Marc, I don't think you're improving the "communication problem" you
describe by telling people their ideas are "nonsense", "self-serving",
or "insulting". Yes, Laura's ideas are challenging, but getting overly
defensive doesn't help the discussion.
Kaldari
On 3/16/11 1:58 PM, Marc Riddell wrote:
----------
*From: *Marc Riddell <[email protected]>
*Date: *Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:49:32 -0400
*To: *Laura Hale <[email protected]>
*Subject: *Re: [Gendergap] Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for
women and transgender, sublist for male supporters
Laura, your interpretation of my words is strikingly self-serving, and
your solutions would serve to widen whatever gap exists in the
Project. This entire "problem" is not one of gender, but of individual
persons having problems communicating with a particular group of other
persons. My question to all of those who state that they have a
problem communicating with, or feel intimidated by, a male in the
venue of a mailing list such as this, is do you have the same problem
in person? There are many, many strong, intelligent voices in the
Wikipedia Project who also happen to be female. And to include them in
this "gendergap", and suggest that this is strictly a gender issue, is
an insult to them.
Marc
on 3/16/11 4:06 PM, Laura Hale at [email protected] wrote:
On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 11:42 PM, Marc Riddell
<[email protected]> wrote:
This is simply, nonsense!
That is your opinion, and you're welcome to it. In my experience,
there are two general groups of women:
1. One who welcome men as participants in events specifically
targeting women, because the women feel the men can learn.
2. One who don't want men involved because they feel women should
work towards their own self interests and that women behave
differently around men.
Don't you people realize that separating this List
into two distinct ones would underline, reinforce and actually
signify the
very "gendergap" you are allegedly trying to resolve.
This pretty much is why I think we need men off the list. While
you're intending to or not, I'm reading this as "Don't you
understand that the only way women can succeed it by having men
involved! You need men!" If you're not intending to send the
message: Women cannot succeed with out men!, then you may want to
reconsider your wording.
And I'd argue the opposite: Men have done an awful job at
recruiting women to be involved with Wikipedia. The current
problems exist because men have tried to "solve" this problem.
This is people talking
with people. If there is a female or male here who has a problem
communicating with, or in the presence of, another gender -
they do have a
problem.
Translation: "Women! You're the problem! If you could stop
engaging in female modes of communication, we could fix this
problem! "
This list is NOT a general list for increasing the participation
rates of people. If you want to have a list dedicated to
generally increasing the participation rates of people on
Wikipedia, then fork off and do that.
But a website Mailing List such as this is not the place to
resolve
it.
Am I supposed to interpret this as you claiming that this list has
a mission that will never succeed because it acknowledges there
are gender differences and different approaches are needed to get
different audiences? As a woman, a representative of a minority
group on Wikipedia, how am I supposed to respond to you? I can
tell you that this post of yours makes me feel distinctly
uncomfortable posting to this list. It seems to put men in the
position of power above women, demanding that women participate
only in male modes of communication, that women on the list can't
talk about genuine concerns they have as women because they are
going to get blown off, and that feelings of men on the list are
more important then women.
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