On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 15:56, Daniel and Elizabeth Case dancase@frontiernet.net wrote:
Forking this list as a way to make it more effective in its stated purpose is bound to be self-defeating for the simple reason (beyond the inability to effectively authenticate the gender of participants) that Wikipedia itself is not gender-segregated. Any single-gender project to close the gap is, IMO, bound to fail.
Informally, I also fear that a women-only list might be even less successful in empowering women on this list to find ways to overcome gender inequity on it. One woman who doesn't post much here, but with whom I correspond, told me the idea, particularly as Laura articulates it, just generally gives her a bad vibe, to the point that she'd avoid any women-only list because women who set them up basically have, in her experience, the ultimate goal of being Queen Bee and lording (ladying?) it over all the other women participating in ways they would never dare to do otherwise if they knew men would become aware of it.
I've just written, and deleted, several responses to this. :)
It's true that women can be other women's worst critics. I have no answers for it. But I think when discussing this kind of issue we should try to AGF. I know of only one women-only list set up on WP, and the woman who did it had the very best of intentions.
Sarah