And suddenly she was gone. Anna Rosenwasser, the leading figure of the LGBTQ movement in Switzerland, who shapes the debate like no other – simply deleted. Nobody would have known about it if the journalist Patrizia Laeri had not come across it. But it is. And so she informed her Twitter bubble a few weeks ago: Anna Rosenwasser deleted.
A female profile, removed from Wikipedia. That happens more often. In 2018 it met Donna Strickland, researcher. She was the third woman ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics. But nobody could read on Wikipedia who she actually is, what she’s actually doing research. Strickland and Rosenwasser, two different disciplines, one fate: a Wikipedia administrator, man, decided they were not relevant enough. And gone were the articles about her.
Wikipedia means power
The English online encyclopedia is one of the three most popular websites of all, just behind Google and Facebook. 2.2 billion people look around it every month. Voice assistants like Siri use them. If we search something on Google, the Wikipedia article appears immediately. Wikipedia has power. Power of interpretation. And is therefore part of heated arguments. Wikipedians wrestle with who and what can be immortalized. Initiate deletion discussions.
How about women: do they end up in the trash more often than men? Are women discriminated against on Wikipedia?
First of all, the woman who presides over the association behind the platform: Muriel Staub from Wikimedia Switzerland. She says: “It is a reality that more men participate on Wikipedia and consequently more men participate in the discussion and submit deletion requests.” But: We could all have a say in who and what is deleted.
At Wikipedia everyone can collaborate, add and rewrite content – or undo what others have added and rewritten. And everyone can see who did what. But only every tenth author is a woman. That affects what it says there. Five out of six biographies are about men. Or let’s take the “List of Porn Actresses”. She has hundreds of carefully crafted entries. A “list of German-speaking female poets”, on the other hand, does not exist. In that of the German-speaking poets, women are included – and few and far between.
Gabi Einsele therefore got on board. The Zurich language teacher has been on Wikipedia as Sarita98 for almost nine years. The occasion was a contribution about the Swiss communist Anneliese Rüegg. Einsele read there: “She bore him a son.” Then it “lifted the lid” for her. You thought: “Now women like me are in demand.” What does she say about the deletion question? “I think it is very likely that women are more likely to be deleted.”
No woman stood up for them
But the problem extends beyond deletion. Many Wikipedians would not want to discriminate, says Einsele. But they would. Just because they are men. They registered every young footballer immediately and wanted to immortalize them on Wikipedia. An activist, on the other hand, slips through the brain.
This is shown by the concrete extinguishing discussion on rose water. Four men discuss and come to the conclusion: “not even remotely” relevant. No woman holds back. And none of them supplemented the article in advance in such a way that it meets the relevance criteria. Because there was none. And that’s what it’s about. Wikipedia lives from the debate. Also so that the platform does not degenerate into a directory of people, not every PR office its no-names, every self-promoter can push himself on Google. But men make the relevance rules. There is a lack of women who have a say on this point. And stand up for other women.
Wikipedia article beautiful
The “Reflekt” research network has analyzed all 253 Wikipedia articles by national and state councilors and federal councilors and found that some of them prettify their articles – or have them prettified. Shortly after Ignazio Cassis took office, an anonymous user from the federal administration deleted a reference to his membership in the Pro Tell gun lobby group. Or Council of States Josef Dittli tried several times to delete the fact that he had spoken out in favor of relaxing the War Material Ordinance in 2018.
The “Reflekt” research network has analyzed all 253 Wikipedia articles by national and state councilors and federal councilors and found that some of them prettify their articles – or have them prettified. Shortly after Ignazio Cassis took office, an anonymous user from the federal administration deleted a reference to his membership in the Pro Tell gun lobby group. Or Council of States Josef Dittli tried several times to delete the fact that he had spoken out in favor of relaxing the War Material Ordinance in 2018.
Give countermeasures
Some initiatives counter this. Every now and then, Wikipedia authors come together at Editathon events to collect and improve articles about women in Switzerland. But that’s not enough. The problem of women is in the DNA of our society.
Wikipedia is a reflection of the world and its imbalances. Men have always had more opportunities to make something of themselves. To be effective in public. Gabi Einsele puts it this way: «Thomas Mann had his Katja. She looked at the children and he could write books in peace. “
One day that will change. More and more women research, politicize and write clever things. Just like Anna Rosenwasser already today. She was surprised when she found out about her Wikipedia entry, she says. Others had put it on. She now says: “I want my work to be made visible through Wikipedia because it extends beyond me.” In the meantime a Wikipedia page has been published about them. With a lot of sources.