Feminist SF Wiki:Feminist point of view

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This page is intended to develop an OFFICIAL POLICY of the FSFwiki.

Draft 1.0 is below

Feminist and objective.

The FSFwiki provides content about SF from a feminist point of view; not a so-called "neutral" point of view. We take as our starting point basic tenets of feminism.

Feminist Neutrality

  • Representing different perspectives of feminism fairly & adequately
  • Accurately representing non-feminist and anti-feminist views, even while proffering feminist critiques and responses

Feminisms and feminist-compatible analyses

While "feminist point of view" is the default, we recognize that other forms of critical analysis (e.g., anti-racist analysis, postcolonial analysis, queer theory, disabilities studies) may occur. Any analysis which is compatible with feminism is permitted. Misogynyst and anti-feminist analyses are not compatible with feminism and are not therefore within the scope of this wiki. Listing or describing sexist or misogynyst analysis may be appropriate and relevant in some circumstances; but again, the article itself is appropriately written from a feminist point of view.

We also recognize that there are different feminisms and strands within feminist analysis.

Individual articles that take a specific approach that is more specific than simply "feminist", or offers a different perspective, should be up-front about their approaches. Usually this means a distinctive and descriptive title (e.g., "Anti-racist assessment of Earthsea"; "Gender studies approach to The Female Man"); an explanation in the first paragraph; and a category for method of analysis.

Substantively complementary points of view

While feminism on this wiki is a broad tent (see Feminism), some points of view are noncomplementary; inclusion of material from these perspectives is substantively not appropriate, and is actively harmful to the project. This includes, first and foremost:

  • Racist perspectives -- FSFwiki is an anti-racist project.
  • Homophobic perspectives -- FSFwiki supports freedom of sexual identity, freedom of sexual association, and freedom of consensual sexual activity.

"Masculism" and men's rights

Feminism is anti-sexist; however, "masculism", the "men's rights movement", and the "father's rights movement" are a different kettle of fish altogether. While styled as a counterpart to feminism and the women's rights movement, these approaches actually come from an anti-feminist backlash. They often exhibit sexism, anti-feminism, and outright misogyny. In form, they are to feminism and anti-sexism as "white power" is to anti-racism. In substance, this perspective does not offer a useful or accurate analysis, since it is premised on the false notion that men suffer from "reverse sexism".

"Masculist", "men's rights", and "father's rights" material is distinguished from anti-sexist, gender studies, and humanist approaches; the latter are congruent and in many respects overlapping or synonymous approaches to feminism. Material from these perspectives is compatible with the FPOV.

Because of the context of men's rights movements within the anti-feminist backlash, so-called "masculist" perspective material will be scrutinized carefully and will be deleted if it is anti-feminist or misogynist. Even if relatively neutral and inoffensive and not patently false, material from this perspective will also be deleted or reverted if it fails to add to the FSFwiki project and threatens to derail / distract productive work on the project. See feminism for more discussion.

Discriminatory perspectives

Discriminatory perspectives can take many forms, including sexism, racism, homophobia (discussed in more detail above); and classism, ableism, ageism, sizeism, nationalism, colonialist, regionalism, language bias, and so on.

FSFwiki strives to avoid discriminatory perspectives. However, we recognize that we are all still learning to recognize discriminatory and biased material. Therefore we expect that such material will be added into the FSFwiki. This is the policy for handling such material:

  • Material should be assumed to be submitted in good faith from a feminist point of view.
  • Remedying discriminatory material can take at least two forms:
    • Material which evidences a discriminatory perspective should and will likely be edited to remove the discriminatory perspective, or deleted altogether if it cannot be edited efficiently.
    • Discussion about the perspective should be introduced on the appropriate talk page(s). Because this is a collaborative process, dedicated to feminist process, education and consciousness-raising are a part of the project. That begins with communication. See Communication guidelines and Category:Communication guidelines for more information.

Other harmful or non-constructive perspectives

We expect that material will be added to the FSFwiki that comes from a perspective that is or could be harmful to the FSFwiki project. For instance, the perspective that the contribution is owned (FSFwiki:Ownership of articles). We can't predict all of these in advance. We should assume material is submitted in good faith from a feminist point of view, and seek to engage other contributors about the issue using feminist process, and being open to changing our own views if we receive new information, as well as educating others about the issue. We all have different areas of expertise and knowledge, and gaps in expertise and knowledge, and we should respect the knowledge and experiences of others.

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