Welcome to the second annual
Art + Feminism Wikipedia edit-a-thon
at the Museum of Modern Art.
In 2010 there was a study that found that around 8.5%
of Wikipedia editors where women, other studies
have shown that it is somewhere between 8% and 16%
So the numbers are quite low, as far as female editors go
there is a lack of history in feminist art in women artists
and in topics about gender and gender
expression on Wikipedia. We would like to change that
so that is what we are working on today.
Yeah I mean
blogs are difficult... I am hear to help correct some of the
gender imbalances among not only the articles that are presented
in Wikipedia but among the editors that are included
in the effort. I am a professional writer and editor, I am also a feminist
and I love art so as soon as I heard about this I new it was something
that I wanted to participate on not only as an expert but as
a passionate supporter of the campaign.
I have been talking about hip hop tourism here in New York City
and how it evolved and where it started and you know who
were apart of the legends and historical icons in a place
that is so relevant to the movement of hip hop.
I think the social platform the internet, there are so many things
that are out there that I really don't know about and I wanted to be able to learn how
to use it the best way the best practices and you know maybe cut
some hours of just trying to figure things out on my own. When you come to events like this
they tell you the short cuts and they kind of explain it to you the right way.
From a long time I wanted to edit a Wikipedia article
for my artist friends; I am a Romanian artist.
Women Romanian artist
its an area that is totally unrepresented on the Wikipedia.
So I always wanted to learn and I promised myself that
I would do one I kept an eye on it so that is a great opportunity to really
learn; I won't leave here till five o'clock.
It just never really seemed accessible to edit Wikipedia pages.
I also just didn't have the technical know how to do it so it was really good to get a little
bit of education on how to do that. But then also just having the
opportunity to kind of follow leads down rabbit holes
around women artists from lots of different periods in the interest of providing good references
and maybe beefing up the Wikipedia text about them has just been really fun.
I just started learning how to write my first
Wikipedia article I have only done edits so far. I am just taking
that very frightening first step of actually creating an article
from scratch. And how has it gone so far. I mean so far
my computer hasn't burst into flames or anything so that is good.
I like that I am helping
to educate basically everybody in the world at the same time.
And I am happy because
it lets me develop the different languages I know.
What really got me interested in this topic and this project is hearing a few years ago
that a Wikipedia editor had tried to create a page for
women authors, women writers,
as distinct from "writers" and he
thought he was helping women by making them more visible, but he was
ghettoizing them. He didn't get that women
who are writers are writers. They are not women writers
and men who are writers are rarely called "men writers"
they are just writers. So that is why I am here.
I am writing
just one entry about this mexican artist. So I chose to
do one in english and in spanish because I am mexican. So it
is also important to have information in both languages. Sometimes
in latin american countries or in other countries that don't speak english
you don't get all the information right? You only have access to
the english ones and if you don't speak english then you don't have
that information even about your artists.
We have events happening all over the world. At last count I think
we where at 75, but as always happens we learn about more
after the fact. That includes
in Paris, in Amsterdam, in Moscow which
we are really excited by. These events are very important
it is just as important as when you where a child and you went to the library. That feeling that
you got when you borrowed the book and you where able to read the book and take it home and you where excited
and you couldn't wait to return it and borrow another book. These kind of events
actually open a platform for you to open up your mind
and say that we all have to work together and teach each other.
Sometimes we think that someone else is going
to do it, but if we wait until that person does it
it is going to be very slow. So we have to sometimes take
things in our own hands and just do it. I think we have a chance
with Wikipedia to sort of make the ideal encyclopedia.
