Wikipedia Editing
to increase the online visibility of women in STEMM
“Marie Curie is one of the most famous women in science. But her first page on Wikipedia was shared with her husband — until someone pointed out that, perhaps, her scientific contributions were notable enough to warrant her own biography.”
– Jess Wade and Maryam Zaringhalam
Did you know Wikipedia has a serious gender bias? It’s one of the world’s most-visited websites, but only about 20% of the people profiled are women, and gender diverse people are similarly under-represented. This means many talented individuals and their work aren’t getting the recognition they deserve, which skews our perceptions of who contributes to society.
Learning to edit Wikipedia is a great (and fun!) way to help reduce this bias and make the internet a little bit better. Click the buttons below to learn how you can get involved.
Wikipedia Edit-a-thons
We are proud to have hosted 3 Wikipedia Edit-a-thons. Together, these have made a huge impact:
… and collectively these pages have been viewed 450K times!
Watch these quick videos for a snapshot of past Edit-a-thons!
New pages for Women In STEMM
Check out some of the amazing women working in STEMM fields who didn’t have Wikipedia pages until they were written during our Edit-a-thons. This list collectively includes recipients of the Eureka Prizes, Officers of the Order of Australia, TEDx speakers, Academy Fellows, Institute Directors – and even one subject of an Archibald Prize painting!!
If you’d like join one of our Edit-a-thons, please subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date with all our activities. And if you would like our support to help you run your own Edit-a-thon, please get in touch.
As partners of Franklin Women, AbbVie is proud to have sponsored these Edit-a-thons
Thank you to Wikimedia Australia for their ongoing support of our Edit-a-thons
Editing Tutorials
As impactful as our Edit-a-thons have been, improving the visibility of women on Wikipedia is an ongoing effort and we want to make it easy for anyone, anywhere to be able to contribute. So, in partnership with Wikimedia Australia and The Leadership Film, we’ve created ‘More Than A Day’, a series of step-by-step tutorials to empower you to edit Wikipedia yourself.
There are 10 easy-to-follow chapters, where Wikimedian Caddie Brain will talk you through the basics: everything from creating your account, to making edits on an existing page, or creating a new one and looking after it. You can pause the tutorials and follow along as you make your first edits, then refer back whenever you need a refresher.
We promise it’s fun and easy once you get going – so we hope you’ll join us in making the internet a more equitable place!
A Global Movement
Franklin Women are part of a global movement working to improve the visibility of women and other under-represented groups on Wikipedia. There are many different ways that you can contribute – from spreading the word about the content bias online and being aware of this when sourcing information, to adding a brand new page or improving the quality of existing articles, to nominating a woman for a prize so that there are more reliable sources available to cite on her page – it all makes a difference!
