Hi Dorothy, Thank you for your thoughtful and honest email. You raise very important matters that the group should begin discussing openly. I have had similar experiences with Wikimedia NYC and other tech/activist groups, and sometimes felt a little discouraged or shy about speaking up, and a lot of times, I rationalize and brush off what I experience as something I would always experience in groups that are predominantly male.
I'm happy to coordinate our efforts on conference planning to begin a conversation about this. If you need any assistance in organizing a diversity training for our group or would like to set aside time to have a Wikimedia NYC Board meeting for this, please let me know. I will do anything and everything to help start this conversation. Thanks again, Jennifer Jennifer Baek bae...@gmail.com (646)756-9783 On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 2:56 PM, Dorothy Howard <dhow...@metro.org> wrote: > Dear All, > > As one of the few female members of Wikimedia NYC I want to express to you > all my thoughts on the gender dynamics of the group to put things in > perspective. I hope that this email can continue into a wider discussion > about the gender politics of Wikipedia and how to address potential issues > of sexism in our community. > > First off, I have been incredibly thankful for the opportunity to work > with all of you and have learned a lot from my participation in this group > and the gracious help of many of you. > > That said, I have felt that the attitudes of some community members has > been quite antagonistic towards myself and that this had made me feel > unwelcome. Part of my criticism is that I have felt judged at different > points for not having the same technical strengths and/or community > connections in the group. I think it is important for older members of > Wikimedia NYC to remind themselves that not everyone has the same set of > skills/references to draw from and in order to create a friendly and open > environment for new members we have to be patient teachers to newcomers, > not judgmental exclusivists or lecturers. I also bring this up because I > have had several other women that have been in some way involved or have > worked with Wikimedia NYC members at events express discomfort at the > masculine and/or sexist undertones of some of the training styles of > members of Wikimedia NYC this was even true at the ArtAndFeminism event- > which I found very concerning. This greatly concerns me as the group > already is mostly male members, and the perception of this kind of negative > attitude could only prevent the diversification of our group and its > addressal of the concerns with the gender gap more widely in the Wikipedia > community. > > I think one of the problems is that attendees of events don't want to be > told how things are and lectured to as much as they want to be given enough > encouragement to go out and learn the policies/editing on their own. The > difference might seem subtle but I think it is noticeable. I ask each > member of this group to please consider if perhaps you may be implicated in > my concerns here, because this email is not coming out of nowhere but out > of the discomfort and conversation among other members of the group to > which I will leave unnamed. > > I also want to stress that Wikimedia NYC should not be a place for > unwanted, unprofessional romantic attention. This kind of attention makes > it hard to feel like a real person when one's intellectual interests are > being interrupted by an objectifying gaze. I ask that the group treat our > events and meetings like a workplace in the sense that harassment of a > sexual or romantic nature should not be tolerated. > > Thanks for listening. I hope this conversation evolves perhaps into a > training on how to faster a friendly space environment in groups and/or a > larger discussion of the potential gender gaps within the group. I really > think it should be a conversation- I just felt I needed to express these > frustrations upfront instead of continuing to leave them unaddressed. > > Thanks for reading, > > Dorothy > > -- > Dorothy Howard, Open Data Fellow > Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) > 212.228.2320 x127 > <http://metro.org/> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Wikimedia NYC Board" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to wikimedia-nyc-board+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to wikimedia-nyc-bo...@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/wikimedia-nyc-board. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >
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