We are all aware of the large reach and popularity of Wikipedia. However, what most people don’t know is that, according to a study conducted in 2011, only 9% of the editors at Wikipedia were women. And the percentage for India is even lower, just 3%.
Wikipedia recognises the systemic gender bias that is created because of factors such as these and thus enables its diverse range of users to edit and create Wiki pages, with reliable and authentic sources.
Feminism in India and Breakthrough India have joined hands for a series of monthly Wikipedia edit-a-thons exploring various facets of gender in India, thus increasing content on women and marginalized communities on Wikipedia as well as training women to create and edit Wikipedia pages and hence increasing the number of women editors. On on October 8, FII and BT co-hosted a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on “Indian women poets and authors” at Breakthrough’s Delhi office. The edit-a-thon was aimed at creating/editing wikipedia pages of Indian women poets and authors who lack representation on the platform currently.
We are at @INBreakthrough busy with editing Wikipedia pages of Indian women poets & authors. Are you joining us? pic.twitter.com/gXbLw9FYEc
— Feminism in India (@FeminismInIndia) October 8, 2016
We’re editing pages of Indian women poets and authors with little representation on Wikipedia. Come, join us. @FeminismInIndia @cis_india
— Breakthrough India (@INBreakthrough) October 8, 2016
Keeping this in mind, we created a list of some Indian women poets and authors and looked at their representation in Wikipedia. While some like Aditi Rao did not have a Wiki page at all, others were underrepresented. We were a group of 12 participants in total, out of which, two participated remotely.
I am editing @rupikaur_ ‘s Wikipedia page. Come join us 🙂 https://t.co/lU1Z3P9yv4
— Japleen Pasricha (@japna_p) October 8, 2016
Joining in the #editathon briefly, with @INBreakthrough & @FeminismInIndia for #IndianWomenAuthorsAndPoets
Working on #AmritaPritam ❤❤— Swarnima (@SwarnsB) October 8, 2016
Virtually joining the wikipedia editathon with @FeminismInIndia and @INBreakthrough on #IndianWomenAuthorsAndPoets.
— VSD (@sridevi4u) October 8, 2016
Below is the list of particiapnts and the pages they created/edited.
- Shalaka Torane: Bahinabai Chaudhari
- Suneeta Mishra: Kamini Roy
- Japleen Pasricha: Rupi Kaur
- Adishi Gupta: Meena Kandasamy
- Soumya: Jayaprabha and Aditi Rao
- Sonam: Mridula Koshy
- Rahul Narayanan: Lalita Iyer
- Richa Singh: Easterine Kire
- Himel Sarkar: Meera Nair
- Shobha SV: Urmila Pawar
- Swarnima (remote participation): Amrita Pritam
- Sri Devi (remote participation): Kamala Surayya
