[Gendergap] Gendergap Digest, Vol 8, Issue 4 Re: Increasing Visibility of Diversity and Women on Wikipedia (Sarah Stierch)

Sat Sep 3 22:00:40 UTC 2011

Sarah,

Yes those conversations were a real trial for me--it was like knocking my
head against a brick wall. And while I had some friends and knew of a great
number of people who wanted to see these categories put in place, I was not
allowed to let them know where the conversation was going on due to
canvassing rules.

Some categories have not been made by me, because I feel that there would be
way too much chance of them being deleted. I have created them on the
skeleton of the women's categories that already exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_women

The conversations bothered me for a variety of reasons--but these three
stick out: 1) Two people who were actively arguing against or nominating
were not North Americans. So they don't get the dynamic in the US and why
these topics need to exist in the US scheme. B) The high amount of
racism--whether unconscious or overt.
C) I wasn't even sure if there was one person of color involved in these
conversations.

Many of the men are quite intent on deleting these categories--if not out of
sexism, out of a robotic sense of following the rules no matter the case. I
also think they may patrol my account to make sure I don't create these
categories. At least a few were doing it when the whole episode started
anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_July_15#Category:African_American_women_in_politics

In this nomination, the nominator actually says, basically, we live in a
"post-racial" world. So there is no need for the category. Many of the
comments were quite rage inducing at the time. Looking back on it, it looks
like a bunch of people talking nonsense (with racist undertones).

--Maggie

Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2011 10:10:54 -0400
> From: Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Increasing Visibility of Diversity and Women
>        on      Wikipedia
> To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects
>        <gendergap at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
>        <CAKiGLfpJYcErug8nFXVLFBKuH64L-bgr4u7o=6uf+mJ8aP1q7w at mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Here is the deletion log, for reference, regarding "African American women"
> it looks like the desire was to have it used as a main category and then
> have sub categories added to it, and I think that makes sense, but I also
> understand some aren't categorized.
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_July_16
>
> How come Kara Walker, who identifies strongly as a black female artist, is
> generalized as an "African American woman" when I'd rather see her as an
> African American female artist. I guess that's too detailed, but, for me,
> as
> a researcher who writes primarily about African American and Native
> American
> artists, I desire categories like this to make my research easier. Instead
> I
> get a generic list of African American artists which is so incomplete:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_visual_artists
> <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_July_16
> >
> I also get told I desire to "categorize in a way too detailed manner" and
> that my own writing style is "too high brow for Wikipedia" then I find my
> articles getting simplified in a manner that pains me to read. :P And
> that's
> writing about art.
>
> Here is the categorization policy for race, gender, sexuality:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity,_gender,_religion_and_sexuality#Ethnicity_and_race
> I think they read really poorly...like a large portion of documentation in
> Wikipedia.  (And let's not get into the anthropological discussion about
> race...shall we? ;-) )
>
> Some of the rationale is interesting, and honestly, as a white person who
> writes about African American artists, the need for non-white people to
> contribute to Wikipedia is as important as closing the gender gap in
> general. I know quite a few people who would disagree with statements like
> this, not only does it read poorly for the sake of policy, it reads poorly
> in general. It offends me, and I'm anglo. Who the hell wants to contribute
> to a website when you read people stating that your own culture and
> community is not 'worthy of.."
>
>   - "Being African American is not in itself worthy of categorisation, so
>   the articles at the top level should be removed"
>
>
> I also found these entertaining:
>
>
>   - Someone else argues that "Oh yes, African American women's history is a
>   valid scholarly field." The fact that even needs to be argued makes me
>   scratch my head (I feel sorry that the person has to waste their breath
> to
>   explain that!)
>   - Another states that it's sexist if there isn't a category for "African
>   American male artists" or whatnot.
>   - Irish Americans are brought into the mix, obviously some of them are
>   oblivious to this:
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_people_of_Irish_descent
>   - WOW someone brings up the concept of the term African American being
>   "moot because of the One Drop Rule" are you kidding me? If African
> American
>   is moot how come so many people identify as "black" or "African American"
> in
>   America? /facepalm
>
> It's situations like this where we desperately need the input of not only
> African Americans, or non-white individuals, but, also people with
> scholarly
> backgrounds who are educated in these topic areas. Just the fact that the
> guy would bring up the one drop room and declare African American moot is
> enough to make my revisionist self foam at the mouth.
>
> I don't know much about female sports and Asian American tennis players to
> provide much of an opinion. :-/
>
> Sorry you've been put through so much and disappointed by policies
> regarding
> categorization. This mailing list is a safe place to share your thoughts
> and
> feelings!
>
> #wikilove!
>
> Sarah
>
>
> --
> GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for the Wikimedia
> Foundation<http://www.glamwiki.org>
> Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American
> Art<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch>
> and
> Sarah Stierch Consulting
> *Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.*
> ------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.sarahstierch.com/
>
>
>
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