The Postcolonial Digital Humanities tumbler did a great comic on this: http://dhpoco.tumblr.com/post/48828130277/were-full-maybe-you-should-join-t he-american
All best, Melanie
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Melanie Kill Asst Professor of English University of Maryland 2119 Tawes Hall College Park, MD 20742
mkill@umd.edu | @melaniekill
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:21:36 -0700 From: Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Gendergap] [PRESS] Women Novelists Wikipedia: Female Authors Absent From Site's 'American Novelists' Page? Message-ID: 51786900.50904@gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
From The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/24/women-novelists-wikipedia-female- authors-american_n_3149345.html
Attention female authors: you may be being segregated from your male peers on Wikipedia. On the online encyclopedia's "American Novelists" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_novelists page, women authors are hard to find. Instead they have been filed primarily under "American Women Novelists." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_women_novelists
/Vanity Fair/ contributing editor Elissa Schappell https://twitter.com/ElissaSchappell made this observation and posted on Facebook Wednesday:
Women Writers take heed, you are being erased on Wikipedia. It would appear that in order to make room for male writers, women novelists (such as Amy Tan, Harper Lee, Donna Tartt and 300 others) have been moved off the "American Novelists" page and into the "American Women Novelists" category. Not the back of the bus, or the kiddie table exactly--except of course--when you google "American Novelists" the list that appears is almost exclusively men (3,387 men). The explanation on the pages is that the list of American Novelists is too long, therefore sub-categories are necessary. Idea: What about, "American Novelists with Penises" "American Novelists Who Are Vastly Over-Rated and Over-Paid" or "American Novelists Who Aren't Being Read But Should Be" (Here you'd find a lot of women, people of color...)
Want to see where you're sitting for eternity? Take a peek.
A disclaimer at the top of the American Novelists page reads, "This category may require frequent maintenance to avoid becoming too large. It should directly contain very few, if any, articles and should mainly contain subcategories." Schappell suggests that Wikipedia dealt with this space issue by moving the female authors off the page.
The Huffington Post reached out to Wikipedia for a response to Schappell's claims but so far has not heard back.
This is far from the first time that someone has expressed ire over the "second-class" treatment of female authors. VIDA, an organization dedicated to women in literary arts, pointed out that in 2011 the New York Times Book Review http://www.vidaweb.org/the-2011-count printed reviews of 520 male authors' books and only 273 books written by women.
In a recent blog post on The Huffington Post, author Liza Palmer wrote about thedouble standard that exists http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liza-palmer/all-books-are-equal-but-s_b_313 1794.html in the literary world:
All too often, when a woman writes a book about family and relationships the reader will sigh that she felt the narrator's inner monologues were "whiny" whereas when a male writer contemplates these same topics he is being "introspective." If a female writer uses humor in her dialogue she will be dismissed as "snarky", whereas if a male writer uses humor, he has a "biting wit." So called chick-lit writers get pinned with "predictable" endings, while male writers writing about the same topics have endings that are "satisfying."
Perhaps it's time that Wikipedia realized that both men and women are great American novelists and should show up when you search for them.
-- /Sarah Stierch/* Wikimedia Foundation Program Evaluation Community Coordinator *Donate http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Donate/en&utm_source=&ut m_medium=&utm_campaign=&language=en&uselang=en&country=US&referrer=http%3A %2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3 Dweb%26cd%3D1%26ved%3D0CDMQFjAA%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fdonate.wikipedi a.org%252F%26ei%3DYpsET93HN6isiQLIoJjSDg%26usg%3DAFQjCNG-7hzT9rkEvAjlNqBIO Q1ZDIpdYA today and keep it free!
Visit me on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch!
Thanks for sending this, Melanie! The folks behind DHPoco are also hosting a Global Women Wikipedia Write-In (#GWWIhttps://twitter.com/search?q=%23gwwi&src=typd) this Friday:
http://dhpoco.org/2013/03/21/the-global-women-wikipedia-write-in-gwwi-2/
Megan
On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 8:18 AM, Melanie Kill mkill@umd.edu wrote:
The Postcolonial Digital Humanities tumbler did a great comic on this: http://dhpoco.tumblr.com/post/48828130277/were-full-maybe-you-should-join-t he-american
All best, Melanie
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Melanie Kill Asst Professor of English University of Maryland 2119 Tawes Hall College Park, MD 20742
mkill@umd.edu | @melaniekill
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:21:36 -0700 From: Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Gendergap] [PRESS] Women Novelists Wikipedia: Female Authors Absent From Site's 'American Novelists' Page? Message-ID: 51786900.50904@gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
From The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/24/women-novelists-wikipedia-female-
authors-american_n_3149345.html
Attention female authors: you may be being segregated from your male peers on Wikipedia. On the online encyclopedia's "American Novelists" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_novelists page, women authors are hard to find. Instead they have been filed primarily under "American Women Novelists." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_women_novelists
/Vanity Fair/ contributing editor Elissa Schappell https://twitter.com/ElissaSchappell made this observation and posted on Facebook Wednesday:
Women Writers take heed, you are being erased on Wikipedia. It would appear that in order to make room for male writers, women novelists (such as Amy Tan, Harper Lee, Donna Tartt and 300 others) have been moved off the "American Novelists" page and into the "American Women Novelists" category. Not the back of the bus, or the kiddie table exactly--except of course--when you google "American Novelists" the list that appears is almost exclusively men (3,387 men). The explanation on the pages is that the list of American Novelists is too long, therefore sub-categories are necessary. Idea: What about, "American Novelists with Penises" "American Novelists Who Are Vastly Over-Rated and Over-Paid" or "American Novelists Who Aren't Being Read But Should Be" (Here you'd find a lot of women, people of color...)
Want to see where you're sitting for eternity? Take a peek.
A disclaimer at the top of the American Novelists page reads, "This category may require frequent maintenance to avoid becoming too large. It should directly contain very few, if any, articles and should mainly contain subcategories." Schappell suggests that Wikipedia dealt with this space issue by moving the female authors off the page.
The Huffington Post reached out to Wikipedia for a response to Schappell's claims but so far has not heard back.
This is far from the first time that someone has expressed ire over the "second-class" treatment of female authors. VIDA, an organization dedicated to women in literary arts, pointed out that in 2011 the New York Times Book Review http://www.vidaweb.org/the-2011-count printed reviews of 520 male authors' books and only 273 books written by women.
In a recent blog post on The Huffington Post, author Liza Palmer wrote about thedouble standard that exists <
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liza-palmer/all-books-are-equal-but-s_b_313
1794.html> in the literary world:
All too often, when a woman writes a book about family and relationships the reader will sigh that she felt the narrator's inner monologues were "whiny" whereas when a male writer contemplates these same topics he is being "introspective." If a female writer uses humor in her dialogue she will be dismissed as "snarky", whereas if a male writer uses humor, he has a "biting wit." So called chick-lit writers get pinned with "predictable" endings, while male writers writing about the same topics have endings that are "satisfying."
Perhaps it's time that Wikipedia realized that both men and women are great American novelists and should show up when you search for them.
-- /Sarah Stierch/* Wikimedia Foundation Program Evaluation Community Coordinator *Donate <
http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Donate/en&utm_source=&a...
m_medium=&utm_campaign=&language=en&uselang=en&country=US&referrer=http%3A %2F%2Fwww.google.com
%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3
Dweb%26cd%3D1%26ved%3D0CDMQFjAA%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fdonate.wikipedi a.org
%252F%26ei%3DYpsET93HN6isiQLIoJjSDg%26usg%3DAFQjCNG-7hzT9rkEvAjlNqBIO
Q1ZDIpdYA> today and keep it free!
Visit me on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch!
I have also been contacted in Brazil by one of the major newspapers (O Globo), but just said they should look for WMF or the English Wikipedia, and we had nothing to comment about it, and answered this has no related thing in the PT WP so far.
Oona
On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 12:37 PM, Megan Wacha mwacha@barnard.edu wrote:
Thanks for sending this, Melanie! The folks behind DHPoco are also hosting a Global Women Wikipedia Write-In (#GWWIhttps://twitter.com/search?q=%23gwwi&src=typd) this Friday:
http://dhpoco.org/2013/03/21/the-global-women-wikipedia-write-in-gwwi-2/
Megan
On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 8:18 AM, Melanie Kill mkill@umd.edu wrote:
The Postcolonial Digital Humanities tumbler did a great comic on this:
http://dhpoco.tumblr.com/post/48828130277/were-full-maybe-you-should-join-t he-americanhttp://dhpoco.tumblr.com/post/48828130277/were-full-maybe-you-should-join-t%0Ahe-american
All best, Melanie
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Melanie Kill Asst Professor of English University of Maryland 2119 Tawes Hall College Park, MD 20742
mkill@umd.edu | @melaniekill
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:21:36 -0700 From: Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Gendergap] [PRESS] Women Novelists Wikipedia: Female Authors Absent From Site's 'American Novelists' Page? Message-ID: 51786900.50904@gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
From The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/24/women-novelists-wikipedia-female-
authors-american_n_3149345.html
Attention female authors: you may be being segregated from your male peers on Wikipedia. On the online encyclopedia's "American Novelists" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_novelists page, women authors are hard to find. Instead they have been filed primarily under "American Women Novelists." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_women_novelists
/Vanity Fair/ contributing editor Elissa Schappell https://twitter.com/ElissaSchappell made this observation and posted on Facebook Wednesday:
Women Writers take heed, you are being erased on Wikipedia. It would appear that in order to make room for male writers, women novelists (such as Amy Tan, Harper Lee, Donna Tartt and 300 others) have been moved off the "American Novelists" page and into the "American Women Novelists" category. Not the back of the bus, or the kiddie table exactly--except of course--when you google "American Novelists" the list that appears is almost exclusively men (3,387 men). The explanation on the pages is that the list of American Novelists is too long, therefore sub-categories are necessary. Idea: What about, "American Novelists with Penises" "American Novelists Who Are Vastly Over-Rated and Over-Paid" or "American Novelists Who Aren't Being Read But Should Be" (Here you'd find a lot of women, people of color...)
Want to see where you're sitting for eternity? Take a peek.
A disclaimer at the top of the American Novelists page reads, "This category may require frequent maintenance to avoid becoming too large. It should directly contain very few, if any, articles and should mainly contain subcategories." Schappell suggests that Wikipedia dealt with this space issue by moving the female authors off the page.
The Huffington Post reached out to Wikipedia for a response to Schappell's claims but so far has not heard back.
This is far from the first time that someone has expressed ire over the "second-class" treatment of female authors. VIDA, an organization dedicated to women in literary arts, pointed out that in 2011 the New York Times Book Review http://www.vidaweb.org/the-2011-count printed reviews of 520 male authors' books and only 273 books written by women.
In a recent blog post on The Huffington Post, author Liza Palmer wrote about thedouble standard that exists <
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liza-palmer/all-books-are-equal-but-s_b_313
1794.html> in the literary world:
All too often, when a woman writes a book about family and relationships the reader will sigh that she felt the narrator's inner monologues were "whiny" whereas when a male writer contemplates these same topics he is being "introspective." If a female writer uses humor in her dialogue she will be dismissed as "snarky", whereas if a male writer uses humor, he has a "biting wit." So called chick-lit writers get pinned with "predictable" endings, while male writers writing about the same topics have endings that are "satisfying."
Perhaps it's time that Wikipedia realized that both men and women are great American novelists and should show up when you search for them.
-- /Sarah Stierch/* Wikimedia Foundation Program Evaluation Community Coordinator *Donate <
http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Donate/en&utm_source=&a...
m_medium=&utm_campaign=&language=en&uselang=en&country=US&referrer=http%3A %2F%2Fwww.google.com
%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3
Dweb%26cd%3D1%26ved%3D0CDMQFjAA%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fdonate.wikipedi a.org
%252F%26ei%3DYpsET93HN6isiQLIoJjSDg%26usg%3DAFQjCNG-7hzT9rkEvAjlNqBIO
Q1ZDIpdYA> today and keep it free!
Visit me on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch!