Celebrate Women/Press

Press toolkit

This toolkit provides resources to Wikimedia volunteers, affiliates, and groups working with gender. Its goal is to help spread the word about the Celebrate Women campaign by contacting the press.

Use this toolkit to help you develop a media plan or get media coverage from your local journalists and media outlets.

Note: This page is based on Wikipedia’s 25th birthday celebration toolkit. If you would like more tips on how to contact journalists, this page also includes many other resources, including a recording from a media training and slides.

Developing a plan

According to Wikipedia’s 25th birthday celebration toolkit for the press, your media plan should include 7 steps:

Identify your goals and audience
Explore storytelling angles
Collect your key messages and resources
Identify your spokespeople
Make your media contact list
Choose your tactics
Execute your media plan

Composing key messages

In this section, we will suggest some stories, materials, numbers and facts, as well as other links about the gender gap and Wikimedia. The goal is to help you in your journey of contacting journalists and media outlets with interesting, compelling, and factual information.

Explaining Wikipedia and the gender gap

If you would like to share a material that would explain what the gender gap is on Wikipedia, the “Does the content on Wikipedia reflect the world’s diversity?” video is a place to start.

Additionally, the video is a ‘Wiki Minute’, which means it lasts 60 seconds. As it's short and very didactic, due to its use of colorful illustrations, it's an opportunity to quickly get journalists and the media's attention.

Key Wikipedia and gender gaps facts and figures

19% of the content in all Wikimedia projects, including biographies on Wikipedia, is of women (Humaniki).
- On English Wikipedia, 20% of biographies are about women (Humaniki).
15% of Wikimedia contributors are women (Community Insights 2021 Report).
72% of pageviews come from people who self-identify as men (2019 Reader Demographics surveys).
80% of active editors self-identify as men (2023 Community Insights 2023 Report).
20% of articles about women have images (VisibleWikiWomen campaign by Whose Knowledge).
7% admins were less likely to identify as women (2023 Community Insights 2023 Report).
Only 19% of Black women, 22% of Hispanic women, 22% of Asian American women, and 36% of white women feel represented on Wikipedia. 60% of white men feel represented (Knowledge Equity Survey).

From the Wikipedia 25th birthday page:

Wikipedia is viewed nearly 15 billion times every month.
Wikipedia contains over 65 million articles across over 300 languages.
Wikipedia is edited by nearly 250,000 contributors every month around the world.
Wikipedia is edited 342 times per minute.

Inspiring stories

Celebrate Women, the International Women's Day, and Women's History Month, is the perfect time to highlight key communication stories.

Project Rewrite – Open the Knowledge: Stories

Knowledge is Her – Stories about women making a difference on Wikimedia

Carol Mwaura
Goodness Ignatius
Abigaïl Agbenomba

External stories

UK academic’s Wikipedia project raises profile of women around the world (The Guardian)
‘We’re writing history’: Spanish women tackle Wikipedia’s gender gap (The Guardian)
Making the edit: why we need more women in Wikipedia (The Guardian)
Why these scientists devote time to editing and updating Wikipedia (Nature)
How academic institutions can help to close Wikipedia’s gender gap (Nature)
Most Wikipedia Profiles Are of Men. This Scientist Is Changing That (The New York Times)
Wikipedia Isn’t Officially a Social Network. But the Harassment Can Get Ugly (The New York Times)
Wikipedia has a huge gender equality problem – here’s why it matters (The Conversation)
Viewpoint: How I tackle Wiki gender gap one article at a time (BBC)

Wikimedia's blog – Diff

Groups dedicated to decreasing the gender gap on the Wikimedia projects

Campaigns dedicated to decreasing the gender gap on the Wikimedia projects

Start of the gender gap on Wikimedia

In 2008, a first global study found 13% of all editors were female, but in 2011, this figure had fallen to 9%.

In 2017, the User:Rosiestep and the Wikimedia Foundation accomplished a Gender Diversity Mapping; in 2018, a Gender Equity Report was launched. In 2020, this percentage had increased to 15% (Community Insights Report).

The Gender Equity Report highlighted three key points:

that gender organizers relied on in-person events to sustain their work;
they had a strong desire to develop and access intersectional knowledge and content;
they want more impactful and transformative partnerships to help expand their work against the gender gap.

Frequently asked questions

Link to the Wikimedia Foundation's FAQ page to direct journalists and media outlets to answers to the most common questions about the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia, and more.