[WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

Wed Nov 22 04:46:24 UTC 2006

On 11/21/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think it is probably very likely that most of Wikipedia's editing is
> done by males, and I find it inconceivable that this wouldn't effect a
> slant in the editing. That being said, I am not sure I know where the
> "problem" lies, if we decide that it is a problem, and I am not sure
> there is any sort of easy fix. I suspect that editing regularly on
> Wikipedia caters primarily to activities which are often branded as
> "masculine" in U.S. culture (aggressiveness, boldness, assertiveness,
> argumentitiveness), and that would be something without an easy fix
> (and its possible that any fixes would go directly against the
> unplanned, unmanaged wiki spirit). But I don't know.
>
I think female editors have a tendency to be demonized more readily
than men if they assert themselves. A certain attack site is very keen
on attacking women admins, and while that's partly to do with the
personalities of the people who post there, I think there may also be
a strain of sexism in it -- women admins getting above themselves,
being viewed as aggressive rather than assertive. But I haven't
noticed any serious bias in terms of editing.

Sarah