Replying to this bit as an agender editor:
Furthermore, How do we build a place where a-gender
non binary persons
feel accepted and welcome?
I partially addressed this issue in my presentation at
WikiConference
North America last fall:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Transgender_Gap_-_October_2016.…
After seeing much deliberate misgendering of nonbinary subjects, I also
just created (after posting a draft for feedback) a MOS-NB talk page
template, to complement the MOS-TW and MOS-TM templates for trans women
and men:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:MOS-NB
I also encourage editors to submit new or improved biographies of
nonbinary (and other trans) people to Wiki Loves Pride 2017, which
started today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Pride_2017
- Pax aka Funcrunch (hoping this post gets approved by the list
moderators before Wiki Love Pride is over!)
On 5/26/17 11:55 PM, Natacha Rault wrote:
> Hi Pine,
>
> Thank you for your detailed answer. In fact what you mentionned in the
> second part of your mail, the fact that such events might exclude
> certain class of people and suggest gender favoritism is what fuelled
> remarks in the first place. This is what surprized me most, because
> this is what women experience when contributing: being faced with an
> environment that is essentially male represented. But that does not
> prompt aggressivity from the underepresented part does it?
> Research has shown that things become easier for an underrepresented
> community when it achieves a representation of 30% within a group.
> Then things change "naturally". However there is not only the question
> of women : how do we become more inclusive with communities that would
> never make it to a 30% reprensentation level?
> There is also an ambiguity here: to adress gender gap, identified
> along gender based criteria, we apply gender bases approaches : more
> articles on women, designing more women friendly events, designing
> gender targeted projects... There is the risk to be assigning women
> further to a specific gender segregation, and to exclude non binary
> persons.
>
> But how do we increase the participation of women without implicitely
> applying gender criteria? It is not possible, we need to start somewhere.
>
Furthermore, How do we build a place where a-gender
non binary persons
feel accepted and welcome?
>
> To me it would seem natural to start with an editathon with non
> binary- only persons, to make sure my biaised approach does not impact
> the result... But I am not going from the outside to impose a way of
> doing things. If an agenda is set, it needs to be done by themselves,
> trying to be inclusive means listening to what people are asking for,
> not trying to impose a way of doing things from another perspective
> which would not be representative.
>
> In this the word "start with" is important, we are speaking of
> building confidence in a secure space where one can build a
> contributing capacity before being thrown in the vast melting pot of
> contributors.
>
> To me, trying to deal with women representation, it felt like
> difficult to try to understand the whole thing from the trans
> perspective which was brought to me. But I must admit that I learnt so
> much, that the experience was worth it. I still consider myself as
> biased, but willing to try hard to be more inclusive. This also goes
> with starting things by bringing an agenda in my practice that is not
> mine.
>
> So this is why the project "les sans pagEs" (without a page) does not
> include the word woman. We can then focus on people and subjects which
> are not represented. A contributor proposes articles on female horses,
> and there was one on the irish X case (on the subject of abortion).
> People then can move away from biographies and start thematic articles
> (harder to write but helping to link orphan articles, another aspect
> of the gender gap). We even have a section for articles translated in
> other languages, because we area global movement. A young italian
> contributor participating to our group discovered he could not
> translate "LGBT swiss history" in italian because of the use of
> "explicit language" (probably the word "sodomy" used in the
article,
> which is based on historical facts).
>
> I have more questions than answers to these issues. One thing I am
> sure of, is that we need to do things with a learn-and-try agile
> method with an open mind. I hear too often "we need more research" and
> I dont think so: I think we need more action and feedback from active
> contributor groups. We need to share experiences, we need to travel
> and see how things are done elsewhere. I was happy to meet the mexican
> women group in Geneva and hear from their experience: we changed our
> workshops after that. I was happy meeting Rosie in Esino Lario and
> copying her concept of Women in red in the francophone wikipedia. This
> brought more than the hundred of research papers I read because it
> dealt with "how to" instead of "why is it". Reading about the
constant
> underrepresention of women can be very depressing, starting to get
> things moving is more motivating (poke to the Kaylana effec).
>
> And what I feel we need most of all is a certain lattitude to explore
> different ways of doing things without being constantly criticized and
> harrassed. Harrassment is time consuming and destroys all positive
> energy.
>
> Have a nice week-end!
>
> Natacha
>
>
>
> Le 27 mai 2017 à 06:44, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com
> <mailto:wiki.pine@gmail.com>> a écrit :
>
>> Hi Natacha,
>>
>> I just now got this email (perhaps it was held for list moderation)
>> but thought I would note that there have been gender-specific events
>> before. I'm aware of the WikiWomen's lunch which seems to be held
>> yearly at Wikimania, and I believe that Wikimedia Mexico has
>> women-only editathons.
>>
>> As a male I have no objections to gender-specific events happening on
>> occasion. I think that it's fine to have those kinds of sessions so
>> long as they are designed and resourced in ways that are arguably
>> fair and don't suggest favoritism. I would be concerned if such
>> events happened in a way that excluded certain classes of people on a
>> regular basis in a way that seemed designed to deny them access to
>> resources or personal connections which might be of interest to them,
>> if resources were assigned to one group and not another in a way that
>> suggested gender-based favoritism, etc.
>>
>> In the situation that you described, setting up one event out of four
>> to be gender-specific sounds reasonable to me.
>>
>> You might consider talking to organizers of previous WikiWomen's
>> lunches and/or the Wikimedia Mexico women's editathons to see if they
>> have comments.
>>
>> Writing as a male member of this list,
>>
>> Pine
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 10:48 AM, Natacha Rault <n.rault(a)me.com
>> <mailto:n.rault@me.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I would like to starts a discussion on women only events. How are
>> they perceived and do they generate antagonism? I have always
>> organized mixed events, until the first of march 2017, where an
>> Art+feminism editathon was hosted by an LGBT lesbian association
>> in Geneva, and I announced it on the French Bistrot here
>>
<https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Le_Bistro/3_f%C3%A9vrier_2017#Art.2BFeminisme_2017_Gen.C3.A8ve_:_Viendez.21>
(among
>> other Art+Feminism events that were all inclusive)
>>
>> I did not want to impose other rules than theirs on their
>> surroundings,so I announced a woman only event for one of the 4
>> events organized. Some members of the community disagreed and
>> reacted strongly (although I can’t say all were extremely
>> respectful this is just normal bread when dealing with the gender
>> gap) but one was so stunning and persistant (he was blocked in
>> the end and now has a topic ban) that this generated the thought
>> that we might need to reflect more on safe spaces and organize
>> such events more systematically, in each conference and each
>> Wikimania, until this is no issue any more. I remember attending
>> the women only picnic at Wikimania in Esino Lario and being
>> confronted with a different attitude: there it only seemed normal.
>>
>> What do you think and what is your experience on this issue? I am
>> interested to know all points of vue provided they are formulated
>> with respect.
>>
>> Nattes à chat (mostly active on les sans pages
>> <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Les_sans_pagEs> on the
>> French wiki)
>>
--
Pax Ahimsa Gethen | pax(a)funcrunch.org |
http://funcrunch.org | Pronouns: they/them/their