Wikipedia, therefore the world, is run by men
In today's Observer Carole Cadwalladr (who?) writes part of her column on the interesting statistic that wikipedia is a very mael dominated site. Fair enough. She then however, equates this to men controlling human knowledge (wikipedia's version of it). Pathetically she compares the word count on the page for menstruation against Star Trek and gender inequality against William Shatner. Something Awful have been covering the patheticness of wikipedians for a long time and to be frank, a lot better than award winning Carole's attempt.
To look at these statistics and come to the pithy conclusions she does and to try to equate this to equality is special pleading of the kind reserved for Sunday newspaper columnists struggling to make up the word count for their articles. Wikipedia is written by volunteers. Draw conclusions about what men do with their free time as compared to women (shopping? being duped by cosmetic adverts? shoes?), fine. But men controlling knowledge? How about women being lazy when it comes to contributing to wikipedia. Or perhpas women being less selfless than men? Still, one presumes Carole has a wikipedia account perhaps she should apply her writing skills to expanding the articles on vagisil, ovulation and other women's concerns to you know, save human knowledge.
To look at these statistics and come to the pithy conclusions she does and to try to equate this to equality is special pleading of the kind reserved for Sunday newspaper columnists struggling to make up the word count for their articles. Wikipedia is written by volunteers. Draw conclusions about what men do with their free time as compared to women (shopping? being duped by cosmetic adverts? shoes?), fine. But men controlling knowledge? How about women being lazy when it comes to contributing to wikipedia. Or perhpas women being less selfless than men? Still, one presumes Carole has a wikipedia account perhaps she should apply her writing skills to expanding the articles on vagisil, ovulation and other women's concerns to you know, save human knowledge.
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