Wikimedia Foundation—Launched Project Rewrite and Wikipedia Needs More Women campaign to address gender gap
The Wikimedia Foundation launched Project Rewrite and the Wikipedia Needs More Women campaign to address persistent gender gaps in Wikipedia content and editorship. Only about 15% of English Wikipedia biographies were about women when efforts began. By 2024, that number had grown to over 19%, with a 26% increase in women-related content from sub-Saharan Africa between 2022-2024. The community-driven Women in Red project, supported by Foundation grants and staff, created over 130,000 biographies of women. A 2024 study found deletion nominations occur 34% faster for women's biographies than men's, highlighting ongoing systemic challenges.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| DEI Programs | +toward | secondary | +0.50 |
| Gender Equity | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| Knowledge Access & Information Freedom | +toward | secondary | +0.50 |
| Overall incident score = | +0.441 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (medium ×1) × confidence (0.66)
Evidence (2 signals)
Wikimedia Foundation launched Wikipedia Needs More Women campaign and Project Rewrite
The Wikimedia Foundation launched the Wikipedia Needs More Women campaign to address the persistent gender gap in Wikipedia content. Only about 19% of English Wikipedia biographies are about women. The Foundation also runs Project Rewrite, a dedicated initiative to close knowledge gaps about women across all Wikimedia projects. Regional efforts saw a 26% increase in women-related content from sub-Saharan Africa between 2022-2024.
Research documented systemic gender bias in Wikipedia biography deletion patterns
A 2024 academic study by Khandaker Tasnim Huq and Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia found that deletion nominations occur 34% faster for women's biographies than men's on English Wikipedia, documenting systemic bias that the Foundation's equity programs aim to address. The Gender Bias on Wikipedia article documents the long history of this issue.