Zer Netmouse

Over on Sue Gardner's blog there's a discussion about her essay on why more women don't edit wikipedia. I subscribe to comments and sometimes I respond to them.

Since I don't get much time to write posts here, I thought I would share just such an exchange from this week. Partly because I was gratified to find that the numbers support me in my belief that media that promote/reflect stereotypically gendered "interests" don't really have as much market penetration as the industry would like you to believe.


In August, someone writing as Jim Bob said,

There are no barriers to editing Wikipedia, it is no more challenging than keeping up appearances on facebook and twitter, which women do far more than men. You can rationalize till the cows come home.

Women are more subjective than men in their interests and mindset. Many girls barely take an interest in anything which does not relate to themselves – beauty, fashion, relationships, weddings, babies etc – which is why most women’s magazines consist of the above. Few are interested in planes, jet engines, markets etc

I responded ( tl:dr version: women are more subjective? Your  )

This is of course a waste of my time in terms of convincing that other commenter in any way. So I'm cross-posting it here so it can feel like *less* of a time waste...