Thanks to volunteers who marked this year’s International Women’s Day with an “edit-a-thon,” the gender gap on Wikipedia has narrowed.
SAGE Publications organized the edit-a-thon to highlight achievements of women researchers in social and behavioral science who explore the world to gain a better understanding of human behavior. Volunteers created and edited dozens of biographies for prominent women in the social and behavioral sciences. From anthropology to psychology, their research and discoveries have supported efforts to improve individual mental health and influenced development of public health policies for communities and nations around the world.
Wikipedia is the largest and most read reference work in history, an encyclopedia of human knowledge that anyone can edit—and tens of millions have. For an encyclopedia as massive as it is, however, Wikipedia is remarkably incomplete. Only 19% of Wikipedia biographies are of women.
“One of my colleagues was inspired to organize the event after hearing the startling statistics about women on Wikipedia,” said Charisse Kiino, vice president for product and market development with the U.S. college division of SAGE Publishing, who joined other volunteers in Washington, London, and online for the edit-a-thon.
“Women are critical to social and behavioral science research and instruction, from their pioneering work of new methodologies to the application of their work outside of academia on policy and practice. In fact, today, women fill more than 61% of social science-related occupations,” she noted when she talked to me for a CCC podcast interview.
“When we talked to some of the Wikimedia editors that were part of the event, they said success would be to edit maybe 25 articles,” Kiino noted. “I’m excited to report that we exceeded that goal. We added information to 18 articles and created 49 new profiles of women.”
SAGE is a distinguished publisher of books and journals in social and behavioral science and was founded by a woman, Sara Miller McCune, who has had her own Wikipedia bio since 2012.
Women in social and behavioral science
“For us, it made sense to make a start by working on biographies of women in the social and behavioral sciences for a couple of reasons,” Kiino said. “At Sage, 65% of our employees are women and do great work every day. So we want a resource like Wikipedia to reflect the amazing work that women are doing,” she explained.
“And for my division, one of our goals to make sure that all students from all backgrounds and abilities can see themselves in the pages of our textbook content. Shouldn’t a resource like Wikipedia also reflect women’s crucial role in social and behavioral science research? I want women in college to see that work and influence reflected in a site like Wikipedia.”
The Wikipedia gender gap largely arises from the predominance of male contributors and from the challenge presented by Wikipedia’s principle of notability. A Wikipedia biography must refer to previously published materials. If women are underrepresented as Wikipedians and elsewhere, though, that requirement becomes a catch-22 bind, admits Ariel Cetrone, institutional partnerships manager for Wikimedia DC, a regional outreach affiliate for Wikipedia and other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation.
“At these edit-a-thon events, we encourage individuals to write new articles, especially when working on biographies, and to cite existing sources. Now, if we can’t find those sources, we can’t write those articles,” Cetrone said.
Profile pieces
“We encourage our partners, if you are in the position to write about women, if you are in the position where you can get the word out, please publish profile pieces on the women, talk about their work, talk about what they’re doing in their fields. Because that’s really the only way we’re going to get it into Wikipedia,” she noted.
In Kiino’s view, Wikipedia biographies of women scientists and researchers play an important role far beyond simply answering questions about their work. “Our authors will ask us often after we’ve published a book with them how they can get their biography created, or if there’s an existing one, how it can be edited to add more of their work to their profile,” she said. “It brings them a sense of accomplishment to see their work on such a widely used public-domain site.
“Imagine you’re a young girl wanting information on something that’s important to you, and after multiple queries on Wikipedia, you rarely, if ever, see a woman researcher doing that work. What kind of message does that send to that young girl about the kinds of career choices she might make in the future about what she might want to do in academia?” Kiino continued. “We really want to close that gender gap, and we want that little girl to see the work that women social and behavioral scientists are doing.”
Christopher Kenneally is host of Velocity of Content, CCC’s podcast series.
