[Gendergap] Women's issues noticeboard

[Steven Walling]

On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 11:24 AM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Women's views are too often drowned out on talk pages, simply because of
> their numerical inferiority. A noticeboard would help.
>
> While I understand the concern about the potential for drama, I think
> any method used to make Wikipedia more gender-neutral will attract a share
> of drama. Having an institution to look at women's issues is a pretty
> mainstream idea.
>
> The UK has a [[Minister for Women and Equalities]] (a poorly researched
> article at this time); there is a [[Minister responsible for the Status of
> Women (Canada)]]; a [[Minister for the Status of Women (Australia)]]; even
> Afghanistan has one: [[Ministry_of_Women's_Affairs_(Afghanistan)]].
>
> Denmark has a [[Minister_for_Gender_Equality_(Denmark)]]; Sweden has a
> [[Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality (Sweden)]], etc.
>
> The United States have affirmative action. We should not fear controversy,
> or grumbling; our democratically elected governments don't let that stop
> them either. If the Wikipedia community cannot support something that is
> standard in democratic society, then we do have a problem with our
> demographics, and whatever problem we have will become readily apparent.
>
> I wouldn't mind calling it a gender issues noticeboard. (That would be
> [[WP:GIN]] as opposed to [[WP:WIN]].)
>
> Andreas
>

Go ahead and do it if you feel passionate about it (of course), but you
asked for people's views, so I'm just saying that you should be prepared for
an awful mess of drama and bickering, some of which is likely to drive out
the very women we're trying to retain.

-- 
Steven Walling
Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org
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