Gender bias in Wikipedia
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, makes knowledge sharing easy and accessible to a wide audience. Because anyone can access and edit Wikipedia with little training, the site offers a neutral setting to contribute one's personal expertise to a collective knowledge base. However, among other biases, a stark gender bias can be seen in both Wikipedia content and the culture of Wikipedia editing.
Contents
Evidence of the Gender Gap
Differences in Wikipedia Editors
Content Imbalances
Women-specific Characterization
Why Don't More Women Edit Wikipedia
Foundational Issues in Wikipedia
The online encyclopedia Wikipedia was originally founded to reflect a culture that encourages honest, diplomatic thought and neutral points of view. [1] 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. Because Wikipedia was meant to reflect the neutrality of an encyclopedia, one must look at the foundations of encyclopedia's themselves. Encyclopedias were originally developed to create a collective, foundational knowledge between educated men. [2]
This argument suggests the question: For whom was this knowledge sharing space created and who has inhabited this space the longest? If encyclopedias and Wikipedia were created with 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. [3]
Harassment Online
Policing in a Male-Dominated Space
Survey Responses
Responsive Measures
Wikimedia Foundation Efforts
- WikiProject Women Scientists:
- WikiProject Women in Red:
- WikiProject Gender Gap Task Force:
- Inspire Campaign: Offers grants to
- 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.
Other Suggestions
- not enough coverage in independent secondary sources about notable women and topics
- “a broader base of contributors and editors…would naturally help broaden our content” [4]
- “implementing a system to assess contributors’ actual expertise, deliver positive feedback, and provide training to increase female participation.” [5]
Ethical Concerns
Bias
Drachen Traffic Example/Wikipedia Articles
- ↑ Emma Paling “Wikipedia’s Hostility to Women”, (The Atlantic, Technology, Oct 21 2015)
- ↑ Emma Paling “Wikipedia’s Hostility to Women”, (The Atlantic, Technology, Oct 21 2015)
- ↑ Philip Brey "Values in technology and disclosive computer ethics" (2010)
- ↑ Katherine Maher “Wikipedia mirrors the world’s gender biases, it doesn’t cause them”, (The Los Angeles Times, Op-Ed, Oct 18 2018)
- ↑ Nicole Torres “Why Do So Few Women Edit Wikipedia?” (Harvard Business Review, Gender, Jun 02 2016)
