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via Matthew Roth at WMF. Sue published this blog post just recently: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/05/01/of-wikipedia-categories-and-sexism/ What’s missing from the media discussions of Wikipedia categories and sexism Posted by Sue Gardner on May 1, 2013 Last week the New York Times published an Op-Ed from author Amanda Filipacchi headlined Wikipedia’s Sexism Toward Female Novelists, in which she criticized Wikipedia for moving some authors from the “American novelists” category into a sub-category called “American women novelists.” Because there is no subcategory for “American male novelists,” Filipacchi saw the change as reflecting a sexist double standard, in which ‘male’ is positioned as the ungendered norm, with ‘female’ as a variant. I completely understand why Filipacchi was outraged. She saw herself, and Harper Lee, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Judy Blume, Louisa May Alcott, Mary Higgins Clark, and many others, seemingly downgraded in the public record and relegated to a subcategory that she assumed would get less readership than the main one. She saw this as a loss for American women novelists who might otherwise be visible when people went to Wikipedia looking for ideas about who to hire, to honor, or to read. In the days following, other publications picked up the story, and Filipacchi wrote two followup pieces — one describing edits made to her own biography on Wikipedia following her first op-ed, and another rebutting media stories that had positioned the original categorization changes as the work of a lone editor. For me–as a feminist Wikipedian–reading the coverage has been extremely interesting. I agree with many of the criticisms that have been raised (as I think many Wikipedians do), and yet there are important points that I think have been missing from the media discussions so far. In Wikipedia, like any large-scale human endeavor, practice often falls short of intent. Individuals make mistakes, but that doesn’t and shouldn’t call into question the usefulness or motivations of the endeavor as a whole. Since 2011, Wikipedia has officially discouraged the creation of gender-specific subcategories, except when gender is relevant to the category topic. (One of the authors of the guideline specifically noted that it is clear that any situation in which women get a gendered subcategory while men are left in the ungendered parent category is unacceptable.) In other words, the very situation Filipacchi decries in her op-ed has been extensively discussed and explicitly discouraged on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a continual work-in-progress. It’s never done. In her original op-ed, Filipacchi seems to assume that Wikipedians are planning to move all the women out of the American Novelists category, leaving all the men. But that’s not the case. There’s a continuous effort on Wikipedia to refine and revise categories with large populations, and moving out the women from American Novelists would surely have been followed by moving out the satirical novelists, or the New York novelists, or the Young Adult novelists. I’d argue it’s still an inappropriate thing to do, because women are 50 percent of the population, not a variant to the male norm. Nevertheless the move needs to be understood not as an attack on women, but rather, in the context of continuous efforts to refine and revise all categories. Wikipedia is a reflection of the society that produces it. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, and as such it reflects the cultural biases and attitudes of the general society. It’s important to say that the people who write Wikipedia are a far larger and vastly more diverse group than the staff of any newsroom or library or archive, past or present. That’s why Wikipedia is bigger, more comprehensive, up-to-date and nuanced, compared with any other reference work. But with fewer than one in five contributors being female, gender is definitely Wikipedia’s weak spot, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that it would fall victim to the same gender-related errors and biases as the society that produces it. Are there misogynists on Wikipedia? Given that anyone with internet access can edit it, and that there are roughly 80,000 active editors (those who make at least 5 edits per month on Wikimedia projects), it would be absurd to claim that Wikipedia is free of misogyny. Are there well-intentioned people on Wikipedia accidentally behaving in ways that perpetuate sexism? Of course. It would be far more surprising if Wikipedia were somehow free of sexism, rather than the reverse. Which brings me to my final point. It’s not always the case, but in this instance the system worked. Filipacchi saw something on Wikipedia that she thought was wrong. She drew attention to it. Now it’s being discussed and fixed. That’s how Wikipedia works. The answer to bad speech is more speech. Many eyes make all bugs shallow. If you see something on Wikipedia that irks you, fix it. If you can’t do it yourself, the next best thing is to do what Filipacchi did — talk about it, and try to persuade other people there’s a problem. Wikipedia belongs to its readers, and it’s up to all of us to make it as good as it possibly can be. Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 2:31 PM, Matthew Roth <mr...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > I know we've put a lot of these on the list recently, but I think this > piece provides a fairly reasoned analysis and a good call to action for > more women to get involved and edit: > > FORBESWOMAN | 4/26/2013 > > http://www.forbes.com/sites/deannazandt/2013/04/26/yes-wikipedia-is-sexist-thats-why-it-needs-you/ > > Yes, Wikipedia Is Sexist -- That's Why It Needs You > Deanna Zandt, Contributor > > In a New York Times op-ed, writer Amanda Filipacchi shared her discovery > that sexism on Wikipedia is intrusively shaping how women are represented, > and in this case, how women are sometimes categorized as a special subset > within a broader occupation. [Disclaimer: one of the services my agency > offers is teaching webinars and workshops on the principles of Wikipedia > editing.] While the veracity of this claim is being debated and questioned > within the Wikipedia community (many are pointing out that the edits > Filipacchi describes were rejected strongly, and that there are more > structural problems with the entries discussed), there’s no doubt that > gender and other biases, both conscious/intentional and unconscious, are > common on Wikipedia. Over the years, any number of flare-ups around gender > have occurred, ranging from harassment via vandalism of women’s pages, to > using language and informational structures that marginalize or even erase > entire genders, and more. > > But saying that “Wikipedia is sexist” and hoping its users change their > ways misses the mark on the bigger opportunity we have culturally to shift > how we represent our information and stories on Wikipedia. Anyone can edit > Wikipedia, but over 80% of Wikipedia’s editors are young, white, child-free > men, which means that their perspective is what largely dominates how > information is organized, framed and written. There’s nothing inherently > wrong with a young, white, child-free man’s perspective, of course– it’s > just that there are tons of other perspectives in the world that should > influence how a story gets told. Think about how many Americans, for > example, learned about white colonists’ relationships with the indigenous > peoples that lived on the continent. The purely-Manifest-Destiny version of > the events that’s often given to children in school definitely isn’t how > people who’ve been nearly eradicated would tell that story. > > Thus, it’s critical that we have as many perspectives as we can find > creating the information that we share with one another, and this is a > driving force behind one of Wikipedia’s main principles: neutral point of > view. One person’s take can never be completely neutral, but Wikipedia’s > guidelines hope that with many people participating, the most neutral > version of a story will arise. > > Which is why it’s not enough to sit back and hope for the best when > finding sexist, racist, homophobic, trans*phobic, etc., language or > information on Wikipedia. In order to fix it, we need lots of different > kinds of people to jump in and start editing Wikipedia, too. That’s a scary > prospect, but there are tons of resources available for beginners to get > started. > > Wikipedia has a a welcome library of resources that includes handbooks and > videos on principles of editing and how to use the editing tools. > > - WikiWomen is a collective of people interested in supporting women’s > activities in the community. It’s both a rallying cause and resource for > women’s participation, as well as a supportive environment in which to > learn. > - The Teahouse is a community gathering spot on Wikipedia for > newcomers (of all genders) to ask questions and get help with problems they > might be having. > - Of course, my own work: I teach introductory webinars and workshops > on Wikipedia principles, tools and resources, and have tailored those > workshops to primarily women-centered groups. > > One of my own first forays into understanding the sexism of the Wikipedia > community, and learning how it could right itself, was back in 2005. A very > public conversation took place about the fact that the entry for “Woman” > contained a list of (mostly derogatory) slang terms for women. On top of > the abject negativity that section offered for the entry, there was also no > comparable list in the entry for “Man.” But instead of simply kvetching on > blogs and listservs, the Wikipedians who cared about the issue took to the > “Talk” page of the “Woman” entry — this is where anyone can discuss the > content of a page — and started to hash out how and why to improve. > Eventually, everyone agreed to move those terms to the “Misogyny” entry. > > Not every discussion ends up working out so neatly, of course, but > Wikipedians have worked hard on hammering out editing guidelines together > (there’s even a mediation process for people who can’t agree on how a page > should be edited). Where things start to get sticky is figuring out how to > handle the bias that may influence those guidelines. For example, one of > the principles of a Wikipedia entry is notability. How notable an item is > can depend on how much it’s been referenced in 3rd-party sources, like > academic journals or news articles. With the case of the novelists in the > Times piece, verifying that a novelist who is a woman is notable could get > complicated based on that guideline. Tech entrepreneur and author Lauren > Bacon brought this to my attention in an email discussion: “If [writers who > are women] can’t get equal representation in the literary review pages, > then how can they get the necessary ‘credible source’ citations that > Wikipedia demands in order to deem them a noteworthy individual?” > > I don’t expect Wikipedia to solve the sexism that exists in the world, but > I do see it as a place for us to challenge the status quo of the sexism > that surrounds us. And it’s not enough that we create an open system and > say that everyone has the opportunity to work on it– we need to make > intentional interventions into the status quo that involve raising the > voices of those who are not heard as often. That’s just starting to happen, > and I’m looking forward to seeing where we take it, together. > > – > > Many thanks to Sarah Stierch for sharing WikiWomen and the Teahouse > resources with me. > > > On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 5:42 PM, Sarah Stierch <sstie...@wikimedia.org>wrote: > >> I concur with Jimmy. >> >> On an feminist academic list I'm on a poster suggested the editor is a >> "clueless busybody". >> >> I second that. I find value in "women's" categories as a feminist >> academic. But this was just a situation of epic fail being exploded into a >> gender-mess. >> >> Sarah >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> On Apr 25, 2013, at 5:37 PM, Jimmy Wales <jwa...@wikia-inc.com> wrote: >> >> > On 4/25/13 8:00 PM, James Alexander wrote: >> >> Yeah, I think the discussion on the Categories for discussion page >> will likely mean this steers towards conclusion relatively quickly as a >> keep and merge option (keep them in the female category but readd them to >> the general category). >> >> >> >> Though as a Wikipedian I tend to have the 'what's the problem? This >> isn't sexist it's just more specific, we should have a male category too >> but you aren't saying they aren't American novelists it's just repetitive >> to have both" viewpoint. It confounds me how people wouldn't understand >> that 'American women novelists' are obviously by definition included as >> 'american novelists' as well and so don't need to be manually included in >> both ... >> > I urge everyone who is communicating on this issue to very strongly >> avoid this approach. It's just wrong and it makes us look really really >> bad. >> > >> > It *is* sexist to have a category "American novelists" that contains >> only men, and a subcategory "American female novelists" for the women. It >> is sexist >> > because it assumes that "male" is the default and "female" is a special >> case. >> > >> > There are several valid options, but that one is really not acceptable. >> > >> > It is very important that we emphasize to the press that the Wikipedia >> community did not and does not approve of such categorization schemes. >> There is >> > overwhelming shock and opposition to the very possibility. What >> happened here is apparently one editor working on gender separation and >> being slightly >> > clueless about the implications. >> > >> > --Jimbo >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Wmfcc-l mailing list >> > wmfc...@lists.wikimedia.org >> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wmfcc-l >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wmfcc-l mailing list >> wmfc...@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wmfcc-l >> > > > > -- > > Matthew Roth > Global Communications Manager > Wikimedia Foundation > +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 > www.wikimediafoundation.org > *https://donate.wikimedia.org* > -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* _______________________________________________ Wmfcc-l mailing list wmfc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wmfcc-l -- -- *Sarah Stierch* *Museumist, open culture advocate, and Wikimedian* *www.sarahstierch.com*
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