Tim wrote "Why is Wikipedia so repellant to women? I couldn't begin to speculate. Any ideas?" Might have a couple ones to give. I do not think it is a question of repellance. You may notice than the under representation is particularly critical for a age over 30-35. You may ask female wikipedians their age to check. Most are below 35. The next question would be "do you have kids ?". Generally, most women over 30-35 do have kids. Check on google "free time, housework, women, men" and contemplate results. All studies I know show that at least in european countries, men enjoy a significantly higher leisure time compared to women, essentially due to less time spend on housework chores and children care. This is especially significant as most participants to Wikipedia are educated people, which often implies working people (when over 30) Ask a working mother how she occupies her time in the evening versus how a man occupy his time, and I think it will enlighten you. This other point is significant as well I think. When you are an already overworked mom, and your family or most friends realise the time you spend over Wikipedia, their comment is at best "you are crazy", and at worse, "you are damaging your family". This is not the type of comment a man having a serious associative activity will get. When you answer that you also have a brain (and enjoy using it) and have the desire to participate to "big" things, not only family and job, as you feel teaching kids, though a very nice activity is not satisfying you enough as a participation to the grand scheme of things, a woman will often get as an answer "but you can't feel you are useless, look, you have a nice husband and great kids who need you and love you, you are very important to them". Who would ever DARE saying to a man that he should not feel useless as he has kids to take care of ? Who would ever dare say a man he should focus on doing his job well and nurturing his kids before ever thinking of using his abilities for social activities ? I feel and resent very much the heavy weight of some well-thinking people who would perfectly agree women are just as bright and able than men, but comment with a touch of despise that it is really not a good idea not to focus on what is *really* important, family and job. I also invite you to reflect on Mark comment suggest that men tend to be more interested in enlightenment-style "knowledge for knowledge's sake", while women tend to be more interested in applied fields (at least in CS and math, which is where I've read the research). Wikipedia definitely has interesting social and applied aspects, but the joy of building a compendium of human knowledge is very much an enlightenment-style project, so that might attract a disproportionate number of men. There it is as well. Women like less knowledge for knowledge sake, and more applied fields. We mostly enjoy what we have the time and opportunity to like Mark. Most women my age would love do more, but they are currently running after job hours, housechores, lice treatment, purchasing socks for the kids, driving the kids to doctors, to friends birthday, picking up presents for friends birthday, cleaning up, cooking etc... This is very practical, it has to be done. If not done, we see the deep serious look of society considering this should first be done, and done well, and fun or enlightement should come after... when there is time for it. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? All your favorites on one personal page – Try My Yahoo! http://my.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l