Our current IEG grantee for research on female editing, Mssemantics (Amanda), may have something to say, although she may want to wait until she feels she has adequate data from her research.
In any case, I'm going to encourage Mssemantics to participate on the discussion on this list or at least listen to it. Thanks for thinking of me, Pine. I’ve been lurking on this list for quite some time. I posted about my IEG—asking for feedback and for interview/focus group participants—but, otherwise, I’ve kept quiet. Pine is right: I’d rather have adequate data before I contribute. Thus far, I’ve interviewed 18 Wikipedians who edit EN and self-identify as women. I’d like to do several more interviews and a few focus groups—with all genders as I believe it’s important to have representation of different opinions, perspectives, and stories. I also plan to do a thematic analysis of the archives of this mailing list to understand better how the community has constructed the story of the gender gap, asking whether this list has been a safe, cooperative space or a site of conflict (or both—as it most likely has been from what I’ve seen) and how that struggle has been handled, etc. I’ll be looking at program evaluations of editing events geared toward addressing the gender gap, user’s edit counts, etc. So, yes, more data. :) However, I will say that, thus far, what I’ve heard, seen, read, etc. points toward cultural problems—some aided and abetted by policies, some aided and abetted by underlying technologies. Although my project is called “Women and Wikipedia,” I’m also concerned with how the dominant culture on EN may be discouraging participation amongst those (all genders) who aren’t part of it. I’ll have much more to say—including some design suggestions—after November/December. But, for now, thank you for the privilege of listening. Please, anyone, feel free to reach out to me personally if you’d like to chat, too. Best, Mssemantics/Amanda From: Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com<mailto:wiki.p...@gmail.com>> Reply-To: "Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the participation of women within Wikimedia projects." <gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org>> Date: Thursday, July 3, 2014 at 1:50 AM To: "Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the participation of women within Wikimedia projects." <gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org>> Subject: Re: [Gendergap] men on lists Hi Moriel and others, Do you have a list of "realistic changes" in mind for the community? I hear almost no one say that the typical state of (in)civility on wiki or on Wikimedia-l is good enough or that people are being hypersensitive, so I get the sense that there's a lot of agreement that we have a cultural problem. Ideas for solutions seem to be in short supply, so any "realistic changes" that you can suggest would be good to hear, either on this list or in IdeaLab. If there are issues other than civility and the occasional trolling, I think it would be good to have a list of those. Then everyone can be looking at the same set of problems and be thinking about how to address them. Our current IEG grantee for research on female editing, Mssemantics (Amanda), may have something to say, although she may want to wait until she feels she has adequate data from her research. In any case, I'm going to encourage Mssemantics to participate on the discussion on this list or at least listen to it. Pine On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 11:19 PM, Moriel Schottlender <mor...@gmail.com<mailto:mor...@gmail.com>> wrote: I understand all the reasons, but I must disagree on a couple of points*. I think it might have to do with me having a different experience with these topics, but while I do agree that there's absolutely a great advantage of having a women-only space, I also think that it is context-dependent. I don't know if we can deal or attempt to fix the gendergap issues in Wikipedia without engaging the men. I can also see how some men really want to help but are unaware of the depth of the problems at hand, so I don't see a problem with dedicating one or two threads to talking about it. Then again, that's also why I prefer forums over lists; in forums, you can have these types of discussions and people can choose which discussion to go and read and which to ignore and never get into. Much harder to do in an email lists. But I digress. I think that there could be a huge benefit of a more closed or restricted women-only group and that group can serve as both a place to feel comfortable in (which is VERY important) and a place to brainstorm without fear of argumentative responses. *But* since this specific mailing list is public, I think we should definitely consider the fact that having men -- and, yes, sometimes spending the energy of explaining (or creating a boilerplate response if these cases start being overwhelming) might actually work for our benefit. I'm thinking about men who don't really "get it" but want to, who try to understand but don't notice that they're stuck in the same issues we're trying to improve. If we don't handle those situations, we will lose the allies we *have* to have in order to commit realistic changes in the community. Moriel * Oh noes, argumentativeness! On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 1:40 AM, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com<mailto:wiki.p...@gmail.com>> wrote: Valerie's interesting comments are in line with one of the reasons I've stayed off of this list in the past. I am ok with women having a space without men around, just like I feel men should be able to have a space without women around. I'm familiar with a workplace where at least one employee lounge is female-only, and considering that many of the employees of both genders have union representation, I suppose that the employees as a whole support having that lounge be the way it is. In the Wikipedia context, if some women wanted to have a supportive email list or social network group only for women, where women could talk in relative privacy, I would say go for it. Interestingly, I was invited, completely sight unseen and with only the most basic of introductions from a third party, to attend an edit-a-thon at what I believe was a female-focused software engineering workspace. I told the person who invited me that I was uncomfortable with stepping into the women's space, and she assured me that as long as people are respectful that everything would be ok. I'm not the type of male who would invite myself to an event like that, nor do I plan on setting up workshops for the opposite gender. I thought it was remarkably open of the women to invite me into their space, especially knowing relatively little about me. I guess they felt safety in numbers? I'm not used to getting that kind of invitation! Anyway, if some of the WikiWomen want to set up a relatively private and supportive space just for WikiWomen, I'd say that sounds like an idea worth trying. If there is some need for resources, IdeaLab and the grants programs stand ready to hear requests. (: Pine On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Carol Moore dc <carolmoor...@verizon.net<mailto:carolmoor...@verizon.net>> wrote: Thanks for excellent comments below. Let's keep them in mind. Even some of us "tough chicks" still can get sucked into the "helper" role even if it's against our own interests... sigh... On 7/2/2014 6:33 PM, Valerie Aurora wrote: .... Hi Phoebe, Thanks for your thoughtful and carefully explained comment! The perspective I am coming from here is over 13 years of experience with spaces for supporting women in open tech/culture, starting with LinuxChix in 2002. A pattern that groups like this have found over and over again is that a spaces designed to support women in these areas inevitably attract men with poor social skills, who then ask the group for (unpaid) help improving their social skills. In most open tech/culture groups, such requests would be unthinkable, but we are often socialized to expect women to provide emotional support and help to others (especially men and children) on request, without consideration for the value of their time and energy. The result is that, without a strong awareness and guarding of the original purpose of the group, the group dedicates an ever-larger portion of its time to teaching men social skills. Many of the people who are interested in the original purpose of the group tend to lose interest and depart. This is exactly what happened to LinuxChix - our IRC channel became primarily about counseling various men who had found a welcoming and supportive environment, and our mailing lists were more enjoyable and fulfilling for men looking for emotional boosts than for women looking for a supportive environment where they could talk about Linux. In short, I agree with you that there is some potential benefit to providing free social skills counseling to men who are interested in supporting women in open tech/culture. In my experience, the cost is much greater: the time and emotional energy of many women that could be used much more effectively on other projects. -VAL _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap -- No trees were harmed in the creation of this post. But billions of electrons, photons, and electromagnetic waves were terribly inconvenienced during its transmission! _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
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