On 12/4/06, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:

Oldak Quill wrote:

...

Such a list seems to encourage a sense of difference where there isn't one. It will also discourage some women from contributing to the general discussion ("why post in two places when I can post here?").

This view, and several others like it, are discussed in depth in the FLOSSPOLS gender report:

http://flosspols.org/deliverables/FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender_Integrated_Report_of_...

On page 20:

"Some people - both men and women - interpret the mere mention of gender as somehow 'reiterating' the 'artificial' differences between the sexes [...] "

"However, our study also found that the attitude of some of the male F/LOSS participants towards women creates an atmosphere which can be described at least as not women-friendly. "Whereas most hackers see themselves as neither sexist nor hostile towards women there is a clear distinction on how women and men perceive and experience interaction within the F/LOSS community."

They present survey results showing that women perceive a bias in open source communities whereas men do not. They go on to discuss why this is. Most of their findings are framed in a way specific to open source software, but they could easily be extended to this forum. The primary issue of relevance to mailing lists and communication is flaming. Men are much more tolerant of it than women. Says Susan Herring in "Gender and Power in Online Communication":

http://rkcsi.indiana.edu/archive/CSI/WP/WP01-05B.html

"Politeness is one common means through which gender is cued in asynchronous CMC. Women are more likely to thank, appreciate and apologize, and to be upset by violations of politeness: they more often challenge offenders who violate online rules of conduct (Smith et al., 1997), and predominantly female groups may have more, and more strictly enforced, posting rules designed to ensure the maintenance of a civil environment (Hall, 1996; Herring, 1996a). In contrast, men generally appear to be less concerned with politeness; they issue bald face-threatening acts such as unmitigated criticisms and insults, violate online rules of conduct, tolerate or even enjoy 'flaming', and tend to be more concerned about threats to freedom of expression than with attending to others' social "face" (Herring, 1994, 1996a, 1999)."

Thanks for the report links, Tim; very interesting.

Knowing all this, an optimistic man may try to change everyone's mind on the

importance of good behaviour and civility, and to create a forum where both men and women can participate comfortably. Wikipedia itself was started with such ideals in mind (e.g. "WikiLove"). But my experience has led me to be more jaded.

I support Wikichix, in the hopes that it may become a platform for women to discuss the implicit bias against them in male-dominated wikis, in a forum where they won't be subjected to instant incredulity and attack, as they have been in this thread. I hope that they will be able to formulate and promote guidelines for non-discrimination, for application at mixed wikis such as Wikipedia. In the meantime, while they're waiting for these guidelines to be accepted by the community at large, Wikichix may be able to expound the problem and discuss coping strategies, so that they can more confidently participate in the present-day wiki culture.

-- Tim Starling

Indeed. Though I just heard about the new list with this message, it makes sense; gender bias is an issue that many of us see as being present in the projects, and it will be nice to have a place to discuss it without every substantive message being followed by twenty posts saying "omg there's no bias what are you talking about!" It doesn't seem much different than other topical lists, which perhaps we need a few more of in general to sort out this kind of big-picture discussions. I would hope that any good discussion, conclusion or recommendation will also get discussed on the appropriate "big" Foundation lists when needed, and I'm sure as the new list sorts itself out this kind of communication will develop.

And Gerard's point upthread that we need to show more consideration for everyone is perhaps well taken. It's not just many women who may find a lot of discussions around here distasteful; it's also a great number of people who don't want to deal with incivility and general stupidness. This may include a number of expert contributors or others who would be a help to the projects and should be welcomed.

phoebe (a female person, longtime list reader but rare poster)