Aw, We were doing so well there for a minute and then it got into wars! I agree with Carol about needing to move on to a new topic. Laura, I think your emails are getting out of line with the purpose of the group.
Let's get back to producing ideas and methods, no?
Carissa
On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 6:14 PM, gendergap-request@lists.wikimedia.orgwrote:
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Today's Topics:
- Re: FW: Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for women and transgender, sublist for male supporters (Ryan Kaldari)
- Re: The problem is aggression.... was ... Proposal: Forking gendergap: (carolmooredc@verizon.net)
- Re: The problem is aggression.... was ... Proposal: Forking gendergap: (SlimVirgin)
- Re: Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for women and transgender, sublist for male supporters (Erik Moeller)
- Re: Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for women and transgender, sublist for male supporters (Fred Bauder)
Message: 1 Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:49:00 -0700 From: Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Gendergap] FW: Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for women and transgender, sublist for male supporters To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 4D814C6C.8020602@wikimedia.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Marc, I don't think you're improving the "communication problem" you describe by telling people their ideas are "nonsense", "self-serving", or "insulting". Yes, Laura's ideas are challenging, but getting overly defensive doesn't help the discussion.
Kaldari
On 3/16/11 1:58 PM, Marc Riddell wrote:
*From: *Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net *Date: *Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:49:32 -0400 *To: *Laura Hale laura@fanhistory.com *Subject: *Re: [Gendergap] Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for women and transgender, sublist for male supporters
Laura, your interpretation of my words is strikingly self-serving, and your solutions would serve to widen whatever gap exists in the Project. This entire "problem" is not one of gender, but of individual persons having problems communicating with a particular group of other persons. My question to all of those who state that they have a problem communicating with, or feel intimidated by, a male in the venue of a mailing list such as this, is do you have the same problem in person? There are many, many strong, intelligent voices in the Wikipedia Project who also happen to be female. And to include them in this "gendergap", and suggest that this is strictly a gender issue, is an insult to them.
Marc
on 3/16/11 4:06 PM, Laura Hale at laura@fanhistory.com wrote:
On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 11:42 PM, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86@comcast.net> wrote: This is simply, nonsense! That is your opinion, and you're welcome to it. In my experience, there are two general groups of women: 1. One who welcome men as participants in events specifically targeting women, because the women feel the men can learn. 2. One who don't want men involved because they feel women should work towards their own self interests and that women behave differently around men. Don't you people realize that separating this List into two distinct ones would underline, reinforce and actually signify the very "gendergap" you are allegedly trying to resolve. This pretty much is why I think we need men off the list. While you're intending to or not, I'm reading this as "Don't you understand that the only way women can succeed it by having men involved! You need men!" If you're not intending to send the message: Women cannot succeed with out men!, then you may want to reconsider your wording. And I'd argue the opposite: Men have done an awful job at recruiting women to be involved with Wikipedia. The current problems exist because men have tried to "solve" this problem. This is people talking with people. If there is a female or male here who has a problem communicating with, or in the presence of, another gender - they do have a problem. Translation: "Women! You're the problem! If you could stop engaging in female modes of communication, we could fix this problem! " This list is NOT a general list for increasing the participation rates of people. If you want to have a list dedicated to generally increasing the participation rates of people on Wikipedia, then fork off and do that. But a website Mailing List such as this is not the place to resolve it. Am I supposed to interpret this as you claiming that this list has a mission that will never succeed because it acknowledges there are gender differences and different approaches are needed to get different audiences? As a woman, a representative of a minority group on Wikipedia, how am I supposed to respond to you? I can tell you that this post of yours makes me feel distinctly uncomfortable posting to this list. It seems to put men in the position of power above women, demanding that women participate only in male modes of communication, that women on the list can't talk about genuine concerns they have as women because they are going to get blown off, and that feelings of men on the list are more important then women.
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On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 2:14 PM, Carissa Wodehouse < carissawodehouse@gmail.com> wrote:
Aw, We were doing so well there for a minute and then it got into wars! I agree with Carol about needing to move on to a new topic. Laura, I think your emails are getting out of line with the purpose of the group.
I apologise for my posts, vis-a-vis Fred, Michael and Erik. The tone was out of line. My understanding of the purpose of the group was incorrect. I thought the purpose was to work on projects to help increase women's involvement on Wikipedia, to help encourage new ones, and to develop and implement strategies to increase women's involvement. My lack of understanding regarding the purpose of the list is partly to blame for that. I apologise. I'm tired. I'm frustrated. I didn't realise how badly men would take my message, and I didn't mean to offend the men on the list.
There are no easy solutions to the problems facing the list. Having the men fork off wouldn't necessarily solve the problems. It would probably create a new set of problems. I don't have a solution for the balance.
At the same time that I realise that there are no easy answers and that I was offensive, I don't want to back away from my claims. Erik's response with the tone arguement resulted in me crying. It appeared to be as insensitive to me as he implied I was to him. The tone argument has historically been used to shut down minority voices, by only allowing minorities to engage with the majority in a way that makes them feel comfortable. Couple that with other posts on the list with men telling women to act people, I just lost my cool. It really, really, really hurts me as a woman when a man implies that a woman should act like people. Who are people? Are women not people? It feels like there is a whole lot of masculine privilege taking place on list. Men are backing up other men. I felt dogpiled on. I am getting told that men are e-mailing other people on the list complaining about the angry feminist who hates men. I'm not an angry feminist. I don't consider myself a feminist. All I want to do is work toward a specific goal: Increase the representation of women on Wikipedia, specifically women working on women's sport related articles on Wikipedia. My feelings were hurt because it seemed like men, when I had tried to initially go out of my way to highlight their value and say they did good work but that it would be more empowering for women to work with women, took my post as a personal attack on them. That was never my intent. I was being told off list by another man to consider the motivations of the men on the list and realise that they don't mean to offend, and that I should think about their intentions. This too hurt deeply it felt like men were not giving me the same consideration, but I was being asked to be better than the men, being held to a different standard... that my points weren't as valid and that my interpretations weren't responsible, nor accurate...
This will be my last post on this subject on this list. I don't wish to offend any more men. I really, really want to help get more women involved in Wikipedia and it is clear that it can't happen in the context of this list. The list is just not equipped to help do this... and honestly, I can't take any more men implying I'm discriminating against them because they are a man (on a list dedicated to reducing the gender gap), I can't stand having the director of the foundation using an argument that has been historically used to suppress minority voices to dismiss my views. It makes me tired an depressed. I don't need this in my life.
Let's get back to producing ideas and methods, no?
I'm currently trying to host wiki academies to help get women's sport people involved in editing sport related content on Wikipedia. Any help that can be provided would be appreciated. I'm also trying to work on articles about women's sport at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Netball . Any help improving those articles or getting more women involved in editing those articles would be appreciated.
I'm going to hold my workshops. I'm going to try to get netball to featured status... but after that, I've had it. I really have. I'm happy to try to work with Women4Wikipedia and other local groups to accomplish the goal of increasing participation. Wikipedia is too important to ignore in terms of providing visibility. I'll continue to help organise wiki conferences, to help bring more people into the wiki community and to connect. I'll continue to try to work with my local national chapter. Where applicable, I'll do work on Wikipedia. I'll stay on the list until I finish running my Sport Wiki Workshops in Australia.
But beyond that, no. How to drive women away from Wikipedia: Belittle their feelings, imply they aren't people, have influential men in the Wikipedia community who hold positions of power dogpile on women who express concern over how you handle the effort to bring more women into Wikipedia, imply that wanting your own space to work on increasing female participation on Wikipedia discriminated against 87% of the Wikipedia population, and provide no leadership or support for women who are actively working towards helping accomplish stated goals of the organisation to bring in more women, make women feel guilty for offending men on a list intended to help increase women's representation on Wikipedia.
--
twitter: purplepopple blog: ozziesport.com
On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 21:46, Laura Hale laura@fanhistory.com wrote:
I'm going to hold my workshops. I'm going to try to get netball to featured status... but after that, I've had it. ... [snip]
How to drive women away from Wikipedia: Belittle their feelings, imply they aren't people, have influential men in the Wikipedia community who hold positions of power dogpile on women who express concern over how you handle the effort to bring more women into Wikipedia, imply that wanting your own space to work on increasing female participation on Wikipedia discriminated against 87% of the Wikipedia population, and provide no leadership or support for women who are actively working towards helping accomplish stated goals of the organisation to bring in more women, make women feel guilty for offending men on a list intended to help increase women's representation on Wikipedia.
Much of my adult life has been spent in communities where all the women in my extended circle were feminists, and many of the men were too. People weren't necessarily militant, but all were politically aware in terms of male-female relationships. Wikipedia was the first community I spent a lot of time in where that was not the case. It was a shock, and I only stayed because I got sucked into it.
Here's the conundrum. It's good for Wikipedia to have more women involved. But it's not clear to me that it's good for individual women. It might be in future if the community can be changed. But the women who help to change it are likely to have some poor experiences on the way, and may find themselves damaged.
How do we balance those two issues morally? How do we encourage women into a community -- for the good of the community in the long term -- when we know it might not be in those women's individual interests? How can the men on this list help with that situation?
One way to help is to let us speak out, even when you strongly disagree and the tone doesn't seem right. Laura kicked up some dust, and that has to happen if the community's going to change. It should be done with care here, because the men on the list are on our side. But just as we don't want men to feel excluded, we don't want women to feel they've spoken out of turn and are being judged.
Sarah
Laura, I hope you dont feel bad. Whether people agree or not, you were sharing your perspective, and thats one of the reasons for this list, so women on Wikipedia can feel more empowered to voice their opinion. And the men - don't feel bad either, we are dealign with issues that permeates human history, and thank you for caring about them.
As a Latina who basically grew up in the civil rights aftermath, I see there are some wholes that may be responsible for some of the tension we have experienced on this list. I say this, b/c I've belonged to various groups focused on empowering people of color, and there are certain unspoken rules that I don't think may be common sense for some people in this group. Why are these unspoken rules important? Well, because they provide the gel necessary to work effectively in groups were the emotional component is just as important as the practical one. Unfortunately, sexism and racism are not logical problems, and can be treated only in logical ways. These are my recommendations:
* Lets create a manifesto together: Why? Because it will allow us to create together a certain description of the type of culture we want this group to embrace, and provide a more cohesive unity that unfortunately is some times hard to do non-verbally through internet based interaction.
* Lets accept that people are going to vent, voice their anger, or frustration at times. This does not mean that this is how they feel 100% of the time. For example, as a Latina I can voice my frustration over discriminations I've experienced but this doesn't mean I want an all out race war. I can voice my anger over the poverty minorities have experienced b/c of descrimination, but this doesn't mean that I want other people to be poor instead.
* Lets accept that we need to empower women to feel more comfortable voicing their opinion. If you are someone who already had a loud voice, great, but there is a good percentage of women that would appreciate this type of support. This doesn't mean they are "weaker" this just means that culturally we have been told that our opinion doesn't matter, and we need a little nudge.
* Lets accept that women know women better than men. All viewpoints are valid, but lets understand that experiencing the world as a woman is much different than experiencing the world as a man.
* Lets accept that the men on this list are trying to become better feminist, and are open to guidance. Just like I have had to explain to non-ethnic friends that certain behaviors are not appropriate, we may have to do it with a few of the guys. However, it seems that they are open to becoming better feminist.
Lastly, lets accept that we will clash heads at time - but so what!! We are on the SAME TEAM! lol
LETS ROCK OUT!! We can do it!
sandy
on 3/17/11 12:22 PM, Sandra ordonez at sandratordonez@gmail.com wrote:
Laura, I hope you dont feel bad. Whether people agree or not, you were sharing your perspective, and thats one of the reasons for this list, so women on Wikipedia can feel more empowered to voice their opinion. And the men - don't feel bad either, we are dealign with issues that permeates human history, and thank you for caring about them.
As a Latina who basically grew up in the civil rights aftermath, I see there are some wholes that may be responsible for some of the tension we have experienced on this list. I say this, b/c I've belonged to various groups focused on empowering people of color, and there are certain unspoken rules that I don't think may be common sense for some people in this group. Why are these unspoken rules important? Well, because they provide the gel necessary to work effectively in groups were the emotional component is just as important as the practical one. Unfortunately, sexism and racism are not logical problems, and can be treated only in logical ways. These are my recommendations:
* Lets create a manifesto together: Why? Because it will allow us to create together a certain description of the type of culture we want this group to embrace, and provide a more cohesive unity that unfortunately is some times hard to do non-verbally through internet based interaction.
* Lets accept that people are going to vent, voice their anger, or frustration at times. This does not mean that this is how they feel 100% of the time. For example, as a Latina I can voice my frustration over discriminations I've experienced but this doesn't mean I want an all out race war. I can voice my anger over the poverty minorities have experienced b/c of descrimination, but this doesn't mean that I want other people to be poor instead.
* Lets accept that we need to empower women to feel more comfortable voicing their opinion. If you are someone who already had a loud voice, great, but there is a good percentage of women that would appreciate this type of support. This doesn't mean they are "weaker" this just means that culturally we have been told that our opinion doesn't matter, and we need a little nudge.
* Lets accept that women know women better than men. All viewpoints are valid, but lets understand that experiencing the world as a woman is much different than experiencing the world as a man.
* Lets accept that the men on this list are trying to become better feminist, and are open to guidance. Just like I have had to explain to non-ethnic friends that certain behaviors are not appropriate, we may have to do it with a few of the guys. However, it seems that they are open to becoming better feminist.
Lastly, lets accept that we will clash heads at time - but so what!! We are on the SAME TEAM! lol
LETS ROCK OUT!! We can do it!
sandy
Nicely said! Thank you, Sandy.
Marc
--- On Thu, 17/3/11, Sandra ordonez sandratordonez@gmail.com wrote: From: Sandra ordonez sandratordonez@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Wars
Laura, I hope you dont feel bad. Whether people agree or not, you were sharing your perspective, and thats one of the reasons for this list I would like to echo that, and thank Laura for stirring a useful and important debate. Andreas
On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 10:22, Sandra ordonez sandratordonez@gmail.com wrote:
- Lets create a manifesto together: Why? Because it will allow us to create
together a certain description of the type of culture we want this group to embrace, and provide a more cohesive unity that unfortunately is some times hard to do non-verbally through internet based interaction.
Sandra, I love the idea of creating a manifesto, or statement of aims.
Sarah
Yeah!!!! Why don't we start thinking about what we want in our manifesto and around Friday we can start wiki-ing it up!!
Sandra Ordonez
www.collaborativenation.com
Tecno-Activism, Community Management, Collaboration
Sent from iPhone
On Mar 17, 2011, at 3:54 PM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 10:22, Sandra ordonez sandratordonez@gmail.com wrote:
- Lets create a manifesto together: Why? Because it will allow us to create
together a certain description of the type of culture we want this group to embrace, and provide a more cohesive unity that unfortunately is some times hard to do non-verbally through internet based interaction.
Sandra, I love the idea of creating a manifesto, or statement of aims.
Sarah
On Mar 17, 2011, at 3:54 PM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 10:22, Sandra ordonez sandratordonez@gmail.com wrote:
- Lets create a manifesto together: Why? Because it will allow us to create
together a certain description of the type of culture we want this group to embrace, and provide a more cohesive unity that unfortunately is some times hard to do non-verbally through internet based interaction.
Sandra, I love the idea of creating a manifesto, or statement of aims.
On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 15:05, Sandra sandratordonez@gmail.com wrote:
Yeah!!!! Why don't we start thinking about what we want in our manifesto and around Friday we can start wiki-ing it up!!
Just thinking out loud. We want to:
*create an editing environment in which women in all the different language Wikipedias feel safe and valued as equal participants; *encourage more women to become editors through outreach; *explore the ways in which women editors might have a different perspective or different needs, and find ways to ensure that these are expressed and valued; *encourage more women to stand for positions of responsibility (e.g., adminship, bureaucratship, mediation committee, arbitration committee, board of trustees); *encourage the Foundation to support or engage in research into the editing experiences of women on Wikipedia, including research to determine what percentage of editors are women, rather than relying on women self-identifying in their preferences; *improve article-space coverage of women, women's issues and perspectives, and women's history.
Sarah
This is great!!! Go Chica!! I would also add something about how info shared on this list is used and boundaries but would like to think of wording more
Just thinking out loud. We want to:
*create an editing environment in which women in all the different language Wikipedias feel safe and valued as equal participants; *encourage more women to become editors through outreach; *explore the ways in which women editors might have a different perspective or different needs, and find ways to ensure that these are expressed and valued; *encourage more women to stand for positions of responsibility (e.g., adminship, bureaucratship, mediation committee, arbitration committee, board of trustees); *encourage the Foundation to support or engage in research into the editing experiences of women on Wikipedia, including research to determine what percentage of editors are women, rather than relying on women self-identifying in their preferences; *improve article-space coverage of women, women's issues and perspectives, and women's history.
Sarah