“…they in turn reproduce the same among their female students.”

“…the female activist-scholars there are instead reproducing more…”

When you say Citizendium will naturally reflect the academy, that may turn out to be case. Time will tell. Wikipedia, however, has for a long time been like a magnet for activists who want to push an agenda. In some articles the bias is quite obvious, regardless of the official NPOV policy. On Citizendium, it should be possible for female “activist-scholars” in the arts & social sciences to write neutral articles which acknowledge that campaigners exist who wish to change societal attitudes relating to the topic. After all, who will be coming to read CZ articles about topics that involve an element of controversy? I suspect many of them may be looking for more information specifically about the controversies. On Wikipedia, registered ‘beligerents’ can often persuade NPOV defenders to make concessions to the partisan viewpoint through a process of attrition. Hopefully, on Citizendium, subject editors will prevent that from happening.

Encyclopedia writing is necessarily a more “conservative” writing activity than most other scholarly outputs. With the former, one is attempting to transmit in succinct form what is known about topics. With others, one often uses their pen to expand the frontiers of what is known, oft times according to some agenda they have, some often deeply felt goal of bringing change to societal attitudes, policies, and so forth. Irrespective of gender, archivist-scholars will naturally find a quite comfortable home in encyclopedia writing, while activist-scholars will naturally find it less appealing.

Madsen-Brooks asks, “Where the hell are the women in the Citizendium project?” (and yes, that language is snarky in tone, very much so, irrespective of who it is coming from). But her question is fundamentally off. Most women in the arts and social sciences of the academy are activist-scholars, and they in turn reproduce the same among their female students. The better question, therefore, is where are the female archivist-scholars in academia? For the arts and social sciences, I’d answer that they are just not being produced in any great number, because the female activist-scholars there are instead reproducing more activist scholars like themselves.

Of course, this is not to make a judgment on the practice but to make an observation that, I think, explicates a main cause for the gender imbalance at CZ. The problem is exceedingly more an academia problem than it is a Citizendium problem. By its very nature as an encyclopedia project, with its delimitation as such, Citizendium will only naturally reflect the academy.

Glad to be helpful. Good luck in your endeavors.

P.S. Would you perhaps be interested in participating in a podcast about Citizendium in a few weeks? Email me if you’re interested.

Point taken about the tone. (Leslie, I was probably too harsh in my original post– I was frustrated by a certain past event and gave you more flak than I should have. I apologize. Thanks for sticking around and helping clear things up).

I think directly seeking out women contributors is a really good idea. Which I think we should do. I guess one huge question is, do wikis not attract as many women to edit in the first place, or do women tend to leave wikis at a greater rate than men (or a combination of these)?

If it’s the first, seeking out more women contributors would be the way to go (I wonder how we could change our sales pitch to better ’sell’ them on editing wikis?). If it’s the second, presumably women sometimes get turned off by tone of wiki debate (it can sometimes get too aggressive for *me*). We’re trying to figure out very “low friction” ways to enable users to ask uninvolved moderators to help tone down discussions, which should be something.

Thanks for your thoughts,
Mike

As for my comment about snarkiness and the way women’s voices are sometimes perceived, I think it’s important for all of us to understand our biases. On the flip side of men often “hearing” women’s complaints as whiny or snarky, women often “hear” aggression when there is none. I agree it doesn’t pertain to our general discussion here, but I’m an educator, so I try to educate where I can.

I realize your intent is good, but you might want to *actually go out on the net and look for answers to your own questions*. Why might women be put off by your wiki? If you actually care, maybe you will try to figure it out, and educate yourself a little about gender and online spaces. Step up and take responsibility for your own knowledge rather than expecting women to come and personally explain to you about what sexism is, etc.

Also don’t shoot the messenger for not talking nice enough to you.

Best,

Liz

I would rather leave talk of ‘you said that because you’re a man and she’s a woman’ out of the discussion. I see the point you’re aiming at, but I think better discourse will happen without that looming over the discussion.

As I have said, our desire for more female contributers at Citizendium is at least as strong as your desire for the same. Which is to say, I think we’re on the same side. My primary interest here is in actionable suggestions on how to help make that happen. But thinking about why there’s a difference in numbers between male and female contributors is probably a necessary first step in getting there, and I think your point about free time and contributing to CZ is interesting (if you’ve got more, please post them).