On January 31st, Noam Cohen published an article in the New York
Times highlighting the gender gap in Wikipedia’s contributor
list, sparking heated debate across a myriad of news sources. In
just ten years, Wikipedia has become what many consider to be
the most democratic, accessible information resource available.
Indeed, anyone with internet access can go to Wikipedia to add
their two cents on any given topic, regardless of their
individual identity and experience. Yet statistics reveal that
despite this egalitarian model, the information provided on
Wikipedia derives from a fairly homogenous sector of the world’s
population: one that is overwhelmingly male. Last year, the
Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that runs Wikipedia,
released a survey showing that just 13-percent of Wikipedia’s
contributors were female. These striking statistics beg the
question: What do you do when a website founded on the values of
freedom and openness turns out to be heavily tilted toward the
male population? If you’re exe