Andreas Kolbe said:
Don't you think it's bizarre that ArbCom is punishing Lightbreather for discussing
the identity of the guy who posted porn images, claiming they depicted Lightbreather? He posted those images off-wiki, and she discussed it off-wiki. In my opinion, she had every moral right to.
I completely agree with Andreas about this. It is ridiculous that Lightbreather was punished for someone else's seedy, immoral behavior. I would have had a fit if this had happened to me. I completely sympathize with Lightbreather.
Wikipedia has a truly misogynistic attitude toward women. At first, I thought that the bad behavior was an expression of other issues, i.e. sometimes what seems to be misogyny is in fact driven by political ideology or societal morals. Even though that is unacceptable, at least a stable compromise can be reached. I have found numerous examples of that on Wikipedia and elsewhere in online communities. Once people realize that you are not crusading against their beliefs or political stances, the female-targeted hostility stops too. Specifics for me on Wikipedia pertained to 2nd Amendment rights (USA), labor unions and the Joe Lonsdale rape allegations. Once I wrote some updates to firearms articles that were NPOV, added myself to one of the Wikiprojects for labor union history, and wrote a section on the Lonsdale BLP, the (three different) people who had been... difficult were never difficult again. One was actually supportive of me when I needed help later on! It was not necessary for me to compromise my beliefs, as in fact, I like rifle marksmanship, labor unions, and think Lonsdale behaved improperly to the young woman based on evidence at hand. I had never been subject to anything as extreme as Lightbreather, but rather, had felt some of the truculent opposition that wears one down as a female Wikipedian.
If only everything were so easily resolved! There lies the problem: It is not. That is the reason that I believe Wikipedia has an entrenched culture of misogyny. It can be much worse on Wikipedia than some super conservative, right-wing online venues that I frequent. Those people are not hostile in the way that some Wikipedians can be, once they realize that I am not there to troll them, and am similarly-minded. This is true even though many are male, latent anti-Semitic, anti-feminist etc. None of that becomes relevant because the subject matter does not pertain to those attitudes, and such men have no problem interacting or working with me as a Jewish woman.
So then, WHY is Wikipedia more anti-female than some of the seemingly most female-unfriendly parts of the Internet? I don't know, and it frightens me. I don't want to be subject to what Lightbreather experienced. It just isn't worth the headache and potentially, worse than that.
~Ellie (FeralOink)
On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 11:05 AM, Ellie Kesselman myindigolife@gmail.com wrote:
So then, WHY is Wikipedia more anti-female than some of the seemingly most female-unfriendly parts of the Internet? I don't know, and it frightens me. I don't want to be subject to what Lightbreather experienced. It just isn't worth the headache and potentially, worse than that.
~Ellie (FeralOink)
Ellie, this is the question that puzzles everyone. Andreas (Jayen466) summed up https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Lightbreather/Proposed_decision&diff=prev&oldid=671687397 the problem well yesterday, when he described the lack of empathy for women's perspectives, an inability to identify with women. There is one woman on the arbitration committee and several supportive men, but they're in the minority.
None of that answers your question, though, namely why it's worse on Wikipedia than on other websites.
Sarah
On 16 July 2015 at 22:25, Sarah (SV) slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote: ...
None of that answers your question, though, namely why it's worse on Wikipedia than on other websites. Sarah
Just to emphasize that based on experience rather than hard statistics, patterns of harassment and the perception of harassment vary significantly across Wikimedia projects. The project with the most 'visible' problems is the English Wikipedia, there have been troubling claims of harassment and discrimination at a personal level in a few other language Wikipedias, but with most projects having no obvious problems of this type.
If a project has a small community, then the dynamics are different, perhaps there is a greater sense of "being known". At the same time, on the large international/multi-language projects, though there is trolling or disruption from time to time, this is rarely a demonstrable issue of intentional discrimination. As someone who is now mainly known for my contributions to Commons, I find the community there much more accepting of mistakes of language, as there is no presumption that anyone has English as a first language, and a general awareness that contributors come from a highly varied set of cultural backgrounds and this cultural gap is bound to cause misunderstanding and tensions from time to time.
A slightly tangential, but potentially useful parallel, is how often maps cause bitter debates and some "revert-wars" on Commons. I created a real-time weekly report to track contentious cases[1], but even though these debates can contain fundamental disagreements based on politics and religious bias, once a mediator has time to explain that all points of view can be expressed (as the mission of Commons allows for all useful variations of maps to be published, without judging which is "right") then on-project arguments dry up. Whether this way of seeing the community, as viewpoints that may not need to be resolved in order for all parties to contribute to knowledge, can provide an insight into mediation on other projects, I have no idea.
Links 1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/SignificantReverts
Fae
I'm not sure what "some of the seemingly most female-unfriendly parts of the Internet" might be so Ellie would have to be more specific.
But in my experience writing in a variety of political and economic and history-related articles on Wikipedia, it's all about "male intellectual territory" where SOME (not all) guys just don't want women intruding or challenging them. (And of course anything related to sex/gender that SOME guys don't like will raise hackles.)
In the real world, women do not publish as many articles, books, etc. on these "serious" topics; teach as many courses or have professorships on these "serious" topics; etc. so their daring to act "as knowledgable/smart/good as a guy" on Wikipedia is going to rankle SOME guys.
I'm sure this is as bad or worse on in lots of other Wikipedia topic areas like science, popular culture, etc. where male voices dominate and SOME guys want to keep it that way.
CM
On 7/16/2015 5:25 PM, Sarah (SV) wrote:
On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 11:05 AM, Ellie Kesselman <myindigolife@gmail.com mailto:myindigolife@gmail.com> wrote:
So then, WHY is Wikipedia more anti-female than some of the seemingly most female-unfriendly parts of the Internet? I don't know, and it frightens me. I don't want to be subject to what Lightbreather experienced. It just isn't worth the headache and potentially, worse than that. ~Ellie (FeralOink) Ellie, this is the question that puzzles everyone. Andreas (Jayen466) summed up https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Lightbreather/Proposed_decision&diff=prev&oldid=671687397 the problem well yesterday, when he described the lack of empathy for women's perspectives, an inability to identify with women. There is one woman on the arbitration committee and several supportive men, but they're in the minority.
None of that answers your question, though, namely why it's worse on Wikipedia than on other websites.
Sarah
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