Grants:IEG/Women are everywhere

statusdraft

Women are everywhere

summaryHistory is made by human beings, no matter their gender. Where there are men in history, there are women who play important roles. Everyone knows this truth, but it is not written in the history books. Things are changing now. We have to point out that society is more aware of the contributions of women. The goal is to look for the contributions of women in every field of human history.

targetItalian Wikipedia

strategic priorityimprove quality

amount23.700 euro

grantee• Kenzia

contact• kenzia.wiki@gmail.com

volunteer• Johanna-Hypatia• Alexmar983• Effems

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created on21:05, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

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Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

The problem is that women have been invisible to historians or in the "backseat" for too long of a time. Traditionally, historians have assumed that women mainly played a domestic role, as mothers and wives, not as scientists, inventors, creators and leaders. This in turn has led to the perception by the general public that women were not involved in these and other significant activities. It is hard to change this kind of mentality. In Wikipedia, this has led to a "gender gap", in which most of the biographies are about men and most of the histories of countries, scientific, technological, and creative fields focus on the contributions of men. The goal is not only to create new entries in Wikipedia about notable women, but also to underline women's contributions in many fields. The problem about the gender gap is mainly a problem of mentality. Not only men, but also women are not used to pointing out the importance of the women's contribution to history. What it is required is a change of attitude in doing research. If we look for women we will find them everywhere. This project will be realized in cooperation with the Department of Ancient and Modern Civilization of the University of Messina.

What is your solution?

Study, action, campaign. For me the solution is in these three words.

Project goals

To encourage editors to point out the importance of women's contribution throughout history. To involve new editors who are aware of the gender gap in the Wikipedia project in Italy.To create new articles about women. A special focus of the project will be on the orphan articles about women, to better integrate them into Wikipedia's related articles.

Project plan

Activities

The task is to analyze the Italian Wikipedia from the gender gap point of view, with the goal of improving it. What I imagine is a cherchez les femmes (looking for women) attitude in the analysis of the actual contents. As a result, it will be possible to create a list of proposals for editors to improve the women representation through articles, links, images etc. This is a big task. It will be necessary to proceed step by step.

At the beginning of the project, there will be a survey of the overall situation to have a clear and measurable picture (e.g. how many editors are involved in the gender gap issue, how many categories are dedicated to women, how many entries have been created about women in the last month, what are the tools editors can use to tackle with the gender gap problem such as projects, talk pages, mailing lists ecc.)
There will be actions to recruit new volunteers and to involve editors, men and women, of the italian Wikipedia in this project (e.g. inviting people to edit-a-thons organised in physical locations such as universities or public library, mass messages, ecc.).
The scientific analysis of the contents will begin on a territorial basis, starting from Messina and Sicily, as a sample of the general content. The Department of Ancient and Modern Civilization of the University of Messina will be partner of the project.
There will be a workshop at the University of Messina. The goal of the workshop is to assess in a scientific way if the gender gap exist and how consistent it is. The workshop will involve professors and students of the Department in an analytic approach to the italian Wikipedia from a gender perspective, focusing on Messina and the sicilian area.
The research will be organised by categories of contents.
The workshop will be developed in three different stages, starting from september 2016 until february/march 2017:

September 2016: presentation of the project, planning of the work and assignement of the different tasks;
December 2016: verification of the work in progress and collection of the first results;
February/March 2017: final collection and examination of the results of the analysis.

It is important to support and to collaborate with the people in the Wikipedia network already at work on similar projects. In Italy Progetto:Biografie/Donne and all the other projects created about women in the Wikipedia network.
There will be an effort to create links with other academic faculties focused on the gender studies to hold in the future lectures or workshops on this subject in other Universities in Italy.

Budget

These study and research activities will take time. The expenses are mostly for the time I will have to dedicate to this task as a project manager.

Compensation for project management: 18.720 euro (20euro per 18/hrs per 52weeks).

There will be some travel expenses, including transportation and accommodation. The travel expenses will be mostly for going from Rome, where I live, to Messina, the location of the Department of Ancient and Modern Civilization who will partner in this project. The distance is 700 kilometres (435 miles).

travel expenses: 1000 euro;
accommodation expenses: 1000 euro.

Other expenses:

organization of edit-a-thons: 1030 euro;
technical support for the data collection: 1000 euro;
technological expenses : 950 euro.

Community engagement

Communication with existing editors on the Italian Wikipedia who are interested in women's history is a vital part of the project: there will be an ongoing effort to involve other editors by presenting proposals on the subject. I will write messages on the talk pages of editors already engaged on women's history post messages on the talk pages of the major articles concerning women's topics on the Italian Wikipedia.

Sustainability

In the end, I hope to develop a model, available for other editors in Italy and in other countries, to increase the awareness of the gender gap issue and to set a method of research to improve the women representation.

Measures of success

The general goal of the project is to improve Italian Wikipedia's quality from the women and gender gap point of view:

to assess the present situation in general (e.g. how many editors are involved in the gender gap issue, how many entries have been created about women in the last month, what are the tools editors can use to tackle with the gender gap problem such as projects, talk pages, mailing lists ecc.);
to work in general to improve this situation (articles improved + pages created);
to determine how many articles about women and/or their contributions are "orphan" articles (this means articles which are not linked from any article on the wider Italian Wikipedia);
to work towards linking these "orphan" articles from the wider Italian Wikipedia (articles improved);

There will be a special focus about contents related to the Messina and sicilian area:

to examine the content of general articles (e.g., on history, technology, arts, etc.) to determine if the contributions of women are present in these articles;
to add key women and their contributions to those general articles (articles improved);
to examine biographies of notable women (articles improved);
to write biographies of notable women missing in the Italian Wikipedia (pages created).

Get involved

Participants

Kenzia: PhD in History at the Political Sciences School in Paris. I'm interested in research related to gender gap issues. This project will be realized in collaboration with the Department of Ancient and Modern Civilization of the University of Messina.

Volunteer I'm good at Italian>English translations, which I do professionally. I tend to have more of a focus on Sicily in general and Sicilian women in particular, though the challenge of documenting Sicilian women's history has far to go—in any language. Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 10:05, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Volunteer In historical & contemporary researchs. Drafting of the items in italian language. Effems (talk) 18:30, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Volunteer I can help with the creation of some lists. I also would like to follow the project in details, it might be useful for the future. Alexmar983 (talk) 13:28, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Community notification

Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for an Individual Engagement Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project below! (Other constructive feedback is welcome on the discussion page).

Support I can help with some lists. We can start from wikidata item of women that do not exist in itWikipedia. Also I can prepare, with help of others, a list of women editors, and a list of editors mainly active in editing women articles. If you need them. Also I can gather a list of local users for specific events. I also have some experience with mailing lists, I can help you to promote the initiative (national level) Alexmar983 (talk) 08:25, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
I start to inform some projects too--Alexmar983 (talk) 15:53, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
Support In the projects I am experienced - Indonesia, Australia and others, there are considerable gaps in coverage of significant women in most occupations and walks of life. I am sure the same is for most parts of wikipedia (I think it has been pointed out over and over over the time that I have been an editor), and any project or project suggestion that has methods and means of increasing the coverage should be encouraged and supported :JarrahTree (talk) 12:07, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
Support However, the time I will have to dedicate to this project in 2016 will be limited because of other commitments but I'm willing to help when I can. I consider it a worthy endeavor. Atsme^📞📧 20:04, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
Support I do not understand Italian, however, so my ability to contribute to the Italian language Wikipedia will be greatly limited. OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 21:30, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
Support Anything that helps with the gender gap is something I can get behind. Zellfaze (talk) 02:53, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
Support - Sounds like a great plan. The Women's football/soccer task force talk page is another community you could post the info as well as Women's Sport. I hope you'll keep us informed as things progress. Hmlarson (talk) 06:40, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
Support - This is valuable work. I just watched "PAW patrol" with my grand-daughter. (Cult NetFlix et al animation) Six dogs and a leader doing good brave helping and ONE! of them is female. We need role-models for the next generation of producers, story writers, animators and members of Paw Patrol! WomeninRed and WikiProject Women are interested in international collaboration - currently running at >2,000 a month. Victuallers (talk) 09:20, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
Comment - I looked at your edit history on the Italian wiki. Am I missing something? Do you have a ~15 edits this year, one new article (a woman) in 2015 and one new article (a bloke) the year before? Are you active elsewhere? Victuallers (talk) 09:46, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Comment I'm happy to encourage this work, but like Victuallers I have some reservations about the limited amount of content the grantee has created. So I think it would be useful if the grantee could be a little more specific about the potential impact on content the awarding of this grant might have. I understand that assessing deficiencies is one aspect of the proposal. Just want to encourage the grantee to point to some major articles in which coverage of women should be developed, as well as individual articles that need to be added or developed, and what she would do to make that happen. Cynwolfe (talk) 00:18, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Comment As the other two posters mention, I fully support the outcome - but I am wondering about the financial aspect. The Women in Red and other task forces have managed to put together a number of articles without spending money (please correct me if I'm wrong) by coordinated networking on Wikipedia. I edit/volunteer as a hobby for free, as time allows, and I expect a number of other editors do so as well. Wouldn't the Italian project be better served, at least in the beginning, by making translations of existing Wiki articles on women? (I do not speak Italian so perhaps they already exist). I also noticed a lot of focused effort on individual articles and talk pages in your content creation, I'd think the first step would be to at least create a large number of pages which may not have as much in-depth research (leaving room for other Italian editors to fill in), but raising the total number of articles specific to Italian women throughout history. Forgive me if I don't fully understand the challenges you face; I do not deny they are there, I just do not understand how that amount of money will produce results. LovelyLillith (talk) 16:04, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Support - This is valuable work. I would love to see it supported. Christa Craven, Chair of Women's Gender & Sexuality Studies at the College of Wooster, USA. 140.103.45.80
Support in principle - this is important and valuable work, however I would like to see more detail provided e.g. exact costs and details of transportation and accommodation, what the money is going to be used for exactly; and what the actual planned methodology is for achieving the aims i.e. how will you do the things you say you will do? MurielMary (talk) 09:36, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Support I was happy to see Kenzia shares my esteem of Butler-Adam, J. (May/June 2015) "Women, productivity and progress" South African Journal of Science 111(5-6) doi: 10.17159/sajs.2015/a0110 EllenCT (talk) 12:00, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Support I think will be very usefull to have a similar activity on gender gap in Italy. I'll help surely Susanna Giaccai talk 22,21 6 April 2016 (UTC)
This is definitely a good idea, and the proposal seems feasible and well developed. Maunus (talk) 01:58, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
Support This is an excellent project, and I recommend that it be supported. Thanks for planning and organizing this project. DStrassmann (talk) 20:12, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
The gender gap for years has been one of Wikipedia's most notorious problems, with the effect of muting, diminishing, or erasing women's history in almost every field. This proposal aims directly at remedying the imbalance and therefore deserves the full support of the Wikipedia editor communities. Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 10:01, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Support It is extremely worthwhile to have more women academics involved in Wikipedia to add to its credibility. The project addresses the Wikipedia gender gap in an important way. Maberry
Support In Sicily and in Italy there is a whole unknown universe to unravel. Not only queens, saints and painters but also women poets, women writers, women novelist, women heroes, businesswomen, doctors, angels of the social, the "World Women Wiki" everything to develop, integrate and improve in its myriad facets. Pleased to participate to solve the gap.Effems (talk)
FYI, Effems is a local user that I pinged in Kenzia's talk, so to be sure that there are expert users around that can help her. I will ping more users around Messina in the following days.Alexmar983 (talk) 14:43, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
This is a fantastic initiative, thank you. I try and contribute to growing wikipedia content about women in history, politics, art etc as I have been struck by the typical imbalance or lack of quality on pages about women. I don't have any Italian expertize, but completely support this project and hope it gets a grant. Depthdiver (talk) 17:54, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Support - I totally support the concept of closing any gaps on Wikipedia (gender, age, race, disability, etc.). Go easy on the onsite work, as that will eat up the US$30,000 in a hurry. FYI: I am an old, sexually confused, disabled, white male. LOL. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 18:33, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Support. Beautiful project. I can help on Italian Wikipedia in creation of new articles about women in history, science, art. --Yiyi (talk) 07:05, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Support. I think it could be a very interesting pilot for similar initiatives in Italy and elsewhere. I will be happy to contribute as a volunteer on italian Wikipedia an offline. --Atropine (talk) 09:25, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Support, totally, this beautiful and important project. The figure of the woman in the world (not only in Italy), It must be studied and expanded (sorry for my english ;)) --Stella (talk) 12:28, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
For those who need to evaluate the grant, Stella is an "expert " of articles related to local culture of Sicily, the region of the University partner--Alexmar983 (talk) 12:43, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for submitting, Alexmar... --Stella (talk) 12:56, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
submitting what? Thank you for your support. --Alexmar983 (talk) 12:57, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
"presentazione" Alex :) --Stella (talk) 13:24, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Support Pervinca51
Support --Beatrice (talk) 21:28, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Support Three cheers for you, Kenzia. Let's write women back into the pages of history. I don't have first-hand knowledge of the Italian Wikipedia. But I would like to add the comment that what the English Wikipedia women's projects experience in this area are not out of line with real life. The issue is so deep-rooted and insidious in our culture that I'm pretty sure a lot of people who show bias about women sincerely believe they are not biased. And, yet, we as human beings are so programmed from one generation to another, that situations like new women's articles being put up for deletion are not thought of by the nominator as a gender issue. It takes people like you to go out and educate and recruit. Thanks for coming up with this. Maile (talk) 22:33, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
Support Yes, by all means. Raystorm (talk) 16:37, 9 May 2016 (UTC)