Wikipedia:WikiProject Gender studies

Important disclaimer: A few Wikipedians have got together to make some suggestions about how we might organise data in articles about Gender Studies. These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the below guidelines may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!

Edit this intro

Welcome to the WikiProject Gender Studies!

This WikiProject is aimed at improving the quality of articles dealing with gender studies, and at removing systematic gender bias from Wikipedia.

Our total progress so far:

Add this table to your userpage, and relevant talk pages, using the following: {{WikiProject Gender Studies}}

About this Project

Observation suggests that males are over-represented on Wikipedia, though there has not been a proper survey to back this up. The aim of this Project is to correct any systematic gender bias on Wikipedia. If you're interested, add your name to the list of contributors!

Aims of this Project

• Create or improve articles on feminism, feminists, and articles dealing with gender studies.
• Correct any sexism or gender bias in Wikipedia articles.
• Where a feminist writer has written on a given topic, the view should be put forward on the appropriate article (as well as any criticisms or critiques).
• Improve or create articles on issues of interest to, or about, women.
• Do so within Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy.

What this Project is not

This project does not aim to introduce a pro-female or anti-male bias, to advocate feminism (or any given variety of feminism) across Wikipedia, nor does it seek to write feminist critiques of aspects of society without including criticisms of these views (where relevant). Phrased differently, this project does not seek to introduce a POV bias (to either articles, or Wikipedia in general). Rather, the aim is to improve the quality of articles, which deal with gender studies, within the Neutral Point of View policy.

How do I help?

Glad you asked! Feel free to sign up under contributors. If you come across an article which either needs attention, or alternatively that doesn't exist (even though it should), add it to the lists under "Requested articles", "Requests for expansion", or "Requests for review/attention" headings. If articles under those headings seem mature enough to no longer need attention, feel free to clean them off the list. If there are categories or templates you come across on Wikipedia which may be of interest to contributors of this project, feel free to add them under "Useful Categories" or "Useful Templates". You can also 'adopt' an article, or use the Discussion page to discuss issues relating to Gender Studies on Wikipedia. Finally, beyond Wikipedia, some contributors of this project are working on a Wikibook (textbook) on Feminism at Wikibooks (available here, feel free to contribute).

Considerations

In combatting gender bias on Wikipedia, take particular consideration of the following examples of sexism:

• Usage of the terms "Miss" or "Mrs." should be changed to "Ms." or, preferably, removed entirely. Even calling an individual "Ms. Gallagher" is deferential in that it highlights gender and is more gentle than simply referring to her as "Gallagher", as is most often done with men.
• Take note of details limiting women to their physical characteristics. A woman's height and weight are generally considered irrelevant except in the cases of athletes and models. Similarly, remove infatuated comments related to appearance.
• Note that pictures can be POV representations as well. Oftentimes, the images selected to represent women are among the most sexualized, and least humanizing. If possible, attempt to locate suitable alternatives.

Contributors

• AmishThrasher 03:01, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Seth Mahoney 02:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• --Revolución (talk) 03:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Sarge Baldy 23:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• An An 01:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Ilessthan3you 21:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Useful Categories

• Category:Feminism
• Category:feminists
• Category:Women's universities and colleges in the U.S.
• Category:Modernist women writers
• Category:Feminism stubs

Useful Templates

• Template:WikiProject Gender Studies

Adopted articles

If there is an article that you are interested about within the scope of this project, you might want to "adopt" an article. This would involve doing the research, writing, and picture-taking (if possible) for either a non-existent article or a stub. Of course, everyone else can still edit an adopted article, and you can work on other things too, but the idea is to find a focus for a while, to try and build up the number of quality articles the Project has produced.

To list your adopted article, feel free to post your username (by using four tildes (~)) and the article name below:

• Feminism Wikibook - AmishThrasher 13:01, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Current Tasks

Gender Bias

Articles which display a gender bias that contributors can help to correct, or where the work of relevant Gender Studies researchers is not discussed (yet should be):

Biased Language

Usage of the terms "Miss" or "Mrs." should be changed to "Ms." or, preferably, removed entirely.

• Jane Hall
• Fat Butt and Pancake Head
• Elsie Leung
• Patty Stonesifer

Description by Physical Characteristics

A woman's height and weight are generally considered irrelevant except in the cases of athletes and models.

• Bettina Welch
• Rose Keegan

Biased Pictures

Oftentimes, the images selected to represent women are among the most sexualized, and least humanizing. If possible, attempt to locate suitable alternatives.

Stubs, and Requested Articles

Articles on topics relevant to Gender Studies that either don't exist (but should), or alternatively are stubs which require much more depth (see also Category:Feminism stubs):

• From List of feminists:
  • Charlotte Wilson
  • Lois Marie Gibbs
  • Natasha Walter
  • Marcelle Karp
  • Heather Dean
  • Ti-Grace Atkinson
  • Krystal Wakem
  • Carol Downer
  • Francis Power Cobbe
  • Rosa Mayreder
  • Lorraine Bethel
  • Helene Aylon
  • Bernadette Cozart
  • Charlene Spretnak
  • Donna LaFramboise
  • Olympe Audouard
  • Pauline Roland
  • Peggy Kornegger
  • Eugenie Potonie-Pierre
  • Kathy Rudy
  • Florynce Kennedy
• Dorothy Kenyon, American lawyer, supporter of women's rights
• Elizabeth Gurley Flinn, labour organizer with the IWW
• Czech feminists Eliška Krásnohorská, Anna Bayerová, Alice Masarykova, Karolina Svěltá
• History of women or Women's history or whatever, we don't seem to have one (though we do have History of women in the United States)
  • this seems like a massively over-broad topic. History of women in the United States seems like it could be split into two topics... history of feminism in the US and role/treatment of women in XXXX period in the US. In either case, at least there's a coherent "wrapper" around the topic... the geographical bound of the US. Because the treatment/rights/role/history of women moves at very different paces in different places, it seems to make a lot more sense to break the broad History of women into more manageable chunks. Feco 07:19, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Olga Lipovskaya and Tatiana Mamonova Russian feminists
• List of women poets, red links on that list
• American WWII journalists Toni Frissell - Marvin Breckinridge Patterson - Esther Bubley - May Craig

Requests for expansion

Articles which, while they exist, deserve a lot more depth:

• Rachel Foster Avery, corresponding secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association
• Laura Bassi, fisrt woman to teach in a European university, stub I've expanded this. I'm not sure if I should delete it from here or if someone might want to expand it more.
• Marie-Louise Berneri, anarchist writer and activist
• Brazilian Women's Articulation, NGO in Brazil
• Feminist history is correctly described on History as an ideological approach toward general history studies, yet this article doesn't really exist; it redirects to History of feminism, not the same thing at all
• Frances Power Cobbe
• Edinburgh Seven a group of women who fought to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh in the 1860s, the leader of the group Edith Pechey-Phipson and Sophia Jex-Blake went on to have successful medical careers
• Janet Flanner major figure from the 1930s Paris scene, was the New Yorker's Paris correspondent under the name "Citizen Genet".
• Marilyn French, American author
• Betty Friedan We accurately call her "one of the most influential feminists of the late 20th Century"... and we give her a stub.
• Catharine MacKinnon major feminist thinker, we have little but a list of publications
• Mary Margaret McBride 1930s and 1940s U.S. radio talk show host, pretty major figure, I added a stub.
• Adrienne Monnier major figure from the 1930s Paris scene
• Nawal el-Sadaawi, Egyptian writer/activist
• Bertha von Suttner, Austrian pacifist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, stub
• Emma Willard, established the first women's higher education institution, stub
• Sibylle Gabrielle Marie Antoinette Riqueti de Mirabeau, French writer under the pseudonym Gyp Madame de Martel.
• Helen Lynd, American sociologist
• Aletta Jacobs, early proponent of artificial birth control
• Judy Chicago arguably the U.S.'s most famous specifically feminist artist, we have a tiny stub.
• Kang Youwei (1858-1927) and Liang Qichao (1873-1929), Chinese intellectuals their interest in gender equity is not discussed
• Katô Shidzue one of the first post-war feminists in Japan; now decently fleshed out, but still could use expansion JerryOrr 00:08, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
• Martha Griffiths, US politican, made sure women were included in the civil rights bill, stub
• Matilda Joslyn Gage, radical US feminist
• Mary Butts - important modernist writer.
• Mary Daly major feminist thinker, we have little but a list of publications. Featured on todo list 20:02, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC).
• Massouda Jalal the one female presidential candidate in the Afghanistan election
• Mills College students got national attention fighting to keep Mills a women's college in the 1990s; we have a tiny stub and no mention of the history, most of the Women's colleges are stubs Category:Women's universities and colleges in the U.S.
• Mia Zapata highly respected (albeit not nationally famous) indie rock musician, murdered in 1993. That's about all our page says: nothing really about her music and nothing about the massive amount of work on women's self-defense done by Home Alive, founded in her memory.
• Nadine Gordimer South African Nobel price winner in Literature 1991.
• Nawal El Saadawi and Hoda Shaarawi important egyptian feminists, stubs
• Princess Marie of Edinburgh (a.k.a.Queen Marie of Romania): a rather important intellectual and political figure, gets short shrift.
• Rosalind Miles very important women's history author, wrote The Women's History of the World (also needed). --Dmcdevit 04:17, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Sarah Weddington, lawyer on Roe vs Wade, stub
• Silvina Ocampo Argentine intellectual. We have a reasonable short article on her sister, Victoria Ocampo
• Sisters in Islam, prominent Malaysian women's group
• The Revolution American feminist newpaper, stub
• Women's studies; stub
• U.S. v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries, the ruling that made birth control education possible in the US
• Yenlin Ku Taiwanese feminist, established the first women's studies program in Taiwan
• Yü Cheng-hsieh (1775-1804) and Li Ju-chen (1763-1830), historic Chinese feminists
• Yvonne Vera female author from Zimbabwe, saved from deletion, but it still could be expanded beyond a stub

Requests for review/attention

Articles that need to be cleaned up, or checked:

• Oriana Fallaci prominent Italian journalist and author. Little though I like her remarks on contemporary Islam, she certainly deserves more of an article. We mostly have a bibliography, quotations, and links. -- Jmabel 22:59, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
• masculism - as requested on the discussion page Ilessthan3you 03:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
• father's rights - as requested on the discussion page Ilessthan3you 03:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

See Also:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias