 So let's get started. Welcome everyone, and thank you for joining today's panel. Time for a rewrite telling women's stories in news media on Wikipedia and beyond. I'm Anusha Ali Khan, the senior director of communications at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects. For this women's history month Wikimedia launched project rewrite to call attention to the persistent gender gaps on Wikipedia, the missing representation of cis and transgender women. And we want to ask everyone to help close them. We're also recognizing through the initiative that black and indigenous women and women of color in particular have been most often left out of history. While the problem persists on Wikipedia, the solution involves changes, both on and off Wikipedia. Journalists, academics, thought leaders and individuals and organizations must increase their coverage of women, building out the ecosystem of secondary sources and literature that Wikipedia's rely on to create and improve articles on the site. We're excited to be co hosting this event with the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, which is training new leaders and journalism and communication. Our hope is that today's panel will provide everyone with the tools and knowledge to further advance the representation of women through their work. Today we'll be hearing from incredible women from journalism, academia and the nonprofit sector. Each will be delivering a brief talk followed by a panel conversation at the end will welcome questions from the audience. Please hold your questions until the Q&A and please submit your questions using the Q&A box. To begin today's conversation. It's my pleasure to introduce Janine Uzell, the chief operating officer at the Wikimedia Foundation. Prior to joining Wikimedia, Janine was head of women in technology at GE and work to accelerate the number of women in technical roles. Welcome Janine. Hello. Thank you so much Anusha and welcome everyone. Thank you all for joining us on today. I am thrilled to be joined by the women on this panel, experts in their fields to talk more about the unequal representation of women across our information landscape, and what we can do to take action. As the chief operating officer of the Wikimedia Foundation, this is an issue that is deeply personal to me as a woman, as a black woman, I'm intimately familiar with the feeling of being the only in the rooms that I enter. I like to paraphrase a quote from Shonda Rhimes, where I often feel like the first, the only and the different. When I began my career as an engineer, there were so few role models to look up to in my field, and even fewer than I could read about. Thankfully, things have improved since then. My youngest great niece, her name is Kennedy with an I as she likes to say she's six years old. And depending on the day, she wants to be a physicist, a doctor, an engineer like me, an astronaut, the list just goes on. She's seen women in these roles, women that look like her, and she can see herself there. So I'm thrilled for Kennedy, and I love to hear what her latest dream job is. She's proof that as a society we've made some progress. But we also need to recognize that we still have ways a ways to go. And this is very apparent in the work that I do every day. As Anusha mentioned, the Wikimedia Foundation is the global nonprofit that supports Wikipedia, as well as several other projects all dedicated to free knowledge. The scale of Wikipedia is immense. It's almost overwhelming. More than 55 million articles across 300 different languages were edited by more than 280,000 volunteers every month. I visited over 20 billion times a month and accessed in terms of unique devices by 1.5 billion every month and I love I love to compare that to Instagram, which I'm a fan of, used by 1 billion users a month. And yet, on Wikipedia we see the lack of representation in staggering proportions of all the biographies on English Wikipedia, only 18% of them are biographies about women. This is not representative of the impact that women have had across human history. But for many of us here, maybe that number isn't so surprising. We all know of women whose achievements have never been recognized. For some of the amazing women throughout history, their achievements may never have been recorded. But I want to say that this isn't just a Wikipedia problem. The gender gaps on Wikipedia are a mirror of gaps in our own society, subjects that the media hasn't found worthwhile to cover, and that the industry as a whole hasn't found worthwhile to recognize. And I don't mean this to pass the buck. I firmly believe that we all have a responsibility here to advocate for increased representation across our fields to point out the iniquities from a manual with a token female moderator to an article that only sites male experts. In addition to these small actions we must also raise awareness about the urgent need for systemic change. In the Wikimedia Foundation, we are taking steps to make our projects more welcoming and more inclusive of the world that we serve. Last month, we introduced for the first time a universal code of conduct across Wikipedia, and all of our projects. It is rooted in Wikimedia's values of respect, civility and the assumption of good faith. It is a set of fundamental standards that provide Wikipedia's global volunteer communities with a baseline for acceptable behavior. The universal code of conduct out loud outlines exceeding the type of online harassment and abuses of power that can happen on our projects, and also ways to address them. I believe it is a critical and important step in creating an environment that is more welcoming to a more diverse range of contributors and editors. We are all supporting the work of our communities, many of whom have spent years focusing on this issue groups like wiki gap wiki women in red invisible wiki women. And all of us on this panel are leaders in our field, and we may be a few on this panel here. But if we're successful, we will leave a rich legacy for other women to carry and build upon. Together, we can change the scale of the gender gap we can change how women are talked about and perceived as leaders and as innovators and as experts. So that's my introduction. I want to say thank you all for coming. And I'd like to introduce all of our speakers, and they're going to share a lightning talk about their work to improve gender equality. We're going to be hearing from Emily ramshaw, a journalist and co founder of the 19th. Kira was Nesky, the executive director of art and feminism, a wikimedia community focused on gender feminism and the arts. And to kick things off. We're going to hear from Dr Rebecca Trumbull. Dr Trumbull is the director of the George Washington University Institute for data, democracy and politics. Her research focuses on political communication, digital research methodology and research ethics. She is currently leading research projects that investigate the health of political conversations on Twitter, and develop computational tools that will allow researchers to analyze and assess the quality of online news content. Dr Trumbull, I'd like to turn it over to you. Thank you so much for for having me. And, you know, I want to kick things off just by thanking everyone in the audience for being here but of course this this group of esteemed panelists. It's really my honor to to be with you today. Unfortunately, I have to start us off in a fairly dark place in a fairly heavy place, because I spend a lot of time looking at the darkest, the ugliest places online. As a researcher, my focus is on disinformation, as well as hate speech online harassment abuse, essentially every form of toxicity online that that one might imagine. What I see, and what the data that I gather and my colleagues gather on these issues shows very, very clearly is that these dark impulses have a disparate impact on women. These dark impulses are disproportionately directed at women. The consequence is that women are silenced online in very real observable ways. I think probably many of us on this panel, as well as in the audience could speak quite directly of experiences that we've had of self censoring of thinking to ourselves, you know, very carefully. Is this something that it's safe for me to post. If, if, if I post this, you know, am I going to see a wave of trolls come after me. And we think about those things in very different ways than our male colleagues do unfortunately. Women ultimately choose to limit their reach online, doing things like increasing their privacy settings, turning their accounts entirely private so it's only on social media sites. They can only reach those that they directly follow or have reciprocal relationships with. And ultimately that means women's voices are not reaching larger audiences. And of course, many women are just making the choice to completely disengage either going to a platform and simply observing and not directly making their voice heard, or simply choosing to leave those platforms entirely. And there's a numb there's there's quite a bit of disheartening research survey research in particular that suggests that more and more women are making those choices. Now as I say all of this I want to note right I've been talking about women broadly here because the data the evidence are very clear that these impacts are across the board for all women. And they are also clear that the consequences are most severe for chat transgender women and women of color. And I think that later in our conversation will move to to talk through solutions to these things and I have a number of ideas about how I think we can really tackle these heavy heavy issues. And moving off the conversation and and leading to my next colleague to take it up, realizing I'm giving a fairly grim view of the situation, but it's it's unfortunately what I see. Thank you so much. You know what you're sharing is so much in line with some of what we're going to talk a little bit more about with the universal code of conduct, even what we're learning on our platform that for many years only about 11% of our editors identified as women. You've seen an increase there of about 15% now but we also know that that's not reflective of the power of women in media and using their voice so I was taking a lot of notes of some of the grim, but informative details that you're sharing and I'm looking forward to talking with you more about it so thank you. I'm going to now introduce Emily Ramshaw, she is a journalist and co founder of the 19th. The 19th is a nonprofit non partisan newsroom reporting at the intersection of women, politics and policy. Emily was previously editor in chief of the Texas Tribune and award winning non partisan digital news startup that now both of the largest State House reporting bureau in the country. And she is great, great fun fact here, the youngest member of the board of the Pulitzer Prize. So thank you so much for being here Emily I'm going to turn it over to you. Thank you so much to me and thank you all for having me I'm really thrilled to be with this esteemed group. I'm just going to tell you a little bit in my quick introduction here about the 19th and the reason that we started the 19th so we kicked off officially just a little year ago as a nation's first nonprofit independent newsroom at the intersection of gender politics and policy and so what that meant to us with journalism that aims to elevate the voices, particularly of women of color in the LGBTQ community in American media with journalism that is entirely free to read and consume across all of our own platforms, but also entirely free to republish by every other news organization in the country. And we kicked off the 19th. Honestly, this idea first occurred to me, you know, in 2016 around Donald Trump's election defeating Hillary Clinton, I was a new mom on maternity leave with a baby girl, and I was reading all these headlines around electability and like ability that seemed so fundamentally sexist and I sort of thought in that moment. But we need a new national newsroom of record for women two thirds of politics and policy reporters are men, almost all of them are white two thirds of politics and policy editors are men, you know managers are men, almost all of them are white. They're the ones deciding at the end of the day what's news and what isn't what stories lead the front page or the homepage, which sources are quoted in those stories whose voices are elevated who's hired in those newsrooms. And I wanted to create a solution to that so you know I was on maternity leave it wasn't I was trying to like keep another human being alive it wasn't a great time to start a new startup. I decided to wait four years for a pandemic to do that. Excellent timing on all fronts but but four years later we had more women than ever on the 2020 stage more women of color than ever on the page. And the headlines were still about electability and like ability, but they were also about issue to ambitious does she want it too much headlines that were not just sexist to me but we're also rooted in racism. And so we officially my colleague at the Texas Tribune at the time Amanda Zamora and I took the leap. We were partners in this venture, and we officially in January kicked off the 19th. So we are now a newsroom that is in a 24 seven news operation. We officially built our own platforms and launched our own platforms in August of 2020. We birthed this baby in a pandemic, a bunch of moms with small kids at home, which was never part of the plan but made it added to that degree of difficulty. We have a conversation that is not just read across platforms but we published by roughly 260 newspapers every week. Univision translates our work into Spanish and distribute it. We have a really robust live events track with programming that featured, you know we had a launch summit with everyone from Stacy Abrams and the first sit down interview with Kamala Harris is the VP nominee to a conversation with Megan Markle, you know, before they even talked to her back in the United back getting back in the United States so it's been a really thrilling ride for us in probably one of the most difficult times in history. And we are excited to be on this journey and elevating the voices of marginalized people, hopefully forever more in American media. So that's a little bit about me and the 19th and I'm thrilled to be part of this conversation today. Thank you so much Emily this is great and I would just want to congratulate you and your team for the platform for being a vehicle for news and also for the disruption that you're causing in the industry so well done well done thank you so much for that. And finally, I'm going to introduce Kira was Neske Kira is the executive director of art and feminism, which strives to close the information gap about gender feminism and the arts on the internet. Since 2014, over 18,000 people have participated in art and feminism edited founds globally, creating and improving more than 84,000 articles on Wikipedia, and other Wikimedia projects. And also active in community causes as the host and co organizer of creative mornings Baltimore, and co founder of the nonprofit 826 DC. Kira, would you please share with us. Yeah, absolutely. So thank you so much to need a new show Rebecca Emily and for everyone organizing today. Thanks to y'all for showing up all of you attendees I know like we're living in a world of screen fatigue. We've been doing this for a year so really like kudos to you for being here and being with us today. So, as you just heard, my name is Kira was Neske my pronouns are she her I come to you today from occupied Piscataway land in Baltimore city. And to give you some more grim stats. Our feminism we like to start all of our sessions with our brave friendly space agreement. So even though I'm the last of the lightning talks I still wanted to highlight this. So the goal of this session is to create an encouraging space for collective learning. This requires intentional behavior where in participants are conscious of an accountable for the effect of their statements and actions on others, respect our experiences and the experience of others and recognize that we can't do this work without one another. We agree to hold each other accountable to foster a brave friendly space. And so we have a longer version of this is kind of the abbreviated version but it's something that we like to kind of to center all the sessions that we do either virtually or in person with our work with our So now for some more grim stats. 2011 study is really what sparked this whole project. And there was this big article in the New York Times really talking about this gender gap on Wikipedia, and it really energize our co finders. So unfortunately, according to 2018 with he contributed that or this hasn't really changed that much it's good to hear from Janine that there's some newer stats that are tracking more positive but in 2018. There is still less than 10% of editors that identify as cis or trans women. And then the editors that do identify as women are more likely the men to have their edited reverted and so this, this is a problem. Next slide please. As Jeanine mentioned, the gaps aren't just on wiki, but so specifically what art and feminism does is we work primarily in the art world but cis trans women non binary people, the BIPOC communities are also underrepresented in the art world. And there's some facts that are provided by the National Museum of Women in the Arts, a data analysis of 18 major US museums founder collections are 87% male and 85% white and Jansen's basic history of Western art which is kind of like the de facto text for art schools. So I know that of the list 300 listed artists are women with less than 1% being women of color, which I guess is a little bit of progress from in the 1980s when there were no women. And then over 60% of MFA students are women but galler's only show about 30% women artists. So I know Wikipedia might seem really specific right, but it is, but as kind of as Janine was saying like the, the reach of wiki is is huge it's the 10th most visited site in the world. Google which is actually the most visited site in the world, scrapes wiki. So does your smart devices in your home if you're talking to a Luxor series asking wiki ultimately and huge art institutions like the Museum of Modern Art are also looking at wiki. So when there are absences on Wikipedia it really echoes throughout the entire internet. Next slide please. So when cis and trans women non binary people and the BIPOC communities are not represented in the writing and editing of the 10th most visited site in the world, the information, like us get skewed and misrepresented, the stories get mistold, and we lose out on that real history. And so that's why we're here to change it. So what our feminism does is it builds a community of activists that is committed to closing the information gaps related to gender feminism and the arts, beginning with Wikipedia. Our feminism envisions an internet that reflects diverse global histories of art making for communities who have most often been written out of history feel welcome and empowered to participate in writing and writing our stories. That was already shared with you all, but since 2014 over 18,000 people at more than 1260 events around the world have participated in our editathons, resulting in the creation and improvement of more than 84,000 articles on Wikipedia and its sister projects. So we really kind of operate in this do it yourself and do it with others campaign. And so from coffee shops community centers to some of the largest museums in the world. We've had events and so here is just a sampling of some of the, the partners that we've worked with throughout the world and so with with that I will end and look forward to talking more with y'all. Thank you, I'm actually going to give you a chance to talk a little bit more because I'm going to let you kind of lead us into the first question that I'm going to propose for the panel. And it's going to be specific to art and feminism and then I'll go back and ask some other questions is all of the information that we've just heard is both sobering and refreshing. So many perspectives from journalism academia, and then even our Wikimedia movement. I want to ask you, and you've talked about all the work that art and feminism has been successful at in terms of drawing attention to content gaps for trans and non binary artists. Can you talk a little bit about how you use language intentionally to be inclusive as well. That's a great question. We actually just are we're finishing up right now, a really tremendous strategic planning process that we've been partnering with this great facilitator who's actually based in DC who really centers a social justice as a lens. And they've really helped us kind of fine tune our language because we, it is important that when we talk about women, we're not just talking about frankly white women we're talking about non binary folks we're talking about trans folks we're talking about all of these communities that are traditionally centered. We've also been really working on trying not to use the terms under represented and marginalized because really realizing that those terms center whiteness, and we're not trying to do that in our work. So, I would say that in terms of our inclusive, our language being inclusive, it's a journey. And it's something that we are constantly talking about and fine tuning, but it's a, it's a great community to be in where we are able to have these conversations about like what do we mean when we mean when we say intersexual feminism, and like who are we including and who are we uplifting. And so really kind of trying to center those communities that are not traditionally centered is really where we're trying to base our language in our work. I know we're going to get some questions about that. We're going to circle back afterwards. I'd like to to address a question to Emily and Rebecca. I'd like to ask you about opportunities for collaboration. What more, because I know there is more that academia, media and information platforms can do together. Rebecca, do you want to start. Yeah, I'm happy to. This is a real priority for the work that we do at the Institute for data democracy and politics, because we fundamentally believe any of the research which, you know, really is the heart of any academic institution, any research that we're conducting is not going to have the impact that's necessary, unless we're making sure the public understands what we're finding, unless we're making sure that policymakers understand what we're finding. And so the best route to both of those broad audiences is in working directly with journalists. And so we are very mindful of, and, and directly look for those opportunities to not just share, you know, reach out to a journalist and say there's no report, right, that you can take a look at, but rather sit side by side to these days not physically but sit side by side, and conduct some of these investigations together. I'm sure that the questions that we're asking are guided by a by broader public interest, and that the way that we communicate is digestible for a large audience. We can bring a lot of the, you know, the technical skills to the table, while working very closely with the journalists on the appropriate framing and storytelling elements of those IDDP is very soon going to to have a journalist and residents on our staff with the idea that we want to create a space for journalists to to be able to tell a longer deeper story about precisely some of these problems. And, and, you know, then share those share those with the world. So that's one of the ways that we're looking at it but there are a number of other models for doing this as well. And one way to get into that is that you know journalism is for too long been a one way street where you have people sort of in their ivory tower and people who don't represent most of the communities they say they're seeking to serve, you know, telling the stories that they think are important and I think I really think about journalism as a two way street as a give or take as we have an obligation to be telling the stories that matter most to our audiences, and allowing them to see themselves in the stories that we tell. So that's the standpoint of, you know, partnering with organizations or with academia like help send us those stories give us those ideas, you know, whether it's a traditional pitch whether it's sitting down with the reporter whether it's just saying, these are the, the, you know, people we're highlighting in our work and we think are deserving of your coverage these are the trends we're seeing out in the world that we think are worthy of an alternative lens. You know, we are constantly in search of great stories to tell and people to to highlight and so from that standpoint I say I would, I would really think about journalism as a as a two way street and as a relationship versus a top down approach. Thank you. Now, we, we talk about Wikipedia being a tertiary source and so the importance of other outlets to support the content on Wikipedia sort of if it happens in the world it happens on Wikipedia. So with that said cure what would be your dream big for for Emily and Rebecca and in places in media and academia. What would you want to see them do in their field speaking maybe on behalf of the movement itself. Well that's a big ask Jeanine. I'm big on this panel because hey I'm the answer. I don't know if I want to speak on behalf of the movement ever, but I think I think away and which like journalists and academia can really help is by writing about these communities that have traditionally been written out of history. And that writing include contemporary artists that aren't showing at the big museums are having you know huge exhibits and art fairs. There are so many incredible. There's so much incredible work that's being created now and has been created in the past, and really trying to uplift those those communities those artists are really important. Another thing also to think about to is one of the things that we're doing with art and feminism right now is there is a research initiative that's funded by wiki cred, looking at the source source I'm about to get real granular y'all so sorry. So, there are reliable source guidelines for Wikipedia, meaning that there are certain sources that are deemed unreliable and therefore can't be used in an article to write an article on wiki. So, some of those things are oral histories, for instance, like that not currently considered a reliable source. And so what journalists and academia could do to kind of help the work that we're doing is look at some of those archives some of those archives that are like, there's a lot of there's so much archival work right, but like look at some of these art collective archives look at some of these and create research and articles from some of these nontraditional sources that will ultimately help the work of art and feminism and wikipedia to get more expedients, get more articles into the universe. Not on behalf of the movement, just some, some response. I totally understand the note there and so thank you for that and listen. It is, it's an ask even how you got very specific with contemporary artists and, and that support for art and feminism so not on behalf of the movement but certainly on behalf of with the lens of the work that you do so I appreciate that. And in that vein Emily I'd really like to ask you about the lens that you take as a journalist and a leader when it comes to telling women stories. For example, over the past few weeks taking a look at the 19th you've shown a spotlight, not just on women, but the renewed recognition of the role of black women, thank you very much and advocating for voting rights. How do you think about this intersectionality within the issues that you cover, ensuring that I know this is a term we are we struggle with using but underrepresented or minority voices are also heard can you talk about that. Well, I mean, first of all, put this is obvious to the untrained eye but I am a white woman of privilege speaking, trying to lead an organization that is aimed at elevating the voices of women of color and so obviously I'm grappling with all of the things that that entails personally and professionally but I mean I think the most critical piece for us is that, you know, look, I wasn't. When I first thought up the 19th, I was, again, like thinking from the standpoint of working mom, you know, white working mom, and then it really became clear to me that over time that white women were certainly not the only ones disproportionately affected by the power of the community. You know, it became abundantly clear to us that it wasn't just and it wasn't just women of colors voices that were missing from the conversation it was it was trans non binary. It was a much broader swath of the population and so, as we started thinking about the 19th we started thinking about the ways, all of those communities intersect and could we provide a platform that truly elevated those voices. And so, so that's how we think about it I mean our newsroom is you know 70% women of color we employ one of the only out trans non binary reporters in the country. It is, you know, you have to have the people who reflect those communities bringing their own lived experiences to work to their journalism. They need to be the ones telling and owning those stories and so if I can play a part in trying to level that playing to ensure that the voices that have not been heard for far too long are the ones that are elevated front and center that's, that's the obligation I feel and that's I think just you know part of the road to evening out the sort of hotel stories and what the national narrative looks like for, for women in the LGBTQ community. Thank you. Thank you for that. And for your work. Rebecca, I'd really like to to park a question here with you. And we have a few moments before I think we would head into q&a. We're joined here by journalists students at George Washington folks from academia different industries. I'm going to say that everyone that's joined this panel today cares about changing the representation of women in our society. Can you give us a call to action for such a diverse audience and and some of what you're working on and what you're seeing, and what we might want to be aware of, and even consider doing next. Yeah, absolutely. And if you don't mind, I'll ground it really in in the work that I'm doing and as essentially a response to the things that I led our conversation with the sort of grim reality that I painted for everyone. I think, when I start to think about how we move forward. I tend to think of at least three key elements that are part of this. And I'm going to present them today in essentially reverse order, not necessarily reverse order of importance, per se. In terms of where I think we collectively need to be placing greatest responsibility for such things. So, the first thing that that I work very hard to advocate for is collective action. And the community coming together to support one another to try to deal with the forms of hate harassment and toxicity that we see online. And so just as a practical example, after my after I personally had a very dark experience with large scale campaign of harassment directed at me. And that, you know, in order to make good out of that, in order to feel empowered. I needed to build a network of other women who now actively track and watch out for these things happening to others, and then offer ourselves as a support system reach out and say, here are a number of things that we could do for you. Let us know if you would like, right, any or all of these things so they include tracking the harassment so an individual who's being targeted at the time does not have to feel like they need to be in the weeds monitoring all the things that are coming at them. So we have those reporting them keeping logs reporting to the police is appropriate and so on. We have different forms of intervention that we discuss with with those who are being targeted and let them ultimately choose the ways in which that we might intervene on their behalf. So there's this sort of collective right response that we can, we can engender. The content is really about platform design and policy. And so of course this goes goes directly to some of the things that we're talking about dealing with Wikipedia, but touches on all of the major online and social media platforms that we we operate within. So we can get there to really designing the best platform affordances. Before we can design the best platform policies, we actually need a great deal more research and I would argue, we need a great deal more research that centers. Those who are actually targeted by hate and harassment. So far, a lot of the work on how we change platform policies has been has lacked that context has lacked an understanding of how those who might be impacted are actually going to respond. And in some cases I think their backfire effects to that. And then the third and final thing is that we need to really push for institutional support. When I'm an academic, right, I see that universities provide very little sometimes no support for those who are being targeted women journalists are receiving very little institutional support. Ultimately, we need to put the responsibility on the institutions that gain real advantage from us as women having public voice, and yet then don't themselves take responsibility when our actions right that benefit them backfire and have negative consequences for us. Wow that is powerful work that you're doing thank you for the direction that you're providing here. Before we go into Q&A I want to, I want to kind of shift just a bit because I know this work can be frustrating and the truth of what we're facing that all of you have shared here today, while it's inspirational. It's also heavy, because the change is not happening as quickly or as urgently as we think it needs to and as the we know the world needs it to. And so with that being said for the last question, I'd like for each of you to just give me a very brief thought on what makes you the most hopeful about this moment and about this work. And then I'm going to turn it over to my colleague Anusha who will handle the volume of questions that we have coming in for all of you. So, let's let's do a quick round Robin and let me know what makes you the most hopeful about this movement and this work and I'd say for me, it's been hearing all of the great work and the direction that you all are doing, thank you. So I can start. I would say a constant source of inspiration and like that's hopeful for the work with art and feminism is the art and feminism community itself. We actually put out a community care statement in November just kind of recognizing that where we are right we're in we're in a pandemic. We have this kind of like racial awakening that's happening around the world, and just giving our organizers the space to perhaps not organize an event this year, just recognizing where everyone's at right. So, we put that out in November and we kept touching to it and just pointing to it and really like encouraging people to take time that they need. And despite all that though, we still have over 100 events this year happening around the world, which I think is truly incredible and truly inspiring that this community, even in these times is still committed to this work. Next, I think I am deeply inspired by how many incredible women and in particular women of color you see launching new nonprofit and for profit media organizations seeking to sort of reclaim the narrative whether it's a meet your formerly of CNN who has just started URL media which aims to elevate, you know, ethnic media and journalists in those communities whether it is the two incredible women Lauren Williams and her colleague a coto who just started capital B which is aimed at serving the black community. I am just super excited to see women sort of, you know, just grabbing on to their narratives and launching new platforms aimed at serving, not brand new audiences but audiences that haven't been served. For me it's very similar. Academia can be a brutal competitive environment. And for me the, the real optimism comes from seeing a younger generation of scholars stepping into this space and recognizing how problematic that competitive spirit is, and how they're focusing on supporting and lifting one another up. I actually see academic institutions shifting fundamentally, I think within the next generation based on that ethos. I just want to say thank you again for allowing me to host a dialogue with you all. I appreciate all of the great work that you all are doing. I would like to turn this over to my colleague Anusha she's going to ask some questions of you all and I'm just going to be listening in this is fantastic. Thanks to Neen. Thank you so much everyone's has already been such a great discussion. We do have several questions from the audience and we're going to try hard to get to them all. Please use the q amp a feature to submit your questions and make sure to know if there's a specific panelists who your question is addressed to. Let's kick off. So the first question that I believe is relevant for most of our panelists is your panelists are all female. Will we succeed in addressing the structural barriers that exist if we keep leading the conversations without having male champions. In Africa, when people talk about gender, they just sideline it as a women's issue. How do we bring men into the conversation more so they become part of the solution. Here do you want to kick us off. So I would say also like some of the messaging that is in our feminism is that all of our workshops and all of our work that we do is open to all gender expressions. I also want to uplift that our leadership team does have representation across internationally and also across gender so we specifically to this question. We have someone on who is a co-lead organizer, Muhammad Sadat Abdelay who is based in Ocargana and his pronouns are he him. So definitely we can't, you're right, we can't do this work alone and we definitely need allies to to help this be more than just a women's issue. We definitely need allies, but it can be tricky at times, because we also recognize that we at times need spaces that are for right the four women. You know, identifying as a woman to to come together and talk through our experiences so that we can then share those appropriately with the wider world, including allies, but absolutely gender is not a women's issue. It is a human issue. And we need allies and in particular I think we need allies because men can very frequently reach other men more effectively than women can. So yes, more allies please. I don't think I can say it much better than either Kira or Rebecca just did so. Thank you. So I think this question would be great for both Emily and Janine. I'm struck by the slow progress in who creates information and media, and who is visible and shown in information sources. This is a similar problem in so many sectors. What are examples or ideas for how we scale up change in terms of representation online. Janine, you want to start. I'll start and I'll speak from a Wikipedia platform and then I'll turn it over to you maybe for the broader news. I can. Excuse me. Thank you for the question. You know what I think about the work that we're doing at the foundation in support of Wikipedia. It, this question leads me to our both the universal code of conduct and the thriving movement. And what I think is that in order to ensure that we have a broader scope of participants and information we need a diverse community of people building that content and that information. In order for that to happen. People have to feel welcome. I started the conversation with saying in many cases I am the first the only and very different in every environment doesn't mean I like it that way or I feel comfortable with that I've just gotten used to it. So, a universal code of conduct where we are driving our community to live into the values of welcoming that we support as a foundation. I think it's a way for us to ensure that who we are as a movement will embrace truly what the world looks like and we have a strong spirit of inclusion and the content and the information that shows up on Wikipedia is a reflection of the people in the world and not just 1% of the world, you know showing up and writing for multiple perspectives. I believe strongly that the experience that many people have with people that they don't know or others comes from things that you read and see and it's the media. And so, I believe strongly in our responsibility and our obligation to create a thriving movement a way where everyone feels welcome and included in their thoughts are all and perspectives are all are taken into consideration. And that's one of the, one of the many things and it's a big thing so there are a lot of things that we're doing with our products and with our brand, and with our technology to support the thriving movement, but to me all roads lead that way and then create a space where we can do our part in that. So Emily maybe you can speak from the broader news perspective. People ask me a lot, you know why I didn't try to affect change from inside a major organization existing organization like why I started something completely new and my answer to that is, I think that in order to level the playing field we really need what makes forever to turn an ocean liner, it's really fast to turn a speedboat. And I think we need just like a hell of a lot more speedboats who are able to make really immediate action to really add to the national dialogue to the national narrative. Yes, I think we're seeing the sort of the wheels turning in these big mega institutions there are major conversations happening around around race around gender around inclusivity. I don't want to wait for that change. I want to be part of a solution right now. Terrific. Thank you. I think this would be a great question for Dr. Trombol. I study women in politics specifically. And I'm curious in terms of institutional support. How do you think political institutions can support women in government who are oftentimes disproportionately targeted online. Yeah, that's a great question. So I think it starts from a, you know what may sound like a rather instrumental place, but I think is really crucial. I think that any institution whether it's a government political academic media institution needs to have a clear policy and effective statement of support rooted in that institution's values, ready to go. The moment that any of its employees begin facing this sort of abuse and harassment. Simply publicly saying that we back this individual has a really powerful effect on the, the larger discourse online. So that's step one, but step two is making sure that there are a number of people on staff within the institution, who are ready to actively respond. Because it actually shouldn't be and remember when I went down my, my three fold list. I said that I was doing this in reverse order, essentially of importance, but it was more reverse order of responsibility, because what we see far too much is it is a responsibility either of the individual, or of a community, right a grassroots community to provide the support. Every single one of the, the tasks that my grassroots network provides for women who are being harassed online, can and should be provided by the institutions. They can do the monitoring right they can do the reporting, they can be reaching out and providing the services right to the individuals facing harassment. So, essentially what I'm arguing for is flipping the, the roles and responsibilities that we see taking place now it's wonderful that we build the community based grassroots support for these things, but we need the institutions to be taking those precise same actions. Terrific, thank you. So I think this one is good for Kira and Emily. As has been said, one of the main issues with writing about women and non binary people on Wikipedia is lack of coverage and media sources. How can Wikipedia help journalists to write about women. That's a fun question to think about. How can Wikipedia help journalists write about women I mean we because Wikipedia really relies on a lot of the journalists to, to, because to create Wikipedia articles. But I think how Wikipedia as an institution can help is revising reliable source guidelines, being enabling us to use things like oral histories to create articles as I was talking about earlier, would be able to it would just open up so anywhere resources to bring some of these, these artists to the pages of Wikipedia. I think that's a great answer. And the best answer honestly to this question I think, you know there might also be some ways that that Wikipedia and, and news organizations, particularly some of these startup news organizations could work together to highlight. So I think we're telling stories about incredible women and LGBTQ people who are doing really fascinating things who might not otherwise believe that they are worthy of a Wikipedia page right like there I think there's could be some really interesting collaborations there on ensuring that the people who we're elevating the people who other news organizations are elevating are also finding their way back to getting established pages that that reflect their work. So that's an interesting concept and I'd actually love to talk further about that. We're right at 226 at the moment so I think that we only have time for one more question and I'd love to hear the answer to this question from all of you. We've all discussed focusing on writing about communities and hiring women, but how can journalism and academia ensure this writing is not surface level and properly depicts and describes women, especially black indigenous and people of color and LGBTQ plus women. So those journalists. I mean to me that's the easy and obvious answer is to ensure that your newsrooms accurately reflect the diversity of the nation. And I think that that's that is first and foremost the way that you're going to know you're getting those stories right that they're going to be in depth that they're going to be thoughtful that they're going to reflect true lived experiences. There, there's not a pipeline problem, you know, go out there and look for them you can find them. So it's all about recruiting. I'd love to add to that too and it's, I think it's more than just having a seat at the table right because like, if the seat at the table is in a table that's room already suffocatingly white, then the seat at the table means nothing. So I think it's also not only hiring and inviting people of diverse backgrounds to be part of, part of like this decision making groups part of being a journalist part of being in the academic groups wherever your spaces are. So I think the responsibility of organizations to provide that di training, and not a di training that's just like, All right, well I've done my diversity inclusion so for good now y'all, but keep that training ongoing, because we're in a world in a landscape where we're all constantly learning we're all constantly not only learning but unlearning our like colonious ways and white supremacist ways. And so we need to constantly be doing this work together of our learning. To be able to really create these not just surface level descriptions. And I would add to both of those thoughts that in my world in particular studying things like disinformation online. Really, the scholarship that drives most of this field is focused on big data, big numbers. And, and that focus on data tends to paper over difference tends to be report on findings that are averages. And we're not going to learn the important lessons from diverse from diverse communities by simply looking at averages. So one of the things we have to prioritize is research of a qualitative nature research that actually is designed from the beginning with these communities at the table right in conversation asking, what are the questions you would want me to be asking, as I dig deeper into these things. So we need to bring people to the table at different steps within that much broader pipeline. I'm new chef I could add one thing to this I've been taking some notes and you know it's been a rich conversation and how we're making progress. But I've heard a few things that we need more of and I wanted to capture them and share them so you know we need more focus. We need more allies. We need more journalists, we need to hire them. We need more disruption. And we certainly need more speedboats. And so with that I just want to encourage us to not give up. I hope that the folks in this in this panel and I joined this discussion will stay in touch. I'm following all of us on social media and and pinging us with some of the tough questions and some of the wins so that we can celebrate the wins and dig into the challenges. And with that I just want to say again, thank you very very much and I'll turn it over to Anisha. Thank you for all your questions in the audience. I know we weren't able to get to all of them, but you can find us on social media and we're happy to continue this conversation. Thank you so much for joining the time for a rewrite panel. And with that, just follow us on project hashtag project rewrite on social media for more. Thank you.