Women in the Wikimedia movement: Roles, culture and opportunities
Six years after the resurgence of feminism worldwide, women contributing to Wikipedia in different capacities have taken a stand by women collectives with two concrete lines of action: raising awareness, and driving change.
How are women represented in history? How do we speak about women-related topics in the public sphere today? Changing the way we document history and we think and understand concepts like intersectionality, gender roles and reproductive rights, has become the workhorse for many feminist collectives around the world. It was only a matter of time (and organization) until the fourth wave of feminism would disembark on Wikipedia, and shed its light to the sum of all human knowledge.
What roles and actions do women take in the Wikimedia movement, to address the challenges voiced by feminism in this era? Guided by this question, I dived into a series of conversations with women in the Wikimedia movement. I also looked into past and current initiatives to understand the breath of the work done so far to address the gender gap. How are open source projects different from other professional spheres, when it comes to addressing misogyny, gender bias, and gender gap? Are there any lessons that open source communities can share with other public spheres where there is low women participation? In this paper, I explore these questions, as well as propose a way of opening the conversation series to also include open projects beyond the Wikimedia ecosystem.
A brief history of the gender gap on Wikipedia
By 2015, the time feminist activists set camp on Wikipedia talk and project pages, the gender gap on Wikipedia had been called and known for, and it had also been thoroughly characterized. We now know that the gender gap on Wikipedia is three-fold: it affects contribution by, representation, and characterization of women.[1] This shared understanding is the result of a series of surveys, research projects, and best practices addressing the gender gap on Wikimedia projects. While much has been written about the gender gap on Wikipedia, I am only highlighting here the studies that help to describe the three aspects mentioned above.
The first ever, comprehensive Wikipedia survey took place in 2010, when a study by the United Nations University revealed that only 12.6% of editors on Wikipedia were women.[2] The 2011 Wikipedia Editor Survey revealed an even starker reality, showing that only 8.5% of contributors were women.[3] After these studies were published, focusing on increasing the diversity of contributors to Wikipedia became a priority; specifically, the Wikimedia Foundation set a goal to increase women contributors to 25% by 2015. Additionally, in the years that followed, some academics started to focus on the motivations of women to participate (or the reasons to stop contributing), while others tried to understand what practices were working well towards addressing the gender gap. This includes Adrianne Wadewitz’ post on Hastac outlining five common assumptions when addressing the gender gap on Wikipedia, still relevant today, as we’ll examine later on. In this period, 2010–2013 (when Wadewitz’ post was published), the focus was largely on contributions, also known as the editor gender gap.
From 2013 onwards, the focus of research shifted to representation of women, the content gender gap. In March that year, triggered by the same The New York Times article that inspired Wadewitz, Maximilien Klein sets off to analyze the gender ratios of biographies on Wikipedia, using Wikidata properties. With this study, we learned that an average of 17.37% of biographies across language version Wikipedias are about women (Tagalog Wikipedia leading with 29.43% women biographies; and Haitian Wikipedia with 5.31% at the lowest end of the tail).[4] Klein repeated the study in 2014, when the property had been renamed from “sex” to “sex or gender”, and increased the number of possible values from 3 (“male”, “female” and “intersex”) to 13. Aside from one or two outliers, the content gender gap remained mostly the same. In 2015 and 2016, thanks to a Wikimedia Foundation grant, Klein moved on to develop a tool that would run these queries automatically, retrieving the most updated content gender data by culture, country, date of birth, and Wikipedia language.[5]
In June 2015, a paper written by Graells-Garrido, Mounia Lalmas, and Filippo Monczer, examines the gender bias on Wikipedia analyzing the characterization of women on Wikipedia. Looking only at English Wikipedia, the study found that the words most associated with men are about sports, while those associated with women are about arts, gender and family. Specifically, the two most common phrases are “her husband” and “first woman”. In addition, this research project found that men are more frequently described with words related to their cognitive processes, while women are more frequently described with words related to sexuality.[6]
These three aspects — contribution, representation, and characterization — help to describe the complexity of the gender gap on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, as well as provide a loosely structured agenda for the women leaders that set out to organize working groups on the world’s largest collaborative online encyclopedia.
Women and leadership in the Wikimedia movement
Most people know Wikipedia, but very few persons actually know what Wikimedia is. Wikimedia is a global movement, whose mission is to bring free educational content to the world. The ecosystem is formed by 12 active projects (the most popular one, Wikipedia, though there are others, like the free image repository, Wikimedia Commons, Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikidata, etc.), more than 130 affiliates all over the world, volunteer (editors, developers, and cultural ambassadors), and the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation was founded in 2003 by Jimmy Wales, to fundraise for Wikipedia and its sister projects;[7] its affiliates — mostly chapters and user groups, but also thematic organizations — are independent organizations with their own boards and bylaws. If the needle that measures the gender gap is moving, it is thanks to these local groups’ work, and also thanks to their governance, as we are going to examine next.
Because the nature of Wikimedia is inherently collaborative, this social movement considers that anyone that enables or empowers others to make a positive contribution is already a leader. This shared understanding stems from a community consultation that took place during September and October of 2016: the Leadership Development Dialogue. Leaders, guides, mentors and organizers, support others through teaching and coaching. The language used to describe leaders in the Wikimedia movement includes:
- Emergent — having developed skills responsively to timely opportunities or needs, based on the situation in the community.
- Demonstrated experience — having skills defined by historical actions and achievements, not through a formal process.
- Invitational — having skills to call upon other individuals or groups to participate in activities, in a decentralized way.
- Empowering — having skills to support other individuals to develop and interact with individuals and groups to develop leadership.[8]
Why do we need to understand what leadership means for the Wikimedia movement? Context influences what leaders must do and what they can do. Contextual factors set the boundaries, determine the constraints and demands that are put on leaders.[9] It does not suffice, however, to look at the intrinsic characteristics that make Wikimedia a favorable context that enables women to become leaders. We need to look at the larger historical context. The emergence of women leaders in the movement coincides with the consolidation of the fourth wave of feminism: people rallying and organizing to protest injustice, interrupt systemic violence, taking to public spaces to change the conversation, change the way we treat each other, for a society where all are considered equals. Wikipedia, in this sense, is just another public space whose discourse and practices need to be transformed.
Wikipedia needs to recruit women, yes, but, more importantly, it needs to recruit feminists. It is feminists — those who have thought about the problems of sexism, have strategies to deal with them, and are willing to engage in such battles, that are willing to challenge the patriarchal structures of knowledge on Wikipedia. And feminists can be of any gender.
Adrianne Wadewitz, 2013.[10]
Wadewitz statement comes in almost exactly two years before the founding of the first feminist group in the Wikimedia movement: WikiWomen User Group, which started in July 2015. Prior to this, there had been a few attempts at addressing the gender gap, like the Art and Feminism edit-a-thon that took place in Chicago (US) in 2014, or the workshops Editando la brecha de género (Editing the gender gap on Wikipedia), that were held in Buenos Aires (Argentina) in 2012 and 2013. These events focused primarily on content, and while they addressed one aspect of the gender gap on the free encyclopedia, their spontaneous nature didn’t allow for a comprehensive approach to the gender bias(es).
Systemic problems require systemic solutions: organizing, planning and showing up for conversations in a persistent way. Following the official recognition of WikiWomen user group, was the recognition of WikiMujeres in November 2015, the founding of Whose Knowledge? in March 2016, and the recognition of Art + Feminism user group and WikiDonne user group, in September and November 2016 respectively. The founding of groups that focus on the gender and other knowledge gaps was important both to address these issues in a systematic way, and also to serve as a platform to position more women as leaders in the Wikimedia movement: most of these groups are led (sometimes solely) by women.
Women can have different roles in the Wikimedia movement: content contributors, code contributors, program organizers, affiliate organizers, and board members. While the first research on the gender gap was looking at women as content contributors, it is actually in leadership roles where the gender gap is smaller. The emergence of the user groups described above had an impact on the representation of women in Wikimedia leadership positions: according to Community Engagement Insights survey 2016–2017, women represent 28% of affiliate leaders, and 25% of program organizers.[11] Further, looking at board composition across all recognized affiliates, we found that between 2013 and 2017 the percentage of female representatives in affiliates’ boards grew from 20% to 28% — 3 of those percentage points actually happened between December 2016 and December 2017.[12]
So what does this mean for women in the Wikimedia movement? While the gender gap doesn’t seem to be closing for roles involving direct contributions to Wikipedia, the tides are changing for leadership roles in the broader Wikimedia movement, positioning women in strategic positions that affect, in the mid to long term, the movement, the way we document knowledge, and the information we provide to the world. Women leaders have, in this way, the capacity to influence the way we contribute to Wikipedia and other projects by sharing best practices, documenting activities that work, and starting partnerships with organizations that are also working for a world in which every single human being is treated equally. Some of this work has actually already started: best practices on using Wikipedia’s gaps as feminist teaching tools, how to write articles from a gender perspective,[13] a guide on how to run an Editatona (an editing marathon with a focus on gender), and partnerships like the one with UN Women #HERStory campaign are just a few examples of the work championed by women leaders in the Wikimedia movement.[14]
Women’s motivation and contributions to Wikimedia
What motivates women leaders to make these contributions to Wikimedia? With this and other questions in mind, I organized a conversation series that took place in March and July 2018, called “Women in the Wikimedia movement”. My goal was both to promote the work women are doing all over the world, and to better understand how to best support that work so that we can foster more diversity across the movement. The conversations had three themes: women in Wikimedia programs, women in leadership, and women in technical spaces, three strategic areas where women participation can bring more diversity to Wikimedia projects.
“What motivated me to participate was an opportunity to make something better”, one of the interviewees said, to nodding agreement of other women participants. In these conversations, I found that one of the biggest drivers to participate was merely observing the gender gap. Content and participation gender gap, like red lists on Wikipedia, are irresistible. Something must be done about them. In this sense, women on Wikipedia are no different than women in any other public space: what characterizes a woman in this era is the resolution of changing something that is unfair out of their own volition.
Those first studies on contributor gender gap from 2010 are, in some ways, triggering the change that we need for Wikipedia. As Natalia Szafran said in one of the virtual events: “In 2009 we didn’t even consider the gender gap as an issue that needed to be addressed. Nobody argues with that today. There are so many things being done across the movement [to address the gender gap], so the more women that are attracted because of that, the more chances there are that they will become leaders.”[15]
I was expecting to hear stories about how hard it is to contribute, and the challenges women face, but I was surprised to hear that many women find that our movement is more welcoming than their professional lives, or other contexts they face in their personal lives.
Are there specific characteristics in open source culture that enable this participation by women? What, then, can open source movements offer to other, more traditional, working contexts, when it comes to creating a more equitable space for everyone?
Favorable characteristics of open source culture
While the conversations Women in the Wikimedia movement focus only on the wiki platforms and crowd, I believe that many of the characteristics outlined actually describe other open source environments.
One of the aspects that make Wikimedia a more welcoming environment for women is the strong sense of community, which was described from different angles. Firstly, when contributing to Wikimedia projects, you are acting in the context of a community. This can be your affiliate group, your working team at an event, or your colleagues. “You never act alone. This makes you feel safe as a woman in the public space”, a participant stated. Secondly, women support other women on wiki, and because of this Wikimedia has offered a great platform for women to connect on a personal level. Finally, when it comes to movement governance, it is the community who votes on who should be a leader.
Another favorable characteristic of this environment is the learning culture. Comparing to other contexts where women contribute intellectually, Wikimedia seems like a safer environment to make mistakes. Everyone is welcome to try, fail, and try again.
A third and final characteristic of Wikimedia culture that makes it welcoming for women is mentorship. Many women contributors that took part in the conversations had had a male mentor in the beginning, and many reflected on the need to have men as allies to bring more women to Wikimedia projects. Having a good mentor that helps to break down the path is very useful: “Taking small responsibilities one step at a time, makes women feel like they can take more responsibility. [We need more] opportunities for women to gather responsibilities, step by step”, Szafran stated. Finally, after every step or milestone, it is paramount to get recognition for work well done. While support networks can have many different compositions, the services that have supported this the most are off-wiki: WhatsApp and Telegram emerge as the two messaging platforms most used by networks of women leaders, and in-person meetings serve as a favorite means to make the network stronger.
Conclusions and next steps
Wikipedia is a reflection of the world, so it is only sensible to expect that the transformations brought on by the fourth wave of feminism are going to affect the free online encyclopedia, in its content, and also, in the women leaders that are changing the movement.
Why do we need more women leaders in the big open? Women who are working to fix the gender gap are also key in understanding the patriarchal structures interwoven in Wikipedia’s policies. One example of this is shown in the Wikimedia Gender Equity Report 2018, where 20% of the program coordinators interviewed identified bias in policies on Wikimedia projects as the most challenging obstacle they face: notability policy (40%), reliable sources policy (20%), and policies pertaining to categories (35%) were the top three responses. A testimony from this report reads: “Since history is mainly written by white men, we repeat ourselves. Therefore everything that is written already has been expressed as the truth so you have to fight also against that, and you have to argue why the things that are written is not representative for all humans. This is a fact not only in the wiki project but all written culture.” [16]
What I found through the conversation series is simple: for every woman that feels empowered to contribute to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects, there are probably a dozen others from under-represented groups that don’t feel like they can participate. Women’s contributions in the Wikimedia movement often focus on underrepresented themes, emphasizing human-to-human connections, and empowering contributors to be autonomous. These elements are key to creating a safe environment for newcomers to feel empowered to participate, and to make collaborative projects online more diverse and inclusive.
One unexpected outcome of this conversation series was the opportunity of networking it generated. Participants had a space to reflect on what keeps them engaged, and how they found support to get to the place they are in today. Through the questions and personal anecdotes, participants got a strong sense that they shared experiences with other community members that they maybe hadn’t spoken to before, inspiring a sense of sorority, comradery, and overall feeling that, while women can feel alone, they certainly feel and show stronger together. This was clear after the in-person event “Women in the Wikimedia movement: Conversations with women in Africa” (held in July 2018, in Cape Town, South Africa), when after the event, the more than 40 women attendees lingered in the room to talk to someone they hadn’t met before, about projects they wanted to start, or initiatives they wanted more women coordinators on.
In order to expand this multiplier effect, in the months to come, I would like to open these conversations to women working in open source code, government, science, data, and other forms of knowledge, in Wikimedia and other platforms, with the goal to better connect women in open web across the globe. As a first step, I will be facilitating a session at Mozilla Festival 2018, “Women in Open Web: roles, culture and opportunities”, where I hope to improve the facilitator kit for the conversation series, and also connect to other women in open web who would like to participate in future virtual events.
References
[1] Using the characterization seen on First Women, Second Sex: Gender Bias on Wikipedia, Graells-Garrido, Mounia Lalmas, Filippo Monczer, June 2015.
[2] Wikipedia Survey — Overview of results, Collaborative Creativity Group at United Nations University, and the Wikimedia Foundation, March 2010 (retrieved October 16, 2018).
[3] Wikipedia Editor Survey Report, page 3, Wikimedia Foundation, April 2011.
[4] Sex ratios on Wikidata, Wikipedia and VIAF, section: “Sex ratios by language”, graphic number 1, “Wikidata sex ratios by language, minimum 1,000 articles”. May 13, 2013, Max Klein.
[5] Piotr Konieczny and Maximilien Klein also co-authored the paper ‘Gender gap through time and space: A journey through Wikipedia biographies via the Wikidata Human Gender Indicator’, June 18, 2018, from New Media and Society, which presents validations of WHGI against three exogenous datasets: the world’s historical population, “traditional” gender-disparity indices (GDI, GEI, GGGI and SIGI), and occupational gender according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Plus demonstrations of how the Wikimedia community can use it, and research in general.
[6] First Women, Second Sex: Gender Bias on Wikipedia, Graells-Garrido, Mounia Lalmas, Filippo Monczer, June 2015.
[7] Wikimedia and the free knowledge ecosystem, María Cruz, September 6, 2017 “Down the rabbit Hole” publication on Medium.
[8] Wikimedia Leadership Development Dialogue (community consultation), part 2: “How should we describe leadership in the Wikimedia movement?” Jaime Anstee, María Cruz, 2016.
[9] Women and Leadership. A Contextual Perspective, Karin Klenke, 1996 Springer Publishing Company.
[10] Wikipedia’s gender gap and the complicated reality of systemic gender bias, Adrianne Wadewitz, July 26 2013, Hastac blog.
[11] In the Community Engagement Insights Survey 2018, women representation changed in the following way: 26% of affiliate leaders, and 35% of program organizers, are women.
[12] Data mined with public information reported by affiliates on their page. Analysis by Dumisani Ndubane, March 2018.
[13] Find these and other gender-focused lessons learned in the Wikimedia movement on Meta-Wiki.
[14] Read more about initiatives that are closing the gap(s) on Wikimedia in the Wikimedia Gender Equity Report 2018 — Inspiring Change
[15] Natalia Zsafran in Women in Wikimedia Leadership virtual event, March 14, 2018.
[16] Wikimedia Gender Equity Report 2018 — Barrier to equity, Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight, Marti Johnson, Alex Wang, 2017–2018.
