Talk:Marriage strike

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Markruffolo, can you explain why you have changed the text so radically from what was there before ? I hadn't heard of Marriage strike before and now I am uncertain about whether your version or the original version is correct. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:37, 2005 Jan 30 (UTC)

After reading this article, I'm still not sure I understand what marriage strike is. Kaldari 05:33, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree, Kaldari. The challenge, so far, is to describe a gendered issue with neutral description, but I will manage. It's an entry that receives little attention, so their is little immediate risk to offend too many people. This is my first article, but second re-write (see Derek Ross), so please be patient. --Markruffolo 05:50, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

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The images here should have names and other personally identifiable material blurred out. Dysprosia 00:01, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Agree. To say that they are "typical" is also POV. I'm not even sure if they should be included at all. It sounds like one guy believes he got fucked by the system, may have a justifiable grievance, but WP isn't the place for debating that. (Of course, he's free to contribute neutrally, and I sympathize with him on the matter.)

I do agree, the system's unfair. I know a guy who works "part time" (40 hours, but he's technically PT so the store doesn't have to pay benefits and can cut his hours at will— punitively or due to lack of need) and has to pay a good share of his income in child support. When his hours get cut, he's screwed. Not only that, but his CS keeps him at subsistence level so he can't afford to go back to school or get training and find a decent job. I don't think he even has a car.

I do agree that both parents should be required to support the child financially, but they should share the benefits in proportion. (Unless, of course, one parent is abusive. In this case, protection of the child takes precedence, obviously.) For one parent to get 14% of the time and 50% of the financial burden is just ridiculous. (I'm somewhat of a masculist, if you can't already tell.) EventHorizon talk 06:39, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The images, to me, make the article seem biased towards the husbands. I don't really think this article is the least bit NPOV. -- KneeLess 07:54, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the article is not NPOV but you won't fix it by deleting statements describing the marriage strikers point of view. The way to fix it is to add the opposing point of view (presumably the pro-marriage point of view). The main reason that the article seems biased is that it only describes one point of view and you have not improved that by deleting citations from it. All that you have done is to make the article less informative without changing its point of view at all. -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:40, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

If you really read my changes, I just made the article sound better, I didn't try to change it's POV. In fact, as you so aptly notice, the article's POV has not changed whatsoever. I removed silly statements such as "Matthew Weeks" opinion on this. Who is Matthew Weeks, and why do we care? -- KneeLess 05:30, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

To neutralize a gender specific topic, like feminism or marriage strike movements, would render a description of it unclear to the reader. So grace ought to extended by the Wiki-community as the same was done for feminism, gay rights, and other civil right violationed people. -- markruffolo 12:00, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you're talking about here, markruffolo, but your rewrite of the article is better. My only qualm with it is that it needs some wikification, and some cosmetic enhancements, but such is trivial. But I do have a problem with the "See also" section. Why is feminism linked to? Why did you remove my link to mother? I won't edit these back in now, but if you could explain that, it'd be great. -- KneeLess 20:22, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 What is marriage strike? 2 Long Needed Cleansing of Bullshit 3 So why aren't we deleting this article, exactly? 4 Is the legal basis for this article text described in overly US-centric terms? 5 source on "no-fault divorce" statistics? 6 NPOV and citations

[edit] What is marriage strike?

I've read the article and I still have no idea what marriage strike means. A strike usually means a refusal to do one's job until one's demands are met, or at least until a compromise is found. What precisely are these disgruntled fathers doing that constitutes a strike? Does it refer to unmarried men refusing to get married lest the perceived injustices discussed in the article befall them as well? --Angr/_comhrá 06:00, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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I am working on a section that defines "strike" in this context. The woman is the employer. She can "hire and fire" at will. She holds power over the man through the state family courts, social services, the IRS and the police. She can spend money willfully and capriciously without asking the man, her employee. The man is supposed to buy into all of this willingly, and give over control of his life and his future children. The articulation of the strike by men is simply, "NO! I refuse to work for the comfort of a woman in marriage, because the working conditions have become intolerable!"

Lastly, the statistics support that this is a male issue, and does not need to be gender-normed to be NPOV.

--Jlseagull 01:07, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Long Needed Cleansing of Bullshit

This article simply needed a new starting point. Without extreme intervention, it was destined to a slow and painful downward spiral straight to VFD. It has been reverted to the most recent version that:

1. defines marriage strike,
2. isn't flamboyantly POV, and
3. contains no worthless or unrelated text and links.

As it stood, the article told the reader virtually nothing. No definition. No background. No discussion. Only a disjointed collection of facts seeming to argue in favor of marriage strike (whatever that is). I understand that that some may find this edit brash, and I respect their point of view. Perhaps rather than re-reverting, you should carefully consider the value of information in the previous version, and only add what is worthwhile, and NPOV.-Casito 06:52, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Great job, Casito! Finally I understand what the term "marriage strike" means. Can you provide a reference for the study you cite? --Angr/_comhrá 08:13, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I added no new material, I just reverted the page to a [much] earlier version that existed before it became cluttered. Shimmin and Tedius Zanarukando were the authors of the earlier version, so you will have to ask them for their sources. -Casito 23:32, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The statistic was added by User: Tedius Zanarukando, and I do not know its provenance. Shimmin 23:43, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think this article is fair and balanced --Stilanas 01:45, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] So why aren't we deleting this article, exactly?

A bit of Googling on this term suggests to me that there is little evidence of a "marriage strike" as a notable phenomenon. I find a lot of "men's rights" activist pages and such discussing why they advocate the idea, and anecdotal evidence that it exists. I saw a pointer to a study declaring that 22% of men aged 24-35 had no interest in finding a mate. But I don't think any of this is solid evidence that a widespread marriage strike exists, nor that the reasons listed in the article are the rationale if it does. (I don't believe that most men avoiding marriage are doing it only because they feel the legal system is unfair.)

And thus I ask: why is this article here? --Soultaco 20:27, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Because the idea exists even though the practice may not. Your question is like one asking why we have an article on unicorns when there is no evidence for the existence of unicorns. The answer, both for marriage strike and unicorns, is that these ideas exist in the public consciousness even though they may have no existence in the material world. -- Derek Ross | Talk 20:39, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Of course unicorns don't exist, but they have a prominent enough place in folklore and such to make them notable. The question is whether the marriage strike actually does exist in the public consciousness. My argument is that (1) the marriage strike is not a widespread phenomena, and (2) it has not had a fair amount on influence on public debate at any time - the only people discussing it are a small number of critics advocating it AFAIK. Therefore, I don't think it does exist in the public consciousness. --Soultaco 20:46, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

A quick Google search retrieves results 1 - 350 of about 9,310 for "marriage strike" (with the quotation marks), then indicates that more are not shown as being similar to the first 350. The term is therefore notable. --carlb 23:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is the legal basis for this article text described in overly US-centric terms?

The situation in Canada doesn't quite match what's described in the article; one year cohabitation is enough to put someone on the wrong end of a nasty lawsuit, don't have to be opposite-sex or married or anything else. Canadian Olympic skater Brian Orser learned that lesson the hard way, for instance. Other countries will show further differences to the US model, I'm sure. --carlb 00:05, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] source on "no-fault divorce" statistics?

Is it in one of the articles listed as sources?

[edit] NPOV and citations

This article is still having POV problems. For example, "it is possible for a woman to divorce her husband unilaterally while simultaneously depriving him of the right to see his offspring and financially crippling him." This is true, however, it implies that a woman can do this while a man can't. It is true (as the article states) that the courts usually favor women. However, there are many cases when men get custody of the children and where men are the ones recieving the money. It's a possibility for both men and women and it shouldn't focus on one or the other. Also, I feel that the wording is POV ("depriving him of the right" "financially crippling"). These things are decided by the courts, after all. If someone feels crippled, I was under the impression they could try to renegotiate the terms. Also, there are statistics and facts in the article that should be cited. I would put tags where I think they should go or try to find the sources, but I don't know how to put any of that in the article because I'm pretty new to all this. Kiega 18:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, there are weasel words all over this article. It is full of "many" "substancially" "most" etc. We need actual numbers and citations. Kiega 07:17, 16 December 2006 (UTC)