Dear Colleagues,
Thank you kindly for taking enough of an interest in this topic to respond; it is
enlightening.
My intention is affable, so please keep that in mind.
I understand that many persons will choose to never parent, that some parent for the wrong
reasons, and that there are any number of perspectives, and no shortage of opinion and
ways to problematize the motherhood issue. It may bore some; it's a passion for
others, such as those of us who experience the direct consequences of parenting. We are,
for better or worse, generating the next population, its biology, genetics, social,
political, and cultural values, and productive composition.
I liked the Nielsen link, but I think dads around the world are stressed too, though maybe
in different ways. In terms of U.S. society, for doubters on what is involved, you might
consider reading "The Motherhood Penalty," an academic essay, it is science
rather than anecdote. Mothers are perceived as complainers, as less productive than
non-parent females, and non-moms earn far more than mothers. Non-mothers get their pay
disparity comeuppance however, when dads come along, and enjoy "the fatherhood
bonus." Dads are perceived as devoted, and highly productive providers. Mothers are
irresponsible coworkers for needing to tend children, but fathers are virtuous for tending
children.
In terms of gender disparity and Wikipedia, I mean to empirically focus on
'productivity.' By this, I mean getting at those meaningful slices of daily,
weekly, and lifestyle experience. As a research methodologist, Question One on a survey
instrument might be: "Are you a parent, have you given birth to any children?"
From there, an instrument would take two differing directions. Non-parents would be
sorted and queried for demographic information, and eventually getting to education level
and Wikipedia. Education or literacy is no small component, surely, because the learning
curve, and important focus and interest mentioned by list members, will guide, if not
determine, a woman's ability to contribute to Wikipedia. As for blogging, education
is not a prerequisite, though some measure of literacy is, and is representative of the
many ways that women communicate values. Gossip is largely a woman's privilege, and
it is often, but not always, based on moral and cultural morays. It's extremely
useful, but not in resolving the Wikipedia gender problem. Creating a well-worded posting
for Wikipedia is time consuming, and as one colleague mentioned, kind of geeky. I'm
talking about the productivity that gets measured by economics.
Getting back to the mother-directed survey instrument, one of several age groups would be
women of child bearing age, with a possible mean of close to 28 years, and questions would
follow that look like: "How old is your infant?" - "Are you nursing?"
- "How many minutes does it take to nurse?" - "How often do you
nurse?" - along with prep time, clean up time, bottle chill time, and so on. A
table would indicate that each nursing takes 10-15' on each side, roughly 25 minutes,
and if newborn, x8 feedings per day plus management- another 10" per feeding, we are
now into about 4 hours per day, and we haven't looked at mothers who must express milk
for later use, diaper changes, meals, or playtime yet. These data at-a-glance may seem
(ho-hum and) well beyond the scope of Wikipedia editing and gender biases, but I would
argue these data have a role.
To put this another way, non-mothers and non-fathers, might not be the units of focus here
(though important in other ways); the parent dimension is likely to be shallow for
non-parents (unless taking care of elders, another story for now). I understand we all
function in certain non-gendered emphases, but someone needs to dig in and work at this,
because policy is overlooking a number of disturbingly obvious issues. My view is that
Sue G. has a wildly unique, outlying opportunity to shed light, and bring attention to
modern (and ancient) underlying issues, largely because of the social potency of Wikipedia
in the literate world; Sue's gendered leadership is as significant as any I can think
of.
Again, core social science research is in order; this includes a broad, human subjects
based investigation with clear hypotheses, and capable minds of all sorts contributing.
Thanks again for taking the trouble to discuss weaknesses in the arguments, and pointing
out subjectivity. These help provide tools for defining the problem(s).
KS Rolph