[WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

Sat Nov 25 13:20:55 UTC 2006

Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Puppy wrote:
>   
>> I appreciate that, Fred. I am not concerned so much about the lack of 
>> response to my concerns, as I am about the lack of response to overt 
>> sexist attacks on this mailing list. I am well aware it is not 
>> Wikipedia. Most of the people on this list are the same people as on 
>> Wikipedia. If you call a black man a nigger in the field, you will at 
>> least /think/ he's a nigger in the house. And don't think the attitude 
>> doesn't bleed through, because it does.
>>     
>
> Can someone send me a link to the archive where these attacks took place?
>
> --Jimbo
>   

If you are speaking about the incident with a lack of response, which 
concerned me, it happened on this thread.

When I started posting to this thread, I was taking exception to the 
categorization of [[Blowdryer]] as a "woman's topic". I tossed out a few 
observations on gender bias. Until I did, I didn't think gender bias on 
WP was that bad - but my inbox is proving me wrong. I just received 
another email, responding to a post I made to this thread:
<pasted email>
On 11/25/06, Puppy wrote:
 > > When I first started contributing to this thread I received a number of
 > > emails, all from women, all thanking me and encouraging me, yet none of
 > > them posted to the list.

Private email response:
 > That doesn't surprise me at all.
 >
 > Do you think it would be a good idea to have a separate mailing list
 > to discuss the problems of gender bias in Wikipedia (both in terms of
 > the content and the community)?
 > Along the lines of [[LinuxChix]] perhaps?

<end pasted email>

Why didn't this woman, like the others who have been emailing me, post 
to this list? I am getting emails from women, all saying how terrific I 
am, how glad they are someone is posting these concerns, and now I'm 
getting suggestions for a women's mailing list. Why do you think that is?

Alphax wrote "Women arguing on this list reinforces the view of 
"woman-as-empty-headed-shallow-person"."

This is clearly an overt sexist attack. Let's put the shoe on the other 
foot - what if most of the posts to this list were by men, and a woman 
wrote "Men arguing on this list reinforces the view of 
"man-as-stupid-testosterone-driven-lout"? But that isn't really a 
parallel, because women don't run this society. Try imagining this - 
lets change "women and men" to "black and white", using gender issues 
rather than race issues from the r/w: You are a black man. You live in a 
society where most of the power is wielded by whites. All the bosses 
you've ever had have been white. The president has always been white. 
There are people who express openly their beliefs that blacks are 
substandard. Your religion states you are subservient to whites, and 
that is God's plan. Until the 1970s, you did not have autonomy over your 
body, under the law. Until the 1980s, you could not even own property in 
some states in your name - your white boss owned it, and in fact could 
do what he wanted with it under the law (See Kirchberg v. Feenstra, 
1981). You can be raped by a white person, and if you take it to court, 
it is often worse than the rape - people make racist remarks, say you 
"asked for it."  You walk into a room. Almost everyone is white. Someone 
makes a racist comment. None of the other people protest, and some 
laugh. Do you A) Speak out your convictions strongly and clearly? or B) 
give a weak laugh and look for the exit door?

I'm thinking the other women are waiting to see if I'm lynched. That's 
why they are emailing me privately, even suggesting a separate mailing 
list. *They are intimidated against posting these concerns on this 
list.* I personally don't think that "separate but equal" works very 
well. I'm speaking up, myself.

What if the black man had seen a different response? What if someone 
made a racist comment or joke, and /all/ the white people in the room 
had spoken out, telling the bigot they didn't tolerate such behavior? 
Told the bigot to apologize, to take his racist comments elsewhere 
because they were not welcome? I think the black man would breathe a 
little easier... but he'd still be outnumbered. I hear about a 
"welcoming attitude" and "we should be on the lookout for bias or other 
bad behavior towards women editors and do what we can to mitigate its 
effects" yet how many spoke out when Alphax posted his clearly 
anti-female post to this list? I'm saying we are in a biased society, 
which is reflected in both mens' and womens' attitudes, and if you truly 
want to get a more balanced editing pool and make women feel welcome 
here, no gender bias, whether subtle or overt, can be ignored. Or we'll 
continue to have a few strong women, fewer as we go up the chain of 
power, and the imbalance will continue.

-kc-