Wikipedia, the sixth most visited website in the world, is a hub for many hoping to find information about their favourite movie stars, historical locations, sports and more. With more than 40 million articles in 293 languages, it is therefore not surprising that a new campaign was launched to promote greater representation of women on Wikipedia. #HerStory hopes to tackle the issue of gender equality in all areas of Wikipedia’s operations. Launched by UN Women in Egypt, Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Empower Women, the HeForShe campaign, and UNIT, #HerStory aims to double the number of female editors on Arabic Wikipedia while increasing awareness of women’s contributions online and increasing knowledge about gender concepts. According to the campaign, there are at least 76,380 articles about men on Arabic Wikipedia and just 13,617 about women. Meanwhile, 85 percent of Wikipedia’s editors are men despite the fact that the website is used by both men and women equally. It is these statistics and more that have pushed #HerStory to campaign to close the gender knowledge in the online sphere. In a statement to Egyptian Streets, EmpowerWomen.org’s regional coordinator Emad Karim said that closing this gap…
Making #HerStory Matter: Promoting Gender Equality on Arabic Wikipedia
November 27, 2016
