[Gendergap] Global perspectives on women and Wikimedia projects: Bangladesh

Sun Dec 25 19:47:19 UTC 2011

In preparation for WikiWomenCamp and the sister conference open to people
of all genders for discussing the gender gap (we'll get a name chosen and
do a formal announcement soon!) , we're writing and asking for your
assistance in writing about the involvement of and content related to women
on Wikimedia projects from around the world.  Today, we're looking at
Bangladesh.  If you can help improve this, please do.  Many thanks to
Tanvir, WM-BN's secretary, for providing insight into what is going on.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiWomenCamp/FAQ/Perspectives/Bangladesh

[image: Flag of Bangladesh.svg] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh>
 Bangladesh
[image: people standing in a group wearing Wikipedia
shirts]<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kite_flying2011_065.JPG>
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kite_flying2011_065.JPG>
A Wikipedia 10th Birthday celebration in Bangladesh

Bengali Wikimedia projects have very few female contributors. Those that
they do have do not contribute on a consistent, regular basis; they edit
sporadically. In Bangladesh, women often attend events by the Chapter and
others in the country. There are female participants who attend every
meet-up. Most of the time, these are new faces and there is a problem in
getting the same women to consistently show up to events in order to build
up a regular base of active female participants. Currently Wikimedia
Bangladesh <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Bangladesh> has no
female members in the board. The board is planning to find a woman from the
country to be a a Bengali participant in at WikiWomenCamp in Argentina.

In December 2011, there were 1,700 women of all ages from Bangladesh who
were interested in Wikipedia on
Facebook.[1]<https://www.facebook.com/ads/create/> 0.06%
of all Wikipedia traffic comes from
Bangladesh.[2]<http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerCountryBreakdown.htm>
Most
editors in Bangladesh edit the Bengali Wikipedia but 91.1% view English
Wikipedia. There are many articles about Bengali actresses on the Bengali
Wikipedia. These articles were mostly created by male contributors. There
is an effort by a Bengali editor to take the Bengali language article
about Angelina
Jolie<http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%85%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AF%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%9E%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%9C%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%A8%E0%A6%BE_%E0%A6%9C%E0%A7%8B%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BF>
to
Featured. As of December 2011, there are zero featured articles about women
on Bengali Wikipedia. There are two articles about female sport people: an
athlete and a chess player. There are 10 articles about female film
actresses from Bangladesh<http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%B7%E0%A6%AF%E0%A6%BC%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%A3%E0%A7%80:%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%82%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%80_%E0%A6%85%E0%A6%AD%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%A4%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%80>,
10 articles about female television actresses from Bangladesh, 3 articles
about female Bangladeshi stage actresses and 13 articles about Bangladeshi
singers. On Bengali Wikipedia, there are 4 articles about Bangladeshi
social workers<http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%B7%E0%A6%AF%E0%A6%BC%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%A3%E0%A7%80:%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%82%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%80_%E0%A6%B8%E0%A6%AE%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%9C%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AE%E0%A7%80>,
3 of whom women. The amount of women specific content in Bengali, and
Bangaldeshi women content, is limited. The Bengali word for User is gender
neutral; the name space does not indicate the gender of the user on
Wikimedia projects.

On English Wikipedia, there are 11
articles<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bangladeshi_women_in_politics>
women
in politics, 4 articles<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bangladeshi_feminists>
about
Bangladeshi feminists‎. There are 0 articles about women's basketball
teams<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Category:Women%27s_basketball_teams>
in
this country on English Wikipedia. There are 0 articles about women's
basketball teams<http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%C3%A9gorie:Club_de_basket-ball_f%C3%A9minin>
in
this country on French Wikipedia. There are 0 articles about women's
basketball teams<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:%E5%A5%B3%E5%AD%90%E3%83%90%E3%82%B9%E3%82%B1%E3%83%83%E3%83%88%E3%83%9C%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%81%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0>
in
this country on Japanese Wikipedia. There are 0 articles about women's
basketball teams in this country (he:קטגוריה:קבוצות כדורסל
נשים<http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%92%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94:%D7%A7%D7%91%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%9B%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%A1%D7%9C_%D7%A0%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%9D>)
on Hebrew Wikipedia. There are 0 articles about women's association
football clubs in this country on Farsi Wikipedia (fa:رده:باشگاه‌های فوتبال
زنان بر پایه کشور<http://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B1%D8%AF%D9%87:%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B4%DA%AF%D8%A7%D9%87%E2%80%8C%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C_%D9%81%D9%88%D8%AA%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84_%D8%B2%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A8%D8%B1_%D9%BE%D8%A7%DB%8C%D9%87_%DA%A9%D8%B4%D9%88%D8%B1>).
There are 0 articles about women's association football
clubs<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Women%27s_association_football_clubs_by_country>
in
this country on English Wikipedia. There are 0 articles about women's
association football
clubs<http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F:%D0%96%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D1%84%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5_%D0%BA%D0%BB%D1%83%D0%B1%D1%8B_%D0%BF%D0%BE_%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BC>
in
this country on Russian Wikipedia. Bangladeshi women do not appear to be
given much coverage on non-Bengali Wikipedia. This is for several reasons,
including a lack of participation of women in certain categories, language
issues that make it difficult to report on Bangladeshi women, and a general
lack of interest in existing contributors in covering their issues.
[image: group cutting a
cake]<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:10_years_of_Wikipedia_celebration_Chittagong_009.jpg>
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:10_years_of_Wikipedia_celebration_Chittagong_009.jpg>
10th Birthday celebrations in Chittagong

In December 2011, according to Alexa, Wikinews was ranked the 17,538th most
popular site in the country.[3]<http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org>
 On Portuguese Wikinews<http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/n:P%C3%A1gina_principal>,
there are no women active from this country. This may be a result of
several factors, including the language and because Portuguese Wikinews
only has an active editing community of five people, one of whom is a
woman. A December 2011 search on English Wikinews for Women Bangladesh
found 5 articles that mentioned both
words.[4]<http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=women+Bangladesh>
A
December 2011 search on Spanish Wikinews for Bangladesh mujeres found 1
article that mentioned both
words.[5]<http://es.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Especial%3ABuscar&search=Bangladesh+mujeres&fulltext=Search&ns0=1&redirs=1&profile=advanced>
A
December 2011 search on Portuguese Wikinews for mulheres Bangladesh found 1
articles that mentioned both
words.[6]<http://pt.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Especial%3APesquisar&search=mulheres+Bangladesh&fulltext=Search&ns0=1&redirs=1&profile=advanced>

Bangladeshi women are absent on other projects connected to the Wikimedia
Foundation. There is one woman who has contributed to the language
incubator<http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page> who
uses Bengali <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language>. She made one
edit and is the only Bengali speaker to make an edit on incubator. There
are no bureaucrats, male or female, from Bangladesh on
MediaWiki.Org.[7]<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat>
In
December 2011, according to Alexa, Wikibooks was ranked the 1,653th most
popular site in the
country.[8]<http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikibooks.org> Some
of the visitors are likely to be women. Bangladeshi women also do not
appear to factor into the WMF's wider strategy to appeal to the region:
During the December 2011 fundraising appeal, no Bangladeshis, men or
women, were
featured<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011#A_Parade_of_Appeals.21_December_22.2C_2011>
are
part of the appeal. During the 2011 Summer of
Research<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikimedia_Summer_of_Research_2011>,
the WMF hired eight research fellows. Of these, only one was female, and
she was from the United States. There were four males from American
universities, The other researchers included men from a Japanese
university, a Swiss university and a Canadian university. There were no
research fellows, male or female, from this country.

-- 
twitter: purplepopple
blog: ozziesport.com
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