Hi Moriel and others,
Do you have a list of "realistic changes" in mind for the community?
I hear almost no one say that the typical state of (in)civility on wiki or
on Wikimedia-l is good enough or that people are being hypersensitive, so I
get the sense that there's a lot of agreement that we have a cultural
problem. Ideas for solutions seem to be in short supply, so any "realistic
changes" that you can suggest would be good to hear, either on this list or
in IdeaLab.
If there are issues other than civility and the occasional trolling, I
think it would be good to have a list of those. Then everyone can be
looking at the same set of problems and be thinking about how to address
them.
Our current IEG grantee for research on female editing, Mssemantics
(Amanda), may have something to say, although she may want to wait until
she feels she has adequate data from her research.
In any case, I'm going to encourage Mssemantics to participate on the
discussion on this list or at least listen to it.
Pine
On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 11:19 PM, Moriel Schottlender <moriel(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
I understand all the reasons, but I must disagree on a
couple of points*.
I think it might have to do with me having a different experience with
these topics, but while I do agree that there's absolutely a great
advantage of having a women-only space, I also think that it is
context-dependent.
I don't know if we can deal or attempt to fix the gendergap issues in
Wikipedia without engaging the men. I can also see how some men really want
to help but are unaware of the depth of the problems at hand, so I don't
see a problem with dedicating one or two threads to talking about it.
Then again, that's also why I prefer forums over lists; in forums, you can
have these types of discussions and people can choose which discussion to
go and read and which to ignore and never get into. Much harder to do in an
email lists. But I digress.
I think that there could be a huge benefit of a more closed or restricted
women-only group and that group can serve as both a place to feel
comfortable in (which is VERY important) and a place to brainstorm without
fear of argumentative responses.
*But* since this specific mailing list is public, I think we should
definitely consider the fact that having men -- and, yes, sometimes
spending the energy of explaining (or creating a boilerplate response if
these cases start being overwhelming) might actually work for our benefit.
I'm thinking about men who don't really "get it" but want to, who try
to
understand but don't notice that they're stuck in the same issues we're
trying to improve.
If we don't handle those situations, we will lose the allies we *have* to
have in order to commit realistic changes in the community.
Moriel
* Oh noes, argumentativeness!
On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 1:40 AM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Valerie's interesting comments are in line
with one of the reasons I've
stayed off of this list in the past. I am ok with women having a space
without men around, just like I feel men should be able to have a space
without women around. I'm familiar with a workplace where at least one
employee lounge is female-only, and considering that many of the employees
of both genders have union representation, I suppose that the employees as
a whole support having that lounge be the way it is. In the Wikipedia
context, if some women wanted to have a supportive email list or social
network group only for women, where women could talk in relative privacy, I
would say go for it.
Interestingly, I was invited, completely sight unseen and with only the
most basic of introductions from a third party, to attend an edit-a-thon at
what I believe was a female-focused software engineering workspace. I told
the person who invited me that I was uncomfortable with stepping into the
women's space, and she assured me that as long as people are respectful
that everything would be ok. I'm not the type of male who would invite
myself to an event like that, nor do I plan on setting up workshops for the
opposite gender. I thought it was remarkably open of the women to invite me
into their space, especially knowing relatively little about me. I guess
they felt safety in numbers? I'm not used to getting that kind of
invitation!
Anyway, if some of the WikiWomen want to set up a relatively private and
supportive space just for WikiWomen, I'd say that sounds like an idea worth
trying. If there is some need for resources, IdeaLab and the grants
programs stand ready to hear requests. (:
Pine
On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Carol Moore dc <carolmooredc(a)verizon.net>
wrote:
Thanks for excellent comments below. Let's
keep them in mind. Even some
of us "tough chicks" still can get sucked into the "helper" role even
if
it's against our own interests... sigh...
On 7/2/2014 6:33 PM, Valerie Aurora wrote:
....
Hi Phoebe,
Thanks for your thoughtful and carefully explained comment! The
perspective I am coming from here is over 13 years of experience with
spaces for supporting women in open tech/culture, starting with
LinuxChix in 2002.
A pattern that groups like this have found over and over again is that
a spaces designed to support women in these areas inevitably attract
men with poor social skills, who then ask the group for (unpaid) help
improving their social skills. In most open tech/culture groups, such
requests would be unthinkable, but we are often socialized to expect
women to provide emotional support and help to others (especially men
and children) on request, without consideration for the value of their
time and energy.
The result is that, without a strong awareness and guarding of the
original purpose of the group, the group dedicates an ever-larger
portion of its time to teaching men social skills. Many of the people
who are interested in the original purpose of the group tend to lose
interest and depart. This is exactly what happened to LinuxChix - our
IRC channel became primarily about counseling various men who had
found a welcoming and supportive environment, and our mailing lists
were more enjoyable and fulfilling for men looking for emotional
boosts than for women looking for a supportive environment where they
could talk about Linux.
In short, I agree with you that there is some potential benefit to
providing free social skills counseling to men who are interested in
supporting women in open tech/culture. In my experience, the cost is
much greater: the time and emotional energy of many women that could
be used much more effectively on other projects.
-VAL
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