Ryan Kaldari wrote:
Gregory,
I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your post, but it sounded very much like
you were saying that encyclopedia writing is a skill that is too
academic for women:
"...general approaches which make Wikipedia more palatable to "average
people"... may have a greater impact at reducing gender imbalance than
female centric improvements... Though are limits to the amount of
main-streaming you can do of an academic activity such as encyclopaedia
writing."
Perhaps you were not meaning to imply that women are too "average" to be
interested in academic activities. I'm glad to hear that isn't the case,
but I would encourage you to be more careful with your wording in the
future. There is a long history of scientific apologetics being used to
perpetuate sexism, racism, etc. Just look at the "science" of
phrenology, or more recently "The Bell Curve". Anyway, I don't want to
drag this thread into a debate on scientific -isms. I just wanted to
remind everyone that there are real steps that can be taken to address
the gender imbalance problem, regardless of any real or perceived gender
differences.
I think the valuable point Gregory had, which is obscured both by the
sensitivity of the topic and the obscurity of the theoretical basis for
the argument, is that there's quite a bit that can be done to encourage
greater female participation that doesn't involve specifically targeting
females. This need not (and should not) assume that women have less
ability, so it's also important to use care in how we frame the
discussion. But I think the academic performance of women in society
generally amply demonstrates that there's nothing fundamental about a
knowledge-sharing project - that being our ultimate aim - which would
explain the kind of imbalance that exists in our community.
It is possible to theorize about biological differences like greater
genetic variability as explanations, but for characteristics like gender
that are so intimately connected to a social construction of the
concept, it's largely impossible to truly isolate them and eliminate the
social factors at play. That also makes it hard to talk about the
subject without perilous characterizations and generalizations, but talk
about it we must.
At risk of going in that direction, I could suggest that usability
initiatives fit in very well with what Gregory was suggesting. Usability
doesn't particularly have gender on the agenda, but it's possible to see
that type of concern as somehow "female" in our society. To use a bit of
gross stereotyping, one might consider it typically male to seek to
demonstrate skill in mastering a challenging environment, and more
typically female to seek to apply skill toward changing the environment
to make it less challenging. The problem is partly that while from a
neutral perspective, there's no particular reason to favor either of
these skills, in practice we tend to be quite imbalanced, with social
consequences that follow accordingly.
Another illustration are the cultural issues various people have
highlighted here, such as hostility and tone of discussion. On the
surface those are gender-neutral considerations, but because of how
people are socialized, they have important consequences in reality.
That's before we even get into problems where gender is more obviously
implicated, like locker-room-type banter or casual objectification of
women. This is why I think it's so important for us to examine our
culture and figure out what we need to do to improve it.
--Michael Snow