Whose Knowledge founder Anasuya: You don't need to know Feminist to be a feminist

On the weekend morning, the floor of the backstage media interview room shook slightly, then heard the rumbling applause. Whose Knowledge co-founder Anasuya Sengupta had just concluded the g0v share of the 2018 Keynote summit on the theme of Internet colonization, and she looked to Asia: it was not the centre of power, but also the possibility of not being tapped. Where there is a possibility, start from where. From the constant length of applause, I listened to the energy condensed between the attendees.

Three minutes later, she crossed the backstage, pushed the door, went into this little interview room, said hello, opened her arms, first gave the strange us a hug. In the thousands of-person venue, to the two face-to-face visit, you can feel her warmth and openness.

Anasuya Sengupta is an Indian writer, poet, feminist movement and researcher, and her poem "Silence" was quoted by Hillary Clinton at the United Nations [1] and is now co-founder of whose Knowledge. Anasuya was also Chief grantmaking Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation (Wikimedia Foundation, or WMF) [2]. (Recommended reading:"Gender Watch" How far is the road to a female president in Hillary Collington? )

She swims in different worlds, the degree of language is amazing-familiar with the technical vocabulary, the creation of verses, can discuss the book, she speaks English, Hindi (Indian language), Connada, Bangladeshi, Tamir, Malayalam and other regional languages.

In the one-way torrent of developed industrial society, people who can still flush out multi-oriented and plural world views, bravely challenge the power structure of Western/male centers, look for different possibilities, always curious about their growth history and stories.

The people of the desert have not seen the ripples.

Anasuya has a fluffy curly hair, always gentle smile, eyes have children's curiosity, and the elderly relax. "I grew up in a poor, remote area of India, a desert. It was older before I moved to the city, which had a big impact on how I saw the world. 」

Born into a middle-class family, Anasuya's parents were born in the first year of India's Independence (1948) and grew up in an independent new India-an era of promising reform for the future-her father entered the state unit to work in the hope of changing the oppressive system of the colonial period. Mothers are writers and artists who create and encourage children to see the world in different ways. Two parents team up, a system, outside the system, in different positions of efforts.

Anasuya earliest childhood memories, but also often with the father work to relocate. She was impressed by a scene, and Anasuya, 6, 7, followed her father's invitation to unveil the new water tower one day. She Mimi in the sun, watching her father cut the Ribbon ribbon, the golden sun sprinkled, and everyone looked around the sink, the water inside glittering the golden waves, people opened their eyes, eyes full of curiosity and amazement, "their expression has been imprinted in my mind." It was not until they were older that they understood the reason why they were surprised: these people, who lived in the inland desert, had never had the chance to see so much water gather in one place in their lifetime. 」

The experience of childhood migration allowed her to see the gap between urban and rural areas early, and how the power of stealth had an impact on people. Not only urban and rural areas, but also gender can image different worlds. India is a very complex and contradictory environment for women. "Women are often glorified and worshipped as goddesses; On the other hand, society has a deeply rooted sexist, anorexic culture. "Women are not goddesses, they are sluts, they can't be" people, "because the default values of" people "and the main position are built according to men. (Recommended reading: Indian bus gang riot, prisoner defense lawyer: "A woman is sex in the eyes of a man. ")

"The value of boys and girls is very different," she gave an example, "Amartya Sen, an economist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, said that more than 100 million women in South Asia were" disappeared ", some of them were not allowed to be born after pregnancy; others were brutally murdered; and some were neglected ; Even if she grows up and marries, the dowry is not enough, and the man's family may kill the bride. "We all frowned, and she switched tone."

"On the other hand, local government units in India employ more than millions women, the country with the largest number of female employees in the world, and the world's first female prime minister. India has a series of gender contradictions. 」

Without talking about the big environment, Anasuya's treatment within the nuclear family is very different from being outside the home. "My parents cherish me very much and treat me equally with my brother, while my grandparents are clearly eccentric to my brother." "From parents to grandparents, from India to other worlds outside of India, the way she is treated is different simply according to her gender or skin color," That's why I learn feminism-only by challenging this structure can I change my situation! 」

You don't need to know Feminist, you can be a feminist.

However, she winked, "as you and I all know, one does not need to know the word Feminist, but also can be a feminist." And when you live in India, feminism is about a lot of different things, not just gender and sexual orientation, but also the power of class, caste and other structures that we live in. Feminism in India is very diverse and intertwined. 」

The diversity of gender, race and class, Anasuya from India to Britain and the United States after the experience of deeper. "Believe me, racism has never been less. "She shook her right index finger mischievously," and I was a good friend to Ethan Zuckerman, another Keynote speaker today, and just now we talked about what I always met: every time I participated in a meeting, it was easy to be used as a template for user experience stories, not as designers, who would say, "Come on, tell us, What kind of App do Indian women like you like best to use? "" We smelled and laughed, but it was all her daily.

There is a proverb that says, "When I walk to the light, the shadow must fall behind me",anasuya laugh that his situation is that the shadow always walks before her. " "If I don't try to deconstruct these stereotypes, they won't see my expertise and ability." "How do you tear down stereotypes? She dived into the sea of memory and surfaced with two answers, "Two approaches, each at the poles of the spectrum: The Challenge (Challenge), and the sympathetic same (compassion). 」

"The challenge is to ask difficult questions so that the other person must reconstruct what he thinks of you, and compassion is shared through generous experience, so that the other person knows that experience will vary depending on where he or she is located, and you should show the same empathy for each other's experiences, allowing the two sides to generate links and conversations." 」

Anasuya long-term efforts to let the edge voice appear, join the Wikipedia opportunity, she found the Wikipedia page, could not find her deepest influence of Indian, African feminist introduction. She was discouraged, "you know, 75% of online users are from the Third World (Global south) and 45 per cent are women, and these open-door knowledge on the Internet does not reflect the faces and voices of these people. What the hell is going on? 」

Let's look at two more data: female and transgender female editors, who make up only 10% of Wikimedia editors; and only 20% of Wikimedia producers from the third World.

"Then we know that there is something that needs to be changed, to work!" "So Anasuya entered the Wikimedia community and Wikimedia and began to try to change.

Wikipedia's female editors make up only 1/10, why?

Wikipedia is clearly open to all, and there is no qualification for screening, and anyone can edit it. Why is there a serious imbalance between women and the editors of the Third World?

Anasuya in a gentle tone, "just like any online and offline public space, schools, streets and parks, whether you can enter smoothly, depending on who designed such a space, who holds power over this space." The same is true of Wikipedia, where, on many levels, Wikipedia is also a mirror of this society. 」

Even with an open mind, it may not reflect the diversity of the real world, Anasuya cited three reasons.

"First, almost all of the members of the community who originally wrote Wikipedia were men. They design Wikimedia writing in a "argumentative argument," and you can see that on Wikipedia, each one has a talk page that has doubts about any of the instructions, and you can go to talk page to express what you disagree with and want to rewrite. 」

"However, women, like many marginalized groups, often lack the confidence to engage in such arguments. You may not know how to hit back, and more importantly, you may not like to argue at all, which is not the way you do things. 」

"The second interesting thing about Wikipedia is the principle of writing: neutral. That is, writing should not be with their own comments and opinions. "What is neutrality? And who can judge? Who sets the standards? This is an interesting question that feminists often discuss, and a large part of Anasuya's work is asking this question, and she has an answer in her mind. "There is actually no real" neutrality "at all, and what we can have is multiple points of view, as well as references to these views/sources of citation data. 」

This also leads to another interesting problem: when certain ethnic groups are marginalized, there is less writing that can be left behind, there is a limited reference to the views that can be made, and therefore the views of these communities are often considered to come from "personal opinions" and are "not neutral enough". "So what many marginalized groups are doing is building systems that can be referenced. 」

Fewer female editors are also related to the way Wikipedia is edited. "In the Wikipedia community, to improve editorial status, you must calculate the number of entries by editing them. "One analysis found that male editors were not edited in the same way as women. "Male editors, for example, are more likely to write a word and press it, even if an edit entry is given, and a female editor may write down five words before pressing the send." An article with the same number of words, a male editor will get five times times as many editorial entries as a female editor. "(Recommended reading: female Influence |, a feminist erased by Wikipedia )

Not only is it difficult for men to envision the situation of women, but it is also difficult for the first world to imagine where there will be differences. Anasuya in India, for example, "power supply systems are unstable in many parts of India, and once there is a blackout, the edited text may all disappear, and many people edit the entire article first and then press it out." Why should I talk about it? Because a lot of times, power is invisible, they are hidden in places we don't know, and if we don't participate, we won't know. 」

After listening to her analysis, the reasons for leaving Wikimedia and starting whose Knowledge are already on the horizon. Organization name whose Knowledge itself, is a challenging question, we are learning, who exactly is the knowledge? And who's knowledge, intentionally or unintentionally excluded by the structure?

Next |whose Knowledge founder Anasuya: Prioritize, like boiler cooking