Yes Fred, I agree that working on WP has the capacity to take your mind off the daily concerns and stresses - it's interesting, educational and productive and its incrementalism is perfect for those with caregiving responsibilities. The difficulty is getting started and also learning to use the technology. You need a serious amount of concentration and focus to get to some level of competence, which like most worthwhile endeavours, is possibly, if frustratingly, a good thing. As a relatively newbie female, who has years of experience in caregiving, I'd say becoming a Wikipedian is like learning to play the piano or speak French (both of which I have tried to do). Before you get to the rewarding part, you need to learn the skills. Then you can play and communicate.

On 4 July 2011 08:49, Fred Bauder <fredbaud@fairpoint.net> wrote:

> Women (and people of color) are likely
> to have fewer financial resources than men (i.e. innovative time on their
> hands at the keyboard). For single parents, it is worse yet (females who
> do not have a partner
> provisioning them); they just don’t have the time. Moreover,
> who wants to fight online intellectual/deletion battles and noob learning
> curves when
> there is: laundry to do, cooking and dishes, kids to take somewhere,
> diapers,
> homework, animals, gardens, transportation, and paying basic bills?
> Daycare support in the U.S. has
> evaporated and single-parent households have increased.

I've done lots of caregiving, for parents and brother in the last 20
years, and despite all the chores it does result in lots of free time at
home. Which I was motivated to use learning computing, getting on the
internet, etc. The alternative is often reading or watching TV with the
people you're taking care of.

Much of the time I was also working. This was an attractive activity for
me, getting information, playing games, participating in mailing lists,
working on Wikipedia. My nearest neighbor was half a mile a way and I
didn't like them. I was isolated by both geography and caregiving. I have
no idea why more women don't also find it interesting.

Fred

_______________________________________________
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap