[WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

Sun Nov 26 08:57:51 UTC 2006

Kat Walsh wrote:

>Responses to several subthreads, all mixed up:
>
>So, Alphax said something... ill-considered at best. If I hadn't been
>one of the first to see the post, I wouldn't have responded, either,
>not out of intimidation but because I don't see the need to pile on.
>It was a tactless and ill-judged posting, and someone should have said
>something about it; someone did and I don't see the need for
>*everyone* to, particularly if it had been then left and everyone went
>on talking about the primary topic of the thread.
>
>It's interesting for me to read of the private responses kc has
>received: I find it hard to think of myself feeling intimidated at the
>thought of responding to that, and I normally consider myself more
>timid than most. If I ever feel intimidated on the list (and sometimes
>I do), it's because I think I'm less knowledgeable about the subject
>being discussed or because I have a very unpopular opinion; this
>feeling is not unique to Wikimedia lists, and not even different for
>me on mostly-female lists. I'm surprised to hear of so many women
>feeling intimidated over concerns of sexism here because I simply
>haven't experienced it -- or perhaps I have and am oblivious to it.
>
I find your analysis of this thread refreshing   To some extent we all 
experience some level of intimidation.  Unpopular opinions tend to be 
not very well received, and sometimes the responses can be quite out of 
proportion.  Knowing this we resist jumping into some threads.

>(As for the idea that any criticism of the position that there is bias
>here would be held as evidence of misogyny -- if the criticism
>expressed so far were more genuine and less antagonistic it would be
>better received. Responding antagonistically and then holding up the
>fact that you were attacked for it does not help make the argument
>that reasonable criticism also would be attacked.)
>
Absolutely.  Masculine hysteria abounds.  Sexist and often boorish 
comments are hysterically interpreted as misogyny.  Claims that someone 
has said something wrong are elaborated into claims of lying.  
Investigations of possible copyvios are treated as outright 
certainties.  Statements are often sprinkled with that greatest of 
attack words, "obviously."

>I don't know of any of our policies in particular that are unfriendly
>to women, and so I don't know how they would be changed to be more
>female-friendly. If I do see a problem it is with the users and their
>interactions and not with the policies themselves, which seem fairly
>neutral; I'd like to see examples of policies and processes that
>others believe *are* harmful in this way.
>
I again agree.  What often appears female-unfriendly is the masculine 
tone with which some issues are pursued, whether or not women are 
involved or mentioned.  The absolute certainty and immutability of some 
views is not consistent with the more feminine tendency toward 
negotiation and accomodation.  The punitve attitude that everything 
would be so much better if only we acted more harshly with offenders 
often leaves little room for new win-win solutions.  For sure, there 
will always be people who need to be banned, but in a remedial 
environment it is done out of a real need to improve the community 
rather than to get rid of petty annoyances.

>The thread has gone somewhat off the original topic in discussing the
>extreme harassment against female editors, which, yes, I have
>experienced as well. Everyone agrees that it's horrible and generally
>that the people who engage in it should be banned into oblivion.
>However, I don't think that it is Wikipedia policy or process enabling
>it, save that Wikipedia is part of the internet and that sadly a woman
>who reveals her gender online is probably going to be harassed; really
>the only way to avoid it anywhere is anonymity. (Men have been
>harassed this way on WP too, though it's indeed less common, and they
>are only targeted by plain creepy jerks, not creepy jerk misogynists.)
>
One still needs to distinguish between the very poor manners of sexist 
comments in a mailing list, and the offline extremes applied by the 
stalkers.

>The coverage issues that the thread started with are more interesting
>to me. Why are topics that are traditionally of female interest,
>whatever they are, less well-covered? My
>completely-unsupported-by-evidence anecdotal conjecture is that the
>intersection of people interested in those topics with the people who
>spend a lot of time online and think it would be enjoyable to edit an
>online encyclopedia is somewhat less than that with, say, those who
>are interested in computing and military history. (I'm not one of the
>people, incidentally: I have little knowledge of many traditionally
>female-interest topics, which is part of why I spend so much time
>online in the first place.)
>
With patience people (women?) will eventually arrive to deal with these 
topics.  There are plenty of women's magazines in supermarket magazine 
racks, so there must be authors to produce all that.  We need to 
remember too that cooking may be stereotypically considered as a female 
topic, yet there was a protracted dispute about having recipes in 
Wikipedia.  It could be intimidating to believe that other such topics 
could be treated as not worthy of a proper encyclopedia.

>And I don't know that changing the way we work is the way to change
>that -- we have to bring them here first. It seems that they don't
>care much that we exist, or realize that they can edit, or know what
>the policies are that they might object to; if we want these subjects
>covered I would suggest reaching out to the places where enthusiasts
>of these topics share information (magazines, specialty forums, etc)
>and helping them get started, maybe even encouraging them to adapt or
>release material they've already written elsewhere. But as far as I
>can tell the potential writers aren't even here to do that.
>
Yes, it just takes patience.

Ec