[Gendergap] A nice mix - our edit-a-thon sure shook up the gender gap!

[Carol Moore]

Yes, it was a great event! Definitely a fun thing to do if you can get a 
critical mass of people. (Three in my book :-)

Forced to leave my own narrow interest ghetto, I discovered a 
fascinating woman artist - Rachel Feinstein- who is her own kind of 
libertarian and feminist whose husband John Currin (who does satirical 
quasi porn art) had an article but she did not, even though they are 
considered a "Power couple" in NY art world.   Almost finished and I 
hope to get it up by tomorrow night, holiday housework permitting.  Also 
will add more info about her to his article, as well as some of his very 
supportive comments on feminism.

Epicly yours!  C.M.


On 12/18/2011 12:00 PM, Sarah Stierch wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm going to be a little selfish here, so pardon me. But, yesterday I
> coordinated a "fine art" themed edit-a-thon at our local downtown
> library, here in Washington, DC, followed by a meet-up at a local pub.
> I'm proud to say we had 13 people at the edit-a-thon, and six were
> women. The meetup? We had 16 people and 9 were women!! These numbers
> might seem small compared to larger events, but, to have an event like
> this, and have such a healthy mix, made me so happy.
>
> User:Aude, the President of Wikimedia DC joked "I remember when it'd be
> just me and Mindspillage, as the only women," and we gushed about having
> such a healthy group of "all genders" at the event. I noticed, when
> saying goodbye to people, that I got a bit emotional - not only did we
> have a gender-mixed Wiki-event, but, we also actually wrote new articles
> and expanded articles - and anyone who attends an edit-a-thon knows -
> it's often chaos and just socializing, not actual editing.
>
> You can see our outcomes here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/DC_26/To-do_list#OUTCOMES
>
> Which includes new articles or expanded articles about seven women
> artists!!!
>
> Obviously, I'm on a bit of a high from this, as I love outreach and
> coordinating things like this; I do believe the power of invitation
> helped with the success of this event. I don't use bots for invitations,
> and I do my best to individually reach out to people "I hope you'll be
> there." I genuinely do believe that invitation is one of the strongest
> keys in making sure that events, participation, and programs succeed in
> regards to closing the gender gap.
>
> Thanks for letting me gush =) One event, for me, leads to one more woman
> feeling inspired to continue participating. It also shows that offline
> events make for such a rewarding experience - we get to come together,
> put our differences aside, and work together for the common cause of
> providing free knowledge to the world. One woman who came had never
> written a new article - and this was her first time - and she really was
> proud. That just made me so happy.
>
> I also got to meet Carol Moore, which was rather epic, I must say. :)
>
> -Sarah
>
>