Once at an Ani diFranco concert (that my husband took me to) I saw
several men wearing a t-shirt that said "This is what a feminist
looks like." Situations like that have helped me get over my
anti-men attitude that was a reaction to an early indoctrination of
fundamentalist teaching that "women must submit to their husbands,"
and now I believe that we as humans need to protect the rights of
other individuals. So I vote against limiting the conversation to
women, because can only arrive at the most effective solution
through diversity in the dialogue. If the ones advocating for
women's involvement in Wikipedia are men, then rather than silence
them, maybe women should speak up too. This list is a direct
invitation for women to voice the issues they have on Wikipedia and
many have done that. It seems to me that the men who are active on
this list join the conversation in an effort to find out what issues
female editors face and how they can help.
thanks for reading my 2 cents, Amy
On 3/14/11 5:14 PM, Laura Hale wrote:
I'd like to propose that the gendergap be forked. The
main list would be for women and transgendered who want to work
together to help increase female participation on Wikipedia and
other Wikimedia Foundation projects. The fork list would be for
male allies who want to work towards a similar goal.
This proposal is based on two things. The first idea is that women
themselves can probably best identify areas and needs regarding
female participation on Wikipedia. Assuming good faith, male
contributors on the list probably do really want to help work
towards this goal and have women's best interest at heart and want
to see improvement in the total number of female participants on
the wiki... but there has been a fairly sizable amount of research
in the NGO sector in countries like Africa, where outside
organisations were not as effective as local organisations at
identifying local problems and creating solutions that work best
in a local context. In this situation, women and transgenders
would be the local community and men would be the international
NGOs.
The second issue is that at the moment, men appear to be
dominating the conversation. (This may not by correct and I
apologise if I am wrong. I'm making this assumption based on the
names of participants involved.) Men are posting content with
suggestions for women. Men are debating if women find the term
dick offensive. Men aren't asking the women on the list if they
have resources that they think other women might find useful. Men
do not appear to be asking the women on the list what their
opinions are regarding the use of the term dick and if women on
the list find the term offensive. Rather, it appears that men are
speaking for women without their consent.
I'd really like men to continue to be involved. I think the best
way would be for the creation of a sublist, specifically created
for men. As allies, they can discuss how to improve the rate of
women's involvement. As men on that strategies sublist about the
creation and implementation of solutions to increase female
participation, the information can be summarised and sent to some
one else off list to be posted to the main list.
I just worry at the moment that the heavy male involvement is
intimidating and keeping some women from participating.
Sincerely,
Laura Hale
--
twitter: purplepopple
blog: ozziesport.com
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