This past week, we worked with scholars, scientists and philosophers at New York University. Among other things, we discussed the concepts and processes of inquiry, memory, skepticism and the performance of expertise.
Making Our Knowledge(s) Matter
“I begin with a few general and perhaps untenable statements…” (William Carlos Williams, from The Embodiment of Knowledge, found on Invisible Stories)
Courtney brought this op-ed piece in today’s online version of Scientific American to my attention this afternoon, offering it as an answer to my pondering aloud about what I should write for this entry. After she forwarded the link to me I read through it once, and then once more – and at the end I found I was left with a question that I still cannot answer: “What do I know, and why does it matter?”
Add to this question so many others, like “how do I measure what I know?” and “who knows better or more than I do?” and “why shouldn’t I share my knowledge with others?” Considered in the context of Wikipedia and, further, in regards to the production and management of publicly-accessible Web content, these questions prove particularly important and complex. One should even ask how knowledge, expertise, and worthwhile information should themselves be defined. Perhaps these categorical difficulties have also led to the steady (and shocking) decline of individuals promoted to “admin status” on Wikipedia, along with what author Andrew Lih refers to as a “vetting process [that] is akin to putting someone through the Supreme Court,” a figurative and real-time “hazing ritual” that becomes more exclusive by the minute.
The ethical implications of such exclusivity are wide-spanning and are discussed candidly in Hilda Bastian’s op-ed and in Robinson Meyer’s Atlantic article (both linked above):
- approximately 30% of Wikipedia’s readership consists of women; and women comprise only 10% of the online encyclopedia’s editorial staff
- 2012 has been the worst year for adding new administrators at only 1 or 2 per month (this process peaked in 2007, an average of 50 new administrators were added per month)
- the number of people source-editing Wikipedia has also downturned; from averaging upwards of 50,000 site edits a month in April of 2007 to roughly 30,000 edits, as of April 2012
- there are continuing debates about controversies surrounding article deletion, various biases (gender, knowledge), and still of Wikipedia’s “legitimacy” as a source of veritable information
- and so on…
Many things to be concerned about. Of course, it’s not all bad – higher standards, when kept in check, must eventually improve the quality of the information available to the public; and all of us have used resources like Wikipedia at least once if not five or, let’s be honest, a thousand times. The aforementioned issues just simply must be addressed in order for true, egalitarian growth to occur.
There are efforts being made to curb such backsliding (The Ada Initiative and Wikipedia Teahouse present two such movements in a productive direction). Everything seems to point to an increased public involvement – and, yes, persistence in asking the questions that plague us so – in the cultivation and preservation of knowledge as a means for a cure to our current e-info woes. Here’s one of our answers: insert ourselves into the process. Know more by doing more.
– J. J. Morr
Nice to Meet You (!)
The name’s Jacqueline, but you can call me J. I’m writing to you as OpEd’s newest-born intern and am happy to have an opportunity tell you small bits about myself and why I’m here, so, here goes –
Today’s my first official day interning at The OpEd Project, and it’s Friday the 13th – more cause to celebrate(?), to go and be giddy about this latest and most exciting venture in my pursuit of (self) knowledge, legitimacy, and immersion in a practical and productive and relevant mode of activism (more buzzwords!, bare with yer girl).
As it currently stands I’m an M.A. candidate in NYU’s Gallatin School for Individualized Study. My work’s about aberrant (or non-normative) identity and “madwomen” as related to the existence, diagnosis, treatment, and language used to talk about eating disorders – a project borne of my own institutionalization and recovery (I was labeled as “Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified,” amongst other diagnoses). For me it’s all about writing, about (re)constructing the disordered “Self” through language. But I’ve gone on too long about that already and, as you can probably tell, I must consciously work to keep my prolixity in check. Yikes.
The shortest version is that I’m here to conduct, organize, and distribute research within and without this organization. Perhaps I’ll come to call myself a “Curator of Information,” which sounds funny but fits the bill. So hopefully you’ll all come to know me as the great and wonderful bearer-and-sharer of articles, studies, op-eds, academic papers, films, books, and beyond. I’ll also be producing online content (more blogs to come!) about everything that OpEd cares about, myself included – along with opening the conversation about other important, relevant issues and ideas.
Speaking of, perhaps I’ll end with a snippet from Elaine Showalter’s critical revisionist text Hystories, a book I’m reading as part of the research for my thesis. It’s to the point, promise, and a preview of things to come –
Medical sociologists today argue that women are more likely to seek medical and therapeutic help, thus to predominate in statistical studies [of hysteria]. On the other hand, Mark Pendgrast suggests that women may actually be conduits for the hysteria of a culture; women, he writes, have long been socially encouraged to “act out the ‘symptom pool’ of the era and accept an inappropriate diagnosis.” (p. 55, emphasis mine)
– so, here, we are concerned about women in the context of modern culture writ large and, further, in the context of common humanity; and we must come to ask ourselves questions about representation and visibility: how we represent ourselves, how others represent us, how information represents culture, and how amassed culture reflects or denies our estimations of it.
OpEd Project Inspires Women in Belize and Nicaragua!
Written by Tiffanie Beatty, an alum of The OpEd Project’s April 28 “Write to Change the World” seminar in Chicago.
On April 28, I attended The OpEd Project’s “Write to Change the World” seminar, led by Deborah Siegel and Michele Weldon in Chicago. In May, I implemented a program called Women Voices Rising–along with my colleagues Nancy Marin, Gema Rodriguez, and Gloria Coc–to serve as forum for discussion and development of female leadership in Belize and Nicaragua. I created about half of the content, pulling from my background and training in poetry, performance, and leadership development. The other half was adapted from The Op Ed Project’s “I am an expert” exercise. Overall, the workshops educated women on the importance of voice and diversity of representation in public discourse and challenged participants to explore and express their own creativity, knowledge and opinions.
Currently, the Women Voices Rising team is developing and sharing information and related opportunities with participants and other stakeholders. In Nicaragua, we are working through the volunteer coordinator office at Universidad Centroamericana to continue the work we began with emerging leaders there. In Belize Nancy Marin, who is developing a women’s resource center in her community in San Ignacio, is integrating this program into its mission. Also in Belize, we made a promising connection with Ann-Marie Williams, Executive Director of the National Women’s Commission, who attended a presentation and responded with a lot of excitement about the importance and potential of the project.
Beatty with the young women from Universidad Centroamericana (located in Managua, Nicaragua) who participated in the workshop.
In Belize, Nancy Marin helps co-facilitate the workshop.
Beatty with one of the young women who participated in the seminar.
Participants from the San Ignacio, Belize group.
The work our team is doing in Belize and Nicaragua is a just one product of a larger program coordinated by a Chicago nonprofit called Heartland International which promotes the development of civil society in emerging democracies around the world. In partnership with Casa Alianza, Nicaragua and the Women’s Issue Network (WIN), Belize and funding from the U.S. State Department Heartland implemented Developing Grassroots Organizations for Women: An Exchange Program for Emerging Grassroots Leaders in Belize, Nicaragua and the U.S. In this program, young leaders from each country collaborate on projects to implement in Belize and Nicaragua to promote the development of women and women’s organizations. The grant period for these projects will be wrapping up this summer, however, my colleagues and I are determined to see the work of Women Voices Rising continue and grow across the Americas. We also look forward to more collaborations with our friends at OpEd
For more information, please email womenvoicesrising@gmial.com or visit www.womenvoicesrising.com.
The Last Word
Hello Byline readers. My name is Taryn, and I’m proud to be The OpEd Project’s newest intern. At the risk of tainting your first impressions of me, I’d like to make an unseemly admission: I love to read obituaries. These condensed biographies of notable people, most of whom I’ve never heard of before, help me to take a few steps back and put my own life into perspective.
That is why I was surprised to come across a letter* to The New York Times’ obituary editor, Bill McDonald, in which he is asked why approximately one of every eight obituaries in The New York Times was about a woman.
Apparently, I’d become accustomed to seeing fewer women represented in newspapers, because I’d never even noticed the disparity.
In McDonald’s gauche response, he cited The New York Times’ “high standards” as the reason for the imbalance, explaining that to be published a person’ death “has to be news to a national and international readership.” He went on to make the case that the cohort of women and minorities dying today did not have the same opportunities to make news that white men had. That is undeniable, but it is also true that editors subjectively curate their columns. As a case in point, a quick search led me to two recently departed women who lived up to the “high standards” of The New York Times, but who were overlooked by the obituary section nonetheless (bio links below).
Newspapers of record such as The New York Times shape our personal perceptions and our culture. These omissions matter. To fulfill this responsibility obituary editors might have to broaden their scopes to catch what preceding generations missed. And so, we return to the wise words, “Whoever tells the story writes history.”
For a look at an innovative obituary, check out this New York Times video obituary of humorist Art Buchwald, which starts with “I’m Art Buchwald, and I just died.”
*“Readers Views: Equality Among the Dead,” The New York Times, September 12, 2010, pg. WK11.
Shirley Eskapa, controversial author. The Telegraph, 8-22-11.
Debra Evenson, expert on Cuba, professor, author, lawyer, and activist. Chicago Tribune, 8-28-11.
