Press release – August 21, 2024
Created on June, 26 2016, les sans pagEs is a francophone project aiming at reducing gender inequalities on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, seeking both to increase the proportion of women and contributors of underrepresented minorities and improving the content about women and gender minorities on the various French-language Wikimedia projects. In 2017, an association was founded in Switzerland to support the
various activities: editathons, training courses, speaking at events, and purchasing of documentation material, among other things.
20% of women biographies – beginning to weigh in !
On July ,15 2024, the French-language online encyclopaedia Wikipedia had more than 2,620,000 articles, 714,869 of which were biographies. On July, 15 2024, the 20% milestone of women in biographies was passed, representing a total of 142,979 biographies on women. Les sans pagEs welcomes this new step in the progression of content related to women and gender minorities, whereas the proportion of women in the online encyclopaedia’s biographies in French was only 14% in 2016 (75,000 biographies of women at the time). Reaching this symbolic 20% brings us closer to the level achieved on Wikipedia in Spanish, an encyclopaedia on which 23.4% of biographies are dedicated to women, and puts us slightly ahead of Wikipedia in English, which has only 19.8% women among its biographies.
+68,000 women biographies of women created in 8 years
In eight years, the French-speaking Wikipedian community as a whole (including the les sans pagEs project) has created around 68,000 biographies of women, demonstrating its commitment to reducing the gender bias that exists on the encyclopedia and thus enriching Wikipedia’s content. In addition to the biographies and their number, the project les sans pagEs has a broader objective of improving the content relating to women and gender minorities in general. Since the birth of the project, 16,800 pages have been created or improved by members of les sans pagEs, not only biographies but also articles on their struggles, their achievements, their works, etc.achievements, their works, etc. The most consulted articles innndexed by the project can be seen here.
Increasing the visibility of women and gender minorities
Wikipedia’s content depends on the existence and the quality of secondary sources (analytical or synthesis works such as quality newspaper articles, books, etc.): Les sans pagEs therefore encourage journalists, academics and knowledge producers in general to increase their work to make women, gender and other minorities more visible, in an intersectional logic. Their efforts are essential to reducing inequalities, particularly gender inequalities, in Wikipedia’s content.
Contacts:
- Anne-Laure Michel, Chair of board les sans pagEs
- Natacha Rault, executive director of les sans pagEs
- Céline Assémat, boardmember, responsible for communication
- communication@sans-pages.org
