Wikipedia:Women in Red/Historical overview of projects supporting women

This is an overview to trace the history of Wikipedia initiatives in support of women, starting with those in relation to the English language version of Wikipedia. This initial listing was compiled in July 2021 but will be updated as necessary.

Although by mid-2021 Women in Red has become the most active wikiproject in support of women's coverage on the English version of Wikipedia, the history of the need for action on reducing gender bias goes back to 2005. Indeed, the first initiative along these lines was the creation of WikiProject Gender studies by on 21 December 2005. It began with "WikiProject Gender Studies is aimed at removing gender bias from Wikipedia." Since then wikiprojects and similar initiatives have been created to support improved coverage of women and their works in a wide variety of professions, cultural interests, sports and organizations. They are presented in chronological order below, initially those which evolved on the English version of Wikipedia but also those targeting one or more other language versions of Wikipedia.

Wikidata has an entry on Women in Red with links to projects in other languages. (This could no doubt be expanded with further work on Wikidata.)

WikiProjects
These are arranged in chronological order.

WikiProject Gender Studies


 * created on 21 December 2005 by
 * removing gender bias from Wikipedia

Women's football task force


 * created on 15 September 2007 by
 * established under WikiProject Football to improve coverage of women's football
 * now a joint initiative of WikiProject Women's sport and WikiProject Football
 * 175 participants

WikiProject Feminism


 * created 12 February 2008 by as part of WikiProject Gender Studies, following the creation on 20 April 2007 by  of WikiProject Gender studies/Countering Systemic Gender Bias
 * became a stand alone project in June 2010.
 * addresses articles related to feminism
 * focuses on articles detailing women's rights, women's health, notable activists, and the history, literature, philosophy, and concepts related to feminism.
 * 273 active members
 * 27 FA's and 108 GA's

WikiProject Women's History


 * created 4 February 2011 by
 * a collaboration area for Wikipedians interested in improving coverage of women's history
 * primary purpose is to provide support for members and any other editors in improving Wikipedia's coverage of women from a historical perspective
 * has two task forces under their direction, Women in World War I and Women in technology
 * 148 active members
 * 191 FA's and 665 GA's

WikiProject Women's sport


 * created 10 April 2011 by
 * project to improve Wikipedia's coverage of women and trans people in sports.
 * 64 active members
 * 26 FA's and 342 GA's

WikiProject Women scientists


 * created 31 October 2012 by
 * project and working group dedicated to ensuring quality and coverage of biographies of women scientists.
 * 137 active members
 * 10 FA's and 82 GA's

Gender gap task force


 * created 6 May 2013 by
 * to address some of the problems women face on Wikipedia, whether as editors or article subjects
 * 174 active members

WikiProject Women artists


 * created 26 November 2013 by
 * dedicated to ensuring quality and coverage of biographies of women artists and their works
 * 145 active members
 * 21 FA's and 121 GA's

Art+Feminism


 * inaugurated 1 February 2014; founded by Siân Evans, Jacqueline Mabey, Michael Mandiberg, and Laurel Ptak; page created 11 February 2014 by but initial initiatives were not on Wikipedia itself
 * annual worldwide edit-a-thon to add content to Wikipedia about female artists.
 * responding to negative media coverage about Wikipedia's cataloging system
 * fill content gaps in Wikipedia and increase the number of female contributors
 * Kira Wisniewski was appointed executive director in 2020
 * Averages over 1300 participants at annual editathon

WikiProject Jewish Women


 * created 21 February 2014 by
 * collaboration area for Wikipedians interested in improving coverage of Jewish Women
 * 21 active members

Women in warfare and the military


 * created 29 August 2014 by
 * an initiative of the Military history WikiProject to improve articles on women in the military, women in combat, and women in war
 * 9 active members

WikiProject Women writers


 * established 30 August 2014; created by
 * dedicated to ensuring quality and coverage of articles about women writers and their works
 * 15 active members
 * 116 FA's and 539 GA's

WikiProject Women in Technology


 * created 17 April 2015 by
 * dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of women in technology, and to address systemic bias in Wikipedia's coverage of technology-related subjects
 * 5 active members

WikiProject Women's Health


 * created 21 May 2015 by
 * project focusing on articles related to women's health, including related social and political issues
 * 15 active members
 * 5 FA's and 24 GA's

WikiProject Women Wikipedia Design


 * conceived in 2015 by ArchiteXX led by Professor Lori Brown; page created 23 May 2015 by
 * an international education and advocacy program working to increase the number of Wikipedia articles on women in architecture and the built environment

WikiProject Women in Red


 * project created 18 July 2015 by and
 * group of editors of all genders living around the world focused on reducing systemic bias in the wiki movement focusing on the creation of content regarding women's biographies, women's works, and women's issues
 * 514 active members
 * 167,423 articles (June 2021)

WikiProject Women


 * Created 27 July 2015 by
 * a group of editors of all genders, sexual orientations, geographic locations, and personal backgrounds who aim to discuss, collaborate and improve the coverage of women's content across Wikipedia
 * 266 active members
 * 101 FA's and 926 GA's

WikiProject Women in Green


 * created 25 August 2015 by
 * to bring core articles on women and women's works up to minimum Wikipedia:Good article (GA) status
 * currently have 4060 articles out of 34,618 Good Articles
 * 69 active members

Women in archaeology task force


 * created 23 April 2016 by
 * task force of WikiProject Archaeology which aims to counter Wikipedia's systematic bias by improving its coverage of female archaeologists and women-related topics in archaeology
 * 9 active members
 * 2 FA's and 8 GA's

WikiProject Wiki Loves Women


 * created 3 May 2016 by
 * freeing access to information on African women
 * 37 active members

Women's Classical Committee


 * created 31 January 2017 by
 * Initiative to take steps towards redressing the encyclopedia's gender imbalance, by training and encouraging classicists - whether archaeologists, epigraphers, historians, linguists, numismatists, philologists or anyone else working within this varied discipline - to edit Wikipedia with this focus
 * 33 active committee members
 * 6 GA's

WikiProject MedievalWiki


 * created 18 March 2018 by
 * project committed to redressing the gender and racial imbalances on medieval Wikipedia
 * 27 active members

WikiProject 1000 Women in Religion


 * project of the Women's Caucus of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature; page created 31 October 2018 by
 * an initiative to create, update, and improve Wikipedia articles pertaining to the lives of cis and transgender women who are notable as scholars, activists and practitioners in the world's religious, spiritual and wisdom traditions
 * 30 active members

WikiProject Women in Music


 * created 28 July 2019 by
 * dedicated to ensuring quality and coverage of biographies of women in music
 * 26 active members
 * 92 FA's and 1,899 GA's

WikiProject Women in Business


 * created 17 June 2021 by
 * dedicated to ensuring quality and coverage of biographies of women in business
 * 1 active member
 * 3 FA's 14 GA's

Articles
Each of the following are articles on EN-WP, but have links to equivalent articles in many other language versions.
 * Art+Feminism
 * Gender bias on Wikipedia
 * Women in Red

Other language Wikipedias
Many language versions of Wikipedia have initiatives designed to reduce gender bias. A long list of those more or less matching the objectives of Women in Red can be found in the left-hand margin of the WiR main page.

A selection of projects in several languages are listed below. Developments are listed in alphabetical order by language, and in chronological order within each language group. The Swedish Wikipedia appears to have made an early start (in July 2006) creating a wikiproject designed to reduce the gender gap, no doubt based on the English WikiProject Gender studies.

Albanian
Women in Red


 * created by  and
 * Albanian equivalent of Women in Red
 * User group that coordonates the project: Wikimedians of Albanian Language UG
 * Social media: @SQWikimediansUG

Arabic
 Wikipedia: Missing Women Project


 * created by on 6 June 2020
 * Arabic equivalent of Women in Red

Basque
Wikiproject:WikiWomen


 * created by on 3 July 2017
 * Project aimed at increasing the number of female editors, the creation of articles on women in Basque, and translation of articles on women from other languages

Catalan
Viquiprojecte:Viquidones

Viquidones_w¡Wkimujeres UPF
 * created by on 20 April 2016
 * general support for improvement of women's coverage in the Catalan Wikipedia
 * created by on 16 May 2016
 * Working group at Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona), specialized in the gender gap. In the Catalan and Spanish Wikipedia

Croatian
 Wikiproject women in red


 * created by on 2 January 2019
 * Croatian equivalent of Women in Red

Danish
WikiProjekt Kvinder


 * created as WikiProjekt Feminisme by on 14 May 2012
 * improve coverage of women and feminism
 * first edit-a-thon on 8 March 2015

Dutch
Wikiproject Gendergap


 * created by on 9 April 2014
 * reduce the gender gap on the Dutch Wikipedia
 * 55 participants

French
Football féminin


 * created by on 16 March 2011 under Projet:Football
 * coordinate contributions of editors working on women's football

Project:Les sans pagEs


 * grant submitted to the Wikimedia Foundation on 31 March 2015; project founded in April of same year
 * aims to create and enhance Wikipedia articles on women, feminism, gender bias or other under-represented topics on Wikipedia
 * 239 active members
 * 4 FA's and 17 GA's
 * see also: Les sans pagEs User Group

German
WikiProjekt Frauen


 * created by on 7 June 2011
 * creation and improvement of articles about women
 * links to related initiatives in the German Wikipedia

WomenEdit


 * created by on 16 March 2016
 * organization of editathons in various locations to improve coverage of women, also with online participants
 * project results

WikiProjekt Frauen/Frauen in Rot


 * created by on 1 July 2016
 * German equivalent of Women in Red

Greek
Women in Red


 * created by on 2 April 2018
 * Greek equivalent of Women in Red

Hebrew
 Wikipedia: Women wiki Project


 * created by on 1 February 2016
 * sister project of Hebrew: Women in Red
 * designed to increase the number of women editors, expand and enrich content on women and women related topics and encourage women to write on the Hebrew Wikipedia.

 Wikipedia: Wikipedia/Women in Red Projects


 * created by on 11 July 2016
 * Hebrew equivalent of Women in Red

Indonesian
 Women's Wikiproject


 * created by on 8 March 2020
 * add and improve articles on female figures (both from Indonesia and abroad) and women's issues.

Italian
Progetto:Sport/Calcio femminile


 * created by on 11 January 2013
 * coordination of the creation, expansion and translation of articles on women's football

Progetto:WikiDonne


 * created by on 4 August 2016
 * Italian equivalent of Women in Red

Malay
 Women's Wikiproject


 * created by on 21 July 2020
 * add and improve articles on women (both from Malaysia and abroad) as well as women's issues

Bokmål
 Women in Red


 * created by on 21 August 2018
 * Norwegian (Bokmål) equivalent of Women in Red

Nynorsk
 Women in Red


 * created by on 10 March 2019
 * Norwegian (Nynorsk) equivalent of Women in Red

Persian
 Wikipedia:Red Women WikiProject


 * created by on April 14, 2016
 * Persian equivalent of Women in Red
 * Also contains the project Women in Green

Portuguese
 Wikipédia:Women in Red


 * created by on 1 June 2019
 * reduce gender bias by creating more articles on women

 Wikiprojeto Mulheres


 * created by on 13 September 2020
 * coordination of editors independent of their gender in improving and increasing content about women

Russian
 Project: Feminism


 * created by on 1 August 2011
 * the aim is to actively create new articles so that more Russian Wikipedia users can get acquainted with the topic of feminism

Serbian
 Wiki women in Republika Srpska


 * created by on 14 March 2018
 * aims to overcome the gender difference in Wikimedia projects

Sorani
Women in Red


 * created by on 2 February 2021 and updated by  on 21 March 2021
 * Sorani Kurdish equivalent of Women in Red

Spanish
 Wikiproyecto:Feminismo


 * created by on 1 November 2009
 * create and improve articles on feminism and gender equality

 Wikiproyecto:Mujeres


 * created by on 1 July 2015
 * encourage the participation of women editors and the coverage of women
 * 204 participants

 Wikiproyecto:Fútbol femenino


 * created by on 13 August 2015
 * improve coverage of women in football

Swedish
 Projekt kvinnor


 * created by MellonCollie on 20 July 2006
 * create and improve articles about women to reduce the gender gap

Thai
 Women's Wikiproject in Red Links


 * created by on 19 September 2017
 * Thai equivalent of Women in Red

Turkish
 Women in Red


 * created by on 5 January 2020
 * Turkish equivalent of Women in Red

Affiliates

 * Art+Feminism User Group
 * Recognition date: 27 September 2016


 * Les sans pagEs User Group
 * Recognition date: 9 December 2019


 * Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia User Group
 * Recognition date: 23 October 2018


 * WikiDonne User Group
 * Recognition date: 7 November 2016


 * Wikigrannies User Group User Group
 * Recognition date: 2 February 2020


 * Wikimujeres User Group
 * Recognition date: 11 November 2015


 * WikiWomen's User Group
 * Recognition date: 19 July 2015


 * Gender Diversity Visibility Community User Group
 * Recognition date: 6 July 2018

Campaigns
 Wiki Loves Women


 * created by on 5 January 2016 in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut
 * combat systemic bias in regard to women in (initially) four sub-Saharan African countries by creating articles in the local languages
 * project overview

 WikiGap


 * created by on 9 January 2018 as WikiGap/2018
 * a partnership between Wikimedia affiliates and The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs; invites broad and diverse participation, allowing for local adaptations to the overall theme of closing the gender gap and other gaps relevant for diversity on Wikipedia.
 * A few thousand editors have taken part
 * over 60,000 articles created or edited

 Wiki4Women


 * created by:
 * date: 22 February 2018
 * in collaboration with UNESCO, promoting better representation of committed women of knowledge in the digital sphere through the creation, editing, and translation of women profiles and lists on Wikipedia (in various language versions of Wikipedia)

Bauhaus Women


 * created by:
 * date: 16 January 2019
 * edit-a-thon launched by WikiDonne User Group to write about the women of the Bauhaus School during the Centenary celebration.

Interwiki Women Collaboration


 * created by:, and
 * date: 27 July 2018
 * an InterWiki Women Collaboration to create a culture about women in all languages and countries across all Wikimedia projects in order to help fill the gender gap

Category:Mujeres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia


 * created by:
 * date: 7 April 2018
 * category for subjects related to Latin American women on Wikimedia

NY Wiki Chics


 * created by:
 * date: 25 February 2011
 * page dedicated to helping NY peeps organize initiatives focused on reducing the gender gap in Wikipedia

WikiHerStory


 * created by: and
 * date: 5 March 2020
 * an initiative to raise awareness of Wikipedia’s gender gap and provide opportunities for anyone to get involved with community projects and events that are helping to address it

Wikimania Women


 * created by:
 * date: 16 March 2016
 * page used to coordinate actions related to Gender Gap and/or Women issues during Wikimania 2016

WikiWomen's Collaborative


 * created by:
 * date: 1 October 2012
 * a volunteer-run project to inspire, engage and support more women to be involved in the Wikimedia movement

Women and gender diversity on Wikimedia


 * created by:
 * date: 4 March 2015
 * page used to gather biographies on notable women for selection to be posted to the Wikimedia blog in 2015

Women Edit


 * created by:
 * date: 4 June 2013‎
 * page created for suggestions and ideas to support Women edit-a-thons in Berlin in 2013

Women in Climate Change


 * created by:
 * date: 27 November 2020
 * A month edit-a-thon about women that are playing a crucial role in climate change organized by WikiDonne and the Wikimedia Sustainability Consortia

Women on Wikipedia Month


 * created by:
 * date: 11 February 2011
 * page to discuss ideas started on the Gender Gap list for a "Women on Wikipedia Week" to encourage new editors

UN Women Her Story (2016)


 * created by:
 * date: 21 July 2016
 * global project and Edit-a-Thon that was held on 2016 International Youth Day (August 12th, 2016) to promote Wikipedia content on gender gap

Atari Women Wiki Edit-a-thon


 * created by:
 * date: 10 October 2020
 * two day edit-a-thon, held Tuesday 10th and 17th November 2020, focused on adding new articles and improving existing articles based on Atari Women, a research project about pioneer women and gender minority engineers

VisibleWikiWomen


 * created by:
 * date: 6 February 2018
 * campaign of Whose Knowledge? since 2018 that focuses on adding images of important and influential women to Wikimedia Commons

Meetup/UNC/Women in Science


 * created by:
 * date: 24 February 2015
 * Edit-a-thon hosted by the UNC Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) and the Kenan Science Library to create pages for women scientists, improve citations and supplement pages that currently exist, and identify opportunities to create links that make women scientists’ profiles more accessible

Fast Forward: Women in Photography


 * created by:
 * date: 30 January 2016
 * conference held 6 - 7 January 2015 at the Tate Modern to explore the complex and dynamic evolution of the history of women in photography.

16 African Women Translate-a-thon


 * created by:
 * date: 26 January 2017
 * 2017 camapaign of Wiki Loves Women; 16 days to make available biographies on 16 notable African women, in at least 16 languages

Women Occupation Drive


 * created by:
 * date: 30 September 2018
 * 2018 camapaign of Wiki Loves Women; to make sure that the top occupations labels recorded in WikiData be available in their male/female/default status and to push for the translation of those labels in the languages spoken in Africa.

Thematic Workshop at Jeevan Jyoti Women Empowerment Centre


 * created by:
 * date: 28 December 2017
 * initiative to address these issues by empowering the under privileged sections of society, especially rural women with equal learning opportunities and with professional training courses in their formative years; thereby providing them with sustainable income opportunities

1000 Women in Religion


 * created by:
 * date: 4 January 2020
 * endeavor that seeks to add over 1,000 names and contributions of religious, spiritual and wisdom women to Wikipedia

'''Her Story


 * created by:
 * date: 21 July 2016‎
 * a global project and Edit-a-Thon to enhance the presence of women and knowledge about them, emphasize the disappearance of women from society, narrow the gender gap and enhance the quality of the already published knowledge about women within Wikipedia.

Conferences

 * WikiWomenCamp 2012
 * WikiWomenCamp 2017

Gender gap

 * Gender gap
 * Gender gap strategy 2013
 * Gender gap/Research
 * Gender gap/International Women's Day
 * Gender gap/News and Events
 * Gender gap/Knowledge
 * Gender gap/Resources
 * Gender gap/Initiatives
 * Gender gap/Groups
 * Address the gender gap/Research
 * Address the gender gap/FAQ
 * Address the gender gap/Initiatives
 * The Missing Masses: Investigating the Absence of Women and Non-Cis People among Wikipedia Editors/Relation to Previous Research


 * Categories
 * Category:Gender gap related grants
 * created by
 * 10 May 2020
 * This category includes successful grant requests related to gender gap on wikimedia projects, as well as LGBTQ+ issues


 * Category:IdeaLab/Ideas/Gender gap

General information
 Women


 * created by on 19 February 2016
 * share activities from all over the world, which are designed to improve coverage and participation of women and girls

Learning patterns

 * Main: Category:Gender learning patterns
 * Bringing women together to work towards gender and linguistic inclusiveness
 * Engaging Regional US-Based Museums Around the Gender Gap
 * Following Wikipedia policies in gender gap events
 * Gender identity
 * Hosting a multi-location gender gap edit-a-thon
 * How to create or edit an article in terms of gender approach
 * How to get diverse presenters at your conference (from a gender, Global South... perspective)
 * How to measure from a gender perspective
 * How to write communications materials with a balanced portrayal of women and men
 * It doesn't need to be always feminist to attract women users
 * Using Wikipedia's gaps as feminist teaching tools

Research, reports, proposals, essays, surveys

 * Women and Wikimedia Survey 2011
 * Editor Survey/Women Editors 2011)
 * Gender diversity mapping 2017
 * Gender equity report 2018
 * Proposals for more female editors
 * Top 10 Reasons to Encourage More Women Participation in Wikipedia
 * Wikipedia Gender Inequality Index
 * YouGov survey on women and Wikipedia
 * Bridging gender gap (research in India)
 * IEG/The Missing Masses: Investigating the Absence of Women and Non-Cis People among Wikipedia Editors/Relation to Previous Research