[Gendergap] Gendergap Digest, Vol 9, Issue 5

[Maggie]

I apologize if you are offended and find this discouraging, but I am not
apologizing for what I've said. And putting a happy face at the end of your
comment does not mean you haven't invalidated my opinions. I voiced opinions
that I know several people on this list, let alone many women on Wikipedia,
are thinking. I may be very blunt in my style, and this might put people off
of me, but I found what Beria said to be more insulting and "discouraging."

First of all, she claimed that the OP lied--when the op simply wrote an
opinion piece about how she feels Wikipedia should work to create a more
diverse atmosphere and friendly environment for women. While opinion can be
wrong, while you can tell lies in your opinion, several of us found no lies
in her comments, and Beria had no evidence in her comment linked to support
her claim, just comments disagreeing with the OP's blog post.

Second, she referred to women as girls. Which, as far as I know with any
woman, is incredibly insulting and a way of one-upping someone. I'll assume
you are a man because your name is Rupert. I'm sure you know if another man
called you a boy it would be emasculating. It is the same for women. It's
also something women have battled with for years--people still call grown
women girls, no matter how much we fight it.

Third, the 9% of women's opinions were completely invalidated by her, as
well as the over all opinion of women who do not have accounts on WP, those
who merely view WP--those who have only edited as IPs, etc. And as I said
overall women's opinions are not allowed on crucial issues due to canvassing
rules. These rules are specifically made to serve the community, who is
mainly male, and not serve the readers, which WP is creating its pages for.
Because these womens' opinions can't be heard, there are no "girls screaming
to tear apart all images." It's because the women who are angry about them
are silenced.

To address Erik's point from the same post, I would also hesitate to say
that WP is the result of reasonable, thoughtful, intelligent people. Oh yes,
there are some that fit that description, but to assume that everyone on
there works this way is just wrong. Many of the people who spend the most
time there are those who have little to do with their time. Those who are
busy putting flat-out porn on the site are not of the reasonable sort. Those
busy making it their hobby to delete pages and categories without regard to
reason are not of the intelligent sort. True we have fine people on
Wikipedia--they are varied like the population on earth. But to say they are
all intelligent, reasonable, and thoughtful is incredibly naive. There are
also users who have no problem letting people know about their possibly
illegal or creepy activities via their edit history, apparently.

You should probably find this encouraging more than anything--and I would
find it interesting if a grass-roots canvassing campaign were put in place
to get more women involved in WP.
--Maggie

On 10/1/2011 10:08 AM, rupert THURNER wrote:

maggie, this email was not very nice and encouraging ... maybe even
the opposite of nice and encouraging :)

On Sat, Oct 1, 2011 at 15:55, Maggie <rockerrepro at gmail.com> wrote:

@Beria
I'm not clear what point you are trying to prove, other than the 9% of
"girls'" voices don't matter. I also find it questionable that you refer to
women as girls and don't hesitate ponder why you don't call men boys.

Many women, like myself, get driven off of WP due to frustration with the
hierarchy, which does exist. Women are treated with less respect, women are
questioned for their motives, women are called prudish if they object to
sexualizing images--or they are told their voices are not important because
they only comprise 9% of the population.

Why do you think they only comprise 9% then?

My goal on WP is to make it more diverse, and TBH I'm not too into this
picture discussion that has gone on for months. But it doesn't mean that it
doesn't matter or it isn't an important one, and it doesn't mean that the
women who care about it aren't important.

Offense is not the reason here, IMO. Offense barely scratches the surface. I
can imagine that many of the people on this list are angry--they are angry
that women are being objectified and because women are in the minority on
the community and it's an uninviting, sometimes terribly creepy atmosphere,
their voices do not matter.

As for badly written? My god that is the worst you can say? In writing terms
that is just snide and a low blow. Basically, only someone who can think of
no other insult would say this. "Well it's badly written and has spelling
mistakes!" Come on, get a fucking life.

Wikipedia is set up so that only people who look for these articles/pictures
will know about voting procedures. So of course if there is a vote, the
majority would probably be overall positive unless serious canvassing went
on to let people who care about the other side know about it so it evens
out. Canvassing is set up to prevent this--I believe it's actually a way of
biasing the community to serve only the community, and not the readers.
Because the readers are--the world. Telling people about the topic is just
like how any election goes. I guess unless you are in some sort of fake
election where people are led to believe that their votes actually count.

Nowhere did you prove that she lied in that article. You only stated how you
disagree with her opinion. Obviously you are not part of this group for the
interest of women, otherwise you would care about that 9%'s opinion---so why
are you subscribing???

--Maggie

On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 5:49 AM, B?ria Lima <beria.lima at wikimedia.pt>
wrote:

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/069078.html
_____
*B?ria Lima*
Wikimedia Portugal <http://wikimedia.pt>
  (351) 963 953 042

*Imagine um mundo onde ? dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
livre acesso ao somat?rio de todo o conhecimento humano. ? isso o que
estamos a fazer.*


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