The Swedish Wikipedia Gender Gap

Abstract: The proportion of women editors on the English language Wikipedia has for years been known to be very low. The purpose of this thesis is to see if this gender gap exists on the Swedish language Wikipedia as well, and investigate the reasons behind it. To do this, three methods are used. Firstly a literature review is conducted, looking at women in computing and how Wikipedia works and how it was founded. Secondly, user behavior and activity-levels are measured through means of a database analysis of editors and edits. And thirdly, a survey is distributed, aimed at both readers and editors of Swedish Wikipedia, gathering some 2700 respondents. The results indicate that there is indeed a big disproportion, and that only between 13-19% of editors are women. The findings did not indicate readers of the encyclopedia having any strong negative preconceptions about Wikipedia or its community. However when looking at reasons for not contributing, women were significantly more likely to perceive themselves as not competent enough to edit. Computer skills were found to be an important factor for trying out editing in the first place, and Wikipedia’s connection to a male-dominated computing/programming culture is put forth as a reason for the resilience of the gender gap. The difference in men’s and women’s communication styles in relation to the climate Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines is also discussed.