la...@fanhistory.com: > On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 9:30 AM, Adam Wight <s...@ludd.net> wrote: > > > la...@fanhistory.com: > > > Do you have any data to back up the theory that women will write women's > > > content? > > > > I would hope not, actually! > > > I would actually HOPE you did. The connection was made by you. Only 20% > of biographies are about women. If we can increase women's participation, > this gap in articles in articles about women will disappear. > > I want to know what this premise is, as it appears to be a fundamental > assumption in how the gender gap is addressed. I don't understand why the > thinking is this way and I'd love to see research done on this topic to > prove if this actually holds true.
The 20% was a relative measure, quoted from an even less scholarly source which is currently offline. An archive exists here: http://web.archive.org/web/20100310065157/http://onwikipedia.blogspot.com/2010/01/whos-on-wikipedia-part-2-gender-and.html That article claims that 29% of people in the Gale Biography Resource Center are female (N=330,000), so either wikipedia is underrepresenting by 10%, or Gale is overrepresenting women. You bring up an excellent point, that women aren't necessarily going to write about feminist topics, and some men are. Without a doubt, there are two distinct issues, the first is recruiting strong feminists and women in general, along with people who aren't interested in an encyclopedia strictly-defined, and people who feel queasy around markup languages. The second is to channel creative energy towards feminist topics. There's definitely a chicken-and-egg problem here, nobody can say whether it's more important to recruit, or to create an environment which encourages the type of work you'd like to see. The premise I hope people are acting on when they prioritize participation is the democratic principle, that individuals' interests can only be represented by the people themselves. It's to be expected that most grantmaking bodies are not forward-thinking enough to accept this. -Adam _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
