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Because I wish there were no gender biases, I will pretend that just because not 100% of a gender is completely monolithic, that must mean that any gender bias is disproved.


Seriously, honestly, the majority of women could not be stuffed about celebrity wedding dresses. Sure, more women are into it than men, I won't argue about that. But I'll be damned if 'caring about celebrity wedding dresses' is classed as a 'women's issue', because, frankly, it's not. No more than 'caring about racing cars' are a 'men's issue', and most men get through life not thinking about them much, and just as many find them boring as interesting. If I was forbidden to talk about racing at work, I wouldn't go around yawping about how my boss had problems with "men's issues". It's not a women's issue, it's a fashion issue.

Note that I'm talking about real, actual men and women here; not the stereotypes that folks have in their head, but the actual people they want to do editorial work.

A better example: What about guns? The gender balance when it comes to vocal, visible people who like guns is heavily skewed towards males, but people don't call out gun control advocates as causing trouble for 'men's issues', or 'trying to silence men'.

The issue here is less 'geeks hate women, and so women's articles suffer in wikipedia', and more 'geeks care less about subjects outside their bailiwick, like fashion, and so those articles suffer in wikipedia'. The question is really 'how do we loosen the reins of the geeks a little', not 'there's not enough Genital Type V amongst our editors'.


So what would you call a "men's issue" or a "women's issue"? Or do you think that no such issues exist?


Sure. Motherhood issues. Reproductive rights. Sexism issues (of which there are tons). Things that are inherent to being a woman. In some places, there's a luxury tax on tampons (!) - that's a woman's issue. Social clubs (or gyms) that admit only men/women. And, clearly, trying to break out of the stereotypes people hold of 'what women are' is also a woman's issue.

Here is an example of what can happen when people think that love of fashion is inherent to being female. It's an ad campaign using fashion imagery to attract girls to science - and you wouldn't see a parallel campaign using guns to attract boys to be a teacher, would you? Or racecars to be a nurse? Examples of what she's talking about start about one minute in: http://youtu.be/x3eZQHwGQE0




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