Hello,
First of all, let me explain that English is not my native language. Sometimes that means that I make errors in grammar or spelling. In this case, however, that is not the issue. I know the linguistic value of the term "lady". In Swedish, we have a similar distinction between "dam" ('lady') and "kvinna" ('woman').
Then we come to the real cause: the term "find the lady" is not my invention. It's a stock phrase, that specifically refer to a game, that is also called "three card monte", as you can see in the article I linked to. In this context, trying to use image galleries to point out that we have a lack of women as editors, "three card monte" would have made a meaningless reference. I could have used other phrases, such as "cherchez la femme" (which is more sinister, I feel), or "OMG, there's a woman on the interwebs" (which is even less respectful, and less common), but as an example, I think I got the point across. I apologize if you felt that it was a bad phrasing.
I too dislike any programming designs that use male as the standard. I do not think, though, that we should make female the standard, either. It would make for many false positives (we know that people don't read all the instructions before clicking "yes"), which would make it appear that we suddenly have 95 % new female editors. What we should do is make the genders equally prominent, if that is not the case already.
Best wishes,
Lennart
Lennart Guldbrandsson,
Tfn: 031 - 12 50 48 Mobil: 070 - 207 80 05
Epost: l_guldbrandsson@hotmail.com / lennart@wikimedia.se
Användarsida: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anv%C3%A4ndare:Hannibal
Blogg: http://mrchapel.wordpress.com/
Wikimedia Sverige http://wikimedia.se
http://www.1av3.se
From: frazera@bigpond.com
To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:06:49 +1100
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] I'm not sure which is more depressing
Hi Lennart,
"..."Find the lady"?"
If you had placed an exclamation mark after the word
'lady', rather than a question over the whole sentence, I would have got the
joke about 'lady'. In the absence of an intended irony with the use of the word
'lady' I'll take it you really mean 'lady'. Therefore I'd like to let you
know that the women's movement (historically - first, second and third waves)
have fought against honorific titles such as 'lady' to describe and understand
'what women want'.
At the very least the term 'lady' is not
meaningful across cultural lines north, south, east, or west of our world.
European tradition, particularly English, is where it is the most
meaningful in the most constricting and negative of senses where it has been
used against females - girls (children) and women - in that
rather than a nation socially growing it's female population in all facets of
life's energy and creativity, females has been kept down over the centuries
and one of the ways of penetrating the female psyche to reinforce the
necessity of this down trodden existence is to remind a female that she much be
a 'lady' and ladies don't do this and that, but must do this and that, all
decided by a masculine controlled society and reinforced over the
years by compliant females being taught to support this social
construct.
So Lennart, women and girls want to decide the simple and
the enormity of their lives. A great number of females whose consciousness has
been raised and so recognise the existing inequalities over all
societies will not want to be named 'ladies' in discussions about what women
want.
Here's a simple dilemma right now - for the programmers.
Why do the drop down windows on many sign up sights have in the window 'male'
and if you are a female you have to click on the down button and select
'female'. This question is not trite by any means. It goes to the heart of how
our female and male programmers construct and think about what they are
implementing. My question is: Do female programmers use this same format? Has
any female programmer been bold enough to reverse the order? Let
the 'female' word be in the static window, and let the males have to
click the drop down to select their gender.
Anne Frazer
Wikimedia Australia
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2011 4:41
AM
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] I'm not sure
which is more depressing
Maybe a campaign, based on the phrase "Find the lady"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Find_the_LadyBest
wishes,
Lennart
Lennart Guldbrandsson,
Tfn: 031 - 12
50 48 Mobil: 070 - 207 80 05
Epost:
l_guldbrandsson@hotmail.com /
lennart@wikimedia.seAnvändarsida:
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anv%C3%A4ndare:HannibalBlogg:
http://mrchapel.wordpress.com/Wikimedia
Sverige http://wikimedia.se
http://www.1av3.se
From: l_guldbrandsson@hotmail.com
To:
gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:38:24
+0000
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] I'm not sure which is more
depressing
Yes, that is a good idea.
Here are plenty of pics to
choose
from:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_meetups
Best
wishes,
Lennart
Lennart Guldbrandsson,
Tfn: 031 - 12
50 48 Mobil: 070 - 207 80 05
Epost: l_guldbrandsson@hotmail.com /
lennart@wikimedia.se
Användarsida:
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anv%C3%A4ndare:Hannibal
Blogg:
http://mrchapel.wordpress.com/
Wikimedia Sverige
http://wikimedia.se
http://www.1av3.se
> From: erik@wikimedia.org
>
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:33:40 -0800
> To:
gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Gendergap] I'm not sure
which is more depressing
>
> On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 9:31 AM,
Lennart Guldbrandsson
> <l_guldbrandsson@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> > Perhaps the solution is to create a gendergap template,
instead of having to
> > bring up the same points over and
over.
>
> I think we should have a re-usable collage of all the
photos of
> meetups attended (almost) exclusively by male Wikipedians.
with the
> caption "Notice anything missing?". Sometimes pictures are
more
> persuasive than text.
>
> --
> Erik
Möller
> VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia
Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
>
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