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Michelle B
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Michelle commented on the article |Glad to see I'm not the only person who thinks that more research is needed before drawing conclusions!
Kendra - the tech argument is a very valid one. Wikipedia's editing interface simply isn't all that user-friendly to the unitiated - it certainly isn't as welcoming as facebook's, that's for sure.
But, as you said, thank you Jen for bringing this up. I might not agree with your train of thought, but there's no doubting your commitment :) -
Michelle commented on the article |
Hi Jen,
I'm NOT drawing that conclusion - my point is that, given the lack of evidence, we can't infer WHY it is that women don't edit wikipedia. Perhaps it is indeed because they feel excluded, perhaps it's cos they're not technically proficient enough, perhaps it's because they simply don't want to....we simply don't have any evidence either way.
Implying that the reason is because women aren't "feeling very welcome to share their ideas, their voice and their intellect" is simply baseless postulating!
You say that you've studied the online environment and therefore have "a good idea of why women participate in certain platforms" and I have no reason to doubt that - but without any empirical evidence your presuppositions are just that - presuppositions.
Wikipedia's editing section isn't discriminatory against women - it's discriminatory against anyone who lacks a certain measure of internet proficiency. Women, on average, tend to be less IT-savvy than men (and it is THIS that should be your target, not wikipedia itself), which might go some way towards explaining why so many contributers are men. Just did a quick family poll...my older brother is pretty useless with PCs..and surprise surprise, he's never even thought of editing wikipedia. Ditto my mum. I, on the other hand, have edited articles because I am more comfortable with PCs and technology. My sex/gender has nothing to do with it.
Causation and correlation are two very different beasts, and confusing the two simply weakens your argument.
I'm commenting on this because I seriously think that the victim culture that surrounds much contemporary feminist writing does women a great disservice, since it simply makes it easier for men to dismiss gender inequalities if women see discrimination where there isn't any. It is incredibly frustrating when mysoginists use examples of over-zealous feminists to brush aside talk of gender discrimination.
Let's not miss the wood for the trees! -
Michelle commented on the article |
Arcadia said: [quote]I completely disagree. While it is true that there clearly *must be* some reason for the incredible discrepancy Jen describes above, it is absolutely well within the realm of credible, logical reasoning to posit the theory that gender discrimination might be a leading cause of a full SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT difference in male-to-female contributors.
As a journalist and media consultant, I would think Jen has a wealth of experience from which to draw valid conclusions and hypothesis, that at the very least far surpasses what we *accidental bloggers* might encounter on a daily basis. [/quote]
I am not questioning Jen's credentials, but I am simply saying that a hypothesis must be backed by some sort of evidence, rather than simple conjecture. It's just good science/journalism.
This article makes a presumption with no factual or evidential basis, and while Jen has every right to do so, citing her media credentials is irrelevant if she is going to present a fait accompli.
As someone else wrote - we women don't play world of warcraft much....does that mean that the game is sexist, or that online gaming communities are mysoginistic? Perhaps it does - but equally, perhaps there are other reasons explaining this trend.
Jen's article itself raises important questions about how we can get more women to participate in online knowledge-generation, but she betrays it all with her comment that "it seems that we have yet another online example where women are not feeling very welcome to share their ideas, their voice and their intellect."
How does Jen jump from the empirical evidence (that 75% of contributers are male) to this? It is simply poor journalism to present such an opinion without even hinting that, perhaps, (shock, horror!) women don't contribute to wikipedia because they're not as interested in doing so. -
Michelle commented on the article |
Hmmm not sure I'd agree with you here. You seem to be reaching conclusions a priori here. There could be a number of reasons why more men than women contribute to wikipedia: perhaps women simply aren't as interested in wikipedia (readers of the site are predominantly male), or perhaps women prefer to express their views through their own blogs.
Perhaps we women simply don't get as much of a kick out of the internet as men do (I know that's certainly the case with me - my boyfriend can spend hours online essentially doing nothing, whereas I lose interest in aimless browsing relatively quickly and would rather pick up a book).
There could be a million reasons for this uneven distribution of wikipedia users. You can't just assume that women are being 'held back' from contributing...for all we know, the women not contributing are busy writing books or giving lectures!
Just my 2 cents' worth :)
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