This is an overview to trace the history of Wikipedia initiatives in support of women, starting with those in relation to the English language version of Wikipedia. This initial listing was compiled in July 2021 but will be updated as necessary.
Although by mid-2021 Women in Red has become the most active wikiproject in support of women's coverage on the English version of Wikipedia, the history of the need for action on reducing gender bias goes back to 2005. Indeed, the first initiative along these lines was the creation of Wikipedia:WikiProject Gender studies by AmishThrasher on 21 December 2005. It began with "WikiProject Gender Studies is aimed at removing gender bias from Wikipedia." Since then wikiprojects and similar initiatives have been created to support improved coverage of women and their works in a wide variety of professions, cultural interests, sports and organizations. They are presented in chronological order below, initially those which evolved on the English version of Wikipedia but also those targeting one or more other language versions of Wikipedia.
Wikidata has an entry on Women in Red with links to projects in other languages. (This could no doubt be expanded with further work on Wikidata.)
English Wikipedia[edit]
WikiProjects
These are arranged in chronological order.
- created on 21 December 2005 by AmishThrasher
- removing gender bias from Wikipedia
- created on 15 September 2007 by Roosterrulez
- established under WikiProject Football to improve coverage of women's football
- now a joint initiative of WikiProject Women's sport and WikiProject Football
- 175 participants
Wikipedia:WikiProject Feminism
- created 12 February 2008 by Grrrlriot as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Gender Studies, following the creation on 20 April 2007 by Cailil of Wikipedia:WikiProject Gender studies/Countering Systemic Gender Bias
- became a stand alone project in June 2010.
- addresses articles related to feminism
- focuses on articles detailing women's rights, women's health, notable activists, and the history, literature, philosophy, and concepts related to feminism.
- 273 active members
- 27 FA's and 108 GA's
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women's History
- created 4 February 2011 by Cliotropic
- a collaboration area for Wikipedians interested in improving coverage of women's history
- primary purpose is to provide support for members and any other editors in improving Wikipedia's coverage of women from a historical perspective
- has two task forces under their direction, Women in World War I and Women in technology
- 148 active members
- 191 FA's and 665 GA's
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women's sport
- created 10 April 2011 by Vanished user adhmfdfmykrdyr
- project to improve Wikipedia's coverage of women and trans people in sports.
- 64 active members
- 26 FA's and 342 GA's
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women scientists
- created 31 October 2012 by Keilana
- project and working group dedicated to ensuring quality and coverage of biographies of women scientists.
- 137 active members
- 10 FA's and 82 GA's
- created 6 May 2013 by SlimVirgin
- to address some of the problems women face on Wikipedia, whether as editors or article subjects
- 174 active members
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women artists
- created 26 November 2013 by Missvain
- dedicated to ensuring quality and coverage of biographies of women artists and their works
- 145 active members
- 21 FA's and 121 GA's
- inaugurated 1 February 2014; founded by Siân Evans, Jacqueline Mabey, Michael Mandiberg, and Laurel Ptak; page created 11 February 2014 by Another Believer but initial initiatives were not on Wikipedia itself[1]
- annual worldwide edit-a-thon to add content to Wikipedia about female artists.
- responding to negative media coverage about Wikipedia's cataloging system
- fill content gaps in Wikipedia and increase the number of female contributors
- Kira Wisniewski was appointed executive director in 2020
- Averages over 1300 participants at annual editathon
Wikipedia:WikiProject Jewish Women
- created 21 February 2014 by Bibliosaurusrex
- collaboration area for Wikipedians interested in improving coverage of Jewish Women
- 21 active members
Women in warfare and the military
- created 29 August 2014 by Kirill Lokshin
- an initiative of the Military history WikiProject to improve articles on women in the military, women in combat, and women in war
- 9 active members
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women writers
- established 30 August 2014; created by Rosiestep
- dedicated to ensuring quality and coverage of articles about women writers and their works
- 15 active members
- 116 FA's and 539 GA's
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Technology
- created 17 April 2015 by Harej
- dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of women in technology, and to address systemic bias in Wikipedia's coverage of technology-related subjects
- 5 active members
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women's Health
- created 21 May 2015 by Kaldari
- project focusing on articles related to women's health, including related social and political issues
- 15 active members
- 5 FA's and 24 GA's
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women Wikipedia Design
- conceived in 2015 by ArchiteXX led by Professor Lori Brown; page created 23 May 2015 by Woman on a mission
- an international education and advocacy program working to increase the number of Wikipedia articles on women in architecture and the built environment
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red
- project created 18 July 2015 by Victuallers and Rosiestep
- group of editors of all genders living around the world focused on reducing systemic bias in the wiki movement focusing on the creation of content regarding women's biographies, women's works, and women's issues
- 514 active members
- 167,423 articles (June 2021)
- Created 27 July 2015 by Encyclopædius
- a group of editors of all genders, sexual orientations, geographic locations, and personal backgrounds who aim to discuss, collaborate and improve the coverage of women's content across Wikipedia
- 266 active members
- 101 FA's and 926 GA's
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Green
- created 25 August 2015 by Encyclopædius
- to bring core articles on women and women's works up to minimum Wikipedia:Good article (GA) status
- currently have 4060 articles out of 34,618 Good Articles
- 69 active members
Women in archaeology task force
- created 23 April 2016 by Joe Roe
- task force of WikiProject Archaeology which aims to counter Wikipedia's systematic bias by improving its coverage of female archaeologists and women-related topics in archaeology
- 9 active members
- 2 FA's and 8 GA's
Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Loves Women
- created 3 May 2016 by Islahaddow
- freeing access to information on African women
- 37 active members
Wikipedia:Women's Classical Committee
- created 31 January 2017 by Richard Nevell (WMUK)
- Initiative to take steps towards redressing the encyclopedia's gender imbalance, by training and encouraging classicists - whether archaeologists, epigraphers, historians, linguists, numismatists, philologists or anyone else working within this varied discipline - to edit Wikipedia with this focus
- 33 active committee members
- 6 GA's
Wikipedia:WikiProject MedievalWiki
- created 18 March 2018 by Medievalfran
- project committed to redressing the gender and racial imbalances on medieval Wikipedia
- 27 active members
Wikipedia:WikiProject 1000 Women in Religion
- project of the Women's Caucus of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature; page created 31 October 2018 by Smallison
- an initiative to create, update, and improve Wikipedia articles pertaining to the lives of cis and transgender women who are notable as scholars, activists and practitioners in the world's religious, spiritual and wisdom traditions
- 30 active members
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Music
- created 28 July 2019 by SunriseInBrooklyn
- dedicated to ensuring quality and coverage of biographies of women in music
- 26 active members
- 92 FA's and 1,899 GA's
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Business
- created 17 June 2021 by SunriseInBrooklyn
- dedicated to ensuring quality and coverage of biographies of women in business
- 1 active member
- 3 FA's 14 GA's
Articles
Each of the following are articles on EN-WP, but have links to equivalent articles in many other language versions.
Other language Wikipedias[edit]
Many language versions of Wikipedia have initiatives designed to reduce gender bias. A long list of those more or less matching the objectives of Women in Red can be found in the left-hand margin of the WiR main page.
A selection of projects in several languages are listed below. Developments are listed in alphabetical order by language, and in chronological order within each language group. The Swedish Wikipedia appears to have made an early start (in July 2006) creating a wikiproject designed to reduce the gender gap, no doubt based on the English WikiProject Gender studies.
Albanian
- created by Margott and Liridon
- Albanian equivalent of Women in Red
- User group that coordonates the project: Wikimedians of Albanian Language UG
- Social media: @SQWikimediansUG
Arabic
Wikipedia: Missing Women Project
- created by RubyALG on 6 June 2020
- Arabic equivalent of Women in Red
Basque
- created by Mentxuwiki on 3 July 2017
- Project aimed at increasing the number of female editors, the creation of articles on women in Basque, and translation of articles on women from other languages
Catalan
- created by Kippelboy on 20 April 2016
- general support for improvement of women's coverage in the Catalan Wikipedia
- created by tiputini on 16 May 2016
- Working group at Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona), specialized in the gender gap. In the Catalan and Spanish Wikipedia
Croatian
- created by Fraxinus on 2 January 2019
- Croatian equivalent of Women in Red
Danish
- created as WikiProjekt Feminisme by Palnatoke on 14 May 2012
- improve coverage of women and feminism
- first edit-a-thon on 8 March 2015
Dutch
- created by Spinster on 9 April 2014
- reduce the gender gap on the Dutch Wikipedia
- 55 participants
French
- created by Supporterhéninois on 16 March 2011 under Projet:Football
- coordinate contributions of editors working on women's football
- grant submitted to the Wikimedia Foundation on 31 March 2015; project founded in April of same year
- aims to create and enhance Wikipedia articles on women, feminism, gender bias or other under-represented topics on Wikipedia
- 239 active members
- 4 FA's and 17 GA's
- see also: Les sans pagEs User Group
German
- created by Poisend-Ivy on 7 June 2011
- creation and improvement of articles about women
- links to related initiatives in the German Wikipedia
- created by IvaBerlin on 16 March 2016
- organization of editathons in various locations to improve coverage of women, also with online participants
- project results
WikiProjekt Frauen/Frauen in Rot
- created by Ghilt on 1 July 2016
- German equivalent of Women in Red
Greek
- created by Geraki on 2 April 2018
- Greek equivalent of Women in Red
Hebrew
- created by Ldorfman on 1 February 2016
- sister project of Hebrew: Women in Red
- designed to increase the number of women editors, expand and enrich content on women and women related topics and encourage women to write on the Hebrew Wikipedia.
Wikipedia: Wikipedia/Women in Red Projects
- created by TMagen on 11 July 2016
- Hebrew equivalent of Women in Red
Indonesian
- created by 06Ivonne on 8 March 2020
- add and improve articles on female figures (both from Indonesia and abroad) and women's issues.
Italian
Progetto:Sport/Calcio femminile
- created by Peppos on 11 January 2013
- coordination of the creation, expansion and translation of articles on women's football
- created by Camelia.boban on 4 August 2016
- Italian equivalent of Women in Red
Malay
- created by Fandi89 on 21 July 2020
- add and improve articles on women (both from Malaysia and abroad) as well as women's issues
Norwegian
Bokmål
- created by Danmichaelo on 21 August 2018
- Norwegian (Bokmål) equivalent of Women in Red
Nynorsk
- created by Trondtr on 10 March 2019
- Norwegian (Nynorsk) equivalent of Women in Red
Persian
Wikipedia:Red Women WikiProject
- created by 4nn1l2 on April 14, 2016
- Persian equivalent of Women in Red
- Also contains the project Women in Green
Portuguese
- created by Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton on 1 June 2019
- reduce gender bias by creating more articles on women
- created by Tuga1143 on 13 September 2020
- coordination of editors independent of their gender in improving and increasing content about women
Russian
- created by Peaceprayer on 1 August 2011
- the aim is to actively create new articles so that more Russian Wikipedia users can get acquainted with the topic of feminism
Serbian
Wiki women in Republika Srpska
- created by Bojana Wiki PG on 14 March 2018
- aims to overcome the gender difference in Wikimedia projects
Sorani
- created by Sakura emad on 2 February 2021 and updated by Pirehelokan on 21 March 2021
- Sorani Kurdish equivalent of Women in Red
Spanish
- created by 85.53.32.58 on 1 November 2009
- create and improve articles on feminism and gender equality
- created by Jaluj on 1 July 2015
- encourage the participation of women editors and the coverage of women
- 204 participants
- created by Ignotatum on 13 August 2015
- improve coverage of women in football
Swedish
- created by MellonCollie on 20 July 2006
- create and improve articles about women to reduce the gender gap
Thai
Women's Wikiproject in Red Links
- created by B20180 on 19 September 2017
- Thai equivalent of Women in Red
Turkish
- created by supercompetent on 5 January 2020
- Turkish equivalent of Women in Red
Meta[edit]
Affiliates
- Recognition date: 27 September 2016
- Recognition date: 9 December 2019
- Recognition date: 23 October 2018
- Recognition date: 7 November 2016
- Recognition date: 2 February 2020
- Recognition date: 11 November 2015
- Recognition date: 19 July 2015
- Recognition date: 6 July 2018
Campaigns
- created by Anthere on 5 January 2016 in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut
- combat systemic bias in regard to women in (initially) four sub-Saharan African countries by creating articles in the local languages
- project overview
- created by Sara Mörtsell (WMSE) on 9 January 2018 as WikiGap/2018
- a partnership between Wikimedia affiliates and The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs; invites broad and diverse participation, allowing for local adaptations to the overall theme of closing the gender gap and other gaps relevant for diversity on Wikipedia.
- A few thousand editors have taken part
- over 60,000 articles created or edited
- created by: John Cummings
- date: 22 February 2018
- in collaboration with UNESCO, promoting better representation of committed women of knowledge in the digital sphere through the creation, editing, and translation of women profiles and lists on Wikipedia (in various language versions of Wikipedia)
- created by: Camelia.boban
- date: 16 January 2019
- edit-a-thon launched by WikiDonne User Group to write about the women of the Bauhaus School during the Centenary celebration.
- created by: Jaluj, Armineaghayan and Camelia.boban
- date: 27 July 2018
- an InterWiki Women Collaboration to create a culture about women in all languages and countries across all Wikimedia projects in order to help fill the gender gap
Category:Mujeres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia
- created by: Jaluj
- date: 7 April 2018
- category for subjects related to Latin American women on Wikimedia
- created by: 50.14.137.216
- date: 25 February 2011
- page dedicated to helping NY peeps organize initiatives focused on reducing the gender gap in Wikipedia
- created by: ASvitak (WMF) and GVarnum-WMF
- date: 5 March 2020
- an initiative to raise awareness of Wikipedia’s gender gap and provide opportunities for anyone to get involved with community projects and events that are helping to address it
- created by: Anthere
- date: 16 March 2016
- page used to coordinate actions related to Gender Gap and/or Women issues during Wikimania 2016
- created by: SarahStierch
- date: 1 October 2012
- a volunteer-run project to inspire, engage and support more women to be involved in the Wikimedia movement
Women and gender diversity on Wikimedia
- created by: Fabrice Florin (WMF)
- date: 4 March 2015
- page used to gather biographies on notable women for selection to be posted to the Wikimedia blog in 2015
- created by: Elly Koepf (WMDE)
- date: 4 June 2013
- page created for suggestions and ideas to support Women edit-a-thons in Berlin in 2013
- created by: Camelia.boban
- date: 27 November 2020
- A month edit-a-thon about women that are playing a crucial role in climate change organized by WikiDonne and the Wikimedia Sustainability Consortia
- created by: SlimVirgin
- date: 11 February 2011
- page to discuss ideas started on the Gender Gap list for a "Women on Wikipedia Week" to encourage new editors
- created by: May Hachem93
- date: 21 July 2016
- global project and Edit-a-Thon that was held on 2016 International Youth Day (August 12th, 2016) to promote Wikipedia content on gender gap
- created by: Camelia.boban
- date: 10 October 2020
- two day edit-a-thon, held Tuesday 10th and 17th November 2020, focused on adding new articles and improving existing articles based on Atari Women, a research project about pioneer women and gender minority engineers
- created by: May Hachem93
- date: 6 February 2018
- campaign of Whose Knowledge? since 2018 that focuses on adding images of important and influential women to Wikimedia Commons
- created by: Kgreeves
- date: 24 February 2015
- Edit-a-thon hosted by the UNC Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) and the Kenan Science Library to create pages for women scientists, improve citations and supplement pages that currently exist, and identify opportunities to create links that make women scientists’ profiles more accessible
Fast Forward: Women in Photography
- created by: L.thomo74
- date: 30 January 2016
- conference held 6 - 7 January 2015 at the Tate Modern to explore the complex and dynamic evolution of the history of women in photography.
16 African Women Translate-a-thon
- created by: Anthere
- date: 26 January 2017
- 2017 camapaign of Wiki Loves Women; 16 days to make available biographies on 16 notable African women, in at least 16 languages
- created by: Anthere
- date: 30 September 2018
- 2018 camapaign of Wiki Loves Women; to make sure that the top occupations labels recorded in WikiData be available in their male/female/default status and to push for the translation of those labels in the languages spoken in Africa.
Thematic Workshop at Jeevan Jyoti Women Empowerment Centre
- created by: सुबोध कुलकर्णी
- date: 28 December 2017
- initiative to address these issues by empowering the under privileged sections of society, especially rural women with equal learning opportunities and with professional training courses in their formative years; thereby providing them with sustainable income opportunities
- created by: Nemoschool
- date: 4 January 2020
- endeavor that seeks to add over 1,000 names and contributions of religious, spiritual and wisdom women to Wikipedia
- created by: May Hachem93
- date: 21 July 2016
- a global project and Edit-a-Thon to enhance the presence of women and knowledge about them, emphasize the disappearance of women from society, narrow the gender gap and enhance the quality of the already published knowledge about women within Wikipedia.
Conferences
Gender gap
- Gender gap
- Gender gap strategy 2013
- Gender gap/Research
- Gender gap/International Women's Day
- Gender gap/News and Events
- Gender gap/Knowledge
- Gender gap/Resources
- Gender gap/Initiatives
- Gender gap/Groups
- Address the gender gap/Research
- Address the gender gap/FAQ
- Address the gender gap/Initiatives
- The Missing Masses: Investigating the Absence of Women and Non-Cis People among Wikipedia Editors/Relation to Previous Research
- Categories
- created by Anthere
- 10 May 2020
- This category includes successful grant requests related to gender gap on wikimedia projects, as well as LGBTQ+ issues
General information
- created by Teelöffel on 19 February 2016
- share activities from all over the world, which are designed to improve coverage and participation of women and girls
Learning patterns
- Main: Category:Gender learning patterns
- Bringing women together to work towards gender and linguistic inclusiveness
- Engaging Regional US-Based Museums Around the Gender Gap
- Following Wikipedia policies in gender gap events
- Gender identity
- Hosting a multi-location gender gap edit-a-thon
- How to create or edit an article in terms of gender approach
- How to get diverse presenters at your conference (from a gender, Global South... perspective)
- How to measure from a gender perspective
- How to write communications materials with a balanced portrayal of women and men
- It doesn't need to be always feminist to attract women users
- Using Wikipedia's gaps as feminist teaching tools
Research, reports, proposals, essays, surveys
- Women and Wikimedia Survey 2011
- Editor Survey/Women Editors 2011)
- Gender diversity mapping 2017
- Gender equity report 2018
- Proposals for more female editors
- Top 10 Reasons to Encourage More Women Participation in Wikipedia
- Wikipedia Gender Inequality Index
- YouGov survey on women and Wikipedia
- Bridging gender gap (research in India)
- IEG/The Missing Masses: Investigating the Absence of Women and Non-Cis People among Wikipedia Editors/Relation to Previous Research
References[edit]
- ^ Feinsteil, Laura. "Mass Wikipedia Edit To Make The Internet Less Sexist". Good Magazine. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
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