OpenGeofiction
One question I brought up at yesterday’s online meet-up (which ended up being text only) was women mappers. I’m curious as to how many of us are women. It feels like nearly all are male. From some comments I heard, it seems that most fictional mappers happen to be men. I have no idea if that is true. But I wonder why?
And I wonder, do women feel welcome here?
Personally, it seems strange that mappers tend to be men. As with most things, I think having good representation from both sexes tends to make things richer, more complex and, well, better.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Discussion
Comment from BelpheniaProject on 22 February 2016 at 21:55
I’m a male since almost all of us are males too. But I saw a female mapper made a small village in Commonia on the other month, but I didn’t know what her name was and she was never seen here again.
I kept this in mind that almost all of us are male on OpenGeofiction, and I think that maybe females may not be interested in fictional world maps and other road related activities, and they may likely be easy to lose interest in mapping on OpenGeofiction. Just a thought…
Comment from histor on 22 February 2016 at 22:17
Why a woman should not be a mapper? O.k. - most are man, I think. Maybe some of the female mappers here says a word?
Comment from Yuanls on 23 February 2016 at 00:31
I’m also male. This is a very interesting question. I would think geofiction is more appealing to a male demographic by the looks of things. Reasons for that, I’m not so sure of. But since this is the internet, we cannot really tell who people are here, so it’s possible there are a few women on OGF, somewhere. To be honest, I’m happy solely by the fact that there is a geofiction community in the first place-before I found this website, I didn’t know anyone apart from me with this hobby.
Comment from Luciano on 23 February 2016 at 01:24
There is not just a male predominance in geofiction, but in the GIS and cartogarphy professions, too. Something about maps seems to be appealing to men (“on average” - always there are exceptions) as compared to women. To realize this, just think about the stereotypical family drive (as portrayed in an infinite number of movies and television shows), and look at who is the person fiddling with the map or the navigation gadget.
As a teacher with a secret hobby of geofictioning, I have run some informal experiments with my elementary students. I have had them drawing imaginary maps (“draw your island,” “draw your fantasy theme park” etc.). The girls get into it just as much as the boys do (perhaps, on average, MORE than the boys), but their approach is quite different.
Girls tend to draw “maps” of their imaginary places that are in the perspective or “birds-eye” style (google). Boys tend to draw “maps” that are more diagrammatic (google). The same is true with designing imaginary buildings. Girls will draw “cut-away” (dollhouse) views, while boys will draw floor plans. This is even true despite how I cue the exercise - i.e., sometimes I have started by presenting an example drawn in perspective, other times I present an example diagrammatically - and still, the girls predominantly develop a perspective approach while the boys gravitate to a diagrammatic approach.
The prototypical modern mapping style, as encapsulated in everything from school textbook maps to google maps to OSM and OGF, is strongly diagrammatic in its bias. This probably discourages girls interested in geofiction from pursuing it as a hobby using a tool such as OGF. They are more likely to move into it via the study of art or illustration.
I would note that many of the most famous “fantasy maps” (such as found in the front or back of fantasy genre books) are by women. These maps also tend to be more like perspective illustrations rather than a conventional “map” style. It is also interesting to realize that our modern “diagrammatic style” is quite recent, historically. Pre-modern maps from all cultures are almost always in the perspective style.
Comment from Demuth on 23 February 2016 at 07:42
Very interesting observations, Luciano. And you even did your own tests!
To be honest, I brought this up because it is a question that’s asked at my work quite a bit - how to promote women in tech - something we try to solve in various ways. And it made me think of OGF, where it’s pretty obvious we are nearly all men (I would guess 95 or probably more percent). For me, the biggest issue is making sure women feel that they are welcome and in fact, like they belong.
I’m not sure there’s more we could do and to be honest, I don’t know what makes women feel welcome in a place like this. I think we’re definitely reasonably good at the basics: I haven’t noticed a single sexist comment. And I really should make an actual count, but just off the top of my head, there seem to be quite a number of heads of government who are women. And a quick and dirty tally of biographies on the wiki puts it at 29 women, 51 men and 12 indeterminate. It’s uneven but considering we’re all men here, better than might be expected. We even have a mixed football league as well as a women’s football league, although like in the real world, the focus is still pretty heavy on the men ;-)
Anyway, I’m going to ask a friend of mine, who was interested in OGF but despite my encouragement seems not to have joined, what her thoughts are - was there a reason she didn’t join, are there things that we could easily do that would make it more welcoming to women? And don’t be scared, I’m not suggesting major changes…
And of course, I don’t want to put anyone on the spot, but any women in OGF, it would be great to hear from you on this - feel free to send me a private message!
Comment from histor on 23 February 2016 at 08:00
Indeed it may be, that man or woman have different private interest. But they can work together. In a cat-forum here in Germany 93% are woman, but if you have a cat, you can joint there as man without problems. Or wikipedia - here are more woman (25 % ?). But indeed mapping - I think - are a male domaine to 90 % or more. My wife can read maps - but has no patience to draw greater maps as her garden.
Comment from tparigo on 23 February 2016 at 10:13
I had the same thought a few weeks ago about women in OGF…
I think it is quite strange as the majority of urban planners are now women (in France at least)
Comment from isleño on 23 February 2016 at 22:03
I agree that more women participating would enrich our world and our community.
Judging by Luciano’s anecdotes, maybe rolling out perspective view would be a good step, haha. Wouldn’t it be awesome to add little SketchUp buildings like in Google Earth?
In addition to Demuth, the admin team is also open to private messages on the topic of women in OGF. If there’s anything we can do better in this area, we’d love to hear about it.
Comment from Rasmus Rasmusson on 25 February 2016 at 18:31
In the Dutch Geofiction Association (Genootschap voor Geofictie) the majority of members since its foundation in 1984 have been men; although there have been a few female members over the years, I’d say never more than 5%…
Comment from bhj867 on 26 February 2016 at 00:37
I am a gay man, does that count? 😂
Comment from Demuth on 26 February 2016 at 07:11
Not, bhj867 😉 I am too. We may be gay but we both seem to like the diagrammatic (see Luciano’s comment above). Boys will be boys. And clearly we’re not adding anything else that might make OGF a place where women feel like hanging out.
Comment from Luciano on 27 February 2016 at 03:48
I think we can broaden the appeal of OGF to the less “diagrammatic” demographic, to the extent the wiki evolves into a fully-conceived and integral part of our geofictions, with alternate views, descriptions, historical maps, etc.
I also want to clarify one thing about my earlier point: I don’t believe these differences of approach (diagrammatic vs perspective, boys vs girls) are biologically innate. To my mind, anyway, these differences arise as cultural constructs… if rather deeply-seated ones. That’s what I meant by my final point in the earlier post: in pre-modern cultures, the “diagrammatic” approach was almost non-existent, regardless of gender. Hence there is not just a gender imbalance on OGF, but a distinctly Western European bias, too (although that is probably also for linguistic reasons, i.e. the English interface).
I think other cultures value “diagrammatic” (map-based) thinking differently. Thus on the one hand, to my perception and experience cartographic literacy in Korea is actually HIGHER than in western countries, yet on average, “interest” in maps, especially among adults, is lower. How this works, I’m not sure - people seem to be socialized into understanding maps as strictly tools to be used, not as objects that are created or enjoyed. Wall maps are everywhere but stunningly dull and utilitarian.
Comment from Demuth on 29 February 2016 at 08:54
Indeed, Luciano. It reminds me of an old friend who was a an ethologist, an animal behavior researcher. It used to make her crazy that people tended to extrapolate biological-based behavior in humans based on animal behavior. Her point was that you can’t leave out acculturation, which you are doing if you try to explain human behavior based on how animals behave. Which is all to say, it’s not nature vs nurture, it’s pretty much always some kind of combination of the two.