The lives and contributions of extraordinary women are recorded in various sources. It’s about choosing to write their stories on Wikipedia. There is a labor to this work, undoubtedly. But it’s worthwhile work. And while the size of the challenge is massive, we have the numbers to rise to it—Wikipedia is a website that anyone can edit after all—but only if we choose to undertake and value this work. And only if we acknowledge that committing to equality and diversity is a collective responsibility we all should shoulder. It isn’t only for women to write about the women who came before them. And we shouldn’t have to wait 150 years to remember extraordinary women either. There are brilliant women doing brilliant work today. Extraordinary stories to be told and learn from today.
So many are entirely absent from our search results and we could do more to challenge and combat this. Women are not a minority and we can’t accept the paucity of stories and role models currently available online that try to tell us that message. We can change the way stories are told and make different, better choices. We can empower new content creators, create new heroes, and inspire readers all around the world. Gender equality should be a key institutional commitment and a Wikimedian placed alongside your digital skills trainers and learning technologists is a tangible and impactful way of demonstrating this commitment.
Universities have privileged access to knowledge and can play a pivotal role in choosing to value this work. It is a choice after all. Work that could and should be prioritized, funded, and facilitated. These stories of pioneering women are too important to remain hidden. Search is the way we now live (Hillis, Petit and Jarrett, 2012) and what is right or wrong or missing on Wikipedia affects the entire internet (Wadewitz, 2014). Given Wikipedia’s undoubted reach and in uence, the importance of encouraging a diversity of editors to engage with Wikipedia editing is crucial in terms of increasing the visibility of female role models online to, in turn, encourage, inspire and empower the next generation of dangerous women who can continue to kick doors open and shape our world for the better.
