported change the article, but the content and sources in this article do not seem to support using articles about organisms generally to broadly introduce the concept of gender.

Also, the words 'male' and 'female' may be used by some sources, but that is not the same as reliable sources indicating organism-based definitions are intended by the use of those terms. There have been past discussions about the use of terminology, and how this is not simply a matter of counting usage of terms that may be used differently over time and across academic disciplines; how the terms are used and discussed matters more than the mere use of the word. Beccaynr (talk) 19:51, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

The man and woman articles both include human children So what? Those are different articles, aren't they? What matter's is what is in the sentence itself, and that ambiguously excludes children, whereas the most cited source in favour of the man/woman variation is the WHO, which includes "boys and girls". I don't intend on merely counting sources, only summarising the most reliable sources, considering which sources are reliable - and which are not -, in relation to what gender actually is.

Please explain what you mean by organism-based definitions; I think you missed (emphasis mine) that I said "sources that employ "male and female" in defining gender."; therefore I clearly wasn't looking for organism/sex-based definitions. Zilch-nada (talk) 20:04, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Another editor in this discussion also commented about the male and female articles being focused on organisms generally. If you are not trying to replace the meaning of gender with organism-based definitions, then perhaps you can review the past discussions about the lead, the differences in the wikilinked articles, this article and its sources, and further reflect on your proposal. Beccaynr (talk) 20:50, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I am not defining male and female in relation to organisms, only to gender, as that is what this article is. By analogy, the articles on man and woman also employ the defining term male and female (which would perhaps initially imply sex, if one is unaware), only with notes that say that "male"/"female" can refer to either sex or gender. That is what I have suggested below. Zilch-nada (talk) 20:55, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

The use of the organism-focused wikilinks male and female to replace the human-focused wikilinks man and woman seems to achieve the result, even if that is not the intent, and that seems to be the problematic alteration according to WP:NPOV and MOS:LEAD. A note does not seem needed when we can have a lead that reflects the article and its reliable sources, and when the human-focused wikilinks man and woman seem to fit as part of a broad introduction. Beccaynr (talk) 21:14, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

The fact that the wikilinks are organism-focused does not matter whatsoever, so long as we are unambiguous that this article is employing "male" and "female" in the sense of gender, which an abundantly sourced concept, including in this very article. "Man" and "woman", as I have said previously, is both a) vague (are they genders?) and b) not broad enough (as the gender binary is most commonly described as male-female, not man-woman.) Zilch-nada (talk) 21:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

• Idea:

What if, like the articles on man and woman, we employ the wording "social, psychological, cultural and behavioral aspects of being male, female, or other gender identity", with a note that states: "male and female may refer to either sex or gender."

I.e., so it would read:

"Gender includes the social, psychological, cultural and behavioral aspects of being male, female, or other gender identity"

Zilch-nada (talk) 20:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

There has also been extensive discussion about when and how to use dictionary definitions; according to MOS:LEAD, we are looking to summarize the article, according to reliable sources. Discussion about the lead ideally reflects the article contents and its sources. The proposed idea seems to continue to suggest a fundamental change to the first sentence of the lead that does not seem to reflect the article and its sources. Beccaynr (talk) 20:34, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

How does it not reflect? "Woman" is mentioned a mere 19 times; "female" is mentioned 58 times. Examples within the very article include:

• socially constructed" aspects of male–female differences (gender) from "biologically determined" aspects (sex)."
• Later, in 2011, the FDA reversed its position and began using sex as the biological classification and gender as "a person's self-representation as male or female, or how that person is responded to by social institutions based on the individual's gender presentation."
• gender role that exists more in the middle of the continuum between the feminine and masculine polarity. For example, the Hawaiian māhū, who occupy "a place in the middle" between male and female,
• Gender difference is merely a construct of society used to enforce the distinctions made between what is assumed to be female and male, and allow for the domination of masculinity over femininity through the attribution of specific gender-related characteristics. "
• Contemporary sociological reference to male and female gender roles typically uses masculinities and femininities in the plural rather than singular, suggesting diversity both within cultures as well as across them.

Zilch-nada (talk) 20:40, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

On the other hand, there are perhaps only 2 references of gender specifically to men/women in the article:

• gender role as a man or a woman in society varies cross-culturally according to what things are considered to be masculine or feminine.
• agreed that the term gender could be properly applied only to humans, because it involves one's self-concept as man or woman

And the first one refers to "gender role" which is quite different. Zilch-nada (talk) 20:43, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

This seems to be an attempt to tally usage without an in-depth look at meaning and sources, and does not seem to help support removal of human-focused wikilinks and replacement with organism-focused wikilinks. Just because 'male' and 'female' terminology is used, it does not mean (nor does it appear to mean based on these unsourced quotes) that we should be using wikilinks that are written broadly about organisms. Beccaynr (talk) 21:04, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Then why would man and woman employ the terms male and female in their definitions, if man and woman are socially constructed, not biological, whereas the wikilinks for male and female ((initially)) refer to that of organisms? I don't think it's particularly important that the wikilink must adhere strictly to male and female genders, only that "male" and "female" are elaborated upon; they can be referred to as either genders or sexes in different contexts: the note added would clarify that here, just as it would at the "man" and "woman" articles.

Furthermore, the male and female articles go beyond organisms in the lede; in fact in the second paragraph: "In humans, the word male can also be used to refer to gender, in the social sense of gender role or gender identity..."

And I am not merely tallying, but analysing specifically were gender is equated with a) male and female etc., and where it is with b) "man and woman, etc.". You claimed that the former "does not seem to reflect the article and its sources", when, just for example, its usage quite clearly outnumbers the latter. Zilch-nada (talk) 21:14, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

We're now having a split discussion in two sections, which probably is not helping readability, including for anyone else trying to follow along or participate. From my view, this is ultimately about the sources, and how the sources use the terminology, not which terminology is 'outnumbered' in the article.

And I think the wikilink content matters a lot, particularly in this contentious topic area; for example, your proposed change seems to make a major change to the article, because of the content of the organism-focused wikilinks. I do not think suggesting this does not matter is an adequate justification for inclusion - for example, we typically do not wikilink to concepts a speaker does not clearly intend, and this guidance seems reasonable to broadly apply here. Beccaynr (talk) 21:30, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Would you therefore argue that the articles on man and woman are flawed in their openings for that reason? Zilch-nada (talk) 21:33, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Furthermore, the guideline you linked to refers to direct quotations from speakers. The opening line isn't directly quoting anyone. Hypothetically, if 100% of sources described gender in relation to male and female, but the articles on male and female were (as they are currently) organism-based (and therefore supposedly problematic), would you even then support this article using "male" and "female"?

If no, then that would imply that this is a flaw in Wikipedia's own articles; specifically a different article, the ones on male and female; those articles, while undoubtedly important, are not as important as citations from reliable sources. Therefore, we should consider what reliable sources say, more than any wikilink issues that you point out; the former is necessary for this article - the wikilink issues are problems for the "male" and "female" articles. Zilch-nada (talk) 21:40, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I think I have said more than enough to express my objection to the proposed use of the male and female wikilinks. This article content and supporting sources do not appear to support broadly introducing this article topic with those article links; the wikilinks do not broadly reflect what appears to be intended by this article and its sources (similar to the guidance I noted about quotes from speakers - we would not add wikilinks to quotes from speakers unless clearly intended, so it also does not seem appropriate to do this for entire articles, unless the entire article clearly intends to use a predominantly organism-based definition of gender, similar to e.g. gender-critical feminism and the anti-gender movement). Beccaynr (talk) 21:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

The wikilinks issue is a problem for different articles, not this one. I am assuming you therefore object to the style of the man and woman articles? Zilch-nada (talk) 22:02, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Male/Female is used for Sex. Man/Woman is used for Gender when it comes to specificity though in colloquial usage both are exchanged.

The page should be updated to change usage of Male/Female to Man/Woman and similar for the page on Sex for consistency. Galdrack (talk) 15:07, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

This is not the case. It's true that man/boy and woman/girl should be reserved strictly for gender, but the adjectives male and female are used interchangeably for both sex and gender in English, even in formal/academic use. The Radical Copyeditor's Editor Style Guide (not a definitive source but useful) describes the male:sex::man:gender dichotomy as a "misconception". I'm in favor of stylistic changes which enhance inclusivity wrt sex/gender, but this is not a hard rule to be followed. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 17:48, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

For clarity, I do prefer the current text being a man, woman, or other gender identity. I'm open to proposals which include boy and girl in there too if Zilch-nada really believes it's such a glaring omission, but seems unnecessary (and I can't imagine a non-clunky version of that man/boy/woman/girl/other text). As in the WHO source, man and woman are pretty recognizable as collective nouns for all humans of the male and female genders, regardless of age. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 17:57, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Don't particularly intend on starting a mess of a conversation again, but it's ironic that you just defined "man" and "woman" in relation to the male and female genders, ("nouns for all humans of the male and female genders"), which is my exact point. Zilch-nada (talk) 07:32, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Also, with respect, I disagree with your initial comment months ago; "Doesn't help that our article Male is about sperm-producing organisms" (arguing against male and female wikilinks), when such wikilinks are used in the man and woman article ledes (articles about adults of male and female genders linking to articles predominantly about male and female sex). That's my two last cents. Zilch-nada (talk) 07:40, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

How to word statements like this one, as far as whether to write them using nouns like "men and women" or adjectives like "masculine and feminine" or "male and female", has been discussed many times (and in relation to many articles); I see that many of the most relevant past discussions (about this particular article) have been linked above. Each option has issues, but in this case and context, "being a man..." is significantly clearer than "being male...". -sche (talk) 22:37, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Why exclude boys and girls from the lede then? Their mentions are sourced by the WHO, for instance? Zilch-nada (talk) 00:57, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Boys and girls are included in the lead, currently mentioned in the third sentence [1]. Beccaynr (talk) 01:13, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

The first sentence, as the WHO puts it? Zilch-nada (talk) 01:14, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

The area of contention is in defining and / or introducing what "gender" is. The mention of boys and girls would be just as important as man/woman in the first, defining sentence, as that is also how reliable sources have defined it. Zilch-nada (talk) 01:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

MOS:LEADCLUTTER says, Do not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject; instead, spread the relevant information out over the entire lead. A broad introduction in the first sentence (which has previously been extensively discussed and developed by consensus), followed by further relevant information that expands on the broad introduction seems to generally reflect the guideline, article contents, and sources. Beccaynr (talk) 01:21, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

The first sentence would be less than a line long if we included "boys and girls" as the WHO do. How on Earth is that over-cluttered? Via WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY, as I mentioned "woman" being mentioned 19 times throughout the article, "girl" is mentioned 17 times, also in context in relation to gender. These terms are both abundantly used alongside "man" and "woman" if we are employing that (as opposed to male/female) definition. Zilch-nada (talk) 01:26, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Also, can you please answer my question from earlier about wikilinks: I am assuming you therefore object to the style of the man and woman articles? (as you say that the wikilinks for male and female are problematic) Zilch-nada (talk) 01:28, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. The opening is very incoherent. Are "masculine" and "feminine" genders, and not "man or woman" as described? The words man and woman relate to the sex of a person. If gender is an abstract notion of the social aspects of beinga. man or a woman then to say men and woman are genders is a reification and a fallacy. Need a thorough re-work to set out clearly if gender is an abstract property of social relationships or if it is a proprty of individuals - like sex. Oogamist (talk) 21:33, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

References

Subsections - put non-social-science meaning with the others

The Etymology and usage section has a subsection on "Distinct from 'sex'" and "As grammatical category." It occurred today that it would be good to organize the content we currently have into a section "As synonym for 'sex.'" It strikes me as good WP:DUE treatment. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:30, 10 August 2024 (UTC)