Wikipedia erasing women's voices

Frances Bell In thinking about building on a previous article Forking as (cultural) feature through an article Maha Bali has proposed Constructed knowledge, I cama across a perfect example of how women's voices can be erased in wikipedi-type environments.

The book Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind, edited by Mary Field Belenky has a wikipedia page that is said to lack citations wikipedia . Given that criticism, I went off to look at the book itself at Google books

On reading some of the book relating to Constructed knowledge, I realised that in the process of writing about women's ways of knowing on wikipedia, women's voices had been erased. Adele's contribution to the 'integrating voices' aspect of constructed knowledge has been erased

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Adele recognised that .... she tended to listen to what she called "a voice of integration" within herself that prompted her to find a place for reason and intuition and the expertise of others.

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Mary Field Belenky and her co-authors were able to preserve Adele's voice and contribution to their ideas in the book by the narrative structure and naming women through their stories.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the originator of the article (who has since left wikipedia) did not manage to preserve Adele's voice. The 'culture' of wikipedia editing was revealed and reinforced by the comment at the top of the article

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This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (September 2012)

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As we build the contribution, citation and editing culture at Fedwikihappening, we could consider how to avoid erasing the voices of women and others who do not share the dominant culture here.