Category talk:Women writers

Category should be reinstated

Despite what the above template says about the discussion being inconclusive, the category "women writers" has been removed. However, I would argue that it should be reinstated. It represents a legitimate sub-section of literary study, widely recognized. Despite what some have said it is a useful category, not just in academia but on Wikipedia as well. Just look at the number of lists of women's writing various Wikipedia editors have initiated and spend time building. I find it astonishing that the main category of "writers" has such an extensive list of subcategories but this, a major field, has been removed. One can claim that gender has nothing to do with publication, as some have done, but this flies in the face of accepted literary history. The reclamation of women's writing has been a major task of literary scholars, and the task is still ongoing. Only someone completely ignorant of literary history would think that women writers have historically had equal access to publication. Major publishing houses produce series of women's texts; universities recognize women's writing as a specific and discrete field of study; tens of thousands of pages of books and articles have been devoted to studying women's writing, AS women's writing. By removing the category we risk losing credibility. And we risk looking politically reactionary, by not reflecting the state of the field of literary history as it is generally practiced. Some may think having a "women writers" category does not reflect a neutral point of view -- that it is "feminist" -- but I think removing it means that the neutral POV is at risk. I would argue for a reinstatement of the category. scribblingwoman 00:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree whole heartedly. We have categories that divide writers and authors depending on race, nationality, and genre; why not gender? Some people argue that it is too broad a field, but they are missing the point. Women writers should be recognized as being worthy of categorization, not only because of its importance to Women Studies, but because of its historical value to the field of literature. Speaking as someone who has taken numerous Women Lit classes, I definitely agree that this category should be reinstated. María: (habla ~ cosas) 20:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I see this category deletion as an unfortunate oversight. “Women’s writing” and “women writers” are accepted areas of study at many academic institutions and literary circles, why not at Wikipedia? It appears the recent debate didn’t consider at least one of Wikipedia’s guidelines about creating or keeping a useful category: “the basic criterion for such a category" based on gender, race, or sexuality, "is whether the topic has already been established as academically or culturally significant by external sources.” (See: Gender, race, sexuality categorization) Indeed, the field of women’s writing has been established as academically, culturally, and historically significant; and there are countless external sources to verify it. Therefore, the category "Women writers" should be provided as a valuable navigational tool at Wikipedia. I also sincerely hope that the deletion can be reconsidered and that the category can be renewed.--Susiebowers 22:17, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I would like to add my voice to the appeal against this category deletion. Women's literature is, as Susiebowers has remarked, extremely well-established as an academically and culturally significant category outside Wikipedia - for example, in hundreds if not thousands of university courses. That it is a category which could usefully be broken down seems awfully insufficient reason to delete it entirely. Dsp13 00:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

It was an immensely useful category - it seems odd to eliminate a category that is the subject of so much particular and focused academic work. Sam 17:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: I notice that "Women authors" is a Library of Congress classification (see also here). scribblingwoman 16:23, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with all of the excellent reasons above to reinstate the category. Moreover, over 700 instutions around the world (at least) offer degrees in women's studies or gender studies (see http://research.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/programs.html), including, for what it's worth, every Ivy League university. Perhaps someday we will be able to combine categories and search for eighteenth-century writer and woman writer, for example? Awadewit 04:11, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Back to CFD

Please note that after the deletion review concluded without consensus, this category has been relisted at CfD: see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 March 23#Category:Women_writers.

Readers may also be interested that Category:Women poets was deleted last year: see Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 November 5#Category:Women_poets. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. I hadn't known that. scribblingwoman (talk) 18:31, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid that there is a group of regular contributors to CFD who will try to delete on sight any category of women by occupation, usually without any reference to policies or guidelines. If this category survives the second CFD, I expect that its sub-categories will inevitably be brought to CFD soon, to face the usual barrage of inaccurate claims of "we don't categorise by gender".

However, I think if that Category:Women writers survives, a deletion review will be needed for Category:Women poets. It makes no sense to have categories for women novelists, short story writers, and essayists, but not poets. -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:08, 25 March 2007 (UTC) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:08, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

"Format" or "genre"?

I am wondering whether "genre" might not be more useful to most people who might be using these categories? "Format" implies more concrete qualities about the actual production of texts, whereas "genre" is a literary rather than a publishing category. Thoughts? scribblingwoman (talk) 00:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Possible subcategories

• Women writers by movement (Modernist women writers could become a sub-category here)
• Women writers by genre (as per. previous post. Travel writers could become a sub-category here)
• Women writers by period

What think ye?

scribblingwoman (talk) 13:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that Women writers by period is of particular importance as a subcat. --Susiebowers 21:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Period is of great importance, but I'd like to avoid Anglo-centric periodization - rather than periods like Elizabethan etc. can we simply use centuries? This would also make it easier to coordinate with the List of years in poetry and List of years in literature.A Musing (formerly Sam) 21:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Whatever we choose will have problems, but that seems the most inclusive. And it avoids the imperialism of us eighteenth-century types, who grab everything from 1660 until, in some cases, Victoria took the throne. Here is a draft list, following and extrapolating from the periodization on Medieval literature. Please comment, change, and/or amend:

• Women writers (early medieval period)
• Women writers (10th century)
• Women writers (11th century)
• Women writers (12th century)
• Women writers (13th century)
• Women writers (14th century)
• Women writers (15th century)
• Women writers (16th century)
• Women writers (17th century)
• Women writers (18th century)
• Women writers (19th century)
• Women writers (20th century)
• Women writers (21st century)

Of course, lots of people will be in two categories, but that would happen whichever way it was arranged.— scribblingwoman 22:55, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. What should we do with the handful of ancients? We can make it ancient and early medieval or create an ancient period category knowing it will be small. But we need someplace for Sapho and Avvaiyar. A Musing (formerly Sam) 23:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Can we just call it "Women writers (ancient)"? "Classical" usually means Greco-Roman, right? I wonder how the various Asian traditions would fit into this schema? I know there were women writers in medieval Japan, for instance, but I don't know about earlier periods. — scribblingwoman 23:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good; I think there are significant numbers of women writers in a number of early medieval traditions, but am not aware of many ancient women writers - but, maybe we'll learn something as these categories get filled in. A Musing (formerly Sam) 23:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Another thought: for those who are loath to give up the conventional categories of "Renaissance," "Restoriation," &c., such categories can still be used, just not sub-divided by gender. So Mary Wroth is in both "Women writers (17th century)" and Category:Renaissance authors. — scribblingwoman 23:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

see my comment at Category talk:Women writers by historical period. I don't think it is very productive to start a categorization scheme idiosyncratic to women writers. Assume I started a similar initiative subdividing Category:Finnish writers. Please try to organize categorization of Category:Literature top-down, not bottom-up, making use of the existing structure of Category:History of literature. It is, for example, a long-standing desideratum to rename Category:13th century books etc. to Category:13th century literature etc.; there can be "writers" subcategories there, and, if you absolutely insist "men" and "women" subcategories to that. dab (𒁳) 14:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Dieter, for weighing in; you may well be the person who has put the most work into the literary history area on Wikipedia to date. I read the above approach as looking to remain consistent with the approach used in developing the history of literature pages and templates, since it follows the "History of Literature" pages in splitting out the 10th century and beyond by century and then the early medieval and ancient periods separately. Right now, there are extensive writers categories already existing that do not seem to be heavily integrated with the Category:History of literature, but instead are part of the occupational categories. I think categorizing writers by time period is an important approach to integrate the historical categories and the writers categories (it's hard to put writers under the historical categories until they are), and would strongly advocate using centuries instead of the abstract and culturally bound periods. It's also necessary to subcategorize the women writers category, and I find the period categories and the national categories most useful. A Musing 14:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it shouldn't be specific to women writers, but let me suggest that historical period would be useful to all writers. Considerably more useful than "nationality", which is for some reason the default way to categorize things on Wikipedia. If writers (and lots of other people categories also) were broken down by historical period it would also help deal with these deletion debates. While people at CFD may choose to argue that "there's no difference between women & men writers" in the 21st century, they can scarcely deny that there is, in fact, something deeply defining about being a woman who writes in the 18th century. --lquilter 13:37, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree on the "national" issues, and have had some trouble with these. For example, I've created an "Arabic" category to cover all writing by women in Arabic prior to the creation of the current nation-states. There are subcats by language in the broader literature category, but it's not possible to coordinate between nation and language given that most countries are multi-lingual (even the Scandinavian countries, perhaps the most uniform linguistic areas today, have a history that includes Old Norse and Latin). But I'm not sure we should copy the language categories, given the dangers of over-categorization - I think we should choose between national and linguistic categorization. A Musing 13:46, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Category "women screenwriters" up for discussion UPDATE: "Women television writers" too

Category:Women screenwriters is being considered for deletion. — scribblingwoman 02:57, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Women screenwriters was kindly withdrawn from discussion by the nominator, but then re-nominated here by someone else. In addition, Category:Women television writers is also up for discussion. — scribblingwoman 21:23, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Subcategorisation shows unrestrained bias

You know that this is a disputed category, so it would be decent to show some restraint. Subcategorisation will result in some women ending up in half a dozen or more gendered category, which is wildly disproportionate, and makes it so obvious that this particular part of Wikipedia is being controlled by people who are using the project to promote their political views. Abberley2 20:20, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you haven't read all the preceding discussions? If you had, you would recall that a significant number of people said that they would only be comfortable with the category IF it was properly subcategorized. Which is what some of us have been attempting to do. Anyway, I don't understand your logic: either the category exists or it doesn't. Since it does, it can be used. Honestly, if categories are sparsely populated people complain and use it as a rationale for deletion, but if it's clear that people are working hard to subcategorize and populate, there are still complaints. Which suggests to me that there is nothing logical about these various objections. Restraint? I try to show restraint shopping, or at the dinner table, or in biting my tongue when I'm angry. But there is nothing bad or embarrassing about working on this or any other area of literary studies, so it seems an odd choice of words. Finally, while it is obvious that many are not comfortable with this category, it has just been through a lengthy discussion and has survived, so "disputed" is not the term. Unpopular in some quarters, perhaps. But then, if you aren't interested in working on something, don't. There is plenty more out there to do that might suit you better. And leave those of us with an interest in this area to build it. I'm not going to defend women's literature as an area of study yet again; I doubt you would give anything I said any consideration anyway. Just once I would like someone who doesn't like the category to give even the smallest indication that they had actually read some of the arguments. Speaking of "unrestrained bias" and all. — scribblingwoman 20:54, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Intro. on category page

As per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)#Categorization of people — "Use gender-neutral category names, unless there is a distinct reason and consensus to do otherwise. In that case, please specify the reason on the category page, and record the consensus on its associated discussion page" — I have drafted an introduction for the main category page. Please comment and/or edit! — scribblingwoman 06:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Feminist &c.

I hate to bring this up given the recent and ongoing wrangling over this category and its subcategories, but I recently discovered a small mother-lode of sub-categories related to feminist literature. I have tried to place them appropriately within Category:Women writers but frankly they are going to need some work. They are by and large underpopulated and some of them overlap. Thoughts on how best to proceed here? And, should they even be here at all or should we let them languish elsewhere? Commonsense would indicate feminist writers would be an appropriate subcategory of women writers, but my commonsense may not be other peoples'. And how does one determine what is feminist? Presumably some overt engagement with feminist themes and/or politics, but it is arguably a slippery slope. I would suggest at the very least that we think of merging some of them (eg. "feminist novels" into "feminist fiction"). — scribblingwoman 14:43, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Women as an adjective?

This may or may not be the appropriate place to bring this up, but surely the correct name for the category is female writers? Women is a plural noun, it is not an adjective. This is very different from say the article Women's Writing in English, which is using it as its proper noun form.

I'm not making a gross misinterpretation of the English language here am I? --Matthew Proctor 07:26, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow! Looks like you've been quite busy!

A quick google search produces 1,700,000 results for "women writers." It produces 353,000 for "female writers." I think it's not so much the case that "female" is an adjective as it is that "women writers" has become a compound noun.

Regardless, before making renaming or merging at the category level, please take it up at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion. This is because it breaks or corrupts links all over the place and causes general mayhem. Your new categories go to "edit" pages," while the old categories had "established pages." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Portia1780 (talk • contribs) 16:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

• Portia1780 pointed out at Category talk:Women writers that "Women writers" is not so much an adjective-noun as a compound noun, and also included relevant Ghits data. --Lquilter (talk) 17:04, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

ALSO POSTED ON MATTHEW PROCTOR'S TALK PAGE: As someone who tagged many many Australian writers with this category, I'd like to add my two cents' worth. As lquilter says, the issue is wider than one of grammar. I'll add another perspective. I am a librarian. Subject thesauri (and Wikipedia categories work somewhat similarly to the way subject headings do in libraries) used by national institutions such as the National Library of Australia and the US's Library of Congress use subject headings like "women writers", "women composers". For that reason among others, I was happy with "women writers". If I can remember back far enough, the headings used to be "Women as writers" etc. I think some of these still exist but I believe that, over time, these have been concatenated/simplified. It may not be grammatical but the use of "women" is, I believe, preferred terminology in the wider world and so is used in the concatenated form even though an adjectival term may seem more correct. Hope this helpsSterry2607 (talk) 10:43, 30 November 2007 (UTC)