So, the New York Times heard (only 17 months later!) that Wikipedia articles are primarily contributed by men (85%). They concluded that this was a real problem, and their coverage prompted great consternation across the Internet because these numbers show the gender bias of Wikipedia and its content and explains why so many of the topics of interest to men are so thorough but ones of interest to women are not. As this excellent analysis points out, there are some major flaws with the Times's reasoning. First, the fact that men produce so much more of the content is only a problem if men produce inferior or distorted content, itself the premise of the feminist Times. Second, Wikipedia itself has tried deliberately to increase the number of female contributors, but has only had moderate success. Third, since Wikipedia is so open (free collaborative content production), this really puts the lie to allegations that gender discrimination is the reason for underrepresentation by women in areas like academia or journalism. If women are deliberately kept out of those arenas by gender bias, why don't they prove the discrepancy with ridiculously high participation in barrier-free (even encouraging!) terrain like Wikipedia?
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