First, I would like to say that, as a male editor of Wikipedia, seeing the discourse of this week, I was upset and I was inspired to look inward, questioning my position here on gendergap. I will refrain from taking a dominant position (if I ever did), and I have something legitimate to say about a comment made on a recent digest. I have recently been posting every day, but I assure you I will be much to busy to post on many days. I am trying to make a gender-based survey with my peers, but I won't reveal anything more until I am further into it, I just started it today.
Collective Action said something very thought provoking today:
"I imagine if Girl Develop IT set up a group to debate the issues rather than just getting on with finding women to help women then they'd likely still be debating the issue (as is this list) rather than actually addressing the gendergap in IT. If women feel uncomfortable with a women-only list I don't see this being as much of a problem as women having a problem with male dominated lists since almost every programming list on this planet (other than ones set up by and for women-only) are male dominated. There are no shortage of lists for women to join who feel uncomfortable with women-only environments. Providing environments for women who feel uncomfortable in male-dominated environments is what is needed since the other is already provided by default on the internet. There does not need to be a debate about the rights and wrongs of this -just the option of both being available so that everyone has the choice to join a supportive environment with the gender balance of their choosing."
Before this, I was mostly opposed to forking. But if this were separated into a female, male, and co-ed group, and perhaps each person could be a member if one or two appropriate ones, then we would not have such a problem. And people part of both lists could correspond with ideas. Then,this would not be so separate, and maybe not so much opposition and trolling. Does anyone agree? I think that Collective Action's idea is good, thoug I don't think that they had the exact same idea that I did.
on 3/17/11 8:11 PM, The Richardsons at donsav2@optonline.net wrote:
<Snip>
Before this, I was mostly opposed to forking. But if this were separated into a female, male, and co-ed group, and perhaps each person could be a member if one or two appropriate ones, then we would not have such a problem. And people part of both lists could correspond with ideas. Then,this would not be so separate, and maybe not so much opposition and trolling. Does anyone agree? I think that Collective Action's idea is good, thoug I don't think that they had the exact same idea that I did.
The initial purpose of a gender-gap List (as I understood it) was to identify and explore the reasons why more females are not participating in the Wikipedia Project, and to try and find some solutions for this. It has become quite obvious that, at the heart of the gender-gap problem, is really a relationship-gap one. That is, one gender finding it difficult to relate to - and be comfortable working with - another gender. Since a project such as Wikipedia (indeed, most all projects) is best served by input from both genders, it is this relationship problem that deserves the strongest focus. If there would be agreement that such a relationship problem does indeed exist, and its solution be the focus and purpose of a Mailing List (or any such forum) what would the single-gender forums have to discuss except to commiserate and share their stories? A gender-relationship-gap can only be tackled and resolved if both genders are participating. The only thing left is if individual members have their own personal problems relating to the other gender. And this can only be resolved on an individual basis.
Marc Riddell