Wow, thank you, Gillian! I just took a quick spin through both of them and they really do seem improved, especially child-free. I remember looking at it about six months ago and wincing -- as you say, it had some huge gaps. And I just looked at the history of childless and you're right, the older versions really do seem to come from a male POV --- particularly the list of famous men (and their wives) who didn't have kids.
Thank you for making them so much better :-) Sue
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On 16 October 2011 04:47, Gillian White whiteghost.ink@gmail.com wrote:
Dear All,
I read these articles [[Childless]] and [[Childfree]] at the beginning of the weekend to follow up on the removal of the aforementioned pointless lists of childless men that used to be in them. And yes, while it is a good thing to have deleted the pointless lists, the articles were still awful. So appalling that I have spent my weekend working on them and just wanted to have a rant here about it (apologies in advance). Begin rant ... It says something about our editorship that one of the most important issues for women throughout history and across the globe - something that has caused unspeakable suffering, is related to serious illnesses, has brought down kingdoms, caused wars and crime, destroyed relationships, damaged national potential etc etc - was reduced to two muddled, myopic, arrogant, ahistoric articles largely concentrating on an option available only to a few rich, privileged women in a few wealthy areas of the world for the last thirty years. That is, there were two articles, with two names, both mostly about voluntary childlessness. Thus, did the encyclopedia ignore almost every woman on the planet over about three thousand years and all their shared and individual experiences with controlling conception when there were/are very few options. Reading the pair of articles was equivalent to reading an article on "Food" dominated by content about pistachio ice cream. So, yes, we do need more women editors! I am one of the women fortunate enough to have had "options" but I do know, unlike apparently the original articles, that "childfree" is not an option for most of the world and until very recently has not been a reliable option for anyone. I also know that childlessness matters to many people for lots of different reasons. I have separated the content of the two articles and included some of the very serious issues to which childlessness is related as well as tried to give the childfree one a more global perspective. End rant. Thanks for reading. Yes, I know the articles are not finished. I am going back to my bricklaying now (no, really!) and trying to earn a living (but not from bricklaying). I will return though [?] PS If you want a real heroine, read about [[Catherine Hamlin]] who has quietly and efficiently been restoring women's health and giving them back their lives for over fifty years.
Gillian
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