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Pages for women scientists have often been deleted (or at least nominated for deletion) for not being notable enough: https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/female

Pages for women scientists have often been deleted (or at least nominated for deletion) for not being notable enough: https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/female-scientists-pages-keep-disappearing-from-wikipedia-whats-going-on/3010664.article https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/female-scientists-pages-...

dudul 3y ago
Was she a scientist? I didn't know her, and after reading this, admittedly short, article it doesn't look like she was doing much more than technician work.
smcin 3y ago
The article didn't say she was a scientist. There were also technicians. It's unclear. I said there may be more detailed bios published. I was unable to find much under her name.
weebull 3y ago
That is an odd article you've linked to. There seems to be several factors in play. 1. People observe that there is a disparity in the number of pages on Wikipedia about men and women in science. 2. This leads to a number of people searching out people to write about that would redress the balance. 3. Unfortunately some are really only notable for their gender and/or ethnicity, and Wikipedia does not view that as a factor. 4. Hence, a lot of these pages get flagged for deletion. The discrepancy is largely a reflection of our history. Until recently women and non-white ethnicities weren't in positions of scientific research. With fewer people in the field, there will be fewer notable people even if the chance of one person being notable is the same. It sounds like the "deletion of female scientists" is the system working correctly in response to people submitting articles for reasons other than refection the historical truth. I'm sure there are cases of someone having their contribution ignored due to racism/sexism, but artifically inflating the achievements of people just to redress some perceived imbalance doesn't help. Now another person gets credit they don't deserve whilst the true talent gets buried deeper.

dudul 3y ago

Was she a scientist? I didn't know her, and after reading this, admittedly short, article it doesn't look like she was doing much more than technician work.

smcin 3y ago

The article didn't say she was a scientist. There were also technicians. It's unclear. I said there may be more detailed bios published. I was unable to find much under her name.

weebull 3y ago

That is an odd article you've linked to. There seems to be several factors in play. 1. People observe that there is a disparity in the number of pages on Wikipedia about men and women in science. 2. This leads to a number of people searching out people to write about that would redress the balance. 3. Unfortunately some are really only notable for their gender and/or ethnicity, and Wikipedia does not view that as a factor. 4. Hence, a lot of these pages get flagged for deletion. The discrepancy is largely a reflection of our history. Until recently women and non-white ethnicities weren't in positions of scientific research. With fewer people in the field, there will be fewer notable people even if the chance of one person being notable is the same. It sounds like the "deletion of female scientists" is the system working correctly in response to people submitting articles for reasons other than refection the historical truth. I'm sure there are cases of someone having their contribution ignored due to racism/sexism, but artifically inflating the achievements of people just to redress some perceived imbalance doesn't help. Now another person gets credit they don't deserve whilst the true talent gets buried deeper.