Lately some librarians have been discussing the recently discovered fact that Wikipedia contributors are 87% male. Or rather than 87% of Wikipedia contributors are male. Actually, the way it’s usually put is that the contributors are “fewer than 15%” women. I don’t know why this reminds me of the classic New York Times spoof headline, “World Ends Tomorrow; Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.”
Wikipedia is 100% voluntary and open to all contributors, which makes charges of discrimination against women contributors impossible to prove. Instead, there are charges of discrimination against articles.
The girl-friendly “friendship bracelet” entry is much shorter than the boy-friendly “baseball card” entry, and this supposedly is a sign of discrimination. Friendship bracelets are a recent fad of interest to no one but girls under 12. Baseball cards have been around a century, are collected and traded by grown people, and are auctioned at Sotheby’s. When friendship bracelets are sold on Ebay for $10,000, maybe they will get a longer Wikipedia entry.
Or the descriptions of individual “Sex and the City” episodes are much shorter than the descriptions of “Sopranos” episodes, though one has to wonder how much description a “Sex and the City” episode really needs.
Or that Pat Barker, an English novelist relatively unknown in the United States, has an entry much shorter than Niko Bellic, a character from the videogame Grand Theft Auto IV.
I can’t say I quite understand what the problem is here. Is there anything not being represented in Wikipedia that the users of Wikipedia really want to see? If not, they can contribute it.
The problem for some is that women are underrepresented, but that’s not the case. The problem, if there is one, is that men are overrepresented in certain areas that only men care about, but it’s not like there’s a space limit. Why any sane person would want to read or write 2,700 words on Niko Bellic is beyond me, but that doesn’t mean that Bellic is crowding out Barker.
Do we really need longer entries on friendship bracelets or “Sex and the City”? And isn’t anything found in Wikipedia about either likely to be more detailed than anything found in another reference source?
Speaking of other reference sources, has anyone bothered to compare the male to female ratio of the Encyclopedia Britannica? I’m assuming not, because nobody uses it anymore. I’d be willing to bet that every other major general encyclopedia has more men contributing to it than women, and that most popular culture of interest to women and girls is not represented at all.
Any way you slice it, Wikipedia is better for topics of interest to women.
“Sex and the City” gets 322 words in Encyclopedia Britannica. The main entry in Wikipedia has over 11,000 words, and the major characters plus the list of episodes get related entries. Basically, there’s a short book on “Sex and the City” in Wikipedia. ” Can we really say it’s poorly represented? Friendship bracelets and Pat Barker don’t get Britannica entries at all.
What criticism the article mentions is based on flawed comparisons and false analogies. Niko Bellic versus Pat Barker? How about Niko Bellic versus Carrie Bradshaw. Bradshaw wins, by 500 words.
So instead of criticizing Wikipedia for underrepresenting women, and claiming that their lack of voices skews it somehow, maybe we should praise it for representing women better than any other general encyclopedia ever has, by freeing women to write about things that interest them without having to deal with male editors who would tell them friendship bracelets weren’t important.
Criticism from librarians is particularly interesting, since about 80% of librarians are women. Does the fact that most of us are women mean we can’t evaluate facts and information like men can? Absolutely not.
87% of Wikipedia contributors are men, but sometimes we have to admit that men, when they’re not obsessing about porn or videogames, can sometimes do competent work. Sure, only men would compile this obsessive Wikipedia list, but there’s some useful and interesting Wikipedia entries as well.
So let’s celebrate Wikipedia for devoting so much attention to female interests, while giving men a safe space to catalog their obsessions, which at least keeps them from bothering other people for a while.