Picking up the
video I posted a couple of days ago,
Helga of the German team-blog
Mädchenmannschaft wondered about Wikipedia's gender balance. Her article was entitled
"Das Frauenproblem der Wikipedia", or, in English, "Wikipedia's issues with women". Helga's findings for Germany resembled
Rachel McCarthy James' findings for the UK: Wikipedia pretty much ignores women on the main page. On average, only one of about ten articles featured on Wikipedia's starting page mentions a woman. On some days, there is no word of any women at all on the front page. As Rachel put it:
To look at Wikipedia's main page on August 24, 2010, you would think that men made and did everything, and women had nothing to do with anything.
Since most authors on Wikipedia are male - according to Rachel only 13% of Wikipedians are women - this might not be very surprising. However, both Rachel and Helga argue that Wikipedia needs to a) promote more articles written by women to the main page, b) highlight new articles about women on the main page, and c) explicitly invite more female editors to participate in the project. Writes Helga:
Are women irrelevant? Do we not know by now that, often enough, history has been made by men who simply ignored female accomplishments, or, even worse, ascribed them to men? History seems to repeat itself on Wikipedia.
This year's last portrait is of Eman Hashim, an Egyptian blogger I met at the Young Media Summit in Cairo. Eman mainly concerns herself with violence against women and has attached a disturbing painting on female genital mutilation to her interview. 
Nikola Richter of the blog Theatertreffen is looking for international German-speaking arts & culture bloggers willing to report from the Theatertreffen 2011, the most important theatre festival in German director's theatre. More information on how to apply (in German) here. 
I met journalist Margaret Heckel a couple of months ago and was immediately struck by her no bullshit attitude. All the more happy I was to hear about Starke Meinungen [Strong Opinions], her blog that provides us with exactly that: No bullshit.
Having lived in South East Asia for a year myself, I took special interest in historian Cathrin Karras' blog. With a focus on Vietnam, she covers anything from politics and popular culture to traditional blood soup dishes.
Blica alerted her readers to the fact that teenage blogging wonder Tavi of Stylerookie will soon be editing her own magazine, modelled after American example Sassy of the early ninties. Cool, maybe someone should send her a copy of Missy Magazine, too? For inspiration only, like fashion bloggers would say.
Die Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevölkerung (DSW) sucht noch bis zum 10. Dezember 2010 eine/n BotschafterIn für die Belange von Mädchen und jungen Frauen in Afrika. Zu dessen Aufgaben soll in erster Linie Öffentlichkeitsarbeit für die von der EU finanzierte "Sign of Life"-Kampagne zählen; im März 2011 steht aber auch ein einwöchiger Trip nach Kenia auf dem Programm, währenddessen man sich einen persönlichen Eindruck der Situation vor Ort verschaffen kann. Klingt gut? Finde ich auch!
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