[url]http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/09/the-wikipedia-gender-divide-visualised/[/url]
[quote]Earlier this year, the massive gender gap among Wikipedia contributors was brought to the world’s attention — just 13 per cent are women. Now Santiago Ortiz has crunched the data behind the encyclopaedia, and the results are telling.
Using a gender API, Ortiz sucked out details about contributors from articles across Wikipedia in order to study the differences in male and female editing on the site. The result is an interactive scatter plot that shows the number of female and male contributors for each of the articles considered.
If you think it looks fair, check out the scales on the axes: the horizontal (male) axis shown here stretches up to 300, while the vertical (female) axis tops out at 22. The almost-vertical purple line represents where a one-to-one ratio in contribution would fall.
In fact, the only article Ortiz could find with more female than male contributors was about… cloth menstrual pads. That’s bad. But it’s not clear how to fix it. In the meantime, try to find more interesting outliers using Ortiz’s interactive visualisation. [Santiago Ortiz via Flowing Data][/quote]
Interesting example: on the French Wikipedia, the article on female sexuality has a 16:1 ratio of M/F contributors.
[img]http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17yrrdc7fzwo4png/original.png[/img]
Why am I not surprised?
I don't think this is any matter of sexism, I just think there's more male nerds than female ones.
[QUOTE=Simski;37746684]I don't think this is any matter of sexism, I just think there's more male nerds than female ones.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, it's just that one example that really creeped me out though :v:
Why is it news that more men use computers than women?
[quote]That’s bad. But it’s not clear how to fix it.[/quote]
Nothing really needs fixing, anyone is free to edit Wikipedia.
This is fascinating, It speaks volumes about the internet's current demographic and more importantly about women's perceived place in society. It mirrors how women are taught to be submissive/take lesser roles and how men are taught to be the opposite (always wrong and always right, your fault and their fault etc).
This comment interested me:
[quote]They obviously can’t be bothered.[/quote]
But why exactly? Half of the human race are just overcome with laziness? If I were female I'd be pissed off by this (in fact, no I am annoyed by this), obviously some force in society has dictated that women aren't supposed to do this so when the effect of it is pointed out the blame for it is shoved onto them? How fair.
It's personalities that develop.
God bless Wikipedia contributors but I see all the constant contributors as most likely no-lifers. Boys end up being no-lifes more than girls do.
[QUOTE=theenemy;37746729]This is fascinating, It speaks volumes about the internet's current demographic and more importantly about women's perceived place in society. It mirrors how women are taught to be submissive/take lesser roles and how men are taught to be the opposite (always wrong and always right, your fault and their fault etc).
This comment interested me:
But why exactly? Half of the human race are just overcome with laziness? If I were female I'd be pissed off by this (in fact, no I am annoyed by this), obviously some force in society has dictated that women aren't supposed to do this so when the effect of it is pointed out the blame for it is shoved onto them? How fair.[/QUOTE]
i dunno where you pulled that, anyone can edit wikipedia
[QUOTE=Lord of Ears;37746764]i dunno where you pulled that, anyone can edit wikipedia[/QUOTE]
He believes in more of a societal restriction than an actual restriction.
I don't see how this is in any way bad or a problem? Information is information. You can go on about biased views due to gender but in a situation like this with a global free information network that pretty much anyone can access, that's simply unavoidable, and given the reasonably efficient moderation of Wikipedia, practically a non-issue.
Carry on.
[QUOTE=Scot;37746711]Why is it news that more men use computers than women?[/QUOTE]
except that's a little bit far from the truth, 68% of men use the internet while 66% of women use the internet.
the question to ask here is why Wikipedia shows a huge disconnect. i think it's a little [i]early[/i] to make judgements about it.
[QUOTE=Elecbullet;37746775]He believes in more of a societal restriction than an actual restriction.[/QUOTE]
literally nothing is stopping females from making wikipedia changes
there's not "societal restriction"
[QUOTE=theenemy;37746729]This is fascinating, It speaks volumes about the internet's current demographic and more importantly about women's perceived place in society. It mirrors how women are taught to be submissive/take lesser roles and how men are taught to be the opposite (always wrong and always right, your fault and their fault etc).
This comment interested me:
But why exactly? Half of the human race are just overcome with laziness? If I were female I'd be pissed off by this (in fact, no I am annoyed by this), obviously some force in society has dictated that women aren't supposed to do this so when the effect of it is pointed out the blame for it is shoved onto them? How fair.[/QUOTE]
It's interesting how you pulled all that out of nowhere. You should write my friend's report on sexism for feminism class (aka English class headed by a feminist teacher).
[QUOTE=Sobek-;37746784]I don't see how this is in any way bad or a problem?[/QUOTE]
Wikipedia showing a huge disconnect in demographics common throughout the internet?
it's not inherently bad or a problem, but at the very least it's interesting.
[QUOTE=Sobek-;37746784]Carry on.[/QUOTE]
uh who are you saying carry on to?
[QUOTE=theenemy;37746729]This is fascinating, It speaks volumes about the internet's current demographic and more importantly about women's perceived place in society. It mirrors how women are taught to be submissive/take lesser roles and how men are taught to be the opposite (always wrong and always right, your fault and their fault etc).
This comment interested me:
But why exactly? Half of the human race are just overcome with laziness? If I were female I'd be pissed off by this (in fact, no I am annoyed by this), obviously some force in society has dictated that women aren't supposed to do this so when the effect of it is pointed out the blame for it is shoved onto them? How fair.[/QUOTE]
Or you could give it a more positive twist: Women try to make something of their life instead of living in their mums basement editing wiki articles all day long?
[QUOTE=mobrockers2;37746808]Or you could give it a more positive twist: Women try to make something of their life instead of living in their mums basement editing wiki articles all day long?[/QUOTE]
Implying that contributing to publicly accessible records containing most of contemporary human knowledge isn't 'doing something useful with your life'
[QUOTE=theenemy;37746729]This is fascinating, It speaks volumes about the internet's current demographic and more importantly about women's perceived place in society. It mirrors how women are taught to be submissive/take lesser roles and how men are taught to be the opposite (always wrong and always right, your fault and their fault etc).
This comment interested me:
But why exactly? Half of the human race are just overcome with laziness? If I were female I'd be pissed off by this (in fact, no I am annoyed by this), obviously some force in society has dictated that women aren't supposed to do this so when the effect of it is pointed out the blame for it is shoved onto them? How fair.[/QUOTE]
Ironically enough, this comment makes you seem extremely sexist. Without any proof or sources, you barge in and states that women don't edit wiki articles because they are simply afraid of doing so, because of their "percieved social standing".
By saying this, you're pushing feminist movements and gender equality back with at least 10 years, where everyone believed women needed protection from men.
You make me fucking sick.
[editline]21st September 2012[/editline]
Seriously, what do you [I]really[/I] know about womens internet usage? How can you know they avoid editing articles because they think they're pushing their boundaries?
[QUOTE=theenemy;37746729]This is fascinating, It speaks volumes about the internet's current demographic and more importantly about women's perceived place in society. It mirrors how women are taught to be submissive/take lesser roles and how men are taught to be the opposite (always wrong and always right, your fault and their fault etc).
This comment interested me:
But why exactly? Half of the human race are just overcome with laziness? If I were female I'd be pissed off by this (in fact, no I am annoyed by this), obviously some force in society has dictated that women aren't supposed to do this so when the effect of it is pointed out the blame for it is shoved onto them? How fair.[/QUOTE]
or
maybe women have the choice to edit wiki articles and they
choose not to
[editline]21st September 2012[/editline]
the only problem i can see (modulo male privilege etc) is that with the 14:1 ratio, women might feel alienated in the wikipedian community, which is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy
[QUOTE=Elecbullet;37746742]I
God bless Wikipedia contributors but I see all the constant contributors as most likely no-lifers. Boys end up being no-lifes more than girls do.[/QUOTE]
What the fuck does this even mean
this isnt 1970
this isn't a real thing
I had a bet on with a friend as to whether the reaction would be positive or negative, I won :v:
Originally I was going to start my post with a fore-note about how I had immediately started trying to think up reasons for this huge and obvious divide, what I ended up posting was only one of them. I could have just left it at my first thoughts, maybe women all just decide not to edit wikipedia articles, no reason why, they just don't. I could have left it at a similarly weak/implausible explanation like "They want to hide their gender" or "they feel alienated by the male dominated demographic" but, as someone studying a science degree, I'm drawn to ask why. Why do women feel they cannot contribute? Why might they not want to contribute? Why does anyone feel they should? Hell, why would they even hide their gender/feel alienated? It isn't then a hard link to make, between the well documented differences between male and female self image and this data. Of course, I'm no researcher. I'm simply speculating and debating as to the cause. I never claimed to know exactly why. I never held up my point and said "This is correct!". I left it open to debate and question and unfortunately so far the only responses have been my own previous thoughts and someone who thinks offering a reason is the same as making sweeping assumptions.
[QUOTE=theenemy;37747212]I could have left it at a similarly weak/implausible explanation like "They want to hide their gender" or "they feel alienated by the male dominated demographic" but, as someone studying a science degree, I'm drawn to ask why.[/QUOTE]
the second one doesn't seem that implausible to me
it's a relatively simple hypothesis and it's easily testable
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;37747249]the second one doesn't seem that implausible to me
it's a relatively simple hypothesis and it's easily testable[/QUOTE]
You're right but it's still open to further investigation. For example, who's doing the alienating?
What are they trying to fix exactly? Having a more equal ratio of women and men editing wikipedia? How about this for a crazy idea, maybe not a lot of women want to edit wikipedia.
Seriously, you can want equal opportunity all you like, and I'm all for equal opportunity (there is equal oppurtunity for men and women to edit wikipedia pages), but you will never get equal outcome in many things. Women and men just have different interests.
[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;37746641][QUOTE]That’s bad.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
how is this in any way an issue
it's an interesting statistic, and I wonder why there's such a disconnect, but why should it necessarily be the same?
it doesn't seem to be a question of equal rights or anything, men and women just do different shit, why does it matter that the idea of contributing to wikipedia is more appealing to men than women
[QUOTE=theenemy;37746729]This is fascinating, It speaks volumes about the internet's current demographic and more importantly about women's perceived place in society. It mirrors how women are taught to be submissive/take lesser roles and how men are taught to be the opposite (always wrong and always right, your fault and their fault etc).
This comment interested me:
But why exactly? Half of the human race are just overcome with laziness? If I were female I'd be pissed off by this (in fact, no I am annoyed by this), obviously some force in society has dictated that women aren't supposed to do this so when the effect of it is pointed out the blame for it is shoved onto them? How fair.[/QUOTE]
oh you're one of those people
[QUOTE=theenemy;37746729]This is fascinating, It speaks volumes about the internet's current demographic and more importantly about women's perceived place in society. It mirrors how women are taught to be submissive/take lesser roles and how men are taught to be the opposite (always wrong and always right, your fault and their fault etc).[/QUOTE]
oh yeah, i was totally taught to be submissive and take lesser roles
i need my ~man~ to protect me 24/7 or else im totally helpless in the kitchen
i dont use a computer, i use facebook, whats a computer
.... You personally offend me.
[QUOTE=theenemy;37747317]You're right but it's still open to further investigation. For example, who's doing the alienating?[/QUOTE]
it doesn't have to be a conscious thing. i very much doubt that there's an actual cabal of men that want to keep women out of wikipedia. it's just that when you have men outnumbering women in something by 14 to 1, women might feel out of place so they'd be reluctant to take part
then again i'm male so I don't know what it feels like, which is why i put a bunch of caveats in my post
I'm not really sure what's the issue. There's nothing stopping women from editing wikipedia.
If they don't want to edit it they won't. Leave it at that. Wiki doesn't have any restrictions on who can and cannot edit based on gender, and that's as far as this discussion needs to go.
I'm not seeing this as a major major problem. I think people are implying that the lack of female contributers will skew articles and lead to sexual biasim and inaccurate information that isn't properly balanced; However, this is not the fault of men who computer nerds, it's the fault of the severe lack of women going into higher fields like this. There isn't a lack of women in knowledgeable fields but there is a lack of women going to into fields like computers and publishing their own/ writing their own entries in wikipedia and in general. So essentially, what i'm saying is that i'm repeating what my Comp Sci professor told us on the first day of class "Please, if you're a woman, for the love of god stay in this field".
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