[Gendergap] Research into causes of the gender gap?

[Laura Hale]

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 5:31 AM, Johannes Rohr
<johannes.rohr at wikimedia.de>wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I have seen a number of quantitative studies, which unambiguously
> confirm the existence of the gender gap as such, but I have seen very
> little on what causes it to be so persistent in the Wikiverse. There
> is a number of commonly proposed explanations such as the discussion
> culture and the poor usability. However I have at least not come
> across any studies which have tested their veracity. If anything of
> that kind exists, I would be extremely happy for a pointer. I would
> also be extremely curious whether any attempts have been undertaken to
> weight the importance of each individual cause. Is there any
> particular factors which can be clearly identified as the one or two
> main showstoppers, which should thus be treated as the top priorities
> or is there a whole array of causes which have more or less equal
> weight?
>
>
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mind_the_Gap and Why people don't edit
Wikipedia<http://ozziesport.com/2011/07/why-dont-people-edit-wikipedia-small-survey-results-provide-some-insights/>
are
two small studies I've done related to this.  Both appear unique from some
of the research being done.

Copying and pasting the important conclusions from Mind the Day:

While the data is insufficient to reach the conclusion that Wikipedia
attracts females who code their language usage as male in all circumstances
on-wiki and off-wiki, we have shown that females use a more male style of
writing when writing for Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a smaller percentage of
female contributors than other wikis: The problems are not solely caused by
Wikipedia's content being an informational style of writing that is more
typical of males, as shown by the fact that other wikis manage to attract
larger proportions of female contributors when also using a similar
informational style of writing.

End quote.

Copying and pasting the important conclusions from Why people don't edit
Wikipedia:

There are some differences in responses between men and women, which
appears to support the general conclusion that men and women have different
reasons for (not) contributing to Wikipedia and that gender specific type
engagement may be needed. One of the arguments that I’ve heard is that
women would like to contribute to Wikipedia but they just do not have the
time because they need to take care of their families. This small sample
appears to suggest this isn’t the case: Women, much more than men in this
sample, just have better things to do. I’ve talked to a few women in this
sample about this to try to understand what better things they have to do,
because I’ve heard the argument that women do use this type of technology
and some people don’t understand why, if women do blogging and other online
content creation, why they don’t contribute to Wikipedia. In this
particular sample, the women I talked to explained it to me as they have a
set of things they prioritise in what they do. In the case of one
non-contributor, they do contribute to another wiki that immediately ties
into her interests. Beyond that, she has learned that her contributions
have value and that value can be realised by getting paid for them by
writing for sites like associated content and squidoo. There isn’t the
inherent value that can be realised when contributing to Wikipedia, so why
should she spend the time contributing? This appears to be supported
because of the six who said they have better things to do, only one female
also said she didn’t have enough time to contribute.

End quote.