Jimmy Wales wrote:
Puppy wrote:
I appreciate that, Fred. I am not concerned so much about the lack of response to my concerns, as I am about the lack of response to overt sexist attacks on this mailing list. I am well aware it is not Wikipedia. Most of the people on this list are the same people as on Wikipedia. If you call a black man a nigger in the field, you will at least /think/ he's a nigger in the house. And don't think the attitude doesn't bleed through, because it does.
Can someone send me a link to the archive where these attacks took place?
--Jimbo
If you are speaking about the incident with a lack of response, which concerned me, it happened on this thread.
When I started posting to this thread, I was taking exception to the categorization of [[Blowdryer]] as a "woman's topic". I tossed out a few observations on gender bias. Until I did, I didn't think gender bias on WP was that bad - but my inbox is proving me wrong. I just received another email, responding to a post I made to this thread: <pasted email> On 11/25/06, Puppy wrote:
When I first started contributing to this thread I received a number of emails, all from women, all thanking me and encouraging me, yet none of them posted to the list.
Private email response:
That doesn't surprise me at all.
Do you think it would be a good idea to have a separate mailing list to discuss the problems of gender bias in Wikipedia (both in terms of the content and the community)? Along the lines of [[LinuxChix]] perhaps?
<end pasted email>
Why didn't this woman, like the others who have been emailing me, post to this list? I am getting emails from women, all saying how terrific I am, how glad they are someone is posting these concerns, and now I'm getting suggestions for a women's mailing list. Why do you think that is?
Alphax wrote "Women arguing on this list reinforces the view of "woman-as-empty-headed-shallow-person"."
This is clearly an overt sexist attack. Let's put the shoe on the other foot - what if most of the posts to this list were by men, and a woman wrote "Men arguing on this list reinforces the view of "man-as-stupid-testosterone-driven-lout"? But that isn't really a parallel, because women don't run this society. Try imagining this - lets change "women and men" to "black and white", using gender issues rather than race issues from the r/w: You are a black man. You live in a society where most of the power is wielded by whites. All the bosses you've ever had have been white. The president has always been white. There are people who express openly their beliefs that blacks are substandard. Your religion states you are subservient to whites, and that is God's plan. Until the 1970s, you did not have autonomy over your body, under the law. Until the 1980s, you could not even own property in some states in your name - your white boss owned it, and in fact could do what he wanted with it under the law (See Kirchberg v. Feenstra, 1981). You can be raped by a white person, and if you take it to court, it is often worse than the rape - people make racist remarks, say you "asked for it." You walk into a room. Almost everyone is white. Someone makes a racist comment. None of the other people protest, and some laugh. Do you A) Speak out your convictions strongly and clearly? or B) give a weak laugh and look for the exit door?
I'm thinking the other women are waiting to see if I'm lynched. That's why they are emailing me privately, even suggesting a separate mailing list. *They are intimidated against posting these concerns on this list.* I personally don't think that "separate but equal" works very well. I'm speaking up, myself.
What if the black man had seen a different response? What if someone made a racist comment or joke, and /all/ the white people in the room had spoken out, telling the bigot they didn't tolerate such behavior? Told the bigot to apologize, to take his racist comments elsewhere because they were not welcome? I think the black man would breathe a little easier... but he'd still be outnumbered. I hear about a "welcoming attitude" and "we should be on the lookout for bias or other bad behavior towards women editors and do what we can to mitigate its effects" yet how many spoke out when Alphax posted his clearly anti-female post to this list? I'm saying we are in a biased society, which is reflected in both mens' and womens' attitudes, and if you truly want to get a more balanced editing pool and make women feel welcome here, no gender bias, whether subtle or overt, can be ignored. Or we'll continue to have a few strong women, fewer as we go up the chain of power, and the imbalance will continue.
-kc-