[Commons-l] Fwd: [Gendergap] Photo of the Day on Wikimedia Commons

[Sarah Stierch]

On 5/16/2011 10:32 AM, Tobias Oelgarte wrote:
> Reading the words of Sarah Stierch, someone could assume that a picture
> of a naked male is fine. Do we get more female contributers by treating
> them as some special, out of the oridinary? At the last meetings in
> Germany i met several women, most complaining about this rather "useless
> campaing", that they even found "discriminating".

Hi Tobias - I hate to break it to you, but, a nude male is not always 
the most tasteful and appropriate thing either. And frankly (sorry 
boys!) it's quite rare that the male genitalia is a beautiful thing 
aesthetically. No matter how much we could argue this, I'm sure there 
would be plenty of Wikimedia Commons contributors who'd rather not see

I'm glad that these German women felt that it wasn't offensive, I don't 
even think the image is "offensive" because there are breasts - I just 
can't believe people aren't thinking about who is looking at this image 
- it's not just Wikimedians and German women who think its tasteful.

It's also school teachers, grand parents, Asian women who dislike the 
stereotype, spiritually conservative people, etc. It's also a lot of 
women, who go "oh great, the geeks are putting their anime porn up on 
Wikimedia, ugh."

I do believe that the majority of the images, nudes or not, BDSM 
whatever, do have places in Commons, but, I disagree that just because a 
few women aren't offended, doesn't mean a greater community as a whole 
isn't. A global community, that we are working towards encouraging to 
contribute more.

Images like this set us back.

> Back to the topic itself. Did you even know, that half of the mangaka
> are females? Works like "Kodomo no Jikan" are written by female authors.
> Sexuality is a primary topic. No one could life without it. Depictions
> of sexuallity are known for thousands of years. And that is the point
> where i start wondering. While old works are seen as something relevant,
> new works aren't. Why not? They are from our time. In the time we life.
>

I don't even know what a mangaka is. And trust me, I don't think I could 
live without sexual activity /either!/ But, it does state that your 
image is a fictional character in a fictional environment, so, if 
mangaka's are a real group of people, then I'm not sure why your 
description states otherwise. Perhaps I'm just a bit confused due to my 
lack of interest and knowledge about the manga/anime world. Like I said, 
I've seen a few videos, and well, have had a few beers watching Hentai 
in my past at parties - not always the best introduction to the way 
women are viewed in Japanese cartoons. LOL.

Sarah

-- 
Wikipedia Regional Ambassador, D.C. Region
Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Art 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch>
-- 
Sarah Stierch Consulting
Historical, cultural & artistic research, advising & event planning.
------------------------------------------------------
http://www.sarahstierch.com/
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