[Gendergap] FW: Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for women and transgender, sublist for male supporters

[Ryan Kaldari]

Marc, I don't think you're improving the "communication problem" you 
describe by telling people their ideas are "nonsense", "self-serving", 
or "insulting". Yes, Laura's ideas are challenging, but getting overly 
defensive doesn't help the discussion.

Kaldari

On 3/16/11 1:58 PM, Marc Riddell wrote:
>
> ----------
> *From: *Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net>
> *Date: *Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:49:32 -0400
> *To: *Laura Hale <laura at fanhistory.com>
> *Subject: *Re: [Gendergap] Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for 
> women and transgender, sublist for male supporters
>
> Laura, your interpretation of my words is strikingly self-serving, and 
> your solutions would serve to widen whatever gap exists in the 
> Project. This entire "problem" is not one of gender, but of individual 
> persons having problems communicating with a particular group of other 
> persons. My question to all of those who state that they have a 
> problem communicating with, or feel intimidated by, a male in the 
> venue of a mailing list such as this, is do you have the same problem 
> in person? There are many, many strong, intelligent voices in the 
> Wikipedia Project who also happen to be female. And to include them in 
> this "gendergap", and suggest that this is strictly a gender issue, is 
> an insult to them.
>
> Marc
>
> on 3/16/11 4:06 PM, Laura Hale at laura at fanhistory.com wrote:
>
>
>
>     On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 11:42 PM, Marc Riddell
>     <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>         This is simply, nonsense!
>
>
>     That is your opinion, and you're welcome to it.  In my experience,
>     there are two general groups of women:
>
>     1.  One who welcome men as participants in events specifically
>     targeting women, because the women feel the men can learn.
>     2.  One who don't want men involved because they feel women should
>     work towards their own self interests and that women behave
>     differently around men.
>
>         Don't you people realize that separating this List
>         into two distinct ones would underline, reinforce and actually
>         signify the
>         very "gendergap" you are allegedly trying to resolve.
>
>
>     This pretty much is why I think we need men off the list.  While
>     you're intending to or not, I'm reading this as "Don't you
>     understand that the only way women can succeed it by having men
>     involved! You need men!"  If you're not intending to send the
>     message: Women cannot succeed with out men!, then you may want to
>     reconsider your wording.
>
>     And I'd argue the opposite: Men have done an awful job at
>     recruiting women to be involved with Wikipedia.  The current
>     problems exist because men have tried to "solve" this problem.
>
>         This is people talking
>         with people. If there is a female or male here who has a problem
>         communicating with, or in the presence of, another gender -
>         they do have a
>         problem.
>
>
>     Translation: "Women! You're the problem!  If you could stop
>     engaging in female modes of communication, we could fix this
>     problem! "
>
>     This list is NOT a general list for increasing the participation
>     rates of people.  If you want to have a list dedicated to
>     generally increasing the participation rates of people on
>     Wikipedia, then fork off and do that.
>
>
>         But a website Mailing List such as this is not the place to
>         resolve
>         it.
>
>
>     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.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Gendergap mailing list
> Gendergap at lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/attachments/20110316/d01a63d2/attachment.htm