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No content which is not already in Category:Women's health Rathfelder (talk) 10:29, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Keep Women is plural for "woman". A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. per Woman. Also an adult female person per this. an adult female human being per this an adult female human per this an adult female person. Compare man ( def 1 ), girl ( def 1 ). per this. Accuracy does matter here. Many files and categories relate not just to adult women's health but also and in some cases only to other human females' health. For example, genital mutilation is usually done before the female is a woman and thus has special characteristics such as the person having limited ability to prevent this getting done to them and various vaccinations are usually or only administered during childhood or infancy and various diseases also largely affect female children. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:44, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Rathfelder:  Weak keep. As Prototyperspective has pointed out, almost all English dictionaries define a "woman" as an "adult female human" and it does not include girls aged below 18. However, I'm aware that "women" as a topic may also cover various aspects of female humans in general, not just adult females. Unfortunately, the category Category:Women more often focuses on individual adult females than on women topics, for which I use Category:Female humans instead. Sbb1413 (he) (talkcontribsuploads) 17:02, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Delete Category:Women's health -- and move all content into Category:Female humans' health. Obvious dupe. Taylor 49 (talk) 21:10, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Keep. I think there should be a {{Cat see also}} in Category:Women's health, if it is kept, to clarify that there is a general female-humans category too? Sinigh (talk) 15:46, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are no cat see also links to categories that are direct parent categories. If there are two categories, then Female humans' health would be a cat set on Women's health and the user can go there. I have configured categories to show at the top so readily see them. Another option would be some sort of navigation template (for health cats) similar to e.g. those on the right of Category:People cycling. Prototyperspective (talk) 16:53, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment this category name is a clumsy phrase that I have literally never heard anyone use. "Women's health" is the normal term, and is usually extended to girls insofar as their health issues are at all gender-specific. - Jmabel ! talk 16:07, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Females' health or Female health is a better term for colloquial use and could redirect there. Female health is a widely used term. As explained above with sources, Female health isn't only about women. Prototyperspective (talk) 16:14, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel and Prototyperspective: I agree with Prototyperspective here, as "female" and "male" adjectives are usually applied to humans unless there are animal topics for which such female/male dichotomy is needed. If there's a need to cover female animal health separately from male animals, we can use Category:Female human health (without the "clumsy" possessive, as "human" is originally a Latin adjective before being used as a noun in English). However, since I don't see the need, sticking with Category:Female health is the best approach for female humans. Note that I have !voted "weak keep", because (as Jmabel has pointed out) some "women" topics can be extended to include girls, which may render this category pointless. Still, accuracy matters per the Selectivity Principle. Sbb1413 (he) (talkcontribsuploads) 11:05, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be completely OK with "female health" or "women's health". - Jmabel ! talk 11:27, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You wont find "Female humans' health" in medical literature. The term used is womens health, regardless of age. Rathfelder (talk) 08:00, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please see the above discussion, mainly this. You may have wrong assumptions. Prototyperspective (talk) 09:29, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What assumptions do you think I am making? I am reporting on medical literature, of which I have quite extensive acquaintance. Our categories should, if possible, correspond to the terms used in the outside world. Searches for Female health are redirected by Google to Womens health. That is the term used by the World Health Organisation for both women and girls. Rathfelder (talk) 13:11, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The assumption that you're making is that widespread use of an inaccurate term is more important than the accuracy of the term / category scope/title. Another assumption you seem to make in your comment is that your opinion what categories should correspond is shared. I don't use Google but DuckDuckGo an when I search for "Female health" it shows lots of results including from WHO. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:51, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
[1] - Women and girls. Rathfelder (talk) 16:13, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you have read my reply or at least it seems like so. Prototyperspective (talk) 16:28, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WHO uses the term Womens health. Our categories should reflect usage in the real world, not someones idea about accuracy.
Stop making personal comments please. Rathfelder (talk) 09:01, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not making any personal comments. I don't think your comments are constructive since you ignored the points raised and just continue to comment based on your personal opinion without addressing or considering earlier input. The WHO also uses Female health and again it doesn't matter as much as falsehood. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:41, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My comments are about the WHO. Your comments are about me. Any more and I will be referring you to the admins. And your reference is not in point. Its about Female health workers, not about female health. Rathfelder (talk) 20:06, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Taylor 49, Jmabel, Prototyperspective, and Rathfelder: It seems like the term "women" can also refer to non-adult female humans, not just adults. However, virtually all dictionaries define the term "woman" as an "adult female human", as opposed to "girl". But considering the term "women" is widespread in discussions related to feminism and women's rights, both of which may involve non-adults, I think the whole Category:Female humans tree should be merged into Category:Women. A new category tree Category:Adult women can be created specifically for adult female humans. Similarly, the whole Category:Male humans tree should be merged into Category:Men, with a new category tree Category:Adult men specifically for adult male humans. The Wikipedia articles of man/woman say, "The plural (wo)men is sometimes used in certain phrases such as (wo)men's studies to denote (fe)male humans regardless of age." Sbb1413 (he) (talkcontribsuploads) 12:42, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Oppose No, sometimes colloquial language is false and this is a case and it may change in the future but either way correct use is widespread in scientific literature and the truth and accuracy are more important than popular colloquial language. Men are adults; women are adults and I provided sources for this fact above. Yes, the quoted sentence from the WP article is correct. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:48, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, sometimes colloquial language is false and this is a case and it may change in the future but either way correct use is widespread in scientific literature and the truth and accuracy are more important than popular colloquial language. Men are adults; women are adults and I provided sources for this fact above.

Commons is not a place to decide which one to consider "formal" or "colloquial". Rather, we consider what is "widespread" in many languages, not just English. Yes, I agree that virtually all dictionaries define these terms as adult humans. But it is also true that terms like "people" are not appropriate for very young humans like Category:Babies, yet we still categorize babies under people categories. The "widespread scientific literature " often disregard age while using these terms while focusing on gender, like men's studies/women's studies, men's rights/women's rights, men's health/women's health, and so on. Unless you're talking about constructed languages, natural languages are not always precise, be in formal or colloquial situations. Some terms are more unambiguous than others, but it does not mean that there should not be any ambiguity. We can abandon the terms Category:Men/Category:Women if they are ambiguous on whether they cover children, instead using Category:Adult male humans/Category:Adult female humans. Sbb1413 (he) (talkcontribsuploads) 13:05, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rather, we consider what is "widespread" in many languages, not just English. Source?
  • which one to consider "formal" or "colloquial". it's not about formal vs colloquial; it's about true vs false.
  • yet we still categorize babies under people categories. I thought so as well but actually people is also used for babies, it's just that it rarely is used to refer to babies in specific; e.g. people say there's 10 dead people including 3 dead babies but rarely is the term "people" used to refer to babies in specific since then the term babies is used. Nothing actually suggests the term would not refer to babies while I gave clear sources that confirm that women refers to adult humans.
  • Category:Adult male humans/Category:Adult female humans No problem with changing these cats to that since they wouldn't be false.
Prototyperspective (talk) 17:29, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Although the articles man and woman define the terms as adult males and adult females respectively, the article themselves are talking about male humans and female humans in general respectively. In particular, the paragraph in the "Education" section of man says,

Men traditionally received more education than women as a result of single-sex education. Universal education, meaning state-provided primary and secondary education independent of gender, is not yet a global norm, even if it is assumed in most developed countries. In the 21st century, the balance has shifted in many developed nations, and men now lag behind women in education.

Which is applicable to both school children and university students. Sbb1413 (he) (talkcontribsuploads) 12:53, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No it isn't. There they were talking about men retrospectively – what an adult man has had an education during childhood. It doesn't refer to children with "men" (and even if that was the case that source wouldn't change much). Prototyperspective (talk) 17:31, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm inviting @Joshbaumgartner: here, since he has contributed a lot on people categories, and may help us give insights regarding this issue. Sbb1413 (he) (talkcontribsuploads) 13:12, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion is specifically about health and we should be guided by usage in health literature. Different considerations may apply in other fields. Rathfelder (talk) 15:55, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Okay (assuming that is the case and I largely agree).
  • "How Can Sport-Based Interventions Improve Health among Women and Girls? A Scoping Review" [1]
  • "Mental health needs among pregnant and parenting adolescent girls and young women in South Africa: A scoping review" [2]
  • "Female sexual health and female sexual dysfunction (FSD) are usually poorly diagnosed and treated because of…" [3]
  • "The Gut Microbiome and Female Health" [4]
  • "Is Female Health Cyclical? Evolutionary Perspectives on Menstruation" [5]
  • "Learning about menstrual hygiene and health is essential for adolescent girls' health education to…" [6]
  • "…interventions could improve women's and girls' health and well-being." [7].
Prototyperspective (talk) 17:39, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not one of which uses the phrase "female humans' health" or even the word "human". I'd have no problem with "Women and girls' health" or just "female health". - Jmabel ! talk 17:59, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In the human health literature "human" is implied/implicit and would just makes the title longer, the former is not the case on WMC. "Women and girls' health" or just "female health" would also be fine. I do think the current title is best but clarifications could also be in the category description. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:14, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sbb1413 There is no Category:Human health, and while there is a Category:Animal health, other than that, Category:Health appears to be exclusive to human health. I don't see a need here to impose the Universality Principle on human terms in this field, since diffusion should follow more scientific medical rationale. Our standard age/gender breakdown is more aligned to cultural/social norms, which is fine for most categories, but not necessarily here. Typically, health is broken down into children's, men's and women's with overlap where dictated by biology (see mensruation comment above. Of course biology doesn't provide a clean universal line between a girl and a woman the way society can with law and customs, so again, I wouldn't impose our standard cultural/social standard on this topic. Josh (talk) 04:27, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Joshbaumgartner: I'll create Category:Human health for things exclusively related to humans. Anyway, you're right that the terms "men's" and "women's" are not dictated by age when it comes to biology, but it is true for many cases. If I'm not wrong, the terms "women's rights" and "men's rights" actually refers to rights of males and females respectively, regardless of age. I've created the redundant categories Category:Male rights and Category:Female rights to follow the standard human stages of development ({{Category navigation/people/sidenote}}), and we have Category:Boys' rights and Category:Girls' rights. Anyway, in this case, the division of health into children's, men's, and women's is more sensible. Sbb1413 (he) (talkcontribsuploads) 08:25, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the division of health into children's, men's, and women's is more sensible Not sure what you mean by that. Please consider what has been said earlier.
Of course biology doesn't provide a clean universal line between a girl and a woman the way society can with law and customs, so again, I wouldn't impose our standard cultural/social standard on this topic Agree. That is exactly one more reason why there needs to be children's health, female health and male health. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:06, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
either merge with women's health or  Delete per Rathfelder. The medical field is just not called that. The category name is deeply weird and sounds like aliens trying to decide whether they should abduct 'female bovines' today or 'nubile bipedals in nocturnal garments'. "Female humans" are called "women", "women's health" pertains to all fields of medicine that cannot be generalized to all genders. I do understand that there is a whole category tree behind "Male/female humans", but a lot of that parent category also just weird. Sure, replace "human" with another noun, and it is a fine distinction (i.e. "Female singers" and "Male actors" are fully okay with me), but I don't ever want to read about "Male human's sports", "Olympian tabletennis competition among female humans", "human businessfemales" and "human salesmales". Weird!
I'd argue that "fe/male humans" is not a superior category name compared to "wo/men". You may get the clarification that babies and girls are also included given how some definitions exclude "boys" from "men". But go one step deeper, and most of these categories are directly distinguishing between "men" and "boys" anyway, as well as "women" and "girls". And then you have to start to painstakingly categorize images by people's age, and you can't know that in a lot of cases, especially with old photos and paintings. In case you know all the dates, you have to creepily distinguish between "Adolescent girls of <country> in 2018" who eventually become "Young women of <country> in 2021" halfway through the year, because human infant individuals tend to grow into human adult individuals. The ageist categories also depend entirely on arbitrary definitions: Category:Women of Benin gives 7 age classifications, and these classes clash with the 9 age classifications from Category:Girls of Benin. Both get their definitions from en-WP's articles about the human development, but they don't even agree if you stop being a baby at 2 or 4 years old. Note in that context also Category:Men of Benin, where their exact age appears to be totally unimportant.
Most cases don't require that granularity, in my opinion: "Women" (= female humans) includes principally all ages. There can still be "girls" subcategories where "woman" and "child" overlap. --Enyavar (talk) 14:41, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Female humans" are called "women" objectively false. I'll copy paste from above:
Women is plural for "woman". A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. per Woman. Also an adult female person per this. an adult female human being per this an adult female human per this an adult female person. Compare man ( def 1 ), girl ( def 1 ). per this. Accuracy does matter here. Many files and categories relate not just to adult women's health but also and in some cases only to other human females' health. For example, genital mutilation is usually done before the female is a woman and thus has special characteristics such as the person having limited ability to prevent this getting done to them and various vaccinations are usually or only administered during childhood or infancy and various diseases also largely affect female children. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:47, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And when is this adulthood reached? You give definitions, but not one of them is able to give a guideline that is able to make the "obvious" distinction when a person stops being a girl and begins being a women. The most common globally accepted definition might be 18+, but that is a generalization and regulated by law. Biological adulthood (what your definitions reference) is entirely individual, and most teenagers reach biological adulthood before 18+. To complicate matters, in many jurisdictions, full adulthood is reached at 21+ or even later.
That is why I think this is an unnecessary can of worms. --Enyavar (talk) 15:47, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The solution is simple: no distinction needed with "Female health". Prototyperspective (talk) 17:14, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Replacement of "women's" with "female"

[edit]

@Enyavar, Prototyperspective, Joshbaumgartner, Jmabel, and Rathfelder: Seems like the main problem here is that "woman" is defined as an "adult female human" in all English dictionaries, while the possessive form "women's" is commonly extended to female children (i.e. "girls"), like "women's health", "women's rights" and "women's studies". Although Enyavar is right that categorizing people by age is getting too much, the categorizing scheme is widely adopted partly due to the presence of myriads of categories using "men" and "women", and all dictionaries restrict these terms to adults. But Prototyperspective wants to maintain consistency in Commons categories more stringently, interpreting "women's" as a mere possessive form of "women" and not as a separate word. So I think the only way forward is to ditch terms like "women's" in topics inclusive to all ages (or not associated to a particular age group). So we can use Category:Female health, Category:Female rights and Category:Female human studies, replacing "women's" with "female" (or "female human"). Sbb1413 (he) (talkcontribsuploads) 15:08, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We have a large and well developed category tree in Category:Women's health. You want to rework it? That needs a much wider discussion. Rathfelder (talk) 15:14, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Category:Women's hospitals should be moved to Category:Female hospitals. But Category:Violence against women can be categorized under Category:Violence against female humans, which itself would be a subcat of Category:Female health. Sbb1413 (he) (talkcontribsuploads) 15:19, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Women's hospitals is the term used in the outside world. I dont think you will find the term Female hospital used anywhere. Rathfelder (talk) 15:24, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You need to start more discussions if that is what you want to do. Rathfelder (talk) 15:33, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Don't know if moving that cat would be needed; I think these are really only for women, not girls. There also are e.g. Chicago Hospital for Women and Children or Mater Women's and Children's Hospital that specify it's also for children and those those that aren't seem to be for female adults only (or nearly only) as (nearly) only adult women give birth. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:20, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also pinging @Jarble: , who has apologized in many category discussions for creating "redundant" categories like Category:Male humans. Sbb1413 (he) (talkcontribsuploads) 15:15, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sbb1413 In general, I support this effort to apply the Universality Principle, and so several of the examples you raise would be good to change. However, there are some cases where the UP does not apply, or at least doesn't mean we should change the name. In cases where the word "women's" is part of a complete term, versus just an adjective we build into a category name, we can stick with the term as it is styled in actual usage. This is certainly true of proper names, such as those @Prototyperspective listed above, but it is also true for a term such as 'women's hospital', as that is a complete term used widely in the field to identify a certain class of facilities, and not just a Commons construction trying to name a category of all hospitals which serve (primarily) women. In this case I would leave Women's hospitals named as is. Josh (talk) 03:09, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, this is newspeak purism and linguistic nitpicking at its finest. I concede that there are multiple instances where it makes sense to use "Female (humans)" instead of "women". Like our fully self-made term of "Female lawyers", meant to clearly distinguish "Women lawyers" (and their associations) from the many "Girl lawyers" that are undoubtedly also out there. Oh, it's just the one?. Seriously, what I witness here, is picking apart grey zones of the English language, for no other purpose as to make the arbitrary distinction between 17-year old "boys" and 18-year old "men" (in order to exclude boys from men, and justify "male" as the supercategory). And on the other hand, once we establish that "Males"/"Females" is the chosen term and we can do away with men and women entirely, then we have to distinguish "human male" from "animal male". Yes, in most cases.
Say, Category:Violence against women is easily understood. Yet Category:Violence against females includes mistreatment of female cattle, and yes there sure are images. Which makes Category:Violence against female humans the only acceptable term again? Same with Category:Female health, it again includes animals. Sure, there is only limited media about treatment of female cattle diseases, but yes there sure is some. And since we are here to establish our own terminology because the specific terms commonly used in medicine are not specific enough for Commons, we need OUR fabrication to be entirely specific, since nobody uses it but us. Which would mean that the "human" qualifier enters again, creating the monstrous "Female human's health". And that just because of the claim "girls are exclusively not women - cuz not adult enough". Now tell that to anyone who has to deal with a teen pregnancy. It's patently absurd.
And what's the next target on the agenda? Category:Women at work in Kazakhstan? Category:Men of Italy by name? This whole nitpicking endeavor looks to me like a misguided activity that does not even benefit the project in any way... Um, besides pointing out a categorical inadequacy of the English language (and most other Western languages). To show a contrary position: Chinese & Japanese declare in their articles about "Womanhood" (女性 in both cases) that a woman (女) is the term for the female (雌) human: womanhood as opposite to manhood. And yes, "underage women" are also mentioned, to be "girls" (女孩). These languages on the other way around, use the word "female" (雌性) never in sociology but exclusively as a biological term, i.e. to clearly determine the sex of animal and plant species. In Chinese, the notion of "female singers" means that they'd only be able to biologically reproduce with their male counterparts. And oh, funnily enough, even the English Wikipedia only has e:Category:Women singers. Including all the girls in them, what were they thinking? I really rubbed my eyes here: people claimed above that we take our definitions from en:WP, yet most professions are "Women" not "Female", in Wikipedia!
--> Like we have also seen recently in the US culture wars: Having arbitrary definition problems about women is a choice. --Enyavar (talk) 04:17, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Enyavar: That's a good insight. In childhood, I was taught that "man" means a "male human" and "women" means a "female human", thus "people" would mean "men and women collectively" (of course, I came to know about third gender later in my life). Later in my adolescence, my parents used to say that I would become a "man" in a couple of years, which implies that "man" means an "adult male human", as opposed to "boy". However, I briefly forgot the "adult" definition of the words "men" and "women" when I began contributing to Commons. It was only in 2022 when I came to know about the human stages of development, where the terms "man" and "woman" were explicitly defined as humans aged 18 or above. Not only that, but I have also consulted every single contemporary English dictionary, print or online, and all define a "man" as an "adult male human" and a "woman" as an "adult female human". We commonly use the 18 as the threshold age of adulthood in Commons, which has to be common in most countries. However, since these terms are ubiquitous in Commons categories, we also create "adult humans", "male humans" and "female humans" in order to be consistent with the consensus age groups, no matter whether there are categories like "children", "boys" or "girls". Sbb1413 (he) (talkcontribsuploads) 05:48, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is simply accuracy and the avoidance of misinformation. Nothing more, nothing less. Language has changed over and over so many times and WMC is not limited to English so we should use the accurately descriptive term not some colloquial common English name which can still be in the category description. Category:Women at work in Kazakhstan shows adult women only and is for these only Category:Men of Italy by name is for adult men only. Not using clear terms also means things people will confuse things or be uncertain about the scope like you just were.
funnily enough, even the English Wikipedia only has e:Category:Women singers. Including all the girls in them, what were they thinking? Interesting, will address that at one point and move all the singers who aren't women or rename the category. I could not find one so I can't verify there are some nonadult singers in that cat. However, we're on WMC right now and this discussion is about a WMC cat.
Same with Category:Female health, it again includes animals That's why I suggested Female human health at first. However, if you followed the discussion: that humans are meant could be inferred from the parent category placement that serve as context. The category does not have to be unambiguous if that ambiguity is cleared in the cat description, it just has to be not false. "Women's health" would also be in the category description. No need to make a problem out of this. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:14, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary section

[edit]

@Rathfelder, Prototyperspective, Taylor 49, Sinigh, Jmabel, Enyavar, and Joshbaumgartner: As I have become increasingly neutral regarding the issues with the terms "men" and "women", I have summarized the arguments related these issues at User:Sbb1413/Men and women. --Sbb1413 (he) (talkcontribsuploads) 17:53, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]


This category discussion has been closed.
Consensus Unresolved
ActionsKeep this category as a result of no consensus. But rename it to Category:Female human health to follow the proper grammar, and also the fact that "female" can also refer to any female animals.
Participants
Closed bySbb1413 (he) (talkcontribsuploads) 17:45, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]