User:Edwardx/sandbox4

Athene Donald's contributions to The Guardian are always thought-provoking, and the latest entitled Is the sexist scientific workplace really dead? is no exception.

I've been fortunate to hear Donald speak twice on the subject of women in science at Wikimedia UK editathons (NIMR and the Royal Society). She is an eloquent and inspiring speaker on the myriad and often subtle ways that women are treated less favourably than men (after trying to control for all other factors, of course).

Estimates vary depending upon criteria, but I regularly hear figures in the range 7-13% of regular contributors to Wikipedia are women. So, I'm always keen to get take part in any training that might encourage more women to get involved. Yes, I know I'm a man, but nobody's perfect. And I try to lead by example. Creating biographies is an area that I'm active in, and I ensure that women are at least 50% of my new pages. Easier in ballet and contemporary art, more challenging in business and science.

We haven't yet worked out how to encourage more women to take part. Even supposing that creating new content on Wikipedia will always be male-dominated, if those men are gender-neutral in their editing and treat women editors in a spirit of equality, then the male/female contributor imbalance will look a lot less of a concern. And it might just help a more cooperative and less confrontational editing environment.

Eight years ago, my first edit was to Justine Greening and my first article was Grete Mosheim. Happy coincidences.

Once upon a time, playing video games was very much male-dominated, but that has changed. Creating content on Wikipedia can too. Your ideas on how this might happen are most welcome.