On 22/11/06, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
"David Gerard" wrote
I'm thinking of a conversation with a feminist friend who considers Wikipedia hopelessly patriarchally biased and useless to harmful.
Interesting. I mean, potentially interesting if there is a feminist critique at the level of policy.
Interesting in that one of the nastier bits of systemic bias to fix is when you're pissing off people and you don't realise it.
(c.f. issues on foundation-l re: open content licences and possible social unworkability in France.)
It was also interesting in that it was said as if she was quoting someone else rather than composing the sentence as it was being said. So yes, there might be a critique available.
Also, you know how any technical field laments the strange lack of women? Technical fields have had that strange lack of women for a hundred years and still there's no solution to what the heck is culling them so early.
- d.