On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 2:14 PM, Carissa Wodehouse < carissawodehouse(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I apologise for my posts, vis-a-vis Fred, Michael and Erik. The tone was out of line. My understanding of the purpose of the group was incorrect. I thought the purpose was to work on projects to help increase women's involvement on Wikipedia, to help encourage new ones, and to develop and implement strategies to increase women's involvement. My lack of understanding regarding the purpose of the list is partly to blame for that. I apologise. I'm tired. I'm frustrated. I didn't realise how badly men would take my message, and I didn't mean to offend the men on the list. There are no easy solutions to the problems facing the list. Having the men fork off wouldn't necessarily solve the problems. It would probably create a new set of problems. I don't have a solution for the balance. At the same time that I realise that there are no easy answers and that I was offensive, I don't want to back away from my claims. Erik's response with the tone arguement resulted in me crying. It appeared to be as insensitive to me as he implied I was to him. The tone argument has historically been used to shut down minority voices, by only allowing minorities to engage with the majority in a way that makes them feel comfortable. Couple that with other posts on the list with men telling women to act people, I just lost my cool. It really, really, really hurts me as a woman when a man implies that a woman should act like people. Who are people? Are women not people? It feels like there is a whole lot of masculine privilege taking place on list. Men are backing up other men. I felt dogpiled on. I am getting told that men are e-mailing other people on the list complaining about the angry feminist who hates men. I'm not an angry feminist. I don't consider myself a feminist. All I want to do is work toward a specific goal: Increase the representation of women on Wikipedia, specifically women working on women's sport related articles on Wikipedia. My feelings were hurt because it seemed like men, when I had tried to initially go out of my way to highlight their value and say they did good work but that it would be more empowering for women to work with women, took my post as a personal attack on them. That was never my intent. I was being told off list by another man to consider the motivations of the men on the list and realise that they don't mean to offend, and that I should think about their intentions. This too hurt deeply it felt like men were not giving me the same consideration, but I was being asked to be better than the men, being held to a different standard... that my points weren't as valid and that my interpretations weren't responsible, nor accurate... This will be my last post on this subject on this list. I don't wish to offend any more men. I really, really want to help get more women involved in Wikipedia and it is clear that it can't happen in the context of this list. The list is just not equipped to help do this... and honestly, I can't take any more men implying I'm discriminating against them because they are a man (on a list dedicated to reducing the gender gap), I can't stand having the director of the foundation using an argument that has been historically used to suppress minority voices to dismiss my views. It makes me tired an depressed. I don't need this in my life. I'm currently trying to host wiki academies to help get women's sport people involved in editing sport related content on Wikipedia. Any help that can be provided would be appreciated. I'm also trying to work on articles about women's sport at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Netball . Any help improving those articles or getting more women involved in editing those articles would be appreciated. I'm going to hold my workshops. I'm going to try to get netball to featured status... but after that, I've had it. I really have. I'm happy to try to work with Women4Wikipedia and other local groups to accomplish the goal of increasing participation. Wikipedia is too important to ignore in terms of providing visibility. I'll continue to help organise wiki conferences, to help bring more people into the wiki community and to connect. I'll continue to try to work with my local national chapter. Where applicable, I'll do work on Wikipedia. I'll stay on the list until I finish running my Sport Wiki Workshops in Australia. But beyond that, no. How to drive women away from Wikipedia: Belittle their feelings, imply they aren't people, have influential men in the Wikipedia community who hold positions of power dogpile on women who express concern over how you handle the effort to bring more women into Wikipedia, imply that wanting your own space to work on increasing female participation on Wikipedia discriminated against 87% of the Wikipedia population, and provide no leadership or support for women who are actively working towards helping accomplish stated goals of the organisation to bring in more women, make women feel guilty for offending men on a list intended to help increase women's representation on Wikipedia. twitter: purplepopple blog: ozziesport.com