On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 4:28 AM, Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth@gmail.com> wrote:
I believe issues relating to pornography are germane to a list discussing the gender gap, and I'm happy to be informed about them (as with Andreas' initial post) on this list. It's one of the reasons I subscribe to this list.

Laura, if there was consensus around a different point of view at your conference, that's fine; but it's not binding on anybody who wasn't part of that consensus.


Pete,

As a woman, can you tell me if you regularly find pornography on Wikipedia and you are offended by it? 

This is not an issue of "my conference" but an issue of a group of women involved in the global movement were together for several days and discussed these issues almost all the time.  This was the first WMF gender gap conference.  It was the first WMF women's only event.  Do you realise how offensive it is to dismiss us this way?  Seriously, it is greatly offensive to dismiss the conference and our outcomes and our conversations like you just did.  Can you please apologise for your incivility in dismissing us this way?

Do you know why the issue even came up to begin with?  Because I saw the conversation appear here so often that I thought "Surely pornography must be an important global issue that makes it difficult for women to contribute."  I was point blank told: "This is a problem for women from the USA and is used to derail important conversations." Beyond that, the issue of pornography was so unimportant as not to be discussed.

If people on this list feel it is a meaningful issue that is one of the primary reasons why women do not contribute on a global level, I want to see some evidence of it.  Sue Gardner got up and spoke to us about the challenges of women contributing to Wikipedia and she did not mention it.  I've yet to talk to a single woman who has said the primary reason she does not contribute is because of the presence of pornography on Wikipedia.  If this is an issue, work with me and others to do the serious research to look into it.

In the mean time, please stop dismissing us and discounting our opinions.

--
twitter: purplepopple
blog: ozziesport.com