In today’s digital society, people often go online in search of information rather than using print sources. Sites such as Wikipedia have become widely used by people of all ages and allows information to be more accessible than in the past. Part of the beauty of these online sources of information is that they can be added to/edited by anyone. This allows a very diverse group of people to share information and ideas, but in practice the group of contributors is not as diverse as we may think. An article in the New York Times found that the percentage of contributors to Wikipedia that were female was barely 13%. It is possible that men simply use the internet, and technology in general, more than women, but this does not seem to be true. One study found that women spend more time online than men, about 8% more to be exact, begging the question why don’t they share their opinions and knowledge as often as men do?
One possible explanation for this disparity in female and male contributors could be due to a phenomenon known as the confidence gap. The theory is that men are inherently more confident than women and are more willing to share their thoughts and ideas in a public setting. This is a potentially dangerous trap to fall into because confidence does not always correlate with competence. Men are more likely to share their thoughts through online sites, like Wikipedia, but they do not have more important or better ideas than women.
An inequality in the amount of data found online for different subjects also arises. For example, topics that men are interested in generate more activity and are usually longer than articles that appeal mainly to women. The New York Times article, mentioned above, talks about the differences in the length of entries on two popular TV shows, “Sex and the City” and “The Sopranos.” One is mainly watched by women, leading to a much smaller Wikipedia page. This variation in the amount of information available online does not in any way reflect upon the content, complexity, or quality of the show, but rather the audience demographics.
This problem of gender inequality online has detrimental effects and limits the amount of information available. Consider the fact that approximately 50% of the population is female. Society, as a whole, is missing out on so much if this half of the population doesn’t share the information and knowledge they have. Many people, such as the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, are trying to increase the percentage of women contributors online, but this is proving to be an uphill battle. As stated by Catherine Orenstein, the founder and director of the OpEd Project, in the article “When you are a minority voice, you begin to doubt your own competencies.” What do you think, what is the best way to promote women contributors to online sites such as Wikipedia and is there a way to reverse the confidence gap that separates men and women?
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