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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