From: Laura Hale laura@fanhistory.com Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for women and transgender, sublist for male supporters Am I supposed to interpret this as you claiming that this list has a mission that will never succeed because it acknowledges there are gender differences and different approaches are needed to get different audiences? As a woman, a representative of a minority group on Wikipedia, how am I supposed to respond to you? I can tell you that this post of yours makes me feel distinctly uncomfortable posting to this list. It seems to put men in the position of power above women, demanding that women participate only in male modes of communication, that women on the list can't talk about genuine concerns they have as women because they are going to get blown off, and that feelings of men on the list are more important then women.
Laura, the problem is that we're online, so we can't tell for sure who's a man or woman anyway. I agree that women act differently around men, but I think that will continue even when we only suspect we're around men. So setting up a women-only list wouldn't work unless we're willing to abandon anonymity and really get to know each other. That would be wonderful if we could ever trust each other that much, but I don't think this is the list to try it with.
Sarah