I dont think the issue is the idea of encouraging projects that increase the participation of women, but rather the message that everything else is getting shoved aside.
I dont see this as sexism and playing that card is counter-productive. What I suggest is that instead of saying that for three months everyone else is sidelined, focus on inclusion. If there arent enough or good enough projects for addressing the number of women participating in Wikipedia, perhaps we should look into why. Perhaps also look into the Foundation directly reaching out to women's groups for collaborative purposes. But the OP does have a point. By telling certain groups "we are not interested in you right now" you are playing an "us-against-them" game and quite probably causing more harm than good. Leigh > Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 09:03:40 -0500 > From: nawr...@gmail.com > To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap > project-related decision > > You certainly put a lot of time and effort into being wrong. Any first year > undergraduate writing course will tell you that to make an argument you > need to address the counter-arguments, which you have failed even to > mention. Diversity of contributors isn't a social justice goal, or even a > cultural engineering goal. It is aimed squarely at increasing the diversity > and caliber of content. Not only does the small proportion of women mean > that millions of them with huge amounts of expertise to contribute are > unheard, it also means that their perspective and approach are > underrepresented or missing entirely. > > And yes, the same is true for others - not only African-Americans, but > Africans. Not only people of "Indo-Asian" descent, but the people of the > Indian subcontinent itself. This is not an American movement, yet the > "global south" is deeply under-represented, and the WMF has been working > for years to address this issue. This is, again, because diversity of > contributors matters for the breadth and depth of coverage in our projects. > The goal of the Wikimedia movement is the sum of all human knowledge, not > the sum of knowledge held by white men between 15 and 35 living in Europe > and North America. > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
