Geni,
I'll answer your response item by item.
1. I don't know if you're writing from Europe, the US, or another place, but here in the US, following are the wages/salary of RNs (LPNs and CNAs definitely don't get paid like RNs or NPs/PAs, but they don't have the same level of education/training, nor demand for them in the job market):
US National annual wages of men in the job market, aggregate as of 2003:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Househo…
Mean average: $33,517
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291141.htm
Current mean annual: $68,910
So what you say below about nurses (at least, RNs in the US) and men's average wages (at least in the US) isn't true.
Given that US men's unemployment rates in the US have gone up since 2003 and women's have gone down, and the level of attendance at higher ed institutions have declined for men but gone up for women (some US campuses now have a 7:3 F:M undergrad gender ratio), it stands to reason that the discrepancy has increased. As for the fact that as an aggregate, women's annual income as of 2003 was $19,679, note the annual median household income in 2003 was $45,016. Adding $33,517 and $19,679 yields $53,196. Taking into account that most adults cohabitate in hetetosexual couples either married or not for at least half their adult lives, it's probably a safe inference on average to say that the reason so many women can choose to work part-time or at jobs with less stress or responsibility is because their boyfriends/husbands are at least in part subsidizing their choice to do so personally and financially. The so-called "wage gap" has been repeatedly debunked since it doesn't take into account the voluntary choices so many women make over maximizing their educations and the opportunities they give them. (See
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/04/09/president-ob… - even the Washington Post, which tends to lean editorially toward White Houses occupied by a Democrat, couldn't let it pass)
2. http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media-relations/fact-sheets/enhancing-diversity
The number of men in US RN programs increased by almost 400% between 1980 and 2008. Men as of 2008 still made up only 6.2% of all RNs. But by 2013, it was up to 9.6%, with 41% being anesthetists, among the higher-paid kind of RN. This is probably because men are still expected to be the primary earners in a family, since if they can't or won't fulfill that role, it usually jeopardizes their marriage or other kind of SO rel'p. Or, it could simply be because it's what they really would rather be doing as nurses vs. other more standard RN duties. You'd have to ask them. But as for the problem righting itself, who can say. It isn't a problem one way or another, IMO. As I said in my first note, whether or why men are or aren't interested in becoming RNs isn't important. It's whether or not patients get competent care from dedicated nurses is all that matters.
3. Looks like you may be writing from the UK. If wages for plumbers and refuse collectors have dropped in the UK, I'm sorry to hear it. As for the US:
Plumbers:
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/mobile/plumbers-pipefitt…
Mean yearly: $49,140
Refuse collectors:
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537081.htm
Mean yearly: $33,660
Working overtime, a refuse collector can double his yearly income just by doing a double route twice a week, depending on the area he works in and/or any union agreements he is part of. Despite the money to be made in these lines of work, it'll be a cold day in Hell before you hear any self-appointed spokesperson for womankind insist simething must be done to place more women on the backs if garbage trucks.
4. Women in the military: The US has for decades been working on increasing femalesin its ranks, but with limited success. Despite targeted outreach, special incentives for female enlistees only, modifications to baracks or guaranteed off-base housing for enlisted women in apts. or even detached homes, only 14.6% of all servicemembers in the US were female. (See http://www.statisticbrain.com/women-in-the-military-statistics/ ). After Marine combat infantry school was opened to females on a volunteer-only basis, only 3 have gotten through it. (See http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2013/1121/First-female-Marines-pass… ) In other attempts to get through it, fewer than 5 attempted and unfortunately all couldn't complete it due to injury or voluntarily stopping it. Our most recent Defense Secretary declared before resigning that all but a very small no. of combat roles would be avail. to females in the armed forces by 2016. ( http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/20/pentagon-women-combat/… ). But while it's a dubious honor, I'm amazed I must admit to see that the US military does allow women to defuse bombs:
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123195329
And indeed, a few have volunteered. So while I doubt the gender ratio is M:F 1:1 by percentage of men and women in the US armed forces, we *are* after all talking about "Danger UXB" stuff here. And I have yet to hear anyone say that the gender imbalance among ordnance techs must be rectified in order for there to be gender-justice.
5. Nuclear materials handling:
Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_labor_issues
6. "I'm a chemist you insensitive clod. Depending on what you are doing it can
be dirty or dangerous."
Indeed! But is it inherent in what you do with chemicals or do you choose to do dangerous things or not? Like an EE, one can design chemical processes and do research without touching lab equipment for decades, though I don't recommend it since you fall out of practice. Indeed, Marie Curie accidentally but nonethless did give her life to the study of chemistry/materials physics as she studied radioactivity. So too did the man (Henri Becquerel) who led her and her husband, though, in their research, though he seems to have been forgotten by most, as has been ger husband who was killed when he fell in front of a horse-drawn cart in Paris and the wheel rolled over his head. But I doubt if either Henri or Marie knew playing with stuff that glows like that'd kill them, they would probably have, at least, figured out a way to protect themselves.
But I suppose the same re choosing dangerous jobs could be said of men, too. After all, men have to volunteer for bomb disposal too, right? My issue with the whole "Let's get more women because ________!" thing is that the blank to fill in is usually occupied by something utterly nonsensical, just like doing the same when speaking of men being "needed" as RNs, even if the pay can be >$100,000/yr. with overtime or going into a more lucrative specialty (like becoming a nurse-anesthetist). The argument is just plain ludicrous.
And Geni, I'm a man, you unsensitive clod! Dependinh on what you are foing, it can be dirty or dangerous. Just look at the number of men killed/injured/sickened on the job yearly all over the world vs. women. Look at the number killed in wars started by someone else, forced to serve at gunpoint or on threat of imprisonment or worse. And need I tell you that men are much more likely to be murdered/assaulted than women.
So who's the "insensitive dolt", Geni, much less the better-informed?
Matt
-------- Original message --------
From: wikimedia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Date:01/08/2015 6:28 AM (GMT-05:00)
To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Cc:
Subject: Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 130, Issue 25
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 10:52:45 +0000
From: geni <geniice(a)gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month
gender gap project-related decision
Message-ID:
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
On 8 January 2015 at 07:07, mcc99 <mcc99(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
> If you ask any RN the names of the greatest contributors to the nursing
> profession, you'll get a stream of women's names. To suggest that nursing
> "needs" more men or else it won't be able to achieve its greatest potential
> would be a crass and inaccurate insult to the many thousands of women who
> have made modern nursing what it is. Of course there have been and will be
> male nurses who stand out as contributors, but only a very small
> percentage, probably in keeping with the ratio of men to women in nursing.
> And yet, despite the high salaries RNs command, are there any
> gov't-sponsored initiatives to get men into nursing?
In fact nurses get paid less than the male national average wage. This is
clearly some definition of high salaries I wasn't previously familiar with
> If so, it'd be news to me and many others. But I ask, if men by and
> large, for whatever reasons, aren't interested in becoming nurses, why make
> a big deal about it?
Reducing the recruitment pool is less than ideal. However the number of men
training to be nurses has been increasing so it is probably felt the
problem will solve itself.
> Are there gov't-sponsored campaigns to get more women into the relatively
> lucrative job of refuse collection?
Ah you can tell the piece you are recycling from is dated. Post
privatisation refuse collection has ceased to be a particularly lucrative
job.
Or, the likewise lucrative jobs of plumber,
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/call-more-women-constru…
Although again due to eastern European labour plumbing isn't as lucrative
as it used to be.
> ordnance disposal engineer,
I understand there have been various attempts to recruit women into the
military
> nuclear materials technician, etc.? No. But other fields that are a lot
> less dirty and/or dangerous, yes.
Were you under the impression that nuclear materials technician was dirty
and/or dangerous? For very obvious reasons it isn't. However the nuclear
industry has been downsizing of late so I don't think there are significant
programs to recruit anyone.
> (Think professional STEM fields.)
I'm a chemist you insensitive clod. Depending on what you are doing it can
be dirty or dangerous.
>
>
--
geni
Hi Chris,
Philosophically, your question re who is to decide what's worthwhile and factual is a fair point. But un practice it's decided by editors, authors, and on Wikipedia, by Wikipedia content reviewers and editors. I've sometimes had my additions, even minor edits, reverted by a Wikipedia reviewer for whatever unstated reason, even if the change was a mere grammatical correction.
If Wikipedia allowed edits to go unreviewed or unreversible, it'd be completely trashed inside a day. So while in an ideal world we'd need no police, fire protection, etc., we're not in an ideal world. Likewise publicly-editable site like Wikipedia must have "content police", and these content police do make such decisions thousands of times daily.
As for your reference to "white North American and European men with Master's degrees", my position is as originally stated: ethnicity, gender, and now place of origin, are irrelevant to whether what the contributor writes is valuable. For if I am told, and rightly so, that I shouldn't dismiss or poo-poo Grace Hopper's contributions to computer science because she was female, not Alan Turing's because he was gay. Finally, making such references is patently insulting. If you'd said the same about how, for example, a particular Wikipedia site shouldn't have quite so many east Asian female contributors with advanced degrees, how would that go over? But, you might say, there are no such Wikipedia sites. Well, there are Wikipedia sites written in languages spoken primarily in east Asia, like Chinese. And more than a few regions of the world are enrolling many more women into advanced degree programs than men by rate of increase (see thr 2010 UNESCO Global Education Digest at http://www.uis.unesco.org/Library/Documents/GED_2010_EN.pdf page 13). With the exception of sub-Saharan Africa and only barely, women are surpassing (and in Asia and the Arab region, by huge margins) men in these increasing rates of enrollment. In addition, looking at page 15, you can see far more women in eastern and central Europe have or are getting advanced degrees. So it's not a matter of education nor a matter of educational anti-female discrimination -- on the contrary, if one is to judge purely by numbers, he or she must conclude it's men being systematically excluded from higher ed opportunities, not women. But if one is looking through rose-colored lenses, he or she sees everything only in shades of red. So is there a move on to get more men from eastern and central European countries to get into higher ed, much less contribute more to Wikipedia?
Ad hominem criticisms/arguments, which include derisive references to a person's indelible characteristics or place of origin, or simple name-calling/labrling, are fallacious and act merely as distractions. To start talking about contributors' gender and ethnicity, esp. in derisive tones, is insulting, bad politics, and since others including yourself have taken to derisive labeling (in another response, I have been called an "insensitive clod" merely for having an opinion counter to hers), then fair's fair.
As an example: Why should I really value your opinion, Chris, when obviously you lack the brains to comprehend my argument? (Ad hominem attack, like "insensitive dolt") You're just plain insensitive, you clod. (Again.) You have no valid input on this matter too because presumably, you're a white European male and really ought to stay quiet about it, as another replier implied when they said the debate was not too be taken too seriously since it seemed *once again* to be among _white males_. So be quiet, Chris. No one wants to hear more from a tiresome, privileged WHITE EUROPEAN MALE. (derisive labeling, non-sequitur reasoning, minimizing).
How does it feel, Chris? Familiar? It ought to, you hear it enough these days.
Matt
-------- Original message --------
From: wikimedia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Date:01/08/2015 4:59 AM (GMT-05:00)
To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Cc:
Subject: Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 130, Issue 24
Message: 6
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 09:59:10 +0000
From: Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month
gender gap project-related decision
Message-ID:
<CAFche1ov04xpvpOsa89oZ8-E9+TfXingi1YbtXPK7o1cj0ES4Q(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Hi there,
> That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so long
> as it's relevant and factual.
>
Who is to decide what is relevant and factual (or indeed, the other
editorial judgements we make in writing aricles)? If the only people doing
that are white North American and European men with (or working towards)
masters' degrees*, then their judgements will inevitably reflect their own
backgrounds and perspectives - and other backgrounds and perspectives will
be missing from those judgements.
That does not and will not result in us fulfilling our mission to build and
share the sum of human knowledge.
In my view our consensus-based decision-making model can only work well
when there is enough diversity of contributions in the first place. It is
easy for a small group of similar people to reach a consensus. However,
they are likely to miss important things in doing so.
Regards,
Chris
* This isn't (quite) a description of the status quo but is pretty close
Hi Peter,
Much of my editing has been without logging into Wikipedia. Typically I don't create new pages but I have a couple times. For example, I started a page for a college that closed in 1981 after finding to my surprise that no one had done so despite it being a beloved place for its alums. I did likewise for a deceased former state chief justice, as 2 examples. But I didn't sign in to do so. I've made numerous other edits to add info such as info about a person's recent demise, further contributions to a field, etc.
But in future, I think I'll sign in more often, esp. now that half the WikiGods have my uid on an alert trigger now. :)
Matt
-------- Original message --------
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 14:12:39 +0200
From: "Peter Southwood" <peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net>
To: "'Wikimedia Mailing List'" <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month
gender gap project-related decision
Message-ID: <005c01d02b3c$65e76500$31b62f00$(a)telkomsa.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Hi Matt,
How much actual editing of Wikipedia have you done? I have looked for some indication in your rather lengthy message, but could not find any. Perhaps I have simply missed it, but maybe you just didn’t mention, thinking that it is not relevant to the point.
Nevertheless, I would be interested to know, as it would be an indication of your exposure to the editing environment. For the same reason, I would like to know which Wikipedia(s) you have edited, they are not all the same.
Cheers,
Peter
-----Original Message-----
From: wikimedia-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of mcc99
Sent: 08 January 2015 09:07 AM
To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision
Dear fellow Wikipedia devotees,
While I'm new to this list, I've been an avid fan and proponent of Wikipedia and all the great service it gives people people in
>
Hi all,
Please take a minute to review a new project idea the page for which I created just today at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiTribute
I am interested in feedback, suggestions, etc.
Thank you!
Matt
See
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-att…
-------- Messaggio inoltrato --------
Oggetto: Response to We the People Petition on U.S. Attorney's Office
Personnel Matters
Data: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 18:18:14 -0600
Mittente: The White House
We the People
*Response to We the People Petition on U.S. Attorney's Office Personnel
Matters*
Aaron Swartz's death was a tragic, unthinkable loss for his family and
friends. Our sympathy continues to go out to those who were closest to
him, and to the many others whose lives he touched.
We also reaffirm our belief that a spirit of openness is what makes the
Internet such a powerful engine for economic growth, technological
innovation, and new ideas. That's why members of the Administration
continue to engage with advocates to ensure the Internet remains a free
and open platform as technology continues to disrupt industries and
connect our communities in ways we can't yet imagine. We will continue
this engagement as we tackle new questions on key issues such as citizen
participation in democracy, open access to information, privacy,
intellectual property, free speech, and security.
As to the specific personnel-related requests raised in your petitions,
our response must be limited. Consistent with the terms we laid out when
we began We the People,
we will not address agency personnel matters in a petition response,
because we do not believe this is the appropriate forum in which to do so.
Hi folks,
I am happy to announce that I will be joining the Wikimedia Foundation's Communications team as Movement Communications Manager for a period of six months.
I have really enjoyed my work as product manager at WMF in the past 3 years, leading the development of new tools like Notifications, Thanks, Beta Features, Media Viewer and other multimedia products [1].
One of the lessons I learned during that time is that 'better communications' are really important to make our movement more effective. I also think that growing a 'culture of kindness' is key if we want to engage a broader community [2]. I hope to support both of these goals in my new role.
Starting this week, I will be working with the communications team on the Wikimedia blog and general WMF/movement communications. My focus for the blog will include improving contributor workflow for community members and WMF staff, and providing editorial guidance for contributors. I will also act as the main contact point for authors submitting new blog posts, and shepherd the publication process. Within movement communications, I will work to improve the availability, distribution, and timeliness of communications from the WMF to the broader community. I will also manage a range of movement communications tasks previously handled by Tilman Bayer, who is transitioning to the WMF Product team as Senior Analyst.
One of my new duties is managing this WikimediaAnnounce-l list. Because this list gets so much spam, we manually review all submissions several times per day, until a reliable machine filter can be implemented. Please contact me if you have an urgent announcement that needs to go out immediately, or if you have any issues about this list.
I’d like to thank all my colleagues on the multimedia and product teams -- as well as our many community champions -- for being such wonderful collaborators over the past few years. I am proud of what we accomplished together, and I hope that the features we created can help many more people share knowledge productively in years to come. Special thanks to Erik Moeller for his thoughtful guidance throughout the past three years -- and for making this transition possible. Kudos as well to Tilman for being such a wonderful coach and getting me up to speed on tasks he used to handle so efficiently. :)
I'm delighted to take on this new assignment, and look forward to more collaborations with you all in the coming year.
Onward!
Fabrice Florin
Movement Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
[1] Fabrice's user page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)>
[2] 'A Culture of Kindness' blog post:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/12/23/a-culture-of-kindness/ <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/12/23/a-culture-of-kindness/>
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l:
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Dear Wikimedia Community,
I am excited to announce that I am starting today as the
Wikipedian-in-Residence for NIOSH, the National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health, a subsidiary of the CDC. NIOSH is a research institution
dedicated to the prevention of illness and injury related to work, and they
have a wealth of information just begging to be used by Wikimedia. Our
missions are very much aligned, especially with WikiProject Medicine, and
have the potential to create a huge impact worldwide.
As Wikipedian-in-Residence, I will be helping to connect NIOSH and the
WIkimedia communities, creating a WikiProject NIOSH, and helping to
organize content on occupational health and use NIOSH's public domain
resources to improve Wikimedia. I will not, in the foreseeable future, be
editing anything about NIOSH itself or any of its scientists. Nevertheless,
for full disclosure, I'll be placing a comprehensive COI notice on my user
page and keeping a separate account (as many other WIR's do) at
[[User:Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH)]] on any project I'm working on.
I'm very excited to work on this project and am always happy to accept
feedback. You can read more about NIOSH at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_for_Occupational_Safety_an…,
and see my personal userpage at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keilana.
All the best,
Emily Temple-Wood
Hi Lodewijk,
Currently IDEAL is temporarily down on our pages (it went into maintenance
mode after our annual campaign), but should be back up soon :) We know
the importance of this method for Dutch donors and have supported this
option since we started fundraising in the NL. We also support offline bank
transfer (IBAN) and donors can get the account number with our Donor
Services team.
We had an extremely successful Fundraising campaign this year, and there
will be some great mobile optimization coming up in the next few months,
which will allow mobile donors to complete their donations in a much faster
and easier way.
Thanks!
Pats
On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org>
wrote:
> A while back now, the chapters were no longer allowed to fundraise, because
> the Wikimedia Foundation argued they would be better able to do this. At
> the time, this sounded somewhat reasonable. However, since then, there have
> been some disturbing developments - at least for Dutch donors.
>
> No longer it is possible to pay electronically (iDEAL, one of the most
> common methods is no longer supported - 'electronic banking' simply refers
> you back to the credit card page) or even via regular bank transfer (using
> an IBAN) in the Netherlands. The donation page
> <
> https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:FundraiserLandingPag…
> >
> only
> allows credit card and paypal, and the 'other ways to give' simply sends
> you to the helpdesk if you want to make a bank transfer payment.
>
> What is the reasoning behind this? Have bank transfers become a legal
> swamp? Are there statistics suggesting that this method was no longer
> required by donors? Did the European bank account somehow get temporarily
> suspended?
>
> If it has become so hard to donate, maybe it makes more sense to send the
> donors to the local chapter pages where they can actually donate in the
> local suitable methods (in this case, Wikimedia Netherlands offers both
> iDEAL and IBAN
> <http://www.wikimedia.nl/pagina/doneren-aan-wikimedia-nederland>).
>
> One of the Dutch OTRS team members asked for elaboration, but didn't quite
> get a satisfying answer. I hope this is a temporary situation, and that
> this threshold will be removed again. It would be sad if we go through all
> kind of trouble to enable long tail methods like bitcoin, but skip bank
> transfer...
>
> Best,
>
> Lodewijk
> _______________________________________________
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--
Pats Pena | Sr. Manager, Global Operations
Wikimedia Foundation
office +1 (415) 839 6885 x6764
cell: +1 (415) 816 3349
fax: +1 (415) 284 9511
ppena(a)wikimedia.org
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate.
<https://donate.wikimedia.org/>*