[Gendergap] A nice mix - our edit-a-thon sure shook up the gender gap!

[Sarah Stierch]

Hi folks,

I'm going to be a little selfish here, so pardon me. But, yesterday I 
coordinated a "fine art" themed edit-a-thon at our local downtown 
library, here in Washington, DC, followed by a meet-up at a local pub. 
I'm proud to say we had 13 people at the edit-a-thon, and six were 
women. The meetup? We had 16 people and 9 were women!! These numbers 
might seem small compared to larger events, but, to have an event like 
this, and have such a healthy mix, made me so happy.

User:Aude, the President of Wikimedia DC joked "I remember when it'd be 
just me and Mindspillage, as the only women," and we gushed about having 
such a healthy group of "all genders" at the event. I noticed, when 
saying goodbye to people, that I got a bit emotional - not only did we 
have a gender-mixed Wiki-event, but, we also actually wrote new articles 
and expanded articles - and anyone who attends an edit-a-thon knows - 
it's often chaos and just socializing, not actual editing.

You can see our outcomes here: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/DC_26/To-do_list#OUTCOMES

Which includes new articles or expanded articles about seven women 
artists!!!

Obviously, I'm on a bit of a high from this, as I love outreach and 
coordinating things like this; I do believe the power of invitation 
helped with the success of this event. I don't use bots for invitations, 
and I do my best to individually reach out to people "I hope you'll be 
there." I genuinely do believe that invitation is one of the strongest 
keys in making sure that events, participation, and programs succeed in 
regards to closing the gender gap.

Thanks for letting me gush =) One event, for me, leads to one more woman 
feeling inspired to continue participating. It also shows that offline 
events make for such a rewarding experience - we get to come together, 
put our differences aside, and work together for the common cause of 
providing free knowledge to the world. One woman who came had never 
written a new article - and this was her first time - and she really was 
proud. That just made me so happy.

I also got to meet Carol Moore, which was rather epic, I must say. :)

-Sarah


-- 
Sarah Stierch Consulting
--
Historical, cultural, new media & artistic research & advising.
http://www.sarahstierch.com