<html><head><title>Re: [Gendergap] A pet peeve / cliche</title>
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<span style=" font-family:'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 12pt;">I'm glad I made you comment on me. That means -in my opinion- that you're concerned,<br>
and that also means that maybe I hit on the wound.<br>
<br>
As I said in an earlier post, in a capitalist system women play men's roles. That's not bad,<br>
of course, that just means that they are changing their nature to be "equal" to men. In China<br>
happend just the opposite: men changed their nature to be "equal" to women. Have you ever<br>
had a row with a Chinese man? And I mean a Chinese man with a Chinese mentality, not<br>
somebody who adapted to the capitalist system.<br>
<br>
For me those things are clearer because I'm living just in the middle of the two worlds, i.e.,<br>
China and the United States.<br>
<br>
What would it be the solution? Maybe, a middle point, just what happened in the<br>
famous Spanish story of Don Quixote: they changed themselves reciprocally.<br>
<br>
Of course, this is an utopia. Who am I to change the world? I'm not important :)<br>
<br>
Regards<br>
<br>
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<td width=578><span style=" font-family:'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 12pt;">Second, Miguel,<br>
<br>
Thank you for pointing out that the gender gap <br>
exists all over the world. <br>
<br>
You propose the Wikipedia site itself might be a problem, <br>
because women don't want to work with it because<br>
it isn't WYSIWYG. <*sigh*><br>
The reasons being:<br>
<br>
1. "men are a bit more obsessive in their work than women"<br>
2. "maybe it's the look of the site, not attractive enough" <br>
3. "women tend to focus their attention on people, instead of things, as men do"<br>
<br>
#1 & #3 have been stated about women and work for over a century.<br>
<br>
#2 --> Has a woman *actually* told you that she won't post to <br>
Wikipedia because she finds the interface too difficult? <br>
You're proposing that women don't want to post as experts <br>
because they don't want to be an expert in using a complex interface.<br>
Because of a deficiency with women, they don't want to become<br>
experts with a system that would allow them to post their<br>
expert opinion.<br>
I sense a catch-22 argument here.<br>
Reworking the Wikipedia interface is not really addressing the problem.<br>
<br>
Another reason why "women don't want to ____ because ______"<br>
We should have a Wiki page on these bizarre reasons.<br>
If we put them in a long list it might not help anyone, but<br>
it might be humorous. We could just refer to reason #1054<br>
or #782 or #11659 with links to the Wiki page. Good for<br>
a laugh. Women could post any new funnies, like "women <br>
aren't as obsessive about their work as men are".<br>
This might become the most popular set of pages on Wikipedia.<br>
Of course, it would probably attract trolls. So let's not.<br>
<br>
To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a <br>
'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner<br>
about it on every Wiki page during the month. It validates that <br>
the world community accepts women as experts, and invites <br>
women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't. <br>
I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki <br>
can have a different logo for that month.<br>
<br>
- Susan Spencer Conklin<br>
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<span style=" font-family:'arial'; color: #c0c0c0;"><i>-- <br>
Saludos,<br>
Miguelinito <a style=" font-style: normal;" href="mailto:miguelinito@gmail.com">mailto:miguelinito@gmail.com</a></body>