dmehkeri(a)swi.com wrote:
It is a
complex situation, and I think a little off topic. I don't know
if there is anything here which will illuminate the gender bias and/or
gender gap which we have on Wikipedia, or give insight as to how to
approach better balance. Does any of this cause women to value
themselves less? Do they do "cleanup" because they're used to it?
Do they, in fact, do more than their share of the "cleanup" here? The gender
roles around here might not be what we expect.
Do they shy away from ArbCom or B'crat
because they are
non-confrontational? due to gender differences, or societal expectations
(Pavlovian training)?
Is the gender ratio of b'crats or arbitrarors more male-biased than the gender
ratio of sysops? Of course it's not easy to determine gender from username, but
from a casual inspection of the lists, there don't seem to be that many female
sysops to begin with. If that's right, there's a glass ceiling at or before RfA
anyway.
Is the gender ratio of sysops different from the gender ratio of all RfA
candidates? Should be easy to do a casual inspection at least.
Exercise for the reader.
Is the gender ratio of RfA candidates different than the ratio of regulars?
Regulars versus casual users? Are female administrators more
non-confrontational? Don't know.
Exercise for the masochistic reader.
The email which started this thread talked about
"women's subjects" such as blow dryers and curling irons, and that was
written by a female, yes? That's horrifying to me.
Maybe because chihuahuas hardly have any hair at all?
Dan
_______________________________________________
All excellent points, especially the hair bias.
This is just one aspect of gender bias, and it seems people are focusing
on cleaning rather than bias. I wrote about cleaning; I was attempting
to illustrate underlying thought patterns and paradigms which led to the
cleaning imbalance. It seems now the focus has moved to the cleaning,
and that is my fault, I apologize for poor focus.
I had to evaluate a remote hosting site once and took along a
subordinate male, and I would ask questions and he would get the
explanation. At the end of the visit, the person at the hosting facility
turned to the man and asked if he had any questions. Never asked me. The
bias is real, it is pervasive, and it is a problem. Again, I am not sure
how much this translates into how many women are editors, how many stand
for Admin, B'Crat, Arbcom, etc. I don't think it affects the promotion
ratio - but I haven't done the homework so I don't actually know. If it
does affect the promotion ratio we still aren't looking at the
underlying causes, which could range from gender bias in the
wp-population at large, to lack of experience in the women on a larger
scale - our entire society has fewer women in politics, roles of power,
etc. We reflect that. Do we reflect it 1-for-1? Is the ratio more
balanced, or less, than the society at large? I have no idea, would this
be something which would be worth looking at?
-kc-