In case you didn't note it, Wikipedia had women trouble in 2013. It began when writer Amanda Filipacchi protested in an April New York Times op-ed piece that Wikipedia was quietly but systematically removing all women from the category "American novelists" and placing them in the subcategory of "American women novelists." Headlines and commentators decried Wikipedia's sexism, and many attributed bias to the fact that Wikipedia's cyberspace editors are 90% male. The issue also highlighted all kinds of Wikipedia ghettos, where women and racial or ethnic groups were assigned only to subcategories. Well, after the uproar, the women novelists are listed in the main American novelist category again, as well as in the American women novelist subcategory and whatever other subcategories Wikipedia pedants deem relevant, from mystery writers to lesbian writers to African-American women writers. This is a debate that many may dismiss as overly sensitive semantics about an effort to logically structure information. But I think it reflects real social challenges. When we collectively think about people by category, we can place real limits on how we treat them in education, in politics and even in personal relationships. We set different standards and expectations based on assumed generalized characteristics, and we may justify subtle or blatant discrimination based on stereotypes. Human "categories" have lead to oppression, genocide and war, and we need to be very careful of their use and implications. Wikipedia is just one mirror of how we think about each other; there are many other examples in our media, politics and private lives. We really do need to be vigilant and vocal when faced with distorted "categorizing." For more on the Wikipedia controversy, see http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/apr/29/wikipedia-women-problem/
No comments:
Post a Comment