[Gendergap] Women4Wikipedia

[Sue Gardner]

Hi Rosie!

On 18 February 2011 10:38, Collective Action
<collective_action at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Having asked the original question on this thread I thought I might chime in
> with my thoughts to the responses. When I posted it I imagined I'd get
> responses from women rather than men so it was interesting that the initial
> responses came from men and then a discussion ensued about the
> merits/disbenefits of the idea of Wikipedia dominated by women as it is
> presently dominated (statistically) by men.

Yeah. Personally I appreciate that men are here, and caring about this
issue. I do think though that sometimes it would be more helpful if
some of the men here listened a little more and spoke a little less.
Women are likelier to be more 'expert' on the gender gap issue and its
origins than men are, so a man might usefully aim to learn here when
experiences are being shared, rather than teach.

There have I think been a couple of examples here of a woman saying
something about her experience, followed by a man seeming to
refute/rebut/deny what she said, or tell her she should feel
differently about it. That's a normal thing to do --it happens all the
time-- but it's not very helpful. If someone is sharing her
experience, there's really nothing to debate: it's her experience.


> I am currently hosting weekly Twitter chats at
> http://wthastag.com/Women4wikipedia starting 9am UTC/GMT Monday or 8pm
> Australian Time (Sydney). Readings & transcripts are at
> http://women4wikipedia.net

Thank you for starting those chats, and thank you for the site as well
(http://women4wikipedia.net/). I am really thrilled to see people
starting their own initiatives to help solve this problem, and I
appreciate what you're doing :-)

Thanks,
Sue


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Sue Gardner
Executive Director
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