Dear all,
Just wanted to let you know about some interesting contributions to the Wikimedia article gender balance from a slightly unexpected source.
On Saturday, Wikimedia UK had a World War I-themed Editathon[1], where we essentially put a lot of Wikimedians and a group of academics in a room and asked them to help improve coverage of World War I.
The gender balance was markedly better amongst the academics we'd invited (4 men, 3 women) than among the Wikimedians (20 men, no women at all) - which prompted quite a lot of debate about gender balance among Wikimedia volunteers (not very good) and also about the gender balance of Wikipedia's coverage of the topic (also, not very good!). It might also be that we'd taken a lot of steps to promote the event amongst the English Wikipedia's large and active military history community (which probably has worse than average gender balance, at a guess).
I'm pleased to say that one of the outcomes from the event is an article, currently in sandbox but well worthy of a DYK nom when in due course, on the topic of "Surplus women" - a demographic imbalance that existed (or was perceived) in Western Europe in the industrial era, accentuated by the mass slaughter of World War I, and hitherto completely absent from Wikipedia. You can have a look at it here :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ErrantX/Sandbox/Surplus_women
Many thanks,
Chris Wikimedia UK
[1] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/World_War_I/World_War_I_Editathon
(just to note; it's in my userspace - I got the "singled out" book the other day, and hopefully we can finish the article in the next day or so)
Tom
On 20 June 2012 20:22, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Dear all,
Just wanted to let you know about some interesting contributions to the Wikimedia article gender balance from a slightly unexpected source.
On Saturday, Wikimedia UK had a World War I-themed Editathon[1], where we essentially put a lot of Wikimedians and a group of academics in a room and asked them to help improve coverage of World War I.
The gender balance was markedly better amongst the academics we'd invited (4 men, 3 women) than among the Wikimedians (20 men, no women at all) - which prompted quite a lot of debate about gender balance among Wikimedia volunteers (not very good) and also about the gender balance of Wikipedia's coverage of the topic (also, not very good!). It might also be that we'd taken a lot of steps to promote the event amongst the English Wikipedia's large and active military history community (which probably has worse than average gender balance, at a guess).
I'm pleased to say that one of the outcomes from the event is an article, currently in sandbox but well worthy of a DYK nom when in due course, on the topic of "Surplus women" - a demographic imbalance that existed (or was perceived) in Western Europe in the industrial era, accentuated by the mass slaughter of World War I, and hitherto completely absent from Wikipedia. You can have a look at it here :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ErrantX/Sandbox/Surplus_women
Many thanks,
Chris Wikimedia UK
[1] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/World_War_I/World_War_I_Editathon
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Nice work! Looking forward to seeing it on the Main Page.
Ryan Kaldari
On 6/20/12 12:48 PM, Thomas Morton wrote:
(just to note; it's in my userspace - I got the "singled out" book the other day, and hopefully we can finish the article in the next day or so)
Tom
On 20 June 2012 20:22, Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com mailto:chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear all, Just wanted to let you know about some interesting contributions to the Wikimedia article gender balance from a slightly unexpected source. On Saturday, Wikimedia UK had a World War I-themed Editathon[1], where we essentially put a lot of Wikimedians and a group of academics in a room and asked them to help improve coverage of World War I. The gender balance was markedly better amongst the academics we'd invited (4 men, 3 women) than among the Wikimedians (20 men, no women at all) - which prompted quite a lot of debate about gender balance among Wikimedia volunteers (not very good) and also about the gender balance of Wikipedia's coverage of the topic (also, not very good!). It might also be that we'd taken a lot of steps to promote the event amongst the English Wikipedia's large and active military history community (which probably has worse than average gender balance, at a guess). I'm pleased to say that one of the outcomes from the event is an article, currently in sandbox but well worthy of a DYK nom when in due course, on the topic of "Surplus women" - a demographic imbalance that existed (or was perceived) in Western Europe in the industrial era, accentuated by the mass slaughter of World War I, and hitherto completely absent from Wikipedia. You can have a look at it here :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ErrantX/Sandbox/Surplus_women Many thanks, Chris Wikimedia UK [1] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/World_War_I/World_War_I_Editathon _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
One comment on your draft, is that the langugage makes it a bit unclear for the average reader if/that the imbalance in England was because the males left the country and/or were killed in overseas wars. It's implied but not sufficiently explicit so some people might get confused.
Also, the topic of surplus males is probably more timely today and I've thought about writing an article about it, so this certainly is relevant.
More males are born in general since they aren't as hearty as females. Today with modern medicine more survive accident and disease, there are more males that females in the post 1960s generations and more single angry males mean more violence. It's worse in countries like China and India where they abort so many female fetuses.
A number of things have been written on this topic, which I have filed someplace. The one that jumps out at me without much research is: Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population
Studies show married or co-habitating males have generally lower testosterone levels. I'm sure some of my research notes that times of surplus females tend to be times of peace and peace activism. 1920s saw great peace activity led by women. 1960s when there was a slight surplus of women ready to make love, peace was a big issue among all those happy males who didn't want to trade making love for making war.
Today all those young guys worldwide want to do to deal with their frustrations is fight in sports riots or join the Black Bloc and break windows or overthrow their tyrants - or edit wikipedia? India and China may need a big land war to deal with their excess male problems. Iraq and Iran didn't have that problem after they sent millions of young men to die in 1980s Iraq-Iran land war.
In fact, I'm sure if I researched I'd find that I'm not the only one to speculate that older males don't like all that poltiical and sexual competition from younger males so regularly they have to decrease the population by sending them off to foreign wars or colonies. So there's a method to the old warmonger male's madness....
So this is quite a big topic - though I'm not sure if it calls for one article called "Surplus males or females" or "Surplus gender demographics" or whatever the experts call the broader topic.
Busy on a writing deadline so just don't have time to do the research right now. But I think I've thrown enough hints out there to help anyone go frolicking through the internet for lots of good WP:RS :-)
CM
This is probably getting off topic, but the main articles on this subject on en.wiki would probably be "sex-selective abortion" and "gendercide".
Ryan Kaldari
On 6/20/12 2:37 PM, Carol Moore DC wrote:
One comment on your draft, is that the langugage makes it a bit unclear for the average reader if/that the imbalance in England was because the males left the country and/or were killed in overseas wars. It's implied but not sufficiently explicit so some people might get confused.
Also, the topic of surplus males is probably more timely today and I've thought about writing an article about it, so this certainly is relevant.
More males are born in general since they aren't as hearty as females. Today with modern medicine more survive accident and disease, there are more males that females in the post 1960s generations and more single angry males mean more violence. It's worse in countries like China and India where they abort so many female fetuses.
A number of things have been written on this topic, which I have filed someplace. The one that jumps out at me without much research is: Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population
Studies show married or co-habitating males have generally lower testosterone levels. I'm sure some of my research notes that times of surplus females tend to be times of peace and peace activism. 1920s saw great peace activity led by women. 1960s when there was a slight surplus of women ready to make love, peace was a big issue among all those happy males who didn't want to trade making love for making war.
Today all those young guys worldwide want to do to deal with their frustrations is fight in sports riots or join the Black Bloc and break windows or overthrow their tyrants - or edit wikipedia? India and China may need a big land war to deal with their excess male problems. Iraq and Iran didn't have that problem after they sent millions of young men to die in 1980s Iraq-Iran land war.
In fact, I'm sure if I researched I'd find that I'm not the only one to speculate that older males don't like all that poltiical and sexual competition from younger males so regularly they have to decrease the population by sending them off to foreign wars or colonies. So there's a method to the old warmonger male's madness....
So this is quite a big topic - though I'm not sure if it calls for one article called "Surplus males or females" or "Surplus gender demographics" or whatever the experts call the broader topic.
Busy on a writing deadline so just don't have time to do the research right now. But I think I've thrown enough hints out there to help anyone go frolicking through the internet for lots of good WP:RS :-)
CM
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On 6/20/2012 8:08 PM, Ryan Kaldari wrote:
This is probably getting off topic, but the main articles on this subject on en.wiki would probably be "sex-selective abortion" and "gendercide".
Ryan Kaldari
My point is that a surplus of male or females and demographic/social/political implications is part of a larger dynamic, but at this point don't have a name for that analysis. When have time to research more, will report.
One comment on your draft, is that the langugage makes it a bit unclear for the average reader if/that the imbalance in England was because the males left the country and/or were killed in overseas wars. It's implied but not sufficiently explicit so some people might get confused.
Yep absolutely. In fact we kinda threw the text together in the last hour of the editathon so there was something to show. There were three of us discussing the topic; a female academic (no wiki experience), mcsony (minimal wiki experience) and me (over the hill). It was a fun mix because I'm OK at writing & have interest in history, Rosemary knew the topic and mcsony has a background in economics and statistics that applied very well.
Also, the topic of surplus males is probably more timely today and I've thought about writing an article about it, so this certainly is relevant.
That would be very interesting!
So this is quite a big topic - though I'm not sure if it calls for one article called "Surplus males or females" or "Surplus gender demographics" or whatever the experts call the broader topic.
I'd say there is sufficiently diverse material here for two articles. Because the reasons, dates and outcomes of the two topics are substantially different. That said there may be legs in writing a top-top level article about societal imbalances in history.
Thanks for all the feedback and edits!
Tom
On Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:48:49 +0100, Thomas Morton wrote
Also, the topic of surplus males is probably more timely today and I've thought about writing an article about it, so this certainly is relevant.
That would be very interesting!
agree!
Claudia
Nice article, one thing I note is that the article focuses on Britain only although it has a very general title. (I am just noting, because even today most countries seem to have "surplus women"[1], so there is surely more to a topic with this title both in the context of other countries fighting in WWI and as general demographic trends.)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sex_ratio_total_population.PNG; on a global level it is still 101 males/100 females, according to Wikipedia
Best regards, Bence
On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 3:48 PM, Thomas Morton <morton.thomas@googlemail.com
wrote:
Also, the topic of surplus males is probably more timely today and I've thought about writing an article about it, so this certainly is relevant.
That would be very interesting!
So this is quite a big topic - though I'm not sure if it calls for one article called "Surplus males or females" or "Surplus gender demographics" or whatever the experts call the broader topic.
Based on Wikipedia (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio#Gender_imbalance) a search for "gender imbalance" might give you some good sources and a place to build a more in-depth article on.
Best regards, Bence
Very pleased to see this come out of that Editathon. :-)
Sydney Poore User:FloNight
On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 3:22 PM, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.comwrote:
Dear all,
Just wanted to let you know about some interesting contributions to the Wikimedia article gender balance from a slightly unexpected source.
On Saturday, Wikimedia UK had a World War I-themed Editathon[1], where we essentially put a lot of Wikimedians and a group of academics in a room and asked them to help improve coverage of World War I.
The gender balance was markedly better amongst the academics we'd invited (4 men, 3 women) than among the Wikimedians (20 men, no women at all) - which prompted quite a lot of debate about gender balance among Wikimedia volunteers (not very good) and also about the gender balance of Wikipedia's coverage of the topic (also, not very good!). It might also be that we'd taken a lot of steps to promote the event amongst the English Wikipedia's large and active military history community (which probably has worse than average gender balance, at a guess).
I'm pleased to say that one of the outcomes from the event is an article, currently in sandbox but well worthy of a DYK nom when in due course, on the topic of "Surplus women" - a demographic imbalance that existed (or was perceived) in Western Europe in the industrial era, accentuated by the mass slaughter of World War I, and hitherto completely absent from Wikipedia. You can have a look at it here :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ErrantX/Sandbox/Surplus_women
Many thanks,
Chris Wikimedia UK
[1] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/World_War_I/World_War_I_Editathon
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap