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Need active peer reviewers

The projects Wikipedia:WikiProject Feminism/Peer review, Wikipedia:WikiProject Women's History/Peer review, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Gender Studies/Peer review really need active peer reviewers, so if some people could click on those articles and add their usernames under the Active Peer reviewers section that would be great. Thanks!

"The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House"

Interesting article by Jessica Valenti in The Guardian, "Women can't end sexism in the workplace just by showing up". She writes:

The push for eventual parity ... often means that the first women in traditionally male spaces ... are saddled with the responsibility of taking abuse until a critical mass is reached and (hopefully) the culture shifts, and of making that space more woman-friendly. ... Asking individual women to enter hostile spaces to make them better is really asking women to make men better – and to make men better at women’s own risk. But it shouldn’t be women’s responsibility to fix men or deal with their misogyny. Instead, men should be taking it upon themselves to treat women with respect, and demand their other male colleagues do the same.

It's an issue Joseph Reagle (Reagle) touched on recently when he discussed a 1984 essay by Audre Lorde, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House". Lorde wrote: "What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy? It means that only the most narrow perimeters of change are possible and allowable." Jayen466 has argued this several times about women on Wikipedia.

Having experienced the last seven months of GGTF, I wonder whether we should be encouraging women to edit Wikipedia. Is it fair to ask women for their unpaid labour in exchange for the kind of treatment we've seen some women experience, in order that a critical mass is eventually reached? I also wonder what we can do, as Valenti argues should be happening, to encourage male editors and admins to be more pro-active in dealing with the problems. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:30, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I am reminded of similar discussions about Reddit culture. Does anyone think that if they had tried to critique Michael Brutsch (Violentacrez) on Reddit itself, they would have had any effect, let alone got an apology out of him for the way he treated women? Surely not. Redditors would have downvoted, derided, flamed, trolled, etc. anyone who tried.

But put Violentacrez into a CNN studio with a normal person, and it's a different matter. The big man suddenly became very small.

In the same way, I think that trying to work within Wikipedia to change the grain of the culture is the wrong approach. Instead document what is happening, blog, use social media, share your results with journalists and the general public.

If you need an example from Wikipedia's own history, Categorygate (see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/In_the_media) showed the way to change things. It was public condemnation that galvanised Wikipedia into action (and even so it was a battle to just put this little bit of injustice right). What would have happened if the writer had clicked "Edit" and made her complaint here in Wikipedia instead? She would have been ignored, and quite possibly been insulted to boot. Andreas JN466 17:04, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

@Jayen466: I wonder whether it's worth starting an off-wiki discussion board. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:02, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Everybody should certainly realize that Wikipedia is a very conservative organization in the sense that it can seem impossible to get anything changed. Nevertheless, you should also realize that equality for women on Wikipedia is a cause that is certain to win in the long run. This is the 21st century, the WMF is based in the USA, the board has committed to narrowing the gender gap, and I believe that its majority are women.

So I do not think it is time to give up on intra-Wiki processes. Rather movement forward on all fronts is called for. If you see harassment on-Wiki, confront it as politely (and as directly) as possible. Let everybody see it close-up. You can also report it to the press, at the same time, for larger issues. You can also take it up with the WMF staff and with the WMF Board. Some folks might thinks that if you're "negotiating" on-Wiki with other editors, it would be bad-faith to go to the Board or to the press with your complaint. No way - just let everybody know upfront that you are going to tell the truth to whomever will listen- you're not negotiating with anybody. And you're going to win. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:33, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

• "...Instead, men should be taking it upon themselves to treat women with respect, and demand their other male colleagues do the same." Many of us men do try to treat women with respect. In practice, we are not allowed "demand their other male colleagues do the same" as that would be considered a personal attack. But it's more complicated than that because most of us have all sorts of reasons, some more legitimate than others, for not getting involved even if it weren't an illegal 'personal attack'. To give just one such reason, we have far too many people trying to revert our work at the best of times without creating more enemies to revert our work. And so on. In other words, reform has to come primarily from women both inside and outside Wikipedia forcing it on Wikipedia (as well as male politicians outside Wikipedia who need women's votes, and perhaps also male corporate leaders who need women as customers, and so on).

• Meanwhile you can help make life easier for those women fighting from inside Wikipedia by supporting the current proposal for funding to create a 'safe space' for women within Wikipedia (here and here), which I would see as at least partly a kind of 'shelter for verbally battered women' not too dissimilar from shelters for physically battered women (that's by way of reply to the widespread accusation there that it discriminates against men, as if it would somehow be illegal discrimination to refuse to allow men into shelters for physically battered women).Tlhslobus (talk) 08:49, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Tlhslobus I hate ideas like this. It encourages the idea that women are fragile and powerless and need their own space because the "normal" world is just too difficult for them to deal with. When women get harassed the response shouldn't be to retreat into a "safe space" where men aren't allowed but to call out the people doing the harassing and do something about it. Also, I think feminism isn't just about women its about men too. I LIKE working with women, they are often more collaborative then men and I want more of them participating in the every day world of Wikipedia not to be walled off into their own space. Of course I realize in some situations (battered women) safe spaces are a necessity but I think they are counter productive to collaborative environments like this. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 01:51, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Do we know what the main problems are?

I kind of felt bad that one of my first contributions was a rather negative rant so, here is an attempt to be more constructive. I'm new so if this has been dealt with already I apologize and please just point me to the info. I'm an engineer and one of the first things I learned is that you can't solve a problem if you don't really understand it and often the sort of "common sense" understanding that people assume turns out to be very far from the truth. In my case it was software development and research (which I considered a total waste of time when I heard it was being done) that demonstrated the things I and most people thought were big problems (e.g., how to write code better and faster) weren't the big problems at all (the real problems were communication between business and tech people). So I was wondering do we have any idea WHY there is a gender gap? For example, is it because the same number of women as men start out as editors but more women leave or is it because we just don't get as many women to even try? And when women do leave do we know why? It seems to me that knowing that kind of info might be a big step toward devising appropriate solutions and stopping us from wasting time on things that may seem rational but not really matter. Have surveys been done? Do we have detailed statistics on men vs women retention, etc? BTW, I have noticed some reports in parts of the project space and I'm starting to go through them but thought it wouldn't hurt to ask in case there is a nice executive summary overview someone can point me to. Also, just FYI, I usually reply pretty quickly to messages but starting tomorrow I will be out of commission for a few days. Not doing anything fun alas. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 22:32, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Search the archives, I guess. This issue, and your logical approach to it, has been raised umpteen times by various people, including me. "Proper" scientific (cf: emotional/kneejerk) suggestions have also been mooted and suggestions have been made regarding funding it through the WMF. The problem is that such things seems to get shut down every time, either via over-hasty archiving, often involving an admin who should know better, or by what has the appearance of being a meatpuppetry exercise whereby anyone who challenges or proposes something that might actually move things forward is not "of the faith" and should be ignored. Instead, daft proposals such as vague petitions to the WMF take to the fore. It is farcical, when we are all working to the same end. I really do not understand what the hell is going on but I do know that the current apparently accepted approach will achieve sod all. All that is happening is a lot of cheerleading and no action. It makes the entire project look silly, directionless and WP:NOTHERE. The mailing list is not much better but does occasionally rise above poking the bear etc. The last thing that an anti-faction group should do is behave like the worst sort of faction. - Sitush (talk) 00:25, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

• Go to the main project page and click on the Media and Resources tabs. As for everything Sitush said, of course he's entitled to his opinion, but it's just that. He often writes as if he speaks for the project, but he does not. There are hardly any women - the subject of the gender gap - participating here anymore. Lightbreather (talk) 01:33, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

• A perfectly reasonable question from a new participant. For a briefer intro than the media and resources pages mentioned above there is a Gender Gap page. You'll find that some of the data you seek is being assembled in a government study and in a project called Women and Wikipedia. This bit of information about Latina editors is also worth looking at, as are the comments on this post. This list of prudent safety measures for women on Wikipedia suggests that participation in open online communities without moderation or enforcement of user conduct standards may be a risky business. Despite the non discrimination policy of WMF (the San Francisco-based organization hosting the website), some Wikipedia community members actively oppose maintaining US standards on workplace sexual harassment (as indicated in this thread on thoughts on editor retention and women), and are unreceptive to women seeking to spend their volunteer time in a civilized atmosphere. A question that remains unresolved for both male and female editors is how to implement effective processes to prevent harassment of online contributors. Since there's no control group in which neither male nor female editors are harassed, it can't be conclusively proven that harassment has a disparate impact on male, female, or other-gendered editors.

MadScientistX11, as a person coming to this with a fresh set of eyes, if you are able to synthesize the information you find into an executive summary of some sort, that would be a significant contribution! --Djembayz (talk) 03:18, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

• Excellent answer, Djembayz. Lightbreather (talk) 03:43, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Djembayz, I agree with Lightbreather that was a great response thanks. I had some fairly major surgery on my spine on monday so I'm not going to be at full strength for a while but just wanted to acknowledge the response and say I will check out the refs you left above and if I think I can create some exec summary that would be of value I will take a shot. I like writing things like that actually, looking over what other people have said and trying to distill out the most important points, of course a lot of what we do here on articles is like that anyway. There is also a new project on mentoring that I'm involved in and I've mentioned this project to the mentoring leader. Perhaps there could be some synergy there. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 20:19, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Emma Sulkowicz (creator of Mattress Performance: Carry That Weight)

I noticed the task force created article: Women's rights in 2014 contains mention of Emma Sulkowicz. Perhaps someone familiar with Sulkowicz and her project can look over her wiki page for accuracy. For example, the current article stresses Sulkowicz never went to the police, which I think is inaccurate. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 16:00, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I created a stub for Families Advocating for Campus Equality (FACE), which was mentioned in the Emma Sulkowicz article and seemed notable and also a redlink for Campus Safety and Accountability Act which was introduced by Senator Kristen Gillibrand. Sharing this here in case anyone has the time or interest in improving or creating these articles.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 16:43, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I found a few promising sources for Campus Safety and Accountability Act, but I'll probably need some help with creating a stub because I'm not familiar with writing about legislation. How do you think this should this be described in the lead? Should it be called "proposed legislation"?

http://time.com/3058840/campus-sexual-assault-bipartisan-bill-aims-to-reform-the-investigation-process/

http://www.collegian.psu.edu/news/state_national_international/article_5f7447a8-181b-11e4-bb1b-001a4bcf6878.html

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/30/sexual-assault-campus-mccaskill-colleges-universities/13328939/

--BoboMeowCat (talk) 23:45, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

@BoboMeowCat: I think "proposed legislation" would be correct. I've looked at a few sources but haven't found anything that explains what stage it is at. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 04:49, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I created a stub for Campus Safety and Accountability Act. The article could use additional sources and the existing sources could be expanded, if anyone has the time or interest. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 01:59, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm interested. Thank you, BoboMeowCat. Looking forward to expanding it. I am more than a bit surprised to see an article about it didn't exist already. Ongepotchket (talk) 16:28, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Ongepotchket, you were right to be surprised it didn't already exist, because apparently it did already exist under a slightly different name: Campus Accountability and Safety Act. Oddly, this has been in the news a lot lately (related to Sulkowicz and Gillibrand) and is being referred to as "Campus Safety and Accountability Act" by the media, but the other article has references to the slightly different title. It seems one title should be a redirect after we figure out correct title, but I'm not sure how to do that. @SlimVirgin: regarding how to fix this.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 20:30, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Assuming this page is accurate, the bill seems to call itself the "Campus Accountability and Safety Act", so I think that's probably the best title. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:58, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

@BoboMeowCat: the new article has only one recent edit (yours when you created it), so assuming Campus Accountability and Safety Act is correct, the easiest thing would be to redirect Campus Safety and Accountability Act to that title (edit the new article to say #REDIRECT Campus Accountability and Safety Act). See Wikipedia:Redirect. You can then add whatever new content you created to the old article. Where both articles have a longer history, it's possible to merge the histories to retain the list of contributors, but where it's one recent edit, a simple redirect is fine. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 22:20, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I deleted my newly created stub and redirected it to Campus Accountability and Safety Act. Looking over the existing article on topic I think it could use attention from task force. (Pinging @Ongepotchket: who expressed interest). Current article does not seem balanced. It's heavy on the criticism of the bill and fails to mention the motivation behind the bill (the high rate of sexual assault on college campuses). I will also try to improve it when I have time but if anyone else has time or interest please take a look. (ps -when searching for sources search both "Campus Safety and Accountability Act" as well as "Campus Accountability and Safety Act" considering the media describes it both ways. I also already linked 3 sources above). --BoboMeowCat (talk) 16:00, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

"How Wikipedia Articles Are Biased Against Women"

Interesting new article mentioned by Gamaliel on the GG mailing list – "Computational Linguistics Reveals How Wikipedia Articles Are Biased Against Women", MIT Technology Review, 2 February 2015:

... [A]rticles about women tend to emphasize the fact that they are about a woman by overusing words like “woman,” “female,” or “lady” while articles about men tend not to contain words like “man,” “masculine,” or “gentleman.” Words like “married,” “divorced,” “children,” or “family” are also much more frequently used in articles about women, they say.

The team thinks this kind of bias is evidence for the practice among Wikipedia editors of considering maleness as the “null gender.”

A more positive finding was that "women on Wikipedia are covered well" in the six Wikipedia language editions the researchers looked at, compared with the coverage in three other databases. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 01:02, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I have not read the article, although I saw the note on the mailing list. My suspicion is that it is true, and that part of the reason it is true is because women like to emphasise things that women do. We have a host of specific projects that actually encourage that - scientists, authors etc - and thus to some degree encourage the ghettoisation. What we would really need is some sort of analysis of who contributed what to those articles, in terms of their gender. And, yet again, that would require spending money and somehow discounting the people who do not self-identify or who might be deliberately choosing to obfuscate. - Sitush (talk) 01:12, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think this article helps Wikipedia at all, it may have been done by a respected group of people but women exhibit different levels of sensitivity as do all humans. By pointing out defects in the articles I can picture people going "Oh yeah there is that too" to tack things on. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:28, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi KK, not sure what you mean about different levels of sensitivity. The study pointed to structural and lexical gender biases, namely that women subjects tend to be discussed in terms of other people, particularly men (daughter/wife/mother/girlfriend of X). I wish I could remember which biography this was, but I recall one where the first sentence said that the subject was the wife of a notable person and the daughter of another. Then it told us why she was notable. The former title Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown) is a notorious example of this kind of bias.

The difference in the way men and women are represented suggests that women might be discriminated against in search rankings, the researchers say, because search algorithms use structural and lexical information from Wikipedia. They offer this advice: "To reduce such effects, the editor community could pay particular attention to the gender balance of links included in articles about men and women, and could adopt a more gender-balanced vocabulary when writing articles about notable people."

Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 18:17, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Sarah, your reference to that Sarah Brown title reminded me of the lead sentence of the Calamity Jane article, which says she was "known for her claim of being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok" among other interesting but questionably lead-worthy things. Lightbreather (talk) 19:32, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Right, that's a good example. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 20:52, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

The whole lead is three sentences, and these are the second and third:

She is said to have also exhibited kindness and compassion, especially to the sick and needy. This contrast helped to make her a famous frontier figure.

This is mentioned nowhere else in the article. So what's the lead? She claimed to know Wild Bill Hickok, and she was kind and compassionate. Ugh! Lightbreather (talk) 20:56, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

The Calamity Jane article is nothing more than another example of a poorly written article about a very difficult subject - a figure from the Wild West in which fact and fancy have become so intertwined that it is now hard to tell which is which. In fact, it was hard to tell even while she was alive since she and others just made most of it up. So that she knew Wild Bill is certainly something that should be in the lead - she's buried right next to him in Dead Wood, SD. It's part of her claim to fame. I think that the both of you should read the lead of the Billy the Kid article. You guys would hit the roof if "The Kid" were a woman rather than a man. Gandydancer (talk) 00:27, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

This looks like a good book if anyone is ever interested in expanding it (currently used only once in the article): James D. McLaird, Calamity Jane: The Woman and the Legend, University of Oklahoma Press, 2012. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 00:53, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Bonnie Tiburzi

Jodi.a.schneider has asked for help on the GG mailing list with Draft:Bonnie Tiburzi, article about the first female pilot for a major commercial airline in the United States. Bonnie Tiburzi is currently a redirect. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 18:02, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

NSF study

Moved post[1] referring to National Science Foundation study from project main page:

Are there any connections between our group and these researchers? Should there be? Would anyone object if I reached out to them just to let them know about this group and that we are available to help if they can use it? I wouldn't represent myself as a spokesperson for the group or anything. BTW, I have a lot of experience working with agencies that sponsor government research. Although, my experience probably is mostly not relevant, it was working for agencies like NIST, DARPA, and the USAF on computer science research (no weapons research, it was general AI and software engineering). Still, the fact that I kind of speak that language might help, to some extent all government research has similar issues, e.g., how to present complex ideas in ways that the suits can understand. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 02:29, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

MadScientistX11, sure, if you think it would be helpful, by all means let them know, and thanks for offering to do it. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 21:27, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, I'm going to have to step back for the time being. I had an operation on my spine last week. I thought it would be nice to get away from the Internet for a while but they actually had Internet access in the hospital from the TV including a nice keyboard. Actually, it was a new hospital and they were having problems with the Internet access for a few patients (including me) and my nurse said "but you are a computer genius maybe you can fix it" Well if you knew me you would know that even in bed with IV's going I'm not going to pass up that kind of challenge. And I did fix it, it was really simple actually. I was typing from my hospital bed last time but I was also on steroids (which make my hyper) and serious pain killers. Anyway once I got home I realized recovery was going to take some time and I shouldn't do anything requiring serious concentration or collaboration for a while. I should be back at least to medium strength in a few weeks and if no one has contacted them by then I will be more than happy to. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 23:32, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

@MadScientistX11: I know the situation you describe exactly (except for the part about being called a computer genius; I'm afraid I have never had that pleasure!). Take your time and get well. It's a good idea to contact them, and perhaps someone has done it already, but you can decide later whether you feel up to it. The one benefit of being a volunteer is that we're allowed to decide that we've had enough whenever we want to. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 23:45, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I reached out to these researchers a few months ago. They have yet to reply. --Mssemantics (talk) 05:11, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know, Amanda. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 05:45, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Less obvious articles

Has the project made any attempts to identify topics that aren't about women's biographies, biology of women, feminism and women's studies? I'm thinking about cultural practices, social niches, hobbies, sports, games, books, etc., etc., etc., that are particularly popular among women or associated with women. As a history buff, I'm thinking this would be an important strategy to pursue since individual women in history tend not to leave that many traces in sources.

Peter ^Isotalo 14:08, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think so. I've often thought of tackling Sati (practice) because it looks like it could use some re-organisation etc but I've always shied from it for fear of unwittingly causing some sort of cultural offence. - Sitush (talk) 14:13, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's certainly about women's history, but I'm also thinking of much more general articles. Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking about stuff like sewing or parenting. And before anyone accuses me of assigning traditional roles to women, this is exactly the topics that tend to be underrepresented. And they happen to have been female domains throughout history, and in many ways stile are.

The articles we suggest seems like they're mostly chosen from activist's perspective. That's certainly a type of editor we should appeal to, but I'm assuming that not all women editors of the future are going to be activists. So what are their interests, hobbies, passions, etc? To make a somewhat provocative example, if there are more female Wikipedians interested in improving Twilight and New Kids on the Block than Virginia Woolf, why not attempt to tap that resource?

Peter ^Isotalo 14:47, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I sometimes think DIY and other lifehacky topics are not covered as much as they ought to be, considering how obsessive a hobby they are for some (not me). As for me, I'm interested in expanding articles about authors and illustrators, mostly of juvenile fiction because I see a lot of gaps there. The Anastasia books, a couple of stubs on books by Lois Lowry, expanding on some articles on Beverly Cleary books. This Place Has No Atmosphere by Paula Danziger will probably be my first article, if it doesn't exist. Once that gives me practice I will maybe create several more articles for Danziger's books. She has almost as many books as Judy Blume but so few of them have pages, or even stubs. Barthe DeClements is a writer of less importance whom I'd like to expand upon, but being notoriously reclusive during her lifetime means there is very little out there to bulk up an article. Finally, Roald Dahl has some truly great short stories for adults that I'd like to cover, extensively if possible. These are a few my plans for the future, and I hope to collaborate with helpful GGTF editors. I have no interest in dealing with those who seek out endless drama with female editors, though, so I am unsure of a timeline at present. I have been working on these drafts for so long, waiting for the contention to die down. I am definitely the target demographic for something like the GGTF. I have a lot I could contribute but I've chosen not to because of the haranguing and constant berating from certain male editors towards female editors. I have no interest in becoming their next target du jour, so like too many women I have read about, I refrain from editing. Though that will end soon, as it's obvious they're not going to find something better to do. Ongepotchket (talk) 18:04, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Ongepotchket, do it yourself stuff was one of the areas my wife suggested when I asked about potential topics. And I definitely recognize this as something that my male friends and I aren't terribly interested in, especially the decorative kind. In Sweden, there's a subset of simpler handicrafts that most here would refer to as pyssel ("crafting; tweaking; lighter handiwork", possibly related to "puzzle") which involves a wide range of simple arts and crafts like paper collages, beadwork (including peg array art), embroidering, etc. this is something that strikes me as a hobby dominated by women.

These are the type of general areas that I think might be worth looking at alongside the type of articles we're already suggesting as GGTF open tasks.

Peter ^Isotalo 00:05, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

My apologies. I was picking up on your comment about the cultural things, of which Sati is certainly one. Slim may have the thing to hand but I can dig it out if not: earlier this week I think it was The Guardian, of which she is fond of quoting, reported on recent figures for UK university entry, relating to the 2014 cohort. They demonstrated that quite substantially more women than men had begun a UK university course in the year but also, IIRC, that the numbers were very significantly skewed as to what (hate to say it) are considered "traditional" roles. (There is a massive vocational skew for things such as nursing, btw). Despite a lot of pushing since the days of Margaret Thatcher, the ratio of men to women was massively on the male side when it came to engineering and science courses and massively on the women's side when it came to nursing, teaching etc. So, I suppose, like it or not, your point about sewing and parenting probably still has actual merit even though many would like to see it gone.

I doubt that you will get many takers here, though, because this seems primarily to be a political forum rather than a content-based one: content appears to be a secondary goal, although the hope is that content bias will improve by reducing the alleged severity of the gap. - Sitush (talk) 02:19, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Gender gap in university admissions rises to record level. It seems a bit different to the paper version that I read, so I'll dig around my recycling bin for that. - Sitush (talk) 08:01, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

• I would chime in that medical issues that affect women may also be under-represented on the project. This came up back in September, when it was noted we had no article on back labor, which I then started (and others improved). Considering about 30% of women have back labor during labor, I found it crazy that we had no article on it (especially considering we seem to have articles on every possible thing that could go wrong to a penis, and have for many years.)--Milowent • ^hasspoken 14:03, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Whether this project is political or not, it has plenty of open tasks related to content. Is there no interest in expanding this beyond women's biographies and explicitly feminist topics?

Peter ^Isotalo 14:19, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Peter , please feel free to post a link to an article related to women, yet outside the realm of biographies and feminist topics that you believe needs improvement and attention from this project, specifying your concerns. There's a good chance if you do that, task force members will assist you in improving the article. FYI, Sitush does not speak for WP:GGTF and you may actually find that threads dominated by him get less than average attn because it appears many members have become frustrated by lack of positive contributions to project and ongoing criticism. This project is actually highly content based. Your suggestions are not at all unreasonable, so if you'd like to assist GGTF please don't let detractor discourage your efforts. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 14:31, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

My gut feeling is "no" at the present time but I'll happily be proved wrong. There are many women - probably indeed a majority - who have no interest in this project, often seemingly because it has a political bent. It may not be the best venue to achieve progress in the way you desire although, yes, improving the coverage of what I'll loosely term gender-related content is one of the ultimate goals. FWIW, I think biographies feature among the most numerous and popular articles, regardless of gender and what happens here may just be mirroring that trend. - Sitush (talk) 14:37, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Regarding this amendment by BoboMeowCat, I'm surprised to see the notion that anyone speaks for this project: that is not how Wikipedia works generally, although I think the military history project has co-ordinators. I've just taken another look at the lists to which Peter Isotalo linked and, woah!, that is one long, outdated mess that maybe could do with a co-ordinator or two. For example, Beekeeping is listed there but the comment doesn't seem to match the current state of the article at all. Does anyone object to me removing it? - Sitush (talk) 15:10, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Struck some of that - the beekeeping thing is not in the women's section. My apologies. - Sitush (talk) 15:18, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm simply going by what drives me to write article content: Stuff I Happen to Find Interesting (SIHFI). SIHFI is seldom political even if I consider myself to be a fairly political person. But no matter how much I would like to will myself to write more about, say, queer theory, it still hasn't fascinated me as much as describing galleys and medieval cuisine. And whether biographies are popular or not, they're still just one aspect of what we do.

I'm going to look around for suitable non-obvious topics. I'll notify the task force here when I do.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:35, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, in recent months there's been a need for help updating articles about the localities in north eastern Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and the Central African Republic, where women are fleeing for their lives. Just keeping current with sources like Relief Web and allAfrica.com would be a start. You'd think these articles would be "obvious", but given the level of participation, evidently they aren't. --Djembayz (talk) 03:16, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

• Milowent, I suspect that you are right, although medical articles are particularly tricky to write because of WP:MEDRS etc - that scares the life out of me! I've just taken a look at Diverticulitis, which I'd always thought was much more common in women than in men. I can't spot where our article says that, so either I've missed it, I am wrong or the article could use a well-sourced tweak. - Sitush (talk) 14:37, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe I am wrong - see this, although I've no idea if it is reliable or not. - Sitush (talk) 15:21, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

That's a very good point, Milowent. If anyone is worried about the technicalities of medicine, perhaps WP:MED can help out. Maybe even the indomitable Doc James might be recruited. :-)

Peter ^Isotalo 15:35, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Doc James and other WP:MED folk are very helpful when asked for help. Medical articles are hard to edit because of MEDRS but it is possible to get changes to stick. I did it, way back, and I have plans for more changes. I take those changes fairly slowly to make sure they'll be OK. Ca2james (talk) 22:59, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I honestly think the best thing to do is worry less about trying to figure out what women might prefer to edit and concentrate more on creating an editing environment that more women will find welcoming. Recruit them. Support them. And let them edit whatever they want to. Lightbreather (talk) 19:44, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The Task Force already endorses topics that seems to be what "women might prefer to edit". I don't see how recruitment would be made more difficult by broadening the range of suggested topics and articles.

Peter ^Isotalo 22:33, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

As a first attempt, I added[2] modern art to the open tasks list. Women are only included in lists, but without any descriptions. Frida Kahlo's absence strikes me as particularly notable.

Peter ^Isotalo 22:49, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

If you enjoy drawing up lists of needed articles, they are always helpful for people putting together editathons. One of the more challenging things about lists is figuring out a place to put links to existing lists of articles needed so that people can find them. Lists of articles needed based on an individual reference source can be useful, because they make it easy for "completionist" editors to simply plow through batches of articles. You might be surprised how much you could find for new lists by visiting a reference collection at a public or academic library. I always like to add a sample citation to cut and paste when making these lists, to save the editors time, and encourage them to add the footnotes.

By contrast, lists of needed articles for editathons tend to focus on more specialized sources available at the sponsoring institutions.

You might want to try participating remotely in editathons yourself by adding some female-related content. Even if you just add the material that's available on the open web, it can really speed things up for the participants sitting next to the specialized sources at the event. Two examples or editathons would be the upcoming Black History Month editathons such as WikiDC editathons or AfroCrowd. Actually, adding female-related content for any any upcoming meetup is always welcome. It's really fun when you're an in-person participant to see that somebody participating remotely wants to make your efforts a success. Participating remotely is a good way to support the GLAM institutions, and the people organizing the events. Just add a section that says "Participating remotely" (or put (remotely) after your user name), and add your results on the editathon page. Even though the topic of an editathon tends be less obvious articles that you wouldn't work on on your own, when a GLAM organization identifies something as worth writing about, it will generally be something that is significant for scholars and researchers.

Another good thing about participating remotely is that you have someone at the event who can e-mail, chat, or leave on-wiki messages when you're working on something together. Collaborating in real time is fun, because you can just do the part you like, like infoboxes, or talk page assessment, or images, and let someone else do the parts that are harder for you. --Djembayz (talk) 03:16, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Latest on the Kaffeeklatsch test area

The MfD for the Kaffeeklatsch was closed with the result page kept,[3] and this notice[4] re the WMF non discrimination policy was put on my page by Harej. (Thanks, Harej.)

I don't know how the proposed WikiProject Women at the IdeaLab will fare, but one step at a time, I guess. Lightbreather (talk) 01:16, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Congrats on having it kept, Lightbreather. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 01:55, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I think it cuts down at least 90% of the objections. Lightbreather (talk) 01:59, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it was ever in doubt. Anyone who was trying to cite WMF non-discrimination was bound to fail and that is pretty obvious if you can actually read. It doesn't necessarily mean it is a good idea and I am narked that LB has just pinged me in some sort of gravedancing mode when I never even commented at the MfD. I look forward to seeing the outcome of the next batch of invitations but, please, let's have some decorum and not feed the trolls. As I said recently in an earlier thread here, behaving like a faction when your intention is to oppose a faction is probably not a great idea: rise above it. - Sitush (talk) 02:00, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Please do not misrepresent why I pinged you. You linked to a Kaffeeklatsch discussion[5] in a comment you made in that discussion, so when I learned that the MfD result was "page kept," I pinged you and the three other people in that conversation who mentioned the klatsch.[6] That's all. Lightbreather (talk) 02:13, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

And "gravedancing mode"? That was unnecessary. Lightbreather (talk) 02:16, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

What was unnecessary was the ping. For future reference, I have ARCA and this page watchlisted. - Sitush (talk) 02:21, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

You're using "unnecessary" in the sense of "unneeded." Got it. You're referring to my ping as "gravedancing" was uncalled for - something to "rise above" even. Got it? Lightbreather (talk) 15:46, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm glad to see it was kept, Lightbreather. Hope it generates plenty of good klatsch.

Peter ^Isotalo 01:02, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Can anyone help?

There was an obvious gap so a went ahead and created a bit of a place-holder at Feminism in Taiwan. Anyone with a spare 5 minutes is encouraged to help out! Cheers, St★lwart¹¹¹ 05:31, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

It's an interesting article, Stalwart111, thanks for creating it. The reference to the "uniquely Taiwanese concepts of gender" has made me want to read more about it. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 22:07, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Sarah, and thanks for the thanks. I was surprised to find it red-linked at WP:RA. I had previously created Gambling in Taiwan after finding that at RA too, and sources weren't too hard to find. Likewise, there are plenty of sources out there relating to feminism in Taiwan. Some fascinating books. The break-away from China and the influence of Japan and the US has had some interesting results. Its especially interesting how modern Taiwanese women view the roles of wife and mother. Anyway, if your reading is enlightening, please feel free to add to the article. It is very bare-bones at the moment. St★lwart¹¹¹ 22:53, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

African countries lead the way in the use of the "women situtation room" - an example of a space specifically for women's concerns

• An intriguing current proposal on a space specifically for women is the "women situation room", which will be used by journalists and NGOs monitoring gender-based violence in the upcoming Nigerian general election. Wikipedia could stand to learn quite a bit from the people who train journalists in "gender sensitive reporting". These journalists have practical experience in how to address women's concerns in print in a way that does not make the situation worse. Apparently the "women's situation room" concept has already been adopted in Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Kenya. Who knows, perhaps Wikipedia could be next! --Djembayz (talk) 02:17, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

@Djembayz: First I think that is a ridiculous comparison and frankly somewhat insulting to the very real risks of violence that the women being reported on and the women doing reporting in Africa face every day. To compare that with gender bias on Wikipedia is just ludicrous. They have to have spaces like these in African nations because the women doing the reporting face serious threats of violence. And I'll repeat my main two objections about the notoin of a "safe space" for women editors: 1) It is a very belittling view of feminism to think that women are so delicate and fragile that they have to have their own space just to edit and collaborate. 2) I think it circumvents one of what should be the benefits we are trying to achieve from bridging "the gap", that we want women to participate as full fledged editors with everyone else, not as second class editors walled off in their safe space. Women have a more collaborative style in general than men, while Wikipedia is far more civil than most places on the Internet there is still a lot of BS, especially passive aggressive BS here and virtually all of it, at least in my experience, comes from men. Also, I can just see where this might eventually lead: the mens rights groups will be demanding their own spaces, etc. Walling women off into their own private spaces on the site doesn't really address the actual problems, it doesn't change the behavior of the men who act like jerks and make women (and many male editors I think as well) leave in frustration. We need solutions not PC band aids. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 04:12, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

One last point, according to Wikipedia:Discrimination: "Wikipedia should not give privilege in writing and freedom of speech to some editors and readers at the expense of others, and thus Wikipedia should not tolerate discriminatory content or discussion. Likewise, users should not be able to use a valid Wikipedia policy or guideline in a discriminatory manner or to achieve a discriminatory end. Statuses of editors and readers that should be protected from discrimination on Wikipedia include:... Sex" It seems to me that the safe space is in direct conflict with this. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 04:25, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I can see how you would take it that way, but that wasn't quite where I was going here. We've been looking at resolving questions of harassment and conflicts involving gender-related harassment from more of an HR viewpoint on the site, and that's being rejected by some on a variety of grounds. Roughly, if I have understood correctly, there are some who feel that the site must be "self organizing", and that being "self organizing" precludes any HR function, some who feel that everything must be done transparently and in public (including some who would not simply want oversight over WMF office actions, but would prefer to eliminate office actions altogether as an option), and the rather vocal contingent who feels that anyone who finds the atmosphere too rough and unpleasant should just go elsewhere. Given that this site is estimated to be 90% male, we wouldn't necessarily want a "womens situation room", but rather a "gender situation room" for dealing with gender-related harassment. One thing that deters people from seeking redress in situations of gender-related harassment is the fear of further public attention. This "situation room" model has a piece that's missing from the HR model-- the "gender sensitive reporting". Essentially these groups have figured out how to compile data, and cover this data in the media, in a way that makes women feel safe coming forward. Your point is well taken, that this is just a website, and not the same as election-related violence. What is the same, however, is being in a central location where conflicts are resolved in the public eye, with consequences for the reputations of individuals that may have permanent, real life implications. (Should also note that since most people on this website are pretty civilized, the need for this sort of thing is not apparent until you run into the rougher sections of the site.) --Djembayz (talk) 13:53, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

I didn't follow a lot of that, for example I'm not sure what "HR viewpoint" means in this context but I haven't had time yet to review the stuff on the project and once I do, I'm sure that I'll understand those points. But here are some responses to the parts I did get. You said "some who feel that everything must be done transparently". Count me in on that "some". I think transparency is one of the coolest things Wikipedia has going for it and that make it work as well as it does. And while I hadn't thought about it the lack of transparency in a "women's situation room" is another reason that I think it never will and never should fly. Transparency doesn't guarantee truth or civility but it makes them both much more likely. I'm far much more likely to exaggerate my complaints about another editor if I know that they can't read what I'm writing. Its just human nature, we are governed by emotions and if I'm having an emotional outburst about someone on my keyboard my natural tendency is to exaggerate how bad they are. One of the things that keeps that in check here and that make Wikipedia, for all its faults, still the most civil open Internet environment I've ever participated in is the policy of maximum transparency. Actually, I had an idea as well but I'll start another section as its really completely different than the room idea. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 00:33, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

• These points on transparency deserve a thoughtful response. Perhaps someone else would like to weigh in on this? --Djembayz (talk) 02:50, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Grant proposals on Meta regarding the Gender Gap

• The grant proposals on the Meta site for funding on the Gender Gap will give you an idea of an initial approach to promoting a more hospitable community for women. One thing that is clear from the Diversity Conference and the experience of other communities is that you need paid people, who have the community and its interests as their primary job, to make diversity work-- not volunteers. My guess is this is not just because a paid person has more time, it is also because a person who is paid to represent the interests of their organization can be required to undertake difficult or unpleasant tasks, and can be required to avoid conflicts of interest.

Two things to look at in the proposals: One, you'll see that there is a "PR panic button" incorporated in these proposals as a way to help community volunteers avoid running into media disasters. Two, when looking through these proposals it is important to consider whether they will also work to prevent gender-related harassment of our male editors.

Even those of us who do not have experience in an HR department, or in gender-related community outreach may have valuable input regarding the proposals for Gender Gap grants. Different sets of eyes can make us aware of possibilities we would never have considered, and help define the needs these community roles need to fill, so that the people assuming these roles are able to work well in a diverse, international setting. --Djembayz (talk) 02:50, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Zero Tolerance for Sexist Incivility?

I was trying to think of an alternative to the "women's situation room" and while this isn't really an alternative, since it's just a completely different approach I was wondering what people think of this: What if we pushed for "zero tolerance" for sexist incivility? We already have templates to warn users at various levels for incivility and if a user acquires enough of those they can get blocked or banned. What if we created special templates for sexist incivility and made the thresh-hold for a temporary block and a complete ban lower than for normal incivility? "Zero tolerance" is just the buzz word I'm using I doubt the community would go for a "one strike and your blocked" policy, that would probably seem too draconian but we might be able to say for example if normally it takes 4 warnings for incivility to get blocked then for sexist incivility it only takes two (I don't know what the actual numbers are, just trying to brainstorm). My thinking is this is analogous to hate crime laws. We put special stiff sentences on certain kinds of crimes because the crime doesn't just impact the individual but a whole community of individuals. Murdering an african american in a public way wasn't just meant to kill that person but to intimidate the entire local african american population. By the same logic we could argue for stiffer penalties for people who make sexist attacks on other editors and say those stiffer penalties are justified because as is well documented Wikipedia has a problem recruiting/retaining female editors. Besides the actual benefit in practice of cutting down on such incivility it seems to me announcing such a policy would be something the press might pick up and use to promote the idea that we are doing something to fix the problem. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 00:48, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

We could start with a Zero Tolerance for Sexist Incivility on this page, but I mean zero when I say zero tolerance. Sure somebody might get tossed off this page, say for two days, on a misunderstanding, but I think that would be better than the current situation. I suppose that only admins could enforce this. Is there an admin willing to do this? Would other editors on this page support that? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:40, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Smallbones I don't see the point to that. The goal of this project is to improve the number of female editors not to make ourselves a model of good behavior. IMO, that kind of navel gazing is exactly what we should stay away from. What would that really accomplish except perhaps to get us fighting with each other over how serious something has to be to qualify for zero tolerance?

The thing I find interesting is that we already have an unwritten zero tolerance of racism, especially anything overtly so. But editors seem willing to overlook sexism, or don't even notice it. Smallbones, I wouldn't want anyone to be kicked off for a mistake, but I think (in the case of mistakes) they should be put straight if it can be done without making them feel attacked. Where it's deliberate, I think we should just archive the comment. I would like to see zero tolerance of undermining the point of the page. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 05:00, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

If there is a new Wikipedia policy related to sexism it will need to work both ways rather than from the assumption that only men use sexist language. For instance, calling the male editors mad dogs peeing on fences, as was done by a member of this group, really did seem to be an extremely sexist remark to me. Gandydancer (talk) 09:12, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

There's an interesting discussion going on over at Roger Davies' Talk page regarding dealing with civility. One of the things that really resonated with me is that blocks and other punitive measures should be a last resort, not a first choice. Another thing that has really stuck with me is that Wikipedia is not the first community (online or otherwise) that has had to deal with civility issues, and Wikipedia could learn from other communities' experience.

My main concern with zero tolerance idea is that it could be used to remove participants who disagree with some of the major contributors here. Also, the bulk of disruption on this page doesn't necessarily use sexist language but is a result of low-level sniping between editors. Why not use the discretionary sanctions that are already in place for this page to deal with disruption? Ca2james (talk) 15:37, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Gandydanccer, while I agree all people should avoid sexist incivility, I also think it’s reasonable to present this as an issue disproportionally affecting women on WP given the gender gap. I think MadScientist's idea of a template which could be applied to more than just this page sounds like something that might help. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 22:34, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Sure, if you are one of those that believe that it actually is an issue disproportionately affecting women. I'm not. I find catty edits such as: Alialiac, I see you reverted the sentence again without hearing from BoboMeowCat (as far as I can tell). Favor, please? Could you at least put edit summaries with your edits? Lightbreather (talk) 15:53, 3 February 2015 (UTC) much more irritating and more likely to make me want to leave. Gandydancer (talk) 14:27, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I guess interpretation of that might depend on your history with and feelings about Lightbreather but I don't see that as overtly catty (not crazy about that term anyway). Either way, could we please move this issue and conversation beyond Lightbreather? I notice Ca2James and J3Mrs also linked to a convo about LB here, but I think the issue of sexist incivility is much more general than one editor.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 16:56, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

True, but I wasn't referring to who you thought, I linked to a thread but the specific diff I was referring to is here. I was trying to make general points but as you have misinterpreted I have clarified the incivility. J3Mrs (talk) 17:26, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I linked to the discussion on Roger's page because there were interesting statements about civility and blocking and other websites/groups there, not because the the first part of the discussion was about Lightbreather. I thought that when I pointed out the most interesting facts to me - which had nothing to do with any one editor - that I made this point clear, but it seems that I was incorrect about that. If I could have linked to the later part of the discussion where the focus shifted from specific editors to the general civility discussion, I would have done that. It wasn't my page, however, and so that wasn't possible.

The fact that there were statements made about Lightbreather in the early part of the discussion shouldn't diminish the interest and utility of the later statements on civility, but I have this sense that this is exactly what has happened. I have this sense that these interesting and very relevant points are being dismissed (assuming they're being read at all) because the start of the discussion was about one editor. Information is going to come from all sorts of places and not all of those places are going to be supportive, but that doesn't mean that the information is bad. Ca2james (talk) 17:35, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Ca2James and J3Mrs, my apologies for misinterpreting. I guess I just don't want the general issue of sexist incivility to get caught up in the current battle regarding Lightbreather's proposals for women's editing space etc and other ongoing battles. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 17:56, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

How does sexist incivility differ from any other sort? Some members of this project see any dissent or reasonable criticism on this page as incivility. Is that sexist incivility? There is an example in this recent thread here. How was it addressed? It was archived, swept under the carpet. In my book incivility is just that, it doesn't need an adjective to describe it. J3Mrs (talk) 22:56, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I haven't experienced sexist incivility, but I assume that I would be very discouraged and hurt by it. Moreso than just general snarkiness. I don't know the history of disputes here, but if anyone is subjected to demeaning or insulting comments I see no reason not to clamp down on it.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:33, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm really not sure what "sexist incivility" is supposed to cover, and I'm expecially not sure how a variety of admins would (or should) interpret it.

Is it sexual incivility if you imply that someone's attitudes or views are related to their sex (e.g. "male chauvinist", "macho")?

Calling someone a "bastard" is mere incivility but calling them a "male chauvinist bastard" is "sexist incivility"?

Does it mean that men can call each other names that are etymologically based on things associated with the male anatomy (e.g. "dick", "prick", "jerk") but women can't, and conversely women can call each other "bitches" but men can't?

Is "don't be a dick" sexist incivilty?

Does use of "generic he" turn simple incivility into sexist incivility?

Is it sexist incivility to accuse someone of engaging in a "pissing contest"?

--Boson (talk) 09:51, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

As to the idea that sexist incivility is impossible to define, we can never get at a perfect definition I agree. And no two people will probably ever completely agree as to what it is and isn't. But we can certainly define it, e.g. by listing examples of insults; in fact it wouldn't surprise me if we could find some HR manual somewhere that has a pretty good definition. One of the large companies I used to work for was very progressive on helping women and taking a proactive approach to fighting sexual harrasment. They tend to define these things rigorously because they have to, if you are going to censure an employee for some behavior it helps to have that behavior rigorously defined and it also helps in case the employee tries to sue you in response. I'm still feeling a lot of fatigue after my surgery but when I have more energy I might look and see if I can find something. But in any case I don't see the big deal in a basic definition, words like "bitch", etc. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 19:39, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure why sexist incivility should be treated any differently from any other type of incivility. Also, is there any evidence that sexist incivility happens any more than any other type of incivility? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:28, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

This is a discussion about possible preventive measures, so I don't see how the frequency of sexist incivility is relevant. If it doesn't happen, all the better, but then I don't see the reason for questioning zero tolerance against it.

To put it in an appropriate context, compare sexist personal comments it with racist personal comments. Both are extremely hurtful and demoralizing forms of personal attacks that are also obviously harmful to collegiality and harmonious user relations.

Peter ^Isotalo 20:43, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Peter Isotalo. Exactly. A Quest For Knowledge a more relevant question would be "is there any evidence that sexist language is what causes women editors to leave?" And I haven't found any yet but I just started going over some of the background material. But even suppose we found that sexist comments didn't play a major role in causing women to leave. I think that would be highly counter intuitive and rather surprising but for the sake of argument assume it was true. I think changing the policy toward sexist comments would still be a good idea because there is a general precedent for this kinds of thing (e.g., hate crime laws, sexual harassment prevention programs in large organizations) and sometimes making a good faith effort, the act of showing a community that Wikipedia takes this issue seriously, could easily be as important as the direct actual effect of the policy change. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 02:40, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

@MadScientistX11: OK, Is there any evidence that sexist language is what causes women editors to leave? It doesn't make sense to attempt to address problems that don't exist. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:52, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Do you believe a zero tolerance approach to sexism would do anything to hurt user relations?

Peter ^Isotalo 00:09, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely. It will inevitably lead to further inter-user drama because of differing interpretations of what precisely constitutes "sexism". Nikkimaria (talk) 01:39, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

A Quest For Knowledge, sexist language is damaging, even though we can't produce firm evidence because no survey (that I recall) has asked this kind of question. I saw an example yesterday that left me feeling discouraged about being involved with Wikipedia. For women less committed/addicted, these encounters would have a stronger effect. Ditto for women readers, who might have become editors had they not seen certain exchanges.

What I find interesting, as I said earlier, is that no one would question the importance of avoiding racist language and educating ourselves about racism to make sure we avoid it. But people take a different view of sexism. Lots of editors don't feel they should educate themselves about it or take pains to avoid it. No one would expect black editors to ignore racism, but women are expected to ignore sexism (we're expected to "grow a pair," or be less "thin-skinned") and just carry on editing. Why there is such a difference in perception about the impact of racism versus sexism? Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 00:31, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Although not directly on point, I think that part of the problem here is that the variance in what is considered a sexist insult across English-speaking cultures is much wider than the variance in racist insults. What I mean is, certain words are considered racist insults and pretty much everyone from an English-speaking background would agree; but certain words are considered sexist insults in some English-speaking cultures but not others (the classic is perhaps 'dick', which in the USA apparently can be equivalent to 'jerk', while in many other countries it refers exclusively to male genitalia; the female equivalent works the other way and is also perfectly well-known around here). I suspect that part of the reason for this is that racial-activists have been active for much longer, changing social perceptions of certain words. So perhaps the solution is a zero-tolerance approach with a subjective definition of sexist incivility (ie the one insulted gets to decide). I can't imagine it's going to be popular, though, and I'm not seriously advocating it. I'm trying to point out the depth of the difficulty. GoldenRing (talk) 06:18, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Nikkimaria I don't see how this has to lead to drama because sexist attacks are so hard to quantify. We already have templates for harassment and personal attacks. Can anyone completely define what does or doesn't constitute a "personal attack" ahead of time? Of course not, we have -- just as for many things on Wikipedia -- general guidelines that define what they are and most of the time those work but if someone objects that is part of the process, to define was what X said on talk page Y a personal attack or not? If anything I would think that sexist attacks would be easier to quantify than personal attacks which we already have a template for. BTW, I know next to nothing about these kinds of warnings but I did a bit of searching this am and I think this is what I'm essentially talking about: Wikipedia:Template_messages/User_talk_namespace#Behavior_towards_editors The more I think about it the more I think adding a template specifically for sexist attacks to this list seems like a very rational thing to do as part of the response if we are serious about actually fighting sexism on Wikipedia. I agree with SlimVirgin, it isn't a fair requirement to prove ahead of time that sexist language is a major reason that women editors leave since we don't have that kind of data at this point and it is better to do something than wait another year or two until we have better data on the causes for women editors to leave. In any case, it seems like a rather rational hypothesis and, I think Sarah said this as well, its one of those things that its hard to see a down side in. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 19:59, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't see the point of a specific template for sexist attacks. If you believe that the comment is uncivil, does it really matter if it is sexist or not? Put a general incivility warning on the user's talk page, or take them to ANI. I think this has the potential to backfire, and in a truly spectacular way. For example, at a recent ARCA, one of the arbs pointed out as a "sexist comment" that someone else had mentioned a user being "wound up" and calling an action "cute". I don't consider those comments sexist in the least. Egregious examples should be addressed, and there's no need to make a separate template for it. There is a large range below that where there is legitimate disagreement on whether its uncivil or sexist. Karanacs (talk) 20:12, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Misuse of templates is an inherent problem with all templates, but that isn't a good argument to scratch 'em. Also, anyone who feels there is no need for a sexist incivility template is free not to use it. Clearly only those who think it is useful will use it anyway, so that doesn't seem a good argument against it either. Do we need formal permission to make such a template or can someone just go ahead and make it? --BoboMeowCat (talk) 20:20, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

You need to get community consensus for a new template or it will be brought to MFD. Karanacs (talk) 20:25, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

MadScientistX11, just to be clear, I said that sexist language is damaging, not that I'd support a new template. Templates tend to get people riled. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 20:18, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Avoiding just riling people seems legitimate concern. If such a template is ever made, it should definitely not be worded with accusatory text such as: "STOP! being a sexist jerk!" or anything like that, rather such a template should probably leave open the possibility of misunderstanding and simply request that the person consider that their statements might be taken as sexist incivility and to please review general civility policy.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 20:49, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

• A sample policy: "Staff, volunteers and service users will avoid and challenge the use of language which, in any way, belittles;
  

i) disabled groups and/or individuals with special needs

ii) any race, culture or religion

iii) a person's sexual orientation

iv) women and/or men."

• Things not to say: Bad sexism comebacks
• Possibly (though not necessarily) better sexism comebacks --Djembayz (talk) 22:33, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

MadScientistX11: we do indeed have templates for personal attacks, and we already have drama around that issue. Imposing a "zero tolerance" rule will only exacerbate that, as the consequences would be more significant than simply getting a template - but even getting a template will provoke disagreement. I doubt very much that it will be easier to agree on what is "sexist" than what is a "personal attack", based on the comments that some elsewhere have defined as being so - comments that I, as a woman, would never have so identified (as per Karanacs). It is very easy to see downsides in this proposal, whatever its merits may be. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:41, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree. As an example, I was once asked (where the editor knew I was a woman) when I used the term "we" just who I thought I was anyway, the Queen of England? Would this be considered sexist or not? Gandydancer (talk) 01:06, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I can see why you might think so but as a Brit, I think it refers to the royal we, maybe snarky but not sexist. That's the problem, context and understanding. J3Mrs (talk) 18:27, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Women as "information-storage devices"

Nathaniel Tkacz, in his Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness, University of Chicago Press, 2015, writes that women are arguably viewed by Wikipedia as "information-storage devices whose inclusion is desired in order to increase the resource base of the project. Women add to the pool – the market? – of available information" (p. 12).

The argument is that women are viewed as essential only because they are information carriers, not because gender equality is an end in itself.

I've only started reading this, so I don't know where he takes the argument. I think it's a little unfair on some of the people who have pushed to close the gender gap, who I believe do view gender equality as an end in itself. Even so it's a point that has concerned me for a long time. It's clear that attracting more women is good for Wikipedia, and for women in general because of the spread of the female perspective. But is it good for the women – the individual "information-storage devices" – who are encouraged to edit? I'm not at all sure that it is, especially given the current culture. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 19:50, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, to what extent have we tried to attract any editors with the suggestion that they themselves will benefit from it?

Peter ^Isotalo 20:56, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Peter, it's implicit: come and join us, it's fun, you'll love it, you'll be part of this important thing. I think presentation of the gender gap has been difficult for the Foundation. On the one hand, they want to stress how few women there are so that others are encouraged, but they don't want to acknowledge how sexist it can be in case that does the opposite. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 21:10, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Sarah, maybe I'm out of touch, but my perception is that the implicitness of Wikipedia as personal enjoyment is lacking. I mean, how exactly are we informing people about the joys of editing?

Overall, I'd say that Gardner is correct in the sense that it's a logical conclusion of WP:NOT. But being called up as a "storage device" doesn't make it particularly exciting. I agree that it's too diplomatic.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:34, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think gender equality should be a goal in itself. In fact, nothing about the makeup of editors should be an end in itself. If, for example, we only had one good and highly prolific editor, that could somehow singlehandedly write and maintain all the articles the encyclopedia needed, that would be fine, though by definition that editor could not personally embody multiple genders, races, classes, nationalities or whatnot. Don't forget, we're not here to be editors for the sake of chatting with other editors, having fun editing, politicking, diplomacying, and adminning. We're here to write an encyclopedia. It just so happens that we are merely human, so it is quite useful to represent different genders, races, classes, nationalities and whatnot, and making editing more fun and less painful for everyone is also helpful ... but that's not an end in itself. It's just a means. The end is writing the world's best free encyclopedia. --GRuban (talk) 20:58, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

That's the technocrat's view on under-representation, though. If we extended that to it's logical conclusion, we should also ban everything from quirky userboxes to barnstars. I mean, we're here to write articles, not to enjoy ourselves, right?

Peter ^Isotalo 21:05, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

"Ban"? Where did I say "ban"? There is nothing wrong with enjoying ourselves, it just should not be our primary goal. But yes, in numerous cases, people who do not write an encyclopedia but solely hand out barnstars, make userboxes, and such, do get blocked and/or banned. It's called Wikipedia:Here to build an encyclopedia, and you will see it as a block reason every month on WP:ANI, if not every week. --GRuban (talk) 21:28, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Of course women are "information-storage devices", but they are much more, they are human beings. Of course our purpose here is to build an encyclopedia, but as in everything we do we must first aspire to be civilized human beings. Would I rather build an encyclopedia or be a civilized human being? The latter, of course. Can we build an encyclopedia without being civilized human beings? - only a very limited one. I see no contradiction in aspiring to be first a civilized human being and then a Wikipedian.

The key to being both a civilized human being and a Wikipedian is respect for our fellow human beings. Those who use Wikipedia as a medium of disrespect, who bully fellow editors, who try to exclude people based on gender, race, religion, nationality, or whatever other aspect of humanity they might choose are undermining us all, as well as undermining the encyclopedia.

I can get very upset when I see people doing this openly. Please excuse me if I get carried away at times, but as long as I'm around this project, bullies will be dealt with firmly.

If women feel they are being used solely as "information-storage devices", it's time to create a fork where every editor will be respected. The editors of the new encyclopedia will be better off for it, and, I suspect that in the long run, Wikipedia will be better off as well. I personally don't think we've reached that point yet, but it's getting close. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:34, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it can be painful to come up against total rejection of the standard anti-harassment measures adopted by real-life organizations, and wonder if women are simply being used for public relations purposes and "building the brand". There's plenty of money for public relations and programmers, but volunteers are supposed to devise an anti-harassment function all on their own, and make it stick, against organized efforts by trolls both on and offsite. And if "the community" fails to police itself, well that's "the community's" fault. There comes a point where you feel like you are being cynically exploited by people who came in to your movement, took control of all the money and lawyers, and who really know better. --Djembayz (talk) 18:07, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Discussion notice

There is a redirect discussion that may be of interest to this group. Lightbreather (talk) 15:45, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Yvonne Sintes

Jodi Schneider has asked for help on the GG mailing list with Draft:Yvonne Sintes, an article about the first female air traffic controller and commercial airline captain in the UK, in case anyone here is interested. Jodi would like help especially with a timeline of Sintes's family-life and career, and suggested Sintes's autobiography, Trailblazer in Flight, as a source. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 20:38, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Curvy and buxom

Could someone take a look at the actions taken as a result of this non-discussion? Back in 2012, User:Hydroxonium removed redirects from curvy and buxom to Female body shape and replaced them with soft links to Wiktionary instead. I've just now reversed this.[7][8] Could the members of this project review the above? Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 07:36, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I would be very careful about redirects of this kind. Female body shape is much more complex than individual adjectives like "curvy" or "buxom". Redirecting them to a specific article like that is very subjective. They could be redirected at any number of articles, including topics that have nothing to do with the body of the human female.

Go for the safe and boring option here: soft redirects to Wiktionary across the board.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:27, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I guess I just don't agree. They were originally redirects which were then changed without any discussion from outside editors. I restored the redirects when I found I could no longer visit the parent topic which discusses these two types. A soft redirect should be avoided. Viriditas (talk) 09:34, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't believe the procedural history is relevant here. What's your argument for redirecting straight adjectives to specific articles in the first place?

Peter ^Isotalo 09:41, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The procedural history is directly relevant, as it demonstrates a common, primarily understanding of the term prior to the link to Wiktionary. How are these terms subjective? Please read the article on female body type. They refer only to that article. What else could they refer to here? Examples, please. Viriditas (talk) 09:44, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Procedural history counts for bupkus, especially if the Wiktionary link was left alone without complaint for several years.

Alternative suggestions for "buxom" are breast, breast augmentation, secondary sex characteristic, bust/waist/hip measurements, waist–hip ratio and any number of chesty celebrities. Same list for "curvy" except for the breast article. And look at voluptuous, it was a redirect to Big Beautiful Woman for crying out loud.

And it's not just that this is fairly subjective. This is clearly well-meaning, but it also has a bad aftertaste of normative description. Not neutral. To me, these terms are dictionary entries, not search term entries to encyclopedic topics.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:08, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Vandalism is often hidden for years at a time deep inside the body of an article until someone finally comes across it and removes it. I've removed vandalism that was "left alone without complaint for several years" many times. So, your "squeaky wheel" argument doesn't hold true. The redirect was altered without notice and without discussion. I merely reverted back to the original as I couldn't find the article when I typed in the two terms. I think that counts for quite a bit as 1) the original creator of the redirect was trying to target the most likely article, and 2) I came to the same conclusion several years later. Where I come from, that's called a consensus by agreement. In any case, let's address your alternative examples. All of the examples you give for "buxom" are already covered in the female body shape article, particularly in the section "Alteration of body shape" and the rest of those links are found throughout the article. So the best solution is to redirect buxom to female body shape to gain access to all of the topics rather than just one. More to the point, the sources describe "buxom" as an "inverted triangle" female body type, so again, the redirect is appropriate. "Curvy" refers to the hourglass female body type, so the redirect is entirely appropriate. I don't think we are going to agree on this, so I would appreciate it if we wait for further input. Viriditas (talk) 10:33, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, more input would be most welcome. Let's acknowledge WP:NOTABUREAUCRACY, though. None of us have committed any procedural sins. We're disagreemeeing about how to redirect in these cases.

Peter ^Isotalo 12:19, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The encyclopedia and its readers are far better served by links to Wiktionary. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:26, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I agreed with TRPoD and Peter that these adjectives should redirect to Wiktionary, not to articles on Wikipedia. "Curvy" does not necessarily mean "hourglass shape"; it could also mean "pear-shaped" or "bottom-heavy" or "voluptuous" or "too heavy". Similarly, "buxom" may also mean "top-heavy" or "large-breasted' whereas the "inverted triangle" refers to the size of the shoulders compared to the hips. Because there is some ambiguity, it makes more sense to redirect to a definition page that can include all the possibilities instead of redirecting to just one possibility. Ca2james (talk) 21:39, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

(although, Curvy really should go to Curve. )-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:49, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

In accordance with Wikipedia's guidance on what should be linked, as these words are not technical terms, jargon, expressions, or phrases, I don't see a need to link them to anything. Following Wikipedia's guidance on what should not be linked, these aren't unusual words, and thus I don't see a need to link to a dictionary definition. isaacl (talk) 21:57, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

If anyone cares what I think, I think directing "curvy" to Wiktionary is appropriate, though I think using curvy to describe women in encyclopedic articles should probably be limited. Lightbreather (talk) 01:14, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@Lightbreather: I'm willing to be edumacated on the subject. Could you briefly explain why the Wiktionary soft redirect is more appropriate than the redirect to female body type, when "curvy" predominantly refers to the hourglass female body type in the literature, which is the relevant subtopic in that article? Viriditas (talk) 01:30, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, I'm not going to say I speak for all women. Also, I'm not going to comment on the "non-discussion" up top (from five years ago).

Let's say you had an article that said, "John Doe's build was angular." Should there be an "Angular" article? Are all men essentially "angular"? Should there be a "Male body shape" article? And if there is, should an article that says, "Harry Doe's build was soft" also redirect to the "Male body shape" article?

I've know some women with very hard-muscular-angular "shapes," and some men with very soft-smooth-curvy "shapes." It's just ridiculous, IMO, that's all. That we should put so much effort into describing how women look, but not into how men look. It says a lot about what we think is important - or unimportant - when it comes to being a woman as opposed to what we think is important when it comes to being a man. Can't remember where I heard it, a long time ago, but we look on women as ornaments and men as instruments. For women, it's how she looks, for men it's what he can do. Lightbreather (talk) 01:52, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Lightbreather. The Drover's Wife has informed me that men are not welcome here, so this will be my last edit. I'm not really following your comments up above (and no, it's not because I'm a man). The "female body shape" article includes reliable sources, including studies, of the female body shape. "Curvy" refers to the "hourglass" shape discussed in this article, which is why the redirect is appropriate. Others up above have mentioned that this is ambiguous, but I really don't see it. I only came here because I discovered that "curvy" and "buxom" no longer redirected the correct topic and had been changed without discussion to links to Wiktionary. That's about as far as my interest goes on this topic. I think the arguments for keeping Wiktionary soft redirects miss the entire point about helping our readers find the correct article, which in this case is female body shape. This has little to nothing to do with men. Viriditas (talk) 02:04, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Image bias

From waist-hip ratio

From Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2000.

I was checking out waist-hip ratio because of the thread above, and came across the image to the right. The slim example is of a SuicideGirls model. The other is some random user-generated image with the description "Front-On View of an Obese Man".

This is a very obvious example of gender stereotypes expressed through images. I've seen this before in articles that relate to body shape, clothing and similar topics. Look at this edit that I made to bikini. The initial choice for a bikini illustration was professional model Michele Merkin posing for a glamor pic. Extremely stereotypical.

This type of visual objectification has a tendency to creep into articles that have absolutely nothing to do with the female body. Someone seriously thought that this was a suitable illustration of laptop usage (my alternative). And here's a somewhat similar example that I switched out[9] in chair. Not as obvious as the laptop pic, but still a very odd choice for a neutral illustration of how a chair is used.

Has this issue been discussed before? Any thoughts about strategies for identifying and improving illustrations that reflect gender stereotypes or outright sexism?

Peter ^Isotalo 10:50, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

It's an interesting question, Peter, how to deal with this systematically because it's everywhere – inappropriate use of sex, women's bodies, certain types of bodies, images from pornography instead of ordinary photographs or medical images. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 16:55, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

If it's related... there's been a user trying to add Suicide Girls images to articles. Not sure if this might have been the result of the same thing. Regardless, this image should be changed. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 17:16, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Er ... changed to what? I am not specifically bound to either of these pics, but there is a lot to be said for one image of a male and one image of a female, as well as one image with the ratio noticeably greater than 1, and one with the ratio noticeably less than 1. --GRuban (talk) 19:00, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

It's a male gaze image from a pornography website. If we want to show a typical woman's waist size, we should first find out what that is, then look for a photograph of that size. And there's no need for skimpy underwear to illustrate a waist. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 19:12, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Sarah is absolutely right; 100% male gaze. The idea of juxtaposing a smaller figure with a larger one isn't all bad, but the execution just isn't right.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:56, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Black and white line-drawn illustrations could be a solution. The first thing that I thought of was the Pioneer plaque.Dialectric (talk) 21:59, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The second image above would be better than what's there at the moment. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 22:03, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

No offence, but the second image above does not actually show a waist-hip ratio. --GRuban (talk) 01:36, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Female body shape

I've just noticed that we have an article on Female body shape (created in 2006 as Voluptuous), but Male body shape redirects to Body shape. Male is the default once again. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 23:32, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Well one could argue too that the male's body shape is nothing special really, then again I don't think on it too much. The main difference is the curves which woman have to help childbirth. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:39, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@Knowledgekid87: That's what I mean about male being the default. The female body is the norm for me (as you say, for me it's "nothing special"). The male body is the norm for you. But male shouldn't be the norm (the default, the Self), for Wikipedia, because that means Wikipedia is saying female is the Other. The othering of women is the essence of sexism. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 00:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Well I have no objection if someone wants to make an article on it. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed that Female body shape article, with no corresponding Male body shape article this morning after reading the Curvy and buxom discussion started above. And you're right, SV: male is the default once again. Lightbreather (talk) 01:07, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

So rather than pointing it out make the article, nothing is stopping anyone from doing this. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:08, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

What's kinda aggravating though is why anyone should have to stop editing what they'd prefer to be editing to go create something to parallel an article that should probably never have been created in the first place. (It should have just been a part of the existing Body shape article.) Lightbreather (talk) 01:21, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

That's one way to look at it, an article should be redirected because one is about a female and there is no male counterpart that exists. Rather than having all or nothing though wouldn't it be better to have both? Having both gives the reader more of an in depth look at the subject. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:27, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, there you go. Maybe you should go and create a Male body shape article. Lightbreather (talk) 01:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Im a guy, and would want to but don't know about it enough from the medical point of view. If it is brought up though the nI feel someone should make the other article and rather than just saying "Hmm" maybe you can look for someone at the medical wiki-project to help out. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:18, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

(ec) KK, the sofixit response is problematic. Sexist titles (or anything that implies male is the default) shouldn't be created in the first place. When women point these things out, we're told to fix them. But there are only 10 percent of us, and only a small percentage of that 10 percent work on GG issues. If we have to fix everything, there won't be any time left for us to be normal Wikipedians, which is why we're here. So the sexism hits us from every direction. We see it while editing, we have to explain why it's sexist, we may have to explain what sexism is, we're expected to fix it, and that means we don't get to be regular editors like everyone else. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 02:26, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

You are the one who brought it up though, it shouldn't matter if you are female, male, bisexual, pansexual, ect. One way to look at it if you want to go by sexes is that you are creating an article from a female's point of view. You would be writing about the guys rather than the guys writing about the girls. In the end the focus should be about improving Wikipedia and I am sure the two articles can be balanced. if you don't want to write it than no problem, just ask a wiki-project. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:36, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

KK, can you see the essential point, though? Imagine a situation in which, instead of sexist content and titles, we had anti-black racist content and titles, and a very small percentage of black editors pointing it out, asking for change and help. Imagine that the response from white editors was to ridicule them and argue that it's not really racist (the complainants should stop being so "thin-skinned"), or to say: okay, sofixit.

The black editors would have to spend their whole time on WP either trying not to notice or mind the racism, or doing nothing but correct it themselves, sometimes to great opposition. That would be a horrible situation, wouldn't it? That would be a project that would have no support. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 02:51, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It drives me nuts to see male be the default - and it also drives me nuts to be told to just fix it. Being told to fix it is unhelpful. A problem has been identified and by saying "sofixit", you're basically dismissing the concern as unworthy of your time. And honestly, that's frustrating. Knowledgekid87, I understand that you may not agree that it matters to not have male as the default, and that's fine, but it would be more helpful and supportive here if you didn't dismiss the valid concerns of other editors. Ca2james (talk) 03:01, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm coming to this section via this note at WP:Anatomy. I don't think that the Male body shape link redirecting to the Body shape article has anything to do with males being the default; I think it has to do with the fact that much more has been written about female body shape than about male body shape. Really, this is shown in the literature on body shape. Ideally, we should only create WP:Spinouts when needed. Not every sex/gender topic needs to have corresponding male and female/man and woman articles. I've got nothing more to state on this matter at this talk page or the WP:Anatomy talk page since I'm not interested in debatinh the political aspects of it. Flyer22 (talk) 03:05, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Article expansion/merger

Found some titles relating to male bodies from a social and cultural perspective:

• Susan Bordo The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private
• Jonathan Watson, Male Bodies: Health, Culture and Identity[10] (full text PDF!)
• Emmanuel Cooper, Male Bodies : A Photographic History of the Nude
• Santiago Fouz-Hernández (editor), Mysterious Skin: Male Bodies in Contemporary Cinema
  

Peter ^Isotalo 02:37, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there's plenty of good content in female body shape that ought to be present in body shape. Anyone have suggestions on how to go about merging content?

Peter ^Isotalo 02:58, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I commented in the #Female body shape section above; if merging goes on, then I hope it is justified and is not simply a means of making the female body shape and male body shape topics equal. They don't have the same WP:Weight. Flyer22 (talk) 03:05, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

“I Love to You” edit-a-thon

"Feminists aim to fix the Wikipedia gender gap", The Daily W, 16 February 2015, posted by Carolmooredc to the GG mailing list, about an edit-a-thon organized by Amanda. Interesting point by Monika, co-organizer, which feeds into some of the discussion on this page: "I find that it’s really ethically hard for me to actually ask someone to volunteer their time to learn a set of rules that they may not have had any role in developing in the first place." Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 16:52, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand that comment. ANY newcomer to ANY site/project/etc is going to be asked to learn rules they didn't have any input in developing. Karanacs (talk) 17:26, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that remark was a little obscure. Perhaps it's a tactful and diplomatic way to allude to "getting caught up in learning a body of rules that is so large and complicated you never notice that very crucial and interesting redlink, until it is too late: Wikipedia:Sexual harassment policy." --Djembayz (talk) 21:05, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The whole quote and context is: "Sengul-Jones said a normal Wikipedia edit-a-thon would have more editing and less discussion. But she says that simply enlisting women to edit isn’t the solution. For real change to occur, there must be discussion.

'I find that it’s really ethically hard for me to actually ask someone to volunteer their time to learn a set of rules that they may not have had any role in developing in the first place,' Sengul-Jones said. “I think that attitude puts the burden of responsibility on them.'"

And later: "'I wanted to organize a public event that would invite conversation and critical engagement with Wikipedia and with different forms of media,' Sengul-Jones said. 'Just simply having a conversation is really valuable and important.'" Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 21:41, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm pinging Monika (sorry, I meant to do that earlier) in case she'd like to add something. I know she has written elsewhere about the issue of encouraging volunteers (free labour) to create and shape information sources. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 23:16, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Quick note: Monika has asked the The Daily reporter to update the article with a few corrections (e.g., we started at 9:30am, some quotes were misquoted, etc.). It's really difficult to capture several weeks of planning, four presentations, and four hours of conversation and activities in a brief article. Also, please consider that we were speaking to a particular audience in a particular context.--Mssemantics (talk) 23:42, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Amanda. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 01:01, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I stopped reading at "For example, there isn’t a page for Latina or Chicana, Menking said. Instead, Wikipedia redirects to the masculine versions of these terms, Latino or Chicano." as absurd. I don't know how this would be fixable without breaking WP:NPOV do we place "Latio" or Latina" first in the title? Is there a neutral word for that group of people? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:49, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Amanda, did you really tell the journalist that we lack a feminine "page" for Latino?

Peter ^Isotalo 00:21, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I can understand the thought behind it, but it is a poor example to use. Here is a diagram on what usage in books has: [11]. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:45, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Latino/a is also used. See The Routledge Companion to Latino/a Literature. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 01:01, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

We could use that but since so few sources use the term we would have to add a footnote. Would the change just be for the title or usage in the entire article? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:04, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't know. This is the first time I've encountered that term (Latino/a). Maybe looking around on Google Books would help us to work out how common it is. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 02:15, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Speaking from a linguistic perspective, it seems unlikely that it'll be anything near as common as "Latino". WP:COMMONNAME will most likely put a stop to any attempt to change titles like these. Words borrowed from genedered languages into non-gendered languages (grammatically speaking) will usually lead to situations like this.

Peter ^Isotalo 03:02, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

One thought

As a long-time woman editor on Wikipedia, I had no idea any aspect of the CSB project was still alive and kicking, and I was relieved to see that this page was still active. But I was unsurprised to see that one of - probably the most - active contributors to this talk page is, of course, a man. One of the reasons Wikipedia will never, ever counter the gender bias in its editor base (and in turn in its article base) is that if you try to create spaces where women's needs are centred to address these issues, men have a tendency to a) not step back, b) get extremely angry about it. Like, this is not even "you shouldn't contribute here at all" but "you should be mindful of not dominating the space and being the most active contributor to the whole page". And so the cycle continues forever. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:50, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

You might want to check out User:Lightbreather/Kaffeeklatsch.

Peter ^Isotalo 01:12, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@The Drover's Wife: According to the page history statistics, the most active contributors to this talk page are women, not men.[12] Viriditas (talk) 01:25, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Is there a way to run that starting at a certain date? Like, say, since 1 December 2014? Lightbreather (talk) 01:31, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

It's interesting to scroll down to the Top editors list and sort it by the far, right-hand column: Added (bytes). Lightbreather (talk) 01:35, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

In that case, yes, a man (Salvio giuliano) has been the most loquacious. Viriditas (talk) 01:37, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Seriously, look at this page. You've got a page that is supposed to be tackling Wikipedia's gender gap, and it is itself illustrating the gender gap when even on a discussion about fixing the gender gap the opinions of men are everywhere. As a woman who is wary of jumping into a pit of vipers, seeing a page like this and the sheer amount of men-contributing (and not in a centering-the-opinions-of-women-kind-of-way) is extremely off-putting; like, if men can't step back here, god help the chances of doing it anywhere more broadly. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:42, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm a man who writes about women and related topics and I have done so for a decade. I've also made what, 12 edits to this page? I have a mother and a sister, and strangely enough, we're all human and share similar concerns. I don't think I should have to stand back. Viriditas (talk) 01:46, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

All of the nine out of ten men on Wikipedia who form the gender gap had mothers, and many of them have sisters, but that mere fact hasn't remotely avoided the current situation. I'm certainly not saying you're a bad person and I'm certainly not saying your contributions are irrelevant, but that if male editors can't realise that a page addressing the lack of women on Wikipedia needs to focus on and centre women's needs/opinions/contributions we have a problem. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:52, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

That's precisely my point. We have more in common, but you focus only on differences. Any argument that begins "If X editors" should be discarded. Problems require solutions from both sides, not just one. I've worked pretty hard creating, expanding, and improving articles about women, so I think you are misguided. If you took a moment to put your anger aside and truly thought about the problem you describe, you would discover that it requires the active participation of men to solve it. I have really little interest in discussing this here. I came here to mention that I found two redirects that had been changed without discussion when I tried to find the parent topic. My initial comment spawned another thread altogether, focusing on issues relevant to this page, so I believe I have made a good contribution to countering systemic bias. You are welcome to your opinion, and I am welcome to disagree with it. Good bye. Viriditas (talk) 01:57, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

We have more in common, but you focus only on differences. And yet, today, we spent the day talking about why there's an article Female body shape, and whether or not "curvy" or "buxom" should redirect there. And is there a Male body shape article? Why is Wikipedia focused on that difference? That females have a "body shape" but apparently, males don't. Lightbreather (talk) 02:07, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm no longer participating on this subject. You are welcome to create an article on male body shape, but that has nothing to do with the concerns I raised on this page, as I did not address that topic. I think it's great that someone might create an article on that subject now that I raised the initial issue about female body shape, but you're distracting from the points I came here to make. Since males aren't known for their "curves" and can't be "buxom", your point doesn't make sense. Viriditas (talk) 02:12, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

It has everything to do with the discussion: it structures Wikipedia's coverage of body shape in a way that completely centres men, which in turn feeds back into the gender gap. When someone points out that you're having trouble recognising that because you have a different, and on Wikipedia drastically overrepresented, experience, your response isn't to listen - it's to get annoyed and try to shut down the conversation. That is not a solution - that is exactly how we got here. The Drover's Wife (talk) 02:18, 18 February 2015 (UTC)