Again, you raise important questions addressing how we can find and nurture 
women in the global context. I also appreciate your positive comments about the 
men in Australia in the wikimedia movement. In the Australian Chapter men and 
women have traditionally worked side by side in our endeavours to support and 
grow our mission. In particular the men and women who have and continue to make 
up the committee, operate in an egalitarian manner, and the male leadership 
continually demonstrates and shows appreciation for an awareness of women's 
involvement in the projects and the running of the Chapter, as do the women for 
the men. So I guess we are lucky in the knowledge that it is to a large degree 
the Australian way of doing things. We are however, both the men and the women, 
aware of the need to support and take action for improvements across the board 
and the global movement. 

Thanks,
Anne

On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 1:19 PM Laura Hale la...@fanhistory.com wrote:
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Laura Hale 
  To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects 
  Sent: Monday, December 26, 2011 1:19 PM
  Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Bothersome? (Re: Pimp)





  On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 12:20 PM, Ms. Anne Frazer <fraz...@bigpond.com> wrote:


    Laura, the entirety of your email is spot on list and I just want to thank 
you for your clarity on this matter and for demonstrating what this list could 
really be discussing. By focusing on supporting women in, and into, leadership 
positions we recognise the exponential potential for greater numbers of women 
to be involved, to be active, in the global movement - and when encouraging 
female participation we can learn to realise we don't need to tell them what to 
do, what to edit, but simply help open up the pathways to everything. 



  Thank you for the kind words. :)  And yes, supporting women in leadership is 
extremely important.  They will bring other women with them.  They have unique 
networks that we might not be able to reach otherwise.  They often understand 
local cultures better, or know people who can do things.  

    I'm simply explaining that which I know about at the same time realising 
the limitations of my knowledge. The significance to Wikimedia of this type of 
women's model for organising, is that it focuses it's efforts on not only 
increasing female participation but on training them into positions of 
leadership; that is, training females on what, and how, and about, all aspects 
of the movement. When a female has the knowledge they can do.



  Opportunities for leadership are probably a great motivational tool to get 
women involved, especially if they have a built in support structure to help 
them with their activities.  I don't know if such a structure currently exists 
now on a wider level, or if it is dependent on chapters to do good work and be 
inclusive and for leaders in individual chapters to make sure that women make 
connections to allow them to lead.  I suspect what happens now is we try to 
recruit people, get a few women who are self motivated and they are left to 
fend for themselves in terms of developing these networks to help them.  And 
these networks are fundamental to success.  Why do feel like I've been so 
successful with my GLAM work?  Because I had a few existing GLAM people who 
were tremendously supportive of me.  Why have I felt so successful recently 
inside my chapter?  Because there are women I can turn to and ask for help.  
Can I and do I get this same support from men?  Yes, and I'm grateful to them.  
I love working with them… (Australia has had a number of men work on our 
perspective page.  Fantastic and I love it!) but I feel like there is something 
special about working with other women.  Providing a support network, going out 
and developing our female leaders, encouraging them to be involved is key to 
not just fixing the gender gap but to increasing participation over all around 
the globe.  If we're looking for a solution, I think this is the first one we 
should be looking at: How do provide support to women in a global context to 
support their already good work?  How do we find and nurture additional female 
leaders?




  -- 
  twitter: purplepopple
  blog: ozziesport.com




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