Slate on female participation in Wikipedia

http://www.slate.com/id/2284501/pagenum/all/

by RickHull • 15 years ago

5 1 15 years ago

capstone• 15 years ago

So the sequence of events is basically this:

1. New York Times publishes an article that says, female participation on Wikipedia is really low but hey, let's be careful not to contribute it to sexism.

2. Slate publishes an article that says, female participation on Wikipedia is really low but hey, stop contributing it to sexism!

Here is the interesting part. Something about the article's belligerent tone and non-sequitur logic seemed familiar so I looked up the author and bingo, it's Heather McDonald. Every single year I see the same re-packaged piece along the lines of, "feminists should stop hyperventilating about the Web gender gap", "the desperation of the women’s grievance movement", "the perpetuation of the patriarchy myth", etc.

So I googled around a bit, and bingo again - Heather McDonald is a staff writer for the right-wing lobby think tank, the Manhattan Institute. The Slate article makes it look like journalism but it's propaganda, pure and simple.

Slate on female participation in Wikipedia

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