[Gendergap] I'm not sure which is more depressing

Thu Dec 22 00:06:49 UTC 2011

Hi Lennart,

On 22 December 2011 Lennart Lennart Guldbrandsson wrote:

"..."Find the lady"?"

If you had placed an exclamation mark after the word 'lady', rather than a question over the whole sentence, I would have got the joke about 'lady'. In the absence of an intended irony with the use of the word 'lady' I'll take it you really mean 'lady'.  Therefore I'd like to let you know that the women's movement (historically - first, second and third waves) have fought against honorific titles such as 'lady' to describe and understand 'what women want'. 

At the very least the term 'lady' is not meaningful across cultural lines north, south, east, or west of our world. European tradition, particularly English, is where it is the most meaningful in the most constricting and negative of senses where it has been used against females - girls (children) and women - in that rather than a nation socially growing it's female population in all facets of life's energy and creativity, females has been kept down over the centuries and one of the ways of penetrating the female psyche to reinforce the necessity of this down trodden existence is to remind a female that she much be a 'lady' and ladies don't do this and that, but must do this and that, all decided by a masculine controlled society and reinforced over the years by compliant females being taught to support this social construct.

So Lennart, women and girls want to decide the simple and the enormity of their lives. A great number of females whose consciousness has been raised and so recognise the existing inequalities over all societies will not want to be named 'ladies' in discussions about what women want.

Here's a simple dilemma right now - for the programmers. Why do the drop down windows on many sign up sights have in the window 'male' and if you are a female you have to click on the down button and select 'female'. This question is not trite by any means. It goes to the heart of how our female and male programmers construct and think about what they are implementing. My question is: Do female programmers use this same format? Has any female programmer been bold enough to reverse the order? Let the 'female' word be in the static window, and let the males have to click the drop down to select their gender.

Anne Frazer
Wikimedia Australia 

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Lennart Guldbrandsson 
  To: Gendergap 
  Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2011 4:41 AM
  Subject: Re: [Gendergap] I'm not sure which is more depressing

  Maybe a campaign, based on the phrase "Find the lady"?

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Find_the_Lady

  Best wishes,

  Lennart

  Lennart Guldbrandsson, 
  Tfn: 031 - 12 50 48 Mobil: 070 - 207 80 05
  Epost: l_guldbrandsson at hotmail.com / lennart at wikimedia.se
  Användarsida: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anv%C3%A4ndare:Hannibal
  Blogg: http://mrchapel.wordpress.com/
  Wikimedia Sverige http://wikimedia.se
  http://www.1av3.se

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  From: l_guldbrandsson at hotmail.com
  To: gendergap at lists.wikimedia.org
  Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:38:24 +0000
  Subject: Re: [Gendergap] I'm not sure which is more depressing

  Yes, that is a good idea.

  Here are plenty of pics to choose from:

  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_meetups

  Best wishes,

  Lennart

  Lennart Guldbrandsson, 
  Tfn: 031 - 12 50 48 Mobil: 070 - 207 80 05
  Epost: l_guldbrandsson at hotmail.com / lennart at wikimedia.se
  Användarsida: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anv%C3%A4ndare:Hannibal
  Blogg: http://mrchapel.wordpress.com/
  Wikimedia Sverige http://wikimedia.se
  http://www.1av3.se

  > From: erik at wikimedia.org
  > Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:33:40 -0800
  > To: gendergap at lists.wikimedia.org
  > Subject: Re: [Gendergap] I'm not sure which is more depressing
  > 
  > On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 9:31 AM, Lennart Guldbrandsson
  > <l_guldbrandsson at hotmail.com> wrote:
  > > Perhaps the solution is to create a gendergap template, instead of having to
  > > bring up the same points over and over.
  > 
  > I think we should have a re-usable collage of all the photos of
  > meetups attended (almost) exclusively by male Wikipedians. with the
  > caption "Notice anything missing?". Sometimes pictures are more
  > persuasive than text.
  > 
  > -- 
  > Erik Möller
  > VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
  > 
  > Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
  > 
  > _______________________________________________
  > Gendergap mailing list
  > Gendergap at lists.wikimedia.org
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