Writing about women: Male is not the default.
When writing about women on Wikipedia, make sure articles do not use sexist language, perpetuate sexist stereotypes or otherwise demonstrate a prejudice against women.
As of June 2019, 16.7% of editors on the English Wikipedia who have declared a gender say they are female.[1] The gender disparity, together with the need for reliable sources, contributes to the gender imbalance of our content; as of March 2020, only 18.27% of our biographies are about women.[2] This page may help to identify the subtle and more obvious ways in which titles, language, images, and linking practices can discriminate against women.
Among editors of the English Wikipedia who specify a gender in their preferences, 115,941 (16.7%) were female and 576,106 male as of 13 June 2019.[1][a]
As of 10 March 2020, the English Wikipedia hosted 1,693,225 biographies, 291,649 (18.27%) of which were about women.[2] As a result of sourcing issues, almost all biographies before 1900 are of men.[5]
In 2009 the percentage of biographies of living persons (BLPs) about women was under 20%, but the numbers have been rising steadily since 2012–2013. As of 5 May 2019, the English Wikipedia hosted 906,720 BLPs, according to figures produced by Andrew Gray using Wikidata. Wikidata identified 697,402 of these as male and 205,117 as female.[b] The percentages of those that specified a gender were 77.06% male and 22.67% female; 0.27% had another gender.[6]
Avoid language that makes female the Other to a male Self.[7]
Researchers have found that Wikipedia articles about women are more likely to contain words such as woman, female and lady, than articles about men are to contain man, male, or gentleman. This suggests that editors write with an assumption of male as the default gender and expect that individuals are assumed to be male unless otherwise stated.[8][9] This tendency is easily countered by removing unnecessary specification of sex or gender. Avoid labelling a Margaret Atwood as a female author or Margaret Thatcher as female politician except in specific sentences or paragraphs in which their gender is explicitly relevant.
Categories are equally susceptible to asymmetric treatment of genders. In April 2013 several media stories noted that editors of the English Wikipedia had begun moving women from Category:American novelists to Category:American women novelists, while leaving men in the main category.[10][11] Labelling a male author as a "writer" and a female author as a "woman writer" presents women as marked—requiring an adjective to differentiate them from a male default.[12] Symmetry of categories has improved since 2013, but where editors encounter an imbalance they should correct it by moving male subjects to explicitly male categories (for as long as the current consensus regarding gendered categories holds).
In most situations, avoid referring to a woman by her first name, which can serve to infantilize her.[c] As a rule, after the initial introduction ("Susan Smith is an Australian anthropologist"), refer to women by their surnames ("Smith is the author of ..."). Here is an example of an editor correcting the inappropriate use of a woman's first name.
First names are sometimes needed for clarity. For example, when writing about a family with the same surname, after the initial introductions they can all be referred to by first names. A first name might also be used when a surname is long and double-barreled, and its repetition would be awkward to read and write. When a decision is made to use first names for editorial reasons, use them for both women and men.
According to Graells-Garrido et al. (2015), the lead is a "good proxy for any potential biases expressed by Wikipedia contributors".[14] The lead may be the only part of an article that is read—especially on mobile devices—so pay close attention to how women are described there. Again, giving women "marked" treatment can convey subtle assumptions to readers.
An article about a woman does not pass the Finkbeiner test if it mentions that "she's the first woman to ...." The test raises awareness of how gender becomes more important than a person's achievements.
Avoid language that places being a woman ahead of the subject's achievements. Opening the lead with "Smith was the first woman to do X", or "Smith was the first female X", immediately defines her in terms of men who have done the same thing, and it can inadvertently imply: "She may not have been a very good X, but at least she was the first woman."[15] When prioritizing that the subject is a "first woman", make sure it really is the only notable thing about her. Otherwise start with her own position or accomplishments, and mention the fact that she is a woman afterwards if it is notable.
For example, as of 10 March 2015, Wikipedia described Russian chemist Anna Volkova solely in terms of four first-woman benchmarks.[16] But the biographies of Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher, as of the same date, began with the positions they held, and only then said that they were the first or only women to have held them.[17]
Infoboxes are an important source of metadata (see DBpedia) and a source of discrimination against women. For example, the word spouse is more likely to appear in a woman's infobox than in a man's.[18]
When writing about a woman who works or has worked as, but is not primarily known for being a model, avoid {{Infobox model}}. It includes parameters for hair and eye colour and previously contained parameters for bust, hip, waist size and weight. The latter were removed in March 2016 following this discussion. If you add an infobox (they are not required), consider using {{Infobox person}} instead.
Wherever possible, avoid defining a notable woman, particularly in the title or first sentence, in terms of her relationships (wife/mother/daughter of). Do not begin a biography with: "Susan Smith is the daughter of historian Frank Smith and wife of actor John Jones. She is known for her work on game theory." An example of the kind of title the Wikipedia community has rejected is Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown).
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Researchers have found that Wikipedia articles about women are more likely to discuss their family, romantic relationships, and sexuality, while articles about men are more likely to contain words about cognitive processes and work. This suggests that Wikipedia articles are objectifying women.[19][d] Women's biographies mention marriage and divorce more often than men's biographies do.[21] Biographies that refer to the subject's divorce are 4.4 times more likely to be about a woman on the English Wikipedia. The figures are similar on the German, Russian, Spanish, Italian and French Wikipedias.[e]
[T]he greater frequency and burstiness of words related to cognitive mechanisms in men, as well as the more frequent words related to sexuality in women, may indicate a tendency to objectify women in Wikipedia. ... [M]en are more frequently described with words related to their cognitive processes, while women are more frequently described with words related to sexuality. In the full biography text, the cognitive processes and work concerns categories are more bursty in men biographies, meaning that those aspects of men's lives are more important than others at the individual level."[15]
A woman's relationships are inevitably discussed prominently when essential to her notability, but try to focus on her own notable roles or accomplishments first. For example, consider starting articles about women who were First Lady of the United States, which is a significant role, with "served as First Lady of the United States from [year] to [year]", followed by a brief summary of her achievements, rather than "is/was the wife of President X".
When discussing a woman who is married to a man, write "A is married to B" instead of "A is the wife of B", which casts the male as possessor. Avoid the expression "man and wife", which generalizes the husband and marks the wife. Do not refer to a woman as Mrs. John Smith; when using an old citation that does this, try to find and use the woman's own name, as in: "Susan Smith (cited as Mrs. J. Smith)".
When introducing a woman as the parent of an article subject, avoid the common construction, "Smith was born in 1960 to John Smith and his wife, Susan." Consider whether there is an editorial reason to begin with the father's name. If not, try "Susan Jones and her husband, John Smith" or, if the woman has taken her husband's name, "Susan Smith, née Jones, and her husband, John", or "Susan and John Smith". Where there are several examples of "X and spouse" in an article, alternate the order of male and female names.
The focus on relationships in articles about women affects internal linking and therefore search-engine results. One study found that women on Wikipedia are more linked to men than men are linked to women. When writing an article about a woman, if you include an internal link to an article about a man, consider visiting the latter to check that it includes reciprocal information about the relationship; if it merits mention in the woman's article, it is likely germane to his. Failure to mention the relationship in both can affect search algorithms in a way that discriminates against women.[f]
Use gender-neutral nouns when describing professions and positions: actor, author, aviator, bartender, chair, comedian, firefighter, flight attendant, hero, poet, police officer. Avoid adding gender (female pilot, male nurse) unless the topic requires it.
Do not refer to human beings as a group as man or mankind. Sentences such as "man has difficulty in childbirth" illustrate that these are not inclusive generic terms.[24] Depending on the context, use humanity, humankind, human beings, women and men, or men and women.
Some will set the cart before the horse, as thus: "My mother and my father are both at home", even as though the goodman of the house did wear no breeches, or that the gray mare were the better horse. ... in speaking at the least let us keep a natural order and set the man before the woman for manners' sake.
— Thomas Wilson (Arte of Rhetorique, 1553).[25]
The order in which groups are introduced—man and woman, male and female, Mr. and Mrs., husband and wife, brother and sister, ladies and gentlemen—has implications for their status, so consider alternating the order as you write.[26]
Do not refer to adult women as girls or ladies,[27] unless using common expressions, proper nouns, or titles that cannot be avoided (e.g., leading lady, lady-in-waiting, ladies' singles, Ladies' Gaelic Football Association, First Lady). The inappropriate use of ladies can be seen in Miss Universe 1956, which on 12 March 2015 said there had been "30 young ladies in the competition", and in Mixer dance, which discussed "the different numbers of men and ladies".[28]
The use of the generic he (masculine pronouns such as he, him, his) is increasingly avoided in sentences that might refer to women and men or girls and boys.[29] Instead of "each student must hand in his assignment", try one of the following.
| Nominative (subject) |
Accusative (object) |
Dependent possessive pronoun | Independent possessive pronoun | Reflexive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| When I tell someone a joke, they laugh. | When I greet a friend, I hug them. | When someone leaves the library, their book is stamped. | A friend lets me borrow theirs. | Each person drives there themselves (or, nonstandard, themself). |
Avoid using openly sexist sources unless there is a strong editorial reason to use them. For example, do not use pornographic or men's websites and magazines (such as AskMen, Playboy, and Maxim) in the biographies of female actors. Be careful not to include trivia that appeals predominantly to men. A source need not be overtly sexist to set a bad example. For example, most women are underrepresented in certain institutions that are slow to change. Often such institutions can be fine to use as a source for men, but for women, not so much.
Avoid images that objectify women. In particular, do not use pornography images in articles that are not about pornography. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images states that "photographs taken in a pornography context would normally be inappropriate for articles about human anatomy".
Except when the topic is necessarily tied to it (examples: downblouse and upskirt), avoid examples of male-gaze imagery, where women are presented as objects of heterosexual male appreciation.[34] When adding an image of part of a woman's body, consider cropping the image to focus on that body part.
When illustrating articles about women's health and bodies, use authoritative medical images wherever possible.
When writing about women's health, make sure medical claims are sourced according to the medical sourcing guideline, WP:MEDRS. As a rule this means avoiding primary sources, which in this context refers to studies in which the authors participated. Rely instead on peer-reviewed secondary sources that offer an overview of several studies. Secondary sources acceptable for medical claims include review articles (systematic reviews and literature reviews), meta-analyses and medical guidelines.
To find these sources, enter the search term (e.g., "mammography") into the National Institutes of Health search engine PubMed at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/, and select "reviews" from the "article types" menu. A search for review articles on "mammography" brings up this list. Or select "customize", then the article type (e.g., meta-analysis or guideline). To check an article type (e.g., P. M. Otto, C. B. Blecher, "Controversies surrounding screening mammography", Missouri Medicine, 111(5), Sep–Oct 2014), open the drop-down menu "Publication type" under the abstract. In this case, the classification is "Review". When in doubt, ask for help at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine.
Wilder, Charly (5 July 2013). "Ladies First: German Universities Edit Out Gender Bias", Der Spiegel.
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There looks to be a gross error here. The ref at note 2 takes you to: 62 English 1767980 329746 18.65 - rank, language, all bios, female, %. This is around the figure I'm used to, and the 329746 is WAAAY higher than the 291,649 in the essay. I don't believe it was much different in March. The % looks ok though.[Actually this movement since March seems ok] As a long discussion at WiR showed, you can't understand gender ratios in WP BLPs without allowing for the massive distorting effect of the vast number of sports bios we have, the great majority male. Exclude all sports people, and the female BLP % is around 30%, which is not far away from the %s in many easily countable always-notable types of people, such as national elected politicians, heads of quoted businesses, fellows of national science academies etc etc. Johnbod (talk) 03:45, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]