A couple reactions to the recent story that were printed in the today's edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/opinion/l06wiki.html
To the Editor:
In “Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia’s Contributor List” (front page, Jan. 31), a number of reasons are offered to explain why women constitute only an astonishing 13 percent of Wikipedia contributors.
Today women earn 57 percent of the bachelor’s degrees, 61 percent of the master’s degrees and, as of 2009, a majority of doctorates in the United States. It is inconceivable that this well-educated majority should be largely absent from the world’s most popular interactive encyclopedia project.
Organizations like the Women’s Media Center, the OpEd Project and Women’s eNews have long argued that women’s voices are too scarce in mainstream media. Research indicates that women make up just one third of the top 100 syndicated columnists in the United States, and just over one-third of full-time staff at daily newspapers.
The inclusion of women’s expertise on Wikipedia is vital not just for the sake of fairness, but because without such representation, the whole of society loses the experience, knowledge and perspective of over half the population.
We must join together to encourage women to participate more actively in this public forum.
Linda Basch President, National Council for Research on Women New York, Jan. 31, 2011
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To the Editor:
Regarding your article about Wikipedia:
Oh, please. The reason women don’t contribute to Wikipedia is that we have more pressing things to do. I would love to elaborate, but I have to finish the laundry, pay the bills, feed the cat, clean the apartment, and do the meal planning and grocery shopping before I head off to work.
Alice Henry Whitmore New York, Jan. 31, 201
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Steven Walling Fellow at the Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation.org
Oh, please. The reason women don’t contribute to Wikipedia is that we have more pressing things to do. I would love to elaborate, but I have to finish the laundry, pay the bills, feed the cat, clean the apartment, and do the meal planning and grocery shopping before I head off to work.
Alice Henry Whitmore New York, Jan. 31, 201
This was a common theme in many of the comments on the Room for Debate posts.
Looking at some of the larger social trends around this, I seem to recall reading that (in the US at least), the Great Recession has resulted, for the first time since anyone's been measuring, more men than women losing their jobs. Or, in the case of new graduates, not getting them at all.
Since it seems to be an accepted aspect of Wikipedia history that the site got its initial editor boost from newly-unemployed dot-commers with the time to kill, I wonder if the current gender imbalance at least partly reflects that. Is there any data on gender differences as to how unemployed people are likely to spend their time when they're not looking for work (or when they've become [[discouraged worker]]s.)?
Daniel Case
Oh, please. The reason women dont contribute to Wikipedia is that we have more pressing things to do. I would love to elaborate, but I have to finish the laundry, pay the bills, feed the cat, clean the apartment, and do the meal planning and grocery shopping before I head off to work.
Alice Henry Whitmore New York, Jan. 31, 201
Horsefeathers, Gramma!
Men have chores too: reading the paper, watching the evening news, walking the dog, taking out the garbage, listening to their wife tell about her day, the list goes on and on...
Women have as much or more free time as men. Although we have heard here from some women who have substantial socially significant responsibilities that perhaps are more important than Wikipedia.
Fred