Hello Gendergappians,
I was recently chatting on Wikidata-l about the model that exists on Wikidata for
classifying sex [1].
If you didn't know of Wikidata, people are supposed to be classified as Male, Female,
or Intersex. I once did some research on the composition Wikidtata given that
classification [2] then Markus Kroetzscher investigated linking personal names to sex
using this data [3].
Well when Markus released his research on-list, I applauded his innovative methods and
techniques. I also wanted to remind that forcing this binary or trinary classification
onto people is not something that the software is making us do, but rather the us
inflicting our bias onto the database. At that point I received a dismissive answer that
if I wanted to talk about the gendergap that I should this mailing list, and that my
comments were off topic. Then another user responded saying that my comments were very
much on topic, and that's where the conversation stopped.
I haven't wanted to continue the thread because of the emotional investment in what
seems to be a fruitless debate. Although recently I was chatting to a friend of mine about
my dissatisfaction who said something I really liked:
"basically since the categories are male, female, intersex, that means 1) you are
talking about a person's gonads, not their gender identity, which means 2) applying
that category to most historical figures should count as "original research"
it's not like anybody's done a major interdisciplinary study to confirm the
chromosomes of every historical figure we aren't even sure shakespeare was a real
person. how in the world should we guess what medical conditions he had in conclusion,
"sex: male female intersex" is utter nonsense"
I would like to send the point to the list, but am fearful that it will be muddied again
in that this is "gendergap issue not a wikidata one" when I am really just
trying to talk about classification schemes.
Do you have any advice on whether a) I should re-engage the debate, and if so b) how to
best deliver my sentiments?
[1]
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P21
[2]
http://hangingtogether.org/?p=2877
[3]
http://korrekt.org/page/Note:Sex_Distributions_in_Research
Best,
Maximilian Klein
Wikipedian in Residence, OCLC
+17074787023