Difference between revisions of "Gender bias in Wikipedia"

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Gender bias in Wikipedia refers to the unequal gender distribution in regards to content contribution and content contributors on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia allowing the distribution of the collaborative culmination of knowledge to be more straightforward and accessible to a wide digital audience. The bases for Wikipedia is that any individual with internet access is able to edit Wikipedia with little training. The site offers a neutral setting for users to contribute personal expertise to an established knowledge base ^[1]. However, among other biases, a stark gender bias can be seen in both Wikipedia content and the culture of Wikipedia editing. This gender imbalance raises several ethical concerns regarding virtue ethics, online harassment, and algorithmic bias.

Evidence of the Gender Gap

Differences in Wikipedia Editors

A study performed in 2008 by Wikipedia, concluded 15% of Wikipedia's contributors from the United States are women, and only 13% of contributors worldwide are female^[2][3]. While other studies have found the proportion of editors identifying as female to be as high as 23%, the moderators and contributors remain predominantly male. ^[4] This lack of female voices can result in the elimination of women's perspectives in Wikipedia's content. Wikipedia has struggled to maintain women editors and contributors due to other cultural complications. A survey conducted in 2008, found that women report feeling less confident about their expertise and knowledge, are less comfortable editing other’s work, and react more negatively to feedback than men ^[5]. These findings illustrate the cultural and attitudinal difference in which women and men experience when they edited articles. While this data pertains to those have edited Wikipedia articles and not to why the gender gap in editors exists in the first place, researchers have suggested that a lack of self-confidence could be the reason why fewer women editors exist as it takes baseline of confidence to begin the editing process ^[5]. Due to the lack of female contribution, the editable content and editor culture can be hostile towards women, potentially further driving away other female editors. ^[6]

Content Imbalances

Wikipedia's content reflects the perspectives and interests of its editors. There exist inherent differences among interests, preferences, and topics that female and male editors decide to focus their time. With a smaller percentage fo Wikipedia contribution coming from women, there may be an imbalance of attention and unbiased reporting on certain topics related to the minority perspectives. ^[7] Biographies of notable women is one area where Wikipedia lacks equal representation with male counterparts. In 2014, Wikimedia, Wikipedia's parent foundation, evaluated all biographies shown in the English Wikipedia and discovered that 15% of them were about notable women across all fields of study and profession. ^[8] Many initiatives exist to combat this imbalance of women-specific content by organizing the mass editing and addition of many women biographies across many fields. Many utilize and perceive Wikipedia as an unbiased representation of knowledge, though with a lack of content about topics specific to women, this shows an implicit bias in how Wikipedia and its editors perceive and prioritize these topics. ^[9]

Women-specific Characterization

Many Wikipedia pages of notable women are more likely to include women-specific characterization through language and links to other Wikipedia pages. A study investigating gender bias in Wikipedia through language found through natural language processing that words most associated with male Wikipedia profiles were mainly about sports, while words most associated with female Wikipedia profiles were mainly arts, gender or family. Other common themes found on Wikipedia pages of notable women are references to a spouse, primarily husbands, and being "the first woman" in her field.^[10] Other subtle linguistic differences include highlighting positive aspects of male biographies while highlighting negative aspects of female biographies. One study found that while some differences in the treatment of men and women may be expected due to social and historical biases, there are statistically significant differences in Wikipedia treatment that can be attributed to Wikipedia editors. ^[11]

These patterns found by this analysis highlight the prevalence of stereotyping theory in Wikipedia. The pages of women are often characterized as one of two extremes: norm-breaking or being the exception to a common narrative, or existing within common, predefined roles. This dichotomy of characterization shows a gap in which knowledge about successful women cannot be robust, but can only be one of two narratives.^[10]

Ethical Implications

Foundational Issues and Virtue Ethics

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia was originally founded to reflect a culture that encourages honest, diplomatic thought and neutral points of view. ^[6] The foundational structure of Wikipedia allows the editing of any pages with little policing, though a select group of editors keep a close watch on popular, well-visited pages. Though Wikipedia was meant to reflect the neutrality of an encyclopedia, encyclopedias were originally developed to create a collective, foundational knowledge between educated men. ^[6] The creation of the internet also emerged during a time where the intersection of male-dominated focuses - government, military, academia, and engineering - were at the center of culture.^[4]

The combination of these two factors lead to Wikipedia's value sensitive design established by and for an intended male audience. While value sensitive design is often advocated for in technological processes, as it strives to incorporate human values, Wikipedia's design has led some to question the nature of its inherent values. In a broad context, a value can refer to what a group of people find important in life.^[12]

If encyclopedias and Wikipedia were created by and for an intended male audience, the content and culture of the site will share these values and reflect this bias. This bias against women can take the form of transparent biases, like blatant online harassment, or opaque biases, like the lack of content regarding notable women. ^[13] Other technical biases can be found in Wikipedia's physical design. One survey found many potential women editors found Wikipedia's interface to be complicated or lacked the time to experiment and understand how to use the site. ^[4]

Harassment Online

Many women online have faced some sort of aggression or harassment. The creation of Wikipedia's culture encourages active discussion between collaborators, though this tactic for constructive criticism may cross into more harmful action in some cases. Wikimedia’s 2011 survey of female editors found that more than half of the sampled editors described getting into an argument with other editors on discussion pages with around 12% of editors reporting inappropriate comments for or about them.^[4] In addition, women are more likely to be penalized or be faced with more backlash when expressing anger, and more likely to be harshly judged for mistakes. ^[2] In a space where online altercations are commonplace and even encouraged, many women may understand the bias they face due to cultural stereotypes regarding critical discussion. Overall, many women find Wikipedias culture to be too combative, sexualized, and misogynistic.^[4]

Algorithmic and User Bias

The majority of Wikipedia contributors are male and therefore are the majority to be gatekeeping discussion and knowledge sharing throughout the site. When monitoring Wikipedia, one applies their own knowledge, judgments, and prejudices to each situation.^[14] This user bias is ingrained within Wikipedia's self-policing design, as it encourages anyone to access, edit or add information. ^[4]

These biases may not be intentional or reflect the values of the male editors of Wikipedia, but these pre-existent biases can result from societal pressures and treatment of women and other minorities. In Wikimedia's 2011 survey of women editors and contributors, many participants reported feeling less confident and less comfortable with their expertise and editing others' work due to fear of conflict or disparate negative feedback.^[2] Wikipedia's governance is dependent on emergent, community-generated social norms created by long-time editors on the site. ^[13] These norms help shape the culture of Wikipedia through collective action and can be more powerful than explicit rules, but can reflect biases against a specific group of contributors, causing a decline in participation from these groups. ^[15]

Responsive Measures

To balance the gender gap, Wikipedia requires a broader population of editors to broaden the topics and knowledge covered on its site. ^[8] To do this is no easy task. To attract more women contributors and editors, Wikipedia could rely on both internal and external efforts.

Internally, Wikipedias current self-policing system could also be altered to maintain a space for women editors. This could be accomplished by implementing a fuller security system that gauges a contributor's expertise, monitors for harassment or vandalism, and encourages training or education in including multiple perspectives in knowledge sharing. ^[2]

While the explicit language and personal perspectives of women come from editors themselves, the gender bias found in Wikipedia also reflects the biases found in the secondary sources that Wikipedia relies on.^[10] Due to a lack of coverage in external, independent sources about notable women and woman-related topics from other fields of academic and research, Wikipedia also lacks the reflection of this coverage. To account for this difference, other fields also need to recognize gender biases they may face to build the repository from research that Wikipedia editors may pull from.

WikiProject Women in Red

On Wikipedia, red links indicate that a page has not yet been created for that person or topic and blue links indicate valid pages. In an effort to improve the gender balance on Wikipedia, the WikiProject, Women in Red, began their initiative to create pages for women's names that appear as red links in Wikipedia (hence the name Women in Red).^[16] The group began in 2015 and was co-founded by Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight.^[16] From November 2014 to May 2017, the project facilitated the creation of more than 45,000 new pages about women.^[17] The WikiProject publicizes its objective using social media platforms and by hosting edit-a-thons; they have also partnered with WikiProject Women scientists and and the Wiki Education foundation.^[16] By September 2018, the biographies of women had increased to 17.79% from an original approximation of 15% in 2014.^[17] This group demonstrates that though it will take time and effort, improvement in the gender balance on Wikipedia can be made.

The observed "Keliana Effect"

WikiProject Women Scientists

The WikiProject Women Scientists group was formed in 2012 and was co-founded by Emily Temple-Wood.^[17] Its main goal is to improve the quality and quantity of Wikipedia pages on women in science. Temple-Wood edits under the alias "Keliana"^[16] and has played a major role in the project's success. She has written more than 100 pages on women in science, and the project has attracted over 80 members.^[16] The quality of pages on women in science had improved so much from this initiative that researchers have dubbed the phenomenon the "Keliana Effect".^[17] Before the project established itself, the pages about women in science were observed from 2002 to 2013 and were found to be worse than the average page quality. After the initiative began, many of the pages became more than 40% better in quality than the average page, an immense jump from the project's starting point.^[17]

More Efforts from the Wikimedia Foundation

• WikiProject Gender Gap Task Force
• Inspire Campaign
• Art+Feminism campaign
• WikiWomenWeek

Other External Efforts

• Wikid GRRLS: This project teaches online and research skills and encourages teenage girls in the Detroit area to participate in online discussion.

References

1. ↑ Zittrain, Jonathan. 2008. “The Lessons of Wikipedia,” in The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. New Haven: Yale University Press, Chapter 6, pp. 127-48. [21 pages]
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} Nicole Torres “Why Do So Few Women Edit Wikipedia?” (Harvard Business Review, Gender, Jun 02 2016)
3. ↑ Noam Cohen “Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia’s Contributor List” (New York Times, Media, Jan 30, 2011)
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5} Aysha Khan “The slow and steady battle to close Wikipedia’s dangerous gender gap” (Think Progress, Dec 15, 2016)
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} Torres, Nicole. “Why Do So Few Women Edit Wikipedia?” Harvard Business Review, 2 June 2016, hbr.org/2016/06/why-do-so-few-women-edit-wikipedia.
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1 6.2} Emma Paling “Wikipedia’s Hostility to Women”, (The Atlantic, Technology, Oct 21 2015)
7. ↑ Julia Bear, Benjamin Collier "Where are the Women in Wikipedia? Understanding the Different Psychological Experiences of Men and Women in Wikipedia", (Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, (2016) 74: 254)
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} Katherine Maher "Wikipedia is a mirror of the world’s gender biases", (Wikimedia Foundation, News, Oct 18, 2018)
9. ↑ Joseph Reagle, Lauren Rhue "Gender Bias in Wikipedia and Britannica", (International Journal of Communication, 5 (2011), 1138–1158)
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1 10.2} Eduardo Graells-Garrido, et. al. "First Women, Second Sex: Gender Bias in Wikipedia" (Cornell University, Computer Science, Social and Information Networks, 2015)
11. ↑ Claudia Wagner, Eduardo Graells-Garrido, David Garcia and Filippo Menczer "Women through the glass ceiling: gender asymmetries in Wikipedia", (EPJ Data Science, 2016, 5:5)
12. ↑ Friedman
13. ↑ ^{13.0 13.1} Philip Brey "Values in technology and disclosive computer ethics" (2010)
14. ↑ Monica Hesse “History has a massive gender bias. We’ll settle for fixing Wikipedia.” (The Washington Post, Perspective, Feb 17 2019)
15. ↑ Andrea Forte, Vanesa Larco & Amy Bruckman "Decentralization in Wikipedia Governance" (Journal of Management Information Systems, 26:1, 49-72, 2009)
16. ↑ ^{16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4} Vitulli, M., "Writing Women in Mathematics into Wikipedia", Notices of the AMS, March 2018
17. ↑ ^{17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4} White, A., "The history of women in engineering on Wikipedia", Autumn 2018