Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Loves Women/Event Toolkit/Writing about women

Writing about women

When writing about women on Wikipedia, make sure the content and titles do not use sexist language or promote sexist stereotypes.

Women are thought to comprise between 8.5 and 16.1 percent of editors on the English Wikipedia. This means that most articles are written by men, as are most of the content policies, including the notability and referencing policies. Those policies determine which articles about women can be hosted and frame how they are written.

The combined effect of personnel and policy is the gender imbalance of our content. As of 5 March 2018, 267,241 biographies on the English Wikipedia were about women (17.49%) out of 1,527,862 overall. As a result of sourcing and notability issues, almost all biographies before 1900 are of men. Achieving gender balance, diversity and fairness is in the interests of all editors and readers. The elements provided here may help to identify the subtle and more obvious ways in which titles, language, images and linking practices on the English Wikipedia can discriminate against women.

Male is not the default

See also: Other (philosophy) § Sex and gender, Male as norm, and Androcentrism

Avoid language and images that make male the Self and female the Other. Researchers have found that Wikipedia articles about women are more likely to contain words such as woman, female and lady, than articles about men are to contain the male equivalents. This suggests that editors see male as the default or null gender, and that biographies are assumed to be of men unless otherwise stated.

Avoid labelling a woman as a female author or female politician, unless her gender is explicitly relevant to the article. In April 2013 several media stories noted that editors on the English Wikipedia had begun moving women from Category:American novelists to Category:American women novelists, while leaving men in the main category. Linguists call this markedness. Treating a man who is a writer as a "writer" and a woman as a "woman writer" presents women as "marked", or the Other, requiring an adjective to differentiate them from the male default.

Use surnames

Use caution when referring to a woman by her first name, which can serve to infantilize her. As a rule, after the initial introduction ("Susan Smith is an South African anthropologist"), refer to women by their surnames ("Smith is the author of ..."). Here is an example of the inappropriate use of a woman's first name.

First names are sometimes needed for clarity. For example, when writing about a family with the same surname, after the initial introductions they can all be referred to by first names. A first name might also be used when a surname is long and double-barreled, and its repetition would be awkward to read and write. When a decision is made to use first names for editorial reasons, use them for both women and men.

Writing the lead

Importance of the lead

According to Graells-Garrido et al. (2015), the lead (the top introductory part) is a "good proxy for any potential biases expressed by Wikipedia contributors". The lead may be the only part of an article that is read—especially on mobile devices—so pay close attention to how women are described there. Again, giving women "marked" treatment can convey subtle assumptions to readers.

First woman

Avoid language that places being a woman ahead of the subject's achievements. Opening the lead with "A was the first woman to do X" or "A was the first female X" immediately defines her in terms of men who have done the same thing, and it can inadvertently imply: "She may not have been a very good X, but at least she was the first woman." When prioritizing that the subject is a "first woman", make sure it really is the only notable thing about her. Otherwise start with her own position or accomplishments.

For example, as of 10 March 2015, Wikipedia described Russian chemist Anna Volkova solely in terms of four first-woman benchmarks. But the biographies of Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher, as of the same date, began with the positions they held, and only then said that they were the first or only women to have held them.

Infoboxes

Infoboxes are an important source of metadata and a source of discrimination against women. For example, the word spouse is more likely to appear in a woman's infobox than in a man's.

When writing about a woman who works, or has worked, as a model, consider avoiding {{Infobox model}}. It includes parameters for hair and eye colour and previously contained parameters for bust, hip, waist size and weight. The latter were removed in March 2016 following this discussion. If you add an infobox (they are not required), consider using {{Infobox person}} instead.

Relationships

Defining women by their relationships

Wherever possible, avoid defining a notable woman, particularly in the title or first sentence, in terms of her relationships (wife/mother/daughter of). Do not begin a biography with: "Susan Smith is the daughter of historian Frank Smith and wife of actor John Jones. She is known for her work on game theory." An example of the kind of title the Wikipedia community has rejected is Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown) (now a redirect to Sarah Jane Brown).

Researchers have found that Wikipedia articles about women are more likely to discuss their family, romantic relationships, and sexuality, while articles about men are more likely to contain words about cognitive processes and work. This suggests that Wikipedia articles are objectifying women. Women's biographies mention marriage and divorce more often than men's biographies do. Biographies that refer to the subject's divorce are 4.4 times more likely to be about a woman on the English Wikipedia. The figures are similar on the German, Russian, Spanish, Italian and French Wikipedias.

[T]he greater frequency and burstiness of words related to cognitive mechanisms in men, as well as the more frequent words related to sexuality in women, may indicate a tendency to objectify women in Wikipedia. ... [M]en are more frequently described with words related to their cognitive processes, while women are more frequently described with words related to sexuality. In the full biography text, the cognitive processes and work concerns categories are more bursty in men biographies, meaning that those aspects of men's lives are more important than others at the individual level."

A woman's relationships are inevitably discussed prominently when essential to her notability, but try to focus on her own notable roles or accomplishments first. For example, consider starting articles about women who were First Lady of the United States, which is a significant role, with "served as First Lady of the United States from [year] to [year]", followed by a brief summary of her achievements, rather than "is/was the wife of President X".

Marriage

When discussing a woman who is married to a man, write "A is married to B" instead of "A is the wife of B", which casts the male as possessor. Avoid the expression "man and wife", which generalizes the husband and marks the wife. Do not refer to a woman as Mrs. John Smith; when using an old citation that does this, try to find and use the woman's own name, as in: "Susan Smith (cited as Mrs. J. Smith)".

When introducing a woman as the parent of an article subject, avoid the common construction, "Smith was born in 1960 to John Smith and his wife, Susan." Consider whether there is an editorial reason to begin with the father's name. If not, try "Susan Jones and her husband, John Smith" or, if the woman has taken her husband's name, "Susan Smith, née Jones, and her husband, John", or "Susan and John Smith". Where there are several examples of "X and spouse" in an article, alternate the order of male and female names.

Internal links

The focus on relationships in articles about women affects internal linking and therefore search-engine results. One study found that women on Wikipedia are more linked to men than men are linked to women. When writing an article about a woman, if you include an internal link to an article about a man, consider visiting the latter to check that it includes reciprocal information about the relationship; if it merits mention in the woman's article, it is likely germane to his. Failure to mention the relationship in both can affect search algorithms in a way that discriminates against women.

Language

Gender-neutral language

See also: Language and gender and Gender marking in job titles

Use gender-neutral nouns when describing professions and positions: actor, author, aviator, bartender, chair, comedian, firefighter, flight attendant, hero, poet, police officer. Avoid adding gender (female pilot, male nurse) unless the topic requires it.

Do not refer to human beings as man or mankind. Sentences such as "man has difficulty in childbirth" illustrate that these are not inclusive generic terms. Depending on the context, use humanity, humankind, human beings, women and men, or men and women.

Word order

The order in which groups are introduced—man and woman, male and female, Mr. and Mrs., husband and wife, brother and sister, ladies and gentlemen—has implications for their status, so consider alternating the order as you write.

Girls, ladies

Do not refer to adult women as girls or ladies, unless using common expressions, proper nouns, or titles that cannot be avoided (e.g., leading lady, lady-in-waiting, ladies' singles, Ladies' Gaelic Football Association, First Lady). The inappropriate use of ladies can be seen in Miss Universe 1956, which on 12 March 2015 said there had been "30 young ladies in the competition", and in Mixer dance, which discussed "the different numbers of men and ladies".

Pronouns: Avoid generic he

See also: Gender-specific and gender-neutral pronouns and Gender neutrality in English

The use of the generic he (masculine pronouns such as he, him, his) is increasingly avoided in sentences that might refer to women and men or girls and boys. Instead of "each student must hand in his assignment", try one of the following.

• Rewrite the sentence in the plural: "students must hand in their assignments."
• Use feminine pronouns: "each student must hand in her assignment." This is often done to signal the writer's rejection of the generic he, the "linguistic equivalent of affirmative action".
• Alternate between the masculine and feminine in different paragraphs or sections.
• Rewrite the sentence to remove the pronoun: "student assignments must be handed in."
• Write out the alternatives—he or she, him or her, his or her; him/her, his/her.
• Use a composite form for the nominative—s/he or s(he).
• Use the plural even when referring to singular nouns or pronouns. This is known as the singular they: "each student must hand in their assignment". It is most often used with someone, anyone, everyone, no one.

Singular they

Nominative (subject)	Accusative (object)	Dependent possessive pronoun	Independent possessive pronoun	Reflexive
When I tell someone a joke, they laugh.	When I greet a friend, I hug them.	When someone leaves the library, their book is stamped.	A friend lets me borrow theirs.	Each person drives there themselves (or, nonstandard, themself).

Sources

Avoid using openly sexist sources unless there is a strong editorial reason to use them. For example, do not use pornographic or men's websites and magazines (such as AskMen, Playboy, and Maxim) in the biographies of female actors.

A source doesn't have to be overtly sexist to set a bad example. For example most women are underrepresented in certain institutions that are slow to change, such as educational institutions or museums. Often such institutions can be fine to use as a source for white males, but for women, not so much.

Images

See also: Male gaze, Sexual objectification, and Scopophilia

Avoid images that objectify women. In particular, do not use pornography images in articles that are not about pornography. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images states that "photographs taken in a pornography context would normally be inappropriate for articles about human anatomy".

Except when the topic is necessarily tied to it (examples: downblouse and upskirt), avoid examples of male-gaze imagery, where women are presented as objects of heterosexual male appreciation. When adding an image of part of a woman's body, consider cropping the image to focus on that body part.

When illustrating articles about women's health and bodies, use authoritative medical images wherever possible. Make sure the images accurately represent the topic and would not mislead readers. Be particularly careful when using "before and after" images that purport to show the benefits of a particular treatment. Check that the images really do show the same woman and that the source of the images can be trusted.

Source of this page : Wikipedia:Writing about women