The Swedish Embassy in Japan hosted “WikiGap”, an event that aimed to increase articles on women in Wikipedia, to narrow the gender gap on the Internet. Many women who merit entries for their achievements are not featured, the embassy told The Mainichi, as they noted that 90 percent of the content in Wikipedia are made by men. The event was organized under the Swedish government’s advocation of the gender equality policy, with similar events held in 60 countries, as the Mainichi detailed:
According to the embassy, only 17 percent of individuals given Wikipedia entries were women across all its sites in some 300 languages. The ratio was 22 percent for the Japanese version.
"Becoming aware of the gender gap in information on Wikipedia, which is influential in the present-day digital society, will remind us of the gender gap around ourselves," an embassy official said.
In the event held at the embassy in Tokyo, about 40 people wrote new entries for Japanese female writers and athletes based on reference materials. They also translated English articles about foreign women into Japanese.
image credit: screenshot via the Mainichi
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That's an interesting event. I like it. Getting more information into Wikipedia helps everyone.
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