[Gendergap] Two Letters to the (New York Times) Editor

[Steven Walling]

A couple reactions to the recent story that were printed in the today's edition. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/opinion/l06wiki.html

To the Editor:

In “Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia’s Contributor List” (front page, Jan. 31), a number of reasons are offered to explain why women constitute only an astonishing 13 percent of Wikipedia contributors.

Today women earn 57 percent of the bachelor’s degrees, 61 percent of the master’s degrees and, as of 2009, a majority of doctorates in the United States. It is inconceivable that this well-educated majority should be largely absent from the world’s most popular interactive encyclopedia project.

Organizations like the Women’s Media Center, the OpEd Project and Women’s eNews have long argued that women’s voices are too scarce in mainstream media. Research indicates that women make up just one third of the top 100 syndicated columnists in the United States, and just over one-third of full-time staff at daily newspapers.

The inclusion of women’s expertise on Wikipedia is vital not just for the sake of fairness, but because without such representation, the whole of society loses the experience, knowledge and perspective of over half the population.

We must join together to encourage women to participate more actively in this public forum.

Linda Basch
President, National Council
for Research on Women
New York, Jan. 31, 2011

•

To the Editor:

Regarding your article about Wikipedia:

Oh, please. The reason women don’t contribute to Wikipedia is that we have more pressing things to do. I would love to elaborate, but I have to finish the laundry, pay the bills, feed the cat, clean the apartment, and do the meal planning and grocery shopping before I head off to work.

Alice Henry Whitmore
New York, Jan. 31, 201

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Steven Walling
Fellow at the Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org





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