It is true that Wikipedia has a problem with women: be it in English, Italian or Spanish, more or less in all countries, the best known of the online encyclopedias suffers from a chronic shortage of pages dedicated to female figures. And yet, it is also true that there are people who are trying to solve this problem: not only those of Meta (with the help of artificial intelligence)but above all within Wikipedia itself.
This is the case with the association WikiGive“Born almost by chance in August 2016 to participate in a multilingual editathon (a writing marathon, ed) organized by the UN and dedicated to female figures and the representation of diversity”, as he explained the founder, Camelia Boban. She, who has been a “Wikipedian since 2007” and has “created pages about everything, from life in Romania (her country of origin, ed) to rumors about trains and railway stations”, in these almost 6 years she has collected around him a group of over 700 editors who have created almost 3200 voices and edited over 9500 that they have been clicked over 22 million times. A group whose purpose is precisely to rebalance the female presence on Wikipedia.
Interview
The future seen by Annalisa Barla, the teacher who teaches machine learning
by Emanuele Capone
Women in red like missing links
On the WikiWomen’s home page reads that “Only 15.62% of biographies on Wikipedia in Italian are of women” (and also that “from a 2018 survey it appears that globally only 9% of Wikipedia collaborators are women”), numbers that Boban has basically confirmed: “When we started, the percentage was even lower, just over 14%. Now we have moved up a couple of points ”. In the rest of the world, the situation is no different: on Wikipedia in English, the largest of all, “in 2016 only 15% of biographies were dedicated to female characters, now they are around 19%”.
There is also growth abroad, because even abroad there are projects similar to WikiDonne, such as the english Womenthe French Les sans pagEs, the Dutch Gendergap and the German Frauen in Rot e the English Women in Redwhich have similar names because they both do refer to the red links found on Wikipedia when something or someone is mentioned that no one has written about. And very often, that someone whose page is missing is a woman, perhaps named in the biography of a famous man, but deemed not famous or interesting enough to have a page of her.
The 3 reasons why women are not very present on Wikipedia
But why does this happen? Why are only fewer than a fifth of biographies on Wikipedia about the female gender? According to Boban, basically for 3 reasons: “The first problem is that sources are missing – he explained – Wikipedia is not a primary source, but collects information from third parties, citations, bibliographic references. And if there are no books, articles or publications that tell the story of these women, then there cannot be an entry of them on Wikipedia ”. Or in any case it is more complicated to create it.
It is a problem linked to the lack of attention historically given to women, for which there was little or no interest, and in some way also linked to the other two reasons for their being underrepresented online: “There is little interest in readerswho obviously choose to find out about other characters, such as sports champions, and consequently little interest from editors, who prefer to write about something else “. Like maybe sports champions.
Eighth edition
Coding Girls, when information technology helps overcome gender differences
by Viola Stefanello
A project to aim for the future
However, from Boban’s words it is clear that WikiDonne does not look to the past: “If there are no sources, if there are women about whom no books have been written, of whom no one has spoken or of whom very little has been said, it will be very difficult to recover it and we can even take it for lost – he admitted -. we can do is work on the present and above all on the future, to avoid repeating these errors and omissions “. In short, to do better.
Always keeping in mind the main objective, which is to “increase the coverage of voices and issues concerning women, gender prejudices, minorities or other underrepresented groups and topics“, Creating new pages or even” lists of items not present in Wikipedia on subjects, activities and issues concerning women or under-represented subjects “. How, just to give some examples, Donne in Stem (what Stem materials are, on Italian Tech we explained it here)or Women and comicsWomen in Islam or even Women and the Shoah.
This last section was significantly expanded at the end of last January, on the occasion of the 2022 edition of the Day of Remembrance, to recall both the experience of women during the Holocaust, of which very little is known, and the activists, politicians and fighters who tried to oppose it, of which perhaps even less is known. Better: we knew why not all of the past is irrecoverable and now many of these women have their own page on Italian Wikipedia.