I will not comment on the "few women in the upper echelons of
Wikipedia", but I can comment on the "very numerous women in the upper
echelons of the Foundation".
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikimania_2007_dungodung_79.jpg
this is a picture taken at Wikimania, the first wikichix meeting.
From top, going to the right
Sue Gardner, head of executive
Henna, dev, from netherlands
Phoebe, usa, leader of Wikimania 2006 and co-organiser of 2007
Frieda, italian, chair of Wikimedia Italy, board member of WMF
Delphine, french, chapter coordinator of WMF
Oooops, memory hole...
Brianna, australia, wikicommons (keen I think)
Another memory hole, shame on me. She is german and very involved in
various Wikimedia Deutschland activity.
Kat, usa, board member
Aphaia, japanese, translation committee head
Anthere, chair of WMF
Sandy, communication manager
And I could cite many other good people missing here.
Angela, previous board member, now chair of advisory board
Sabine, new fundraising manager
Elly, chair of Wikimedia Netherlands
Alison, chair of Wikimedia UK
The 'memory holes' are Kate, English Wikipedian, admin and GIS expert, and
Nina from the German chapter. Also missing from this picture: KJ and
Frances, two of the top organizers in the Taiwan team for the 2007
conference; and the dozens of other women who were present as organizers,
presenters and attendees (we just had an informal gathering, with little
publicity). As a very subjective and imprecise guess, I'd say there were
more women present at 2007's conference than in 2006; and certainly more in
2006 than in 2005. It's hard to say whether the in-person conferences
represent the body of editors and contributors as a whole; but there are
certainly more female editors in the projects than folks seem to be
assuming.
-- phoebe