Unraveling Wikipedia’s Mystery over Women’s History
Systemic Sexism vs. Social Norms
Picture this: You’re a distinguished member of academia who just won a coveted Nobel Prize in science. Yet Wikipedia previously rejected you for a biographical page.
This happened to Donna Strickland, a distinguished professor. She was only approved for an English Wikipedia page after winning the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2018. Yet her example is all too common.
On the surface, Strickland’s situation appears emblematic of intentional sex discrimination by Wikipedia. But those who work on Wikipedia attest that it’s merely reflective of history in general and social norms in particular.
So who’s right?
The data is daunting…To wit:
- Less than 18% of 1.6 million English Wikipedia bios are about women, up from 15% in 2014, according to Wikidata Human Gender Indicators (WHGI)
- Put another way: of about 1,615,000 bio pages, fewer than 300,000 relate to women.
- Moreover, men account for about 90% of all Wikipedia volunteer editors.
This may sound like blatant gender bias by Wikipedia. However, Wikipedians (volunteer editors) claim such an assumption is superficial. They assert that gender equality must be…
