I think that both of these situations are a significant problem and are rooted in the same
apathy on the part of Wikipedia community.
Both of these situations can be reversed by people who are motivated to stop it from
happening.
I challenge the folks in the NYC Chapter to make their events welcoming all people.
I see it as a positive sign that this being discussed by folks in the Chapter. This needs
to be a priority and not go to the back burner when the media coverage ends.
Thanks everyone for raising it here.
Sydney
User:FloNight
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 24, 2013, at 9:30 AM, Katherine Casey <fluffernutter.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
For what it's worth, I have not found that
wolf-whistles and aggressive questioning, like the situation described in the article, are
typical of any Wikipedia meetups that I've been to (and I'm an active member of
Wikimedia NYC, which is what's being described there, though I was not at the meetup
in question). It is not uncommon for there to be creepiness, especially of the type where
someone who makes female attendees uncomfortable isn't spoken to/removed even after
complaints (and that's absolutely a problem), but overt aggression of the type
described here is foreign to my experiences with not only Wikimedia NYC, but multiple
Wikimanias.
If we're going to zero in on what makes meetups uncomfortable for women, I'd say
we'd do more user-retention good trying to head off the "random creep attends
meetups apparently solely to ogle the women" problem, which is common, rather than
the "women are overtly treated like shit when they are giving a public
presentation" problem, of which this article is the first I've heard.
-Fluffernutter
On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 8:46 AM, Joseph Reagle <joseph.2011(a)reagle.org> wrote:
Interesting take/story on
medium.com :
https://medium.com/better-humans/11acd4a7f44c
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