[Gendergap] Introduction and some thoughts

[Sydney Poore]

2011/2/2 Delphine Ménard <notafishz at gmail.com>

> Hi,
>
> My name is Delphine, and I am a woman.
>
> This was for the AA like laconic presentation, everybody says hi now :)
>
> As an introduction, I will say that I recognize myself in Kat's words here:
> http://www.mindspillage.org/wiki/Gender_and_feminism in the third
> paragraph. I would strongly urge to rename this list to some more
> inclusive name. But on the contrary to Kat, I joined. I guess I am
> interested in lurking, despite the name of the list.
>
Since this list does not exclude men, I do not think it is nearly as
problematic as the wikichix (which I joined but did understand the concerns
about exclusion of men). Personally, I like the name because I think that it
is a positive statement that the issue is real and that a plan is needed to
address it. My work as a nurse was heavily process oriented with data mining
and goal setting as the lead steps in fixing a problem. So, I see that
naming the problem to be addressed (increasing female participation in
Wikimedia projects) as a key factor in starting the process of fixing the
problem.

>
> I started editing Wikipedia in 2004, and at the time sought help on
> IRC on the French channels. My nickname "notafish" is gender neutral
> enough that people at the time interacted with me in a normal kind of
> way, until I wrote something that made it clear that I am a woman (as
> an aside, it is much harder in languages that grammatically call for
> gendered adjectives to delay the moment when you're going to be tagged
> as "woman"). Then things somewhat changed in the way other editors
> interacted with me. This said, I never experienced any negative
> reactions in Wikipedia (or any Wikimedia project) due to the fact that
> I am a woman, so I don't have much to bring to the table on that part.
>
I self identified as female early on and it definitely made a difference in
the way that people who knew interacted with me. Some positive and some
negative.

>
> However, I am extremely interested in the fact that, at least to my
> observation, the gender gap is slightly less important in the
> organization (Wikimedia) than it might be in the projects. While
> real-life informal meet-ups are very much male dominated, it seems to
> me that the organisation of events, chapter boards and membership, for
> example, are somehow not so male dominated. Or rather, that more women
> actually have found their place in those, and are often the lead in
> making things happen in real life.
>

I agree that at the WMF board and staff level  the situation is different
than where volunteers interact with each other (talk pages, IRC, meet ups,
email lists). Seems to be much more gender neutral at the WMF board and
staff level except for when they interact with the WMF communities.

>
> I might be mistaken, and it might be some kind of a "selective
> awareness" which makes me see only the women, but I'd be interested in
> any kind of study that gives facts about how and why women engage in
> other parts of the Wikimedia movement, other than editing the
> projects.
>

I would be interested in seeing a break down of the stats about the off wiki
activities to see if it is true that the gender gap is less. If it is, then
I think that we need to look at why and see if we can learn ways to import
it into the direct content  producing activities.

>
> Cheers,
>
> Delphine
>
> --
> @notafish
>

Thank you for your comments despite your concerns about the biases that may
be present in the email list as it is now structured. This is an important
topic and you have good insights into the situation that need to be raised.

Sydney Poore
(FloNight)

>
> NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will get
> lost.
> Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive -
> http://blog.notanendive.org
> Photos with simple eyes: notaphoto - http://photo.notafish.org
>
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