dmehkeri@swi.com wrote:
It is a complex situation, and I think a little off topic. I don't know if there is anything here which will illuminate the gender bias and/or gender gap which we have on Wikipedia, or give insight as to how to approach better balance. Does any of this cause women to value themselves less? Do they do "cleanup" because they're used to it?
Do they, in fact, do more than their share of the "cleanup" here? The gender roles around here might not be what we expect.
Do they shy away from ArbCom or B'crat because they are non-confrontational? due to gender differences, or societal expectations (Pavlovian training)?
Is the gender ratio of b'crats or arbitrarors more male-biased than the gender ratio of sysops? Of course it's not easy to determine gender from username, but from a casual inspection of the lists, there don't seem to be that many female sysops to begin with. If that's right, there's a glass ceiling at or before RfA anyway.
Is the gender ratio of sysops different from the gender ratio of all RfA candidates? Should be easy to do a casual inspection at least.
Exercise for the reader.
Is the gender ratio of RfA candidates different than the ratio of regulars? Regulars versus casual users? Are female administrators more non-confrontational? Don't know.
Exercise for the masochistic reader.
The email which started this thread talked about "women's subjects" such as blow dryers and curling irons, and that was written by a female, yes? That's horrifying to me.
Maybe because chihuahuas hardly have any hair at all?
Dan
All excellent points, especially the hair bias.
This is just one aspect of gender bias, and it seems people are focusing on cleaning rather than bias. I wrote about cleaning; I was attempting to illustrate underlying thought patterns and paradigms which led to the cleaning imbalance. It seems now the focus has moved to the cleaning, and that is my fault, I apologize for poor focus.
I had to evaluate a remote hosting site once and took along a subordinate male, and I would ask questions and he would get the explanation. At the end of the visit, the person at the hosting facility turned to the man and asked if he had any questions. Never asked me. The bias is real, it is pervasive, and it is a problem. Again, I am not sure how much this translates into how many women are editors, how many stand for Admin, B'Crat, Arbcom, etc. I don't think it affects the promotion ratio - but I haven't done the homework so I don't actually know. If it does affect the promotion ratio we still aren't looking at the underlying causes, which could range from gender bias in the wp-population at large, to lack of experience in the women on a larger scale - our entire society has fewer women in politics, roles of power, etc. We reflect that. Do we reflect it 1-for-1? Is the ratio more balanced, or less, than the society at large? I have no idea, would this be something which would be worth looking at?
-kc-