Came across this kerfuffle today. I'd love to see what more gendergap-focused people think about the following progression of events (note: the image is NSFW, but each of the links I'm providing are SFW if you don't click through to the image/article):
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Exhibitionism#Image_at_top_of_page<---discussion about whether to use an identifiable woman's topless photo on the top of an enwp article. The person raising the discussion notes that "*I find it hard to believe that this woman wants her picture on WP, and I don't think we have a right to show her because of a momentary indiscretion in a public place."* - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Mardi_Gras_...<---Same image is nominated for deletion on Commons, with similar rationale - The image is kept. - Discussion on enwp spins off from the same issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLPN#Photos_of_private_people_doing_t..., splitting between one faction saying "It's legal, so it's fine" and another saying "It's a matter of ethics, not legality."
Speaking personally, my takeaway from reading through this situation has gone through "mortification in empathy for the image subject, who was almost certainly drunk and unable to consent", "frustration with Commons's dismissive approach to the questioning of identfiable sexual images", and finally "realization that in all three discussions, I see *no *users who I know to be female. Not one. It seems quite likely that the issue of whether this woman's right to be protected by BLP extends to images of her breasts...is being discussed 100% by men."
I don't quite know what my point is here, other than to note that to me, this feels very, very representative of the way women and women's issues are treated on WP and on Commons, even when we're supposed to be hyper-aware of the gendergap and its effects, and it depresses me.
-Fluffernutter
Sorry if this gets a little off topic from the actual focus of the subjects. I just need to personally vent and this gives me a chance (thanks Katherine). I assume I can't be the only one who feels this way, and it seems you might also.
I totally understand the "it depresses me" situation. I got involved in some of the discussions about the women's foo categories only to get bombarded with comments when I brought up "I don't know if anyone here is even a woman involved, from what I know, I think I might be the only woman here," and then to be snapped at "How do you know I'm not a woman?" by someone with a male user name (Jeremy). I felt like a total fail, and basically left the conversation only to get comments on my talk page. I have officially declared I'm "burnt out" on any and all gender conversations, specifically triggered by the recent category situation.
95% if not more of the people discussing all of these things are, from what I believe, identifying on Wikipedia as the masculine. It's really troubling for me, and right now I'm at the point where I just can't fight it right now. I'm feeling depressed about it, hopeless, and all of the other fun things that go with burn out. (Funny, I didn't suffer burn out this severe when I was a fellow, but I did have two minor bouts of burn out during that year, this is by far the worst)
I basically had to stop doing the painful nomination and arguing about nudity and women's images on Commons. Part of this was because it was so demoralizing and depressing, and the other was the repeated "You'll never be an admin on Commons if you keep doing this," and I always wanted to be an admin on Commons. The fact that I let this argument - being made by male Commonists - trigger me to not participate in the conversations is an entirely different psychological issue in itself! Oy vey.
Gah. :(
-Sarah
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 8:08 AM, Katherine Casey < fluffernutter.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
Came across this kerfuffle today. I'd love to see what more gendergap-focused people think about the following progression of events (note: the image is NSFW, but each of the links I'm providing are SFW if you don't click through to the image/article):
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Exhibitionism#Image_at_top_of_page<---discussion about whether to use an identifiable woman's topless photo
on the top of an enwp article. The person raising the discussion notes that "*I find it hard to believe that this woman wants her picture on WP, and I don't think we have a right to show her because of a momentary indiscretion in a public place."*
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Mardi_Gras_...<---Same image is nominated for deletion on Commons, with similar rationale
- The image is kept.
- Discussion on enwp spins off from the same issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLPN#Photos_of_private_people_doing_t..., splitting between one faction saying "It's legal, so it's fine" and another saying "It's a matter of ethics, not legality."
Speaking personally, my takeaway from reading through this situation has gone through "mortification in empathy for the image subject, who was almost certainly drunk and unable to consent", "frustration with Commons's dismissive approach to the questioning of identfiable sexual images", and finally "realization that in all three discussions, I see *no *users who I know to be female. Not one. It seems quite likely that the issue of whether this woman's right to be protected by BLP extends to images of her breasts...is being discussed 100% by men."
I don't quite know what my point is here, other than to note that to me, this feels very, very representative of the way women and women's issues are treated on WP and on Commons, even when we're supposed to be hyper-aware of the gendergap and its effects, and it depresses me.
-Fluffernutter
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Yeah, the sheer domination by numbers of masculine voices - even when they're not *trying *to argue from a particularly masculine perspective, can just be draining in situations like this. *Especially* when they're not trying to argue from a particularly masculine perspective, frankly, because it's very hard to get across "I know you're not *trying *to ignore the value of a slightly different perspective, but..." without making them feel like they need to defend themselves and go on about how we're reading into them things they're not saying, they're not biased, men are capable of being open-minded, there's no single male perspective, etc. All those things are true, and before any of our male allies on this list get upset, I want to acknowledge that...but at the same time, that gender-related invisible knapsack http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/ele3600/mcintosh.html can just sort of steer male-dominated discussions in directions that a more gender-balanced conversation might not swerve, or might not swerve so strongly.
Commons, especially, is just completely dominated by certain viewpoints with regard to sexual images, and Sarah, you get tons of my respect for just *attempting *to function there, because I certainly can't do it. I might be able to handle an inadvertent boys-zone atmosphere - I hang out on enwp, after all - but my blood pressure just can't handle the level of aggression Commons bring to bear on anyone who dares speak for the deletion of potentially-damaging images.
Most days, it's hard to feel like it's worth it to join conversations that are already immovable brick walls of a particular, usually-unconscious male POV.
-Fluff
P.S. On re-reading the threads from my original email, I note that I was wrong about the "100% male" thing - Beria Lima commented twice. So uh, 99.999% male?
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 11:29 AM, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.comwrote:
Sorry if this gets a little off topic from the actual focus of the subjects. I just need to personally vent and this gives me a chance (thanks Katherine). I assume I can't be the only one who feels this way, and it seems you might also.
I totally understand the "it depresses me" situation. I got involved in some of the discussions about the women's foo categories only to get bombarded with comments when I brought up "I don't know if anyone here is even a woman involved, from what I know, I think I might be the only woman here," and then to be snapped at "How do you know I'm not a woman?" by someone with a male user name (Jeremy). I felt like a total fail, and basically left the conversation only to get comments on my talk page. I have officially declared I'm "burnt out" on any and all gender conversations, specifically triggered by the recent category situation.
95% if not more of the people discussing all of these things are, from what I believe, identifying on Wikipedia as the masculine. It's really troubling for me, and right now I'm at the point where I just can't fight it right now. I'm feeling depressed about it, hopeless, and all of the other fun things that go with burn out. (Funny, I didn't suffer burn out this severe when I was a fellow, but I did have two minor bouts of burn out during that year, this is by far the worst)
I basically had to stop doing the painful nomination and arguing about nudity and women's images on Commons. Part of this was because it was so demoralizing and depressing, and the other was the repeated "You'll never be an admin on Commons if you keep doing this," and I always wanted to be an admin on Commons. The fact that I let this argument - being made by male Commonists - trigger me to not participate in the conversations is an entirely different psychological issue in itself! Oy vey.
Gah. :(
-Sarah
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 8:08 AM, Katherine Casey < fluffernutter.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
Came across this kerfuffle today. I'd love to see what more gendergap-focused people think about the following progression of events (note: the image is NSFW, but each of the links I'm providing are SFW if you don't click through to the image/article):
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Exhibitionism#Image_at_top_of_page<---discussion about whether to use an identifiable woman's topless photo
on the top of an enwp article. The person raising the discussion notes that "*I find it hard to believe that this woman wants her picture on WP, and I don't think we have a right to show her because of a momentary indiscretion in a public place."*
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Mardi_Gras_...<---Same image is nominated for deletion on Commons, with similar rationale
- The image is kept.
- Discussion on enwp spins off from the same issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLPN#Photos_of_private_people_doing_t..., splitting between one faction saying "It's legal, so it's fine" and another saying "It's a matter of ethics, not legality."
Speaking personally, my takeaway from reading through this situation has gone through "mortification in empathy for the image subject, who was almost certainly drunk and unable to consent", "frustration with Commons's dismissive approach to the questioning of identfiable sexual images", and finally "realization that in all three discussions, I see *no *users who I know to be female. Not one. It seems quite likely that the issue of whether this woman's right to be protected by BLP extends to images of her breasts...is being discussed 100% by men."
I don't quite know what my point is here, other than to note that to me, this feels very, very representative of the way women and women's issues are treated on WP and on Commons, even when we're supposed to be hyper-aware of the gendergap and its effects, and it depresses me.
-Fluffernutter
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
--
*Sarah Stierch* *Museumist, open culture advocate, and Wikimedian* *www.sarahstierch.com*
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
It's been so long since I've had a chance to vent on this list about this!
On 4/29/13 8:43 AM, Katherine Casey wrote:
Yeah, the sheer domination by numbers of masculine voices - even when they're not /trying /to argue from a particularly masculine perspective, can just be draining in situations like this. /Especially/ when they're not trying to argue from a particularly masculine perspective, frankly, because it's very hard to get across "I know you're not /trying /to ignore the value of a slightly different perspective, but..." without making them feel like they need to defend themselves and go on about how we're reading into them things they're not saying, they're not biased, men are capable of being open-minded, there's no single male perspective, etc. All those things are true, and before any of our male allies on this list get upset, I want to acknowledge that...but at the same time, that gender-related invisible knapsack http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/ele3600/mcintosh.html can just sort of steer male-dominated discussions in directions that a more gender-balanced conversation might not swerve, or might not swerve so strongly.
Ha! That is exactly what happened when I said I was no longer watching the page and I was disconnecting myself from the discussion on the Amanda Filipacchi article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SarahStierch#.22women.22_categories
I have never read that essay - thank you for sharing it! Interesting, I /was/ lucky that my education and my interest in punk rock music taught me about "skin color" privilege, wealth privilege, and male privilege, but, when I moved into different areas of work (and a flipside getting my masters which was 95% women in the program, however, majority were Anglo, which is another issue that museums - and open culture - are trying to sort out) it wasn't until I got involved (again) in the "gender fight", this time focusing on Wikipedia, that I realized what was happening. And it's often a challenge to walk the line of wanting to call out male participants in some regards, but also acknowledge allies. On an interesting twist, I even find that male allies are often unaware of who they sympathize with and the life they lead and how they got that life. It's really prominent in the tech industry, and I'm sure else where.
It's quite a challenge - I don't want to be the sexist jerk, but at the same time, there is a lot happening that people aren't realizing they are doing or a part of and it's hard to know how to educate them - or if you should even say "Oh, and thanks to all those white guys who built Wikipedia..I appreciate it...BUT..." which I find myself doing sometimes. And then I get comments on Facebook saying I'm being a jerk to the white guys and I just facepalm, because inside I'm laughing going "oh, poor white guy! Truth hurts!" I was also told recently "you should be more polite and have less attitude when you talk about gender issues, maybe more people would listen," (by a white European male who identifies as an anarchist who is prone to cursing). It's been emblazoned into my head, mainly because of who said it - not that it's changing my ways.
Commons, especially, is just completely dominated by certain viewpoints with regard to sexual images, and Sarah, you get tons of my respect for just /attempting /to function there, because I certainly can't do it. I might be able to handle an inadvertent boys-zone atmosphere - I hang out on enwp, after all - but my blood pressure just can't handle the level of aggression Commons bring to bear on anyone who dares speak for the deletion of potentially-damaging images.
I've had to stop. It's been months now since I even nominated a "nudie" image for deletion. I now just upload my images, and when I have time, or depending on my work, I do some gnomish stuff. After I was told (by white male editors) to curb my loud mouth behavior so I an become an admin someday, I totally stopped. I'm still shocked I let that happen - but, on the flipside, as you put it - it's terribly demoralizing, depressing, and painful to participate on Commons. I thought, if I could become an Admin, perhaps I could *really* make a difference. At least on Wikipedia you know there are some women, or at least active allies and women you can even call on when needed (canvasing isn't a policy :) ) for help or support. Most of the women I know go "Oh no, I'm not going on Commons, hell no!" LOL.
-Fluff
P.S. On re-reading the threads from my original email, I note that I was wrong about the "100% male" thing - Beria Lima commented twice. So uh, 99.999% male?
Ha! Glad at least one woman was there.
-Sarah
I definitely agree that women actively don't want to participate on Commons, from what I've seen, heard, and felt myself.
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 11:29 AM, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.comwrote:
It's been so long since I've had a chance to vent on this list about this!
On 4/29/13 8:43 AM, Katherine Casey wrote:
Yeah, the sheer domination by numbers of masculine voices - even when they're not *trying *to argue from a particularly masculine perspective, can just be draining in situations like this. *Especially* when they're not trying to argue from a particularly masculine perspective, frankly, because it's very hard to get across "I know you're not *trying *to ignore the value of a slightly different perspective, but..." without making them feel like they need to defend themselves and go on about how we're reading into them things they're not saying, they're not biased, men are capable of being open-minded, there's no single male perspective, etc. All those things are true, and before any of our male allies on this list get upset, I want to acknowledge that...but at the same time, that gender-related invisible knapsackhttp://ted.coe.wayne.edu/ele3600/mcintosh.html can just sort of steer male-dominated discussions in directions that a more gender-balanced conversation might not swerve, or might not swerve so strongly.
Ha! That is exactly what happened when I said I was no longer watching the page and I was disconnecting myself from the discussion on the Amanda Filipacchi article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SarahStierch#.22women.22_categories
I have never read that essay - thank you for sharing it! Interesting, I * was* lucky that my education and my interest in punk rock music taught me about "skin color" privilege, wealth privilege, and male privilege, but, when I moved into different areas of work (and a flipside getting my masters which was 95% women in the program, however, majority were Anglo, which is another issue that museums - and open culture - are trying to sort out) it wasn't until I got involved (again) in the "gender fight", this time focusing on Wikipedia, that I realized what was happening. And it's often a challenge to walk the line of wanting to call out male participants in some regards, but also acknowledge allies. On an interesting twist, I even find that male allies are often unaware of who they sympathize with and the life they lead and how they got that life. It's really prominent in the tech industry, and I'm sure else where.
It's quite a challenge - I don't want to be the sexist jerk, but at the same time, there is a lot happening that people aren't realizing they are doing or a part of and it's hard to know how to educate them - or if you should even say "Oh, and thanks to all those white guys who built Wikipedia..I appreciate it...BUT..." which I find myself doing sometimes. And then I get comments on Facebook saying I'm being a jerk to the white guys and I just facepalm, because inside I'm laughing going "oh, poor white guy! Truth hurts!" I was also told recently "you should be more polite and have less attitude when you talk about gender issues, maybe more people would listen," (by a white European male who identifies as an anarchist who is prone to cursing). It's been emblazoned into my head, mainly because of who said it - not that it's changing my ways.
Commons, especially, is just completely dominated by certain viewpoints with regard to sexual images, and Sarah, you get tons of my respect for just *attempting *to function there, because I certainly can't do it. I might be able to handle an inadvertent boys-zone atmosphere - I hang out on enwp, after all - but my blood pressure just can't handle the level of aggression Commons bring to bear on anyone who dares speak for the deletion of potentially-damaging images.
I've had to stop. It's been months now since I even nominated a "nudie" image for deletion. I now just upload my images, and when I have time, or depending on my work, I do some gnomish stuff. After I was told (by white male editors) to curb my loud mouth behavior so I an become an admin someday, I totally stopped. I'm still shocked I let that happen - but, on the flipside, as you put it - it's terribly demoralizing, depressing, and painful to participate on Commons. I thought, if I could become an Admin, perhaps I could *really* make a difference. At least on Wikipedia you know there are some women, or at least active allies and women you can even call on when needed (canvasing isn't a policy :) ) for help or support. Most of the women I know go "Oh no, I'm not going on Commons, hell no!" LOL.
-Fluff
P.S. On re-reading the threads from my original email, I note that I was wrong about the "100% male" thing - Beria Lima commented twice. So uh, 99.999% male?
Ha! Glad at least one woman was there.
-Sarah
-- *Sarah Stierch* *Museumist and open culture advocate*
Visit sarahstierch.com http://sarahstierch.com<<
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
🌹for your good work !! Anna Jonsson
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:29:40 -0700 From: sarah.stierch@gmail.com To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Topless image retention on Commons and use on enwp
Sorry if this gets a little off topic from the actual focus of the subjects. I just need to personally vent and this gives me a chance (thanks Katherine). I assume I can't be the only one who feels this way, and it seems you might also.
I totally understand the "it depresses me" situation. I got involved in some of the discussions about the women's foo categories only to get bombarded with comments when I brought up "I don't know if anyone here is even a woman involved, from what I know, I think I might be the only woman here," and then to be snapped at "How do you know I'm not a woman?" by someone with a male user name (Jeremy). I felt like a total fail, and basically left the conversation only to get comments on my talk page. I have officially declared I'm "burnt out" on any and all gender conversations, specifically triggered by the recent category situation.
95% if not more of the people discussing all of these things are, from what I believe, identifying on Wikipedia as the masculine. It's really troubling for me, and right now I'm at the point where I just can't fight it right now. I'm feeling depressed about it, hopeless, and all of the other fun things that go with burn out. (Funny, I didn't suffer burn out this severe when I was a fellow, but I did have two minor bouts of burn out during that year, this is by far the worst)
I basically had to stop doing the painful nomination and arguing about nudity and women's images on Commons. Part of this was because it was so demoralizing and depressing, and the other was the repeated "You'll never be an admin on Commons if you keep doing this," and I always wanted to be an admin on Commons. The fact that I let this argument - being made by male Commonists - trigger me to not participate in the conversations is an entirely different psychological issue in itself! Oy vey.
Gah. :( -Sarah
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 8:08 AM, Katherine Casey fluffernutter.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Came across this kerfuffle today. I'd love to see what more gendergap-focused people think about the following progression of events (note: the image is NSFW, but each of the links I'm providing are SFW if you don't click through to the image/article):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Exhibitionism#Image_at_top_of_page <---discussion about whether to use an identifiable woman's topless photo on the top of an enwp article. The person raising the discussion notes that "I find it hard to believe that this woman wants her picture on WP, and I don't think we have a right to show her because of a momentary indiscretion in a public place."
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Mardi_Gras_... <---Same image is nominated for deletion on Commons, with similar rationale
The image is kept.Discussion on enwp spins off from the same issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLPN#Photos_of_private_people_doing_t... , splitting between one faction saying "It's legal, so it's fine" and another saying "It's a matter of ethics, not legality."
Speaking personally, my takeaway from reading through this situation has gone through "mortification in empathy for the image subject, who was almost certainly drunk and unable to consent", "frustration with Commons's dismissive approach to the questioning of identfiable sexual images", and finally "realization that in all three discussions, I see no users who I know to be female. Not one. It seems quite likely that the issue of whether this woman's right to be protected by BLP extends to images of her breasts...is being discussed 100% by men."
I don't quite know what my point is here, other than to note that to me, this feels very, very representative of the way women and women's issues are treated on WP and on Commons, even when we're supposed to be hyper-aware of the gendergap and its effects, and it depresses me.
-Fluffernutter
_______________________________________________
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Came across this kerfuffle today. I'd love to see what more gendergap-focused people think about the following >progression of events (note: the image is NSFW, but each of the links I'm providing are SFW if you don't click >through to the image/article):
a.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Exhibitionism#Image_at_top_of_page <---discussion about whether to use an identifiable woman's topless photo on the top of an enwp article. The person raising the discussion notes that "I find it hard to believe that this woman wants her picture on WP, and I don't think we have a right to show her because of a momentary indiscretion in a public place."
There’s a simple compromise solution to this which took me less than a minute with Photoshop to make possible:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mardi_Gras_Flashing_-_Color_%28identi...
(link is also NSFW, if you hadn’t guessed).
Daniel Case