On 21/11/06, niht-hræfn nihthraefn@gmail.com wrote:
The recent thread on the low numbers of women applying for ArbCom and subsequent discussion about systemic bias and under-representation of women has led me to wonder about the nature of gender-related systemic bias on the English Wikipedia. As far as "gender is irrelevant" goes, this is simply not true. Gender of editors really does matter as far as coverage and quality thereof goes. Most of the
I'm thinking of a conversation with a feminist friend who considers Wikipedia hopelessly patriarchally biased and useless to harmful. I pointed out we had recognised the systemic bias issue. I also asked her to think about solutions that include the assumption that Wikipedia is not going to go away.
- d.