On March 8, 2025, coinciding with International Women’s Day, the Wikimedia Perempuan community, known as WikiPerempuan, was officially launched in Indonesia. This community was established as a safe and inclusive space for women who want to contribute to the Wikimedia ecosystem. WikiPerempuan aims to increase women’s participation in Wikimedia, expand content about women, and encourage more women to actively engage in the community.
Despite ongoing efforts, gender disparity in Wikipedia remains a global challenge. Only 9% of Wikipedia editors are women, while 84%–91% are men. Women’s representation in articles is also significantly limited. In English Wikipedia, only 17.7% of biographies feature women, while in Indonesian Wikipedia, the figure is just 21.2%—still far from achieving equality. A major factor contributing to this gap is the difficulty in meeting Wikipedia’s notability criteria, particularly for women in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine) due to a lack of media coverage. Additionally, the limited availability of freely licensed images further restricts women’s representation on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.
Several global initiatives have been launched to address gender bias in Wikipedia. Women in Red has successfully increased the percentage of women’s biographies from 15% to 17.7% since 2014. The 500 Women Scientists initiative has organized 30+ edit-a-thons, editing over 3,000 articles, with a total of 80 million views. Individual contributors such as Emily Temple-Wood and Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight have also played a crucial role in improving women’s representation in Wikipedia.
As an initial step, WikiPerempuan launched Project Gayatri, featuring WikiLatih Wikipedia (Online) and the Wikipedia Edit-a-thon Competition in Indonesian. Proposed by Wikimedia Indonesia, the project is supported by its Education Team and involves women volunteers from the Wikimedia Banjar and Medan Communities. Although still in its soft-launch phase, WikiPerempuan has gained over 157 followers on social media within its first month, demonstrating strong enthusiasm for this initiative. Moving forward, WikiPerempuan aspires to become a recognized community within Wikimedia Indonesia, ensuring that more women feel supported and encouraged to contribute to Wikimedia.
WikiPerempuan invites all women to join and contribute to building a more inclusive Wikipedia. By participating in edit-a-thons, promoting women’s achievements, and uploading freely licensed images to Wikimedia Commons, the community is working towards reducing gender bias in the digital world. Stay connected through WikiPerempuan’s social media accounts on Instagram and X (Twitter)—together, let’s create a more equitable and inclusive space for women in Wikimedia!
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