Talk:Fathers' rights movement

Requested move 13 May 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. There are significant concerns about the scope and coherence of a more general article — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:23, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

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Fathers' rights movement → Fathers' rights – This page move will allow a broader overall scope, and create parity with the topic Mothers' rights and the other "rights by beneficiary" listed on {{Rights}}. The main focus of the article (#Main issues) describes several concepts related to father's rights, but discussion of the "movement" is quite vague and in most cases should be attributed to specific, named organizations - not to a broad "movement". To demonstrate the potential broader scope, note that Google Scholar shows 6000+ results for "father's rights", but only 980 for "father's rights movement". That's a lot of reliable sources to be leaving out, just because this title is limiting. A general cleanup is necessary, and this move will provide a better foundation for it. -- Netoholic @ 06:31, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. The concept of "fathers' rights", as understood in contemporary society, is directly linked with this specific social/advocacy organized movement. You don't have to achieve "parity" with the Mothers' rights article, because there is no contemporary corresponding mothers' rights movment similar to the father's right movement. There is also no need to "allow a broader overall scope", because there are numerous articles that deal with that (plenty of articles on child custody, family law, parental rights, and obviously the main father article). This article is far from perfect, but changing its title is not the answer to the article's problems. 2A02:2F01:53FF:FFFF:0:0:6465:5B2B (talk)

  In several places in this article, it references the "movement" but the sources are actually pointing to statements from specific organizations. I can find nothing in this article that supports that the list of specific rights issues (#Main issues) is dependent on any cohesive "movement". Certainly, mothers have legal rights which exist independent of woman's organizations or movements, so do fathers have legal rights that are not connected such either. Frankly, if this move doesn't go thru, this article will inevitably have to split. Perhaps if you feel strongly, since the bulk of this article is meant to be about specific rights, support this move and then make a new article at this current title which gives details about the movement itself - its origins, who runs it, or whatever other details you thi[nk are relevant - but I think what you'll find is that such content is already present in the men's rights movement article. -- Netoholic @ 19:20, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

• Support per nom, common name, brevity, and the fact that Father's rights already directs here. Removing the word 'movement' (the 1954-1968 Civil Rights Movement was a movement, this one is an advocacy concept) seems to provide a better and more encompassing descriptor. Randy Kryn (talk) 19:53, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose..Contrary to the arguments made above, we do not make decisions about titles based on googlehits, most especially when one term is contained in the other. We look at the high quality sources, and the sources for topic show that the "father's rights" described in this article are made almost exclusively by members of the FRM and men's rights movement- principally in the West. Whole books have been written about the FR movement and the rights they claim (for example [1][2], and there are also a myriad of scholarly articles on the movement and its goals. [3]. Remember too that a Wikipedia article on the subject of "fathers' rights" would need to be global in scope, and the focus would need to be how in many countries around the world at present (and indeed historically in the West), fathers have/had more "rights" than mothers in issues such as custody, child support etc.. Slp1 (talk) 20:45, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

  @Slp1: - if the men's rights movement is principally in the West as you state, then how does keeping this article at its present name allow us to present the global scope on father's rights that you are asking for? I am after the same goal you are, to allow this article to broaden past its restrictive current title. The only way to satisfy both desire you state would be to split it, in which case since the bulk of this article is "father's rights" not "movements", then this move makes sense also... so that this title can be cleared to start that separate "movements" article. Also your Google Scholar link is misleading, as you didn't use quotes around the search term - 981 results is the real total. -- Netoholic @ 20:55, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

I am not seeking a global article about Fathers' rights. It isn't a coherent topic: I don't know of any scholarly books or articles written on that subject. As mentioned, the books/scholarly articles that are available on the topic of "father's rights" frame them within the context of the FRM, and we should do the same. BTW I don't know why you would say that my google search was misleading. I was not trying to show googlehits - because as I said it is very misleading way to decide on an article title - I was demonstrating that the FRM is an important scholarly topic. Slp1 (talk) 21:06, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

@Slp1: But the FRM is only a smaller percentage of scholarly attention to father's rights in general. Why would 5000 scholarly works mention "father's rights", but not the "father's rights movement", if what you say was true? The truth seems to be that there there is not the strong overlap you seem to think there is. This isn't "googlehits" as you call it - these are searches within journals, papers, and books tracked by Google Scholar. -- Netoholic @ 21:13, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I am aware of the difference between googlescholar and regular old google. The reason why "fathers' rights" gets more hits is, in part, because there are many synonyms that don't include the word "movement": e.g. fathers' rights groups/activists/fathers' group. For example the first twenty articles in the googlescholar search fathers' rights includes references to the following terms (only the first one found was counted in each article)

• "fathers' rights movement" x 5,
• "fathers' rights groups" x 8 ,
• "fathers' rights activists" x4.
• "group of divorced fathers" x 1
• As well as one article speaks positively of fathers' rights to parental leave in in Nordic Countries, one that argues that an unwed father should not have the right to object to the adoption of his child, and one that argues that fathers have less rights to pass on US citizenship.

By far the most common thread are that "fathers' rights" are presented as the concern of this movement, their groups and activists. This is why using googlesearches/hits or whatever is so dangerous when naming articles. You have to read and know the literature and understand what can influence the results.Slp1 (talk) 22:38, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Only looking at the first page probably isn't representative... but I think its obvious that for both fathers and mothers rights that the main "concerns" are vocalized most loudly by the activists. I just don't see how your position justifies the different handling of these parallel sets of articles. -- Netoholic @ 02:05, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose - for two reasons... First, I share some of Slp1's concern about whether "fathers' rights" can constitute a coherent topic (without relying entirely on sources related to the fathers' rights movement). Second, the majority of scholarly content about "fathers' rights" is related to the fathers' rights movement (as discussed above). However, this seems to be gradually changing and may be worth revisiting in the future. In general, Wikipedia is conservative with emerging topics and tends to group them under more established topics until they have demonstrated sustained attention on their own. Another example of this is transgender topics. For example, we don't have dedicated articles for "genderfluid" or "agender" (even though they both have over 1000 hits on Google Scholar). Let's revisit this one in a year or two and see where things stand. Kaldari (talk) 17:13, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose – Per IPF6, Slp and Kaldari. I'm not aware of sources that discuss "father's rights" that aren't either discussing the father's rights movement, or written by the father's rights movement. Leviv ich 04:00, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support There's no coherent single father's rights movement between those who are pro-feminist and those who aren't. The proposed title covers a broader topic encompassing a broader scope. Also per Randy Kryn's points. feminist (talk) 01:57, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
• Comment: This would reverse a previous (bold I assume) move

21:33, 31 March 2007‎ Slp1 talk contribs block‎  38 bytes +38‎  moved Fathers' rights to Fathers' rights movement over redirect

and this history would of course be overwritten by the proposed move. Andrewa (talk) 18:42, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Re-ordering sections

Does the current ordering of sections adhere to a guideline or is it preferable in some understanding of topic representation? I ask because I'm new to more intensive edits, but it strikes me that "demographics" of adherents, in the order of importance for understanding the topic, is below the goals advocated for ("movement") and the main issues ("main issues") discussed.

I propose a simple re-ordering of "demographics" to follow "main issues".

Spirarel (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:09, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Manosphere?

Thread retitled from ""Manosphere" - verification failed".

The first journal is paywalled, but the second book definitely never says "fathers' rights movement" is in the manosphere. It says that about MRM (men's rights movements) and MGTOW (men going their own way) but it appears to me that the fathers' rights movement is wider than any of these and not confined to the manosphere. Elizium23 (talk) 05:36, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

@Elizium23: I have added quote fields to both citations for the benefit of yourself and others who can't access the sources. Both sources support the claim. GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:07, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare, OK, it all checks out (of course it would) and I thank you kindly for the willingness to do the ref work to source categories, which is a rare quality around here. Elizium23 (talk) 06:17, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

"Many members did not have experience in law or politics."

"Many members did not have experience in law or politics." - Really? How many members did not have experience in law or politics? Did they not have experience in law, or politics? Did a few have a lot of experience in law, and a little experience in politics? I hope my difficulty with this sentence is apparent. 77.97.36.146 (talk) 01:21, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree that this was worded unusually; I have re-phrased and removed this from the article. Hope this helps. —AFreshStart (talk) 13:24, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Baskerville citations

The many citations to sources authored by Stephen Baskerville in the § Main issues section create undue weight. Baskerville himself is described as a fathers' rights advocate, so he is not an independent source on what FRAs believe. His book Taken Into Custody is a polemic, not a work of scholarship. I couldn't find a website for the publisher Cumberland House, but it seems to cater to a conservative popular audience in topics like history, crime, and sports. We should instead look for reliable, independent scholarship to describe any controversial issues. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:32, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Parke & Brott (1999) is another poor source for largely similar reasons. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:55, 7 May 2023 (UTC)