User:WaitingforGodot/Fem

Feminism and Rational Wiki

Go to any site that hosts modern intellectual discussions, especially around the sciences, atheism, skepticism, and free-thought and one topic that will be shared across all of them is "the role of women at our site".

Sites and scholarly topics that appeal to the intellectual minded, have always drawn more men than women, largely due to some outdated yet self-fulfilling idea that women neither like or tend to be competent at truly rational thinking, thanks to those silly emotions of theirs. Anyone over 25 who is into sciences or philosophy will tell you that it's a uterian free world out there.

But this view of women's place at the intellectual table is being challenged the net over. Women scientists, blogers, free-thinking atheists, traditional feminists and even stay at-home-moms with sharp minds have all started to say, in a variety of lovely ways, "we are here. Now notice us". And the men have. By embracing women's participation, or by blasting it to the pits of dismissive hell, where mansplaining and scorn is the best reply you can hope for, and threats of violence or rape a sadly expected "worst".

Navigating these waters for any site is a tricky thing. Doing it - even harder.

First of all, you have to want women's participation, and accept that it's a good thing to have various minority voices on your site. Having decided that, you have to encourage it by having a variety of topics that might interest or appeal to women specifically, as well as the generic ones that appeal to everyone, regardless of gender. You have to walk the walk, and listen to what women are saying: What topics matter to some or most women in your field? What questions are unique to the women of/in your field? What articles have been written by women at your site, on any topic, and how can you highlight them? What off-site discussions are happening? Are women involved? Are they encouraged to talk?

And a big one - what is your actual attitude as represented in your sitespace? Is it easy to find moments where women's opinions have been dismissed? Does the site allow anyone to say anything at any time about women? Are the conversations bully based (that is, to the extent that it's true that women "give up" earlier than men, do the men win when there are disagreements, just cause they are louder, meaner, and more stubborn?) Are lots of the participants telling those who speak with abuse, to back down or get out? And if fights (all too common around mansplainign-land) do break out, how does the community at large, handle them?

To the best of my knowledge, RationalWiki has had few if any of the dramatic "MRA v. Feminist" epic battles of the century so common around the net. In part, I suppose, it's because we are simply not that big. We do have small spats now and then, and there is always disagreement on what terms like "feminism" even means anymore. But we tend to keep it mostly level headed. Most of the active editors and lurkers are generally what I would call "feminist". They are quick to jump into the fray and challenge the more stereotypical views of women. When we address topics like Akin's now-famous "rape shuts that whole thing down", our comments and articles tend to be fairly feminist minded. We discuss issues and largely agree that things like the generic rape culture is a social problem, and is not likely to be fixed by just changing your clothing or hiring more women cops. In the Salon, where we hang out and bash each other for no good reason, you'll find people who question all the assumptions, or who express dislike for so-called 3rd wave feminism. But from my experience, those conversations remain civil, controlled, and intellectual.

We do get plenty of trolls on our MRA articles, of course. But it's ok, cause you'll see a site of editors take them on and blast them to smithereens.

Thanks in part to the work of some dedicated editors, female and male (and even several trans folk), we have several decent articles of interest to skeptics with a feminist bent. But we can always use more women around here. Scientists to help us blast away pseudo-science, writers to add splash and pizazz to otherwise boring articles, historians to add details we've missed, and generally opinionated women of all bents to keep us sharp.

Great pages to check out:
 * Men's rights movement - It's a bit hard to justify why you need your own "special rights" when you control the government of every single country in the world. Just saying...
 * Female genital mutilation and Circumcision - We take a pretty strong view that both of these are child abuse
 * Rape, and Rape culture
 * Abortion, Circumventing Roe v. Wade
 * Misogyny - though we need help with quality articles about religion and women, especially institutionalized misogyny.
 * Diet woo - stereotypical as it is too suggest most women diet at some point in their life - I think it is a topic of interest to many women

What we are missing include articles on body image and social pressure to conform to roles, as well as issues that cover women-targeted woo around beauty and hygiene, menopause, and aging.

There's not a lot of us around yet, but some of the women who have graced the pages of the wiki:


 * User:SusanG is sadly missed by all of us.
 * User:Blue
 * User:Dumpling
 * USer:Eira
 * USer:Kels
 * User: ‎KnightOfTL;DR
 * USer:Lady Corvex
 * User:Lily
 * User:LucidFox
 * User:Mei
 * User:Pink
 * User:Pippa
 * User:Pretzel
 * User:Proxima_centauri
 * USer:Refugee
 * USer:Teresita
 * USer:Sophie
 * User:WaitingforGodot