Celebrating Women’s Contributions: The Feminism and Folklore Movement on Wikipedia

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Women play crucial roles in folklore professions, often serving as storytellers, custodians of oral traditions, and keepers of cultural knowledge. Their contributions are integral to preserving and transmitting folklore across generations. Creating biographies of these women on Wikipedia not only recognizes their invaluable work but also helps combat the gender gap in historical and cultural representation.

The mere 19% representation of women in all Wikipedia biographies highlights the critical need to prioritize and maintain the inclusion of women’s biographies on the platform.

This is just one of the numerous achievements the Feminism and Folklore campaigns have accomplished with distinction. By documenting the lives and achievements of the notable women in folklore professions, this Wikipedia campaign brings their stories to the world, ensuring they are not overlooked or forgotten, inspiring future generations and fostering a more inclusive understanding of folklore and cultural heritage.

Feminism and Folklore is an annual international writing contest held on Wikipedia, running from February to March, dedicated to documenting folk cultures and the roles of women within them. Stemming from the Wiki Loves Folklore photography campaign on Wikimedia Commons, the competition aims to enrich Wikipedia with articles on global cultural diversity while addressing the gender gap. This year’s focus emphasizes collaborations with affiliates worldwide to spotlight folk culture and advance gender equality.

Since 2019, the contest has fostered multilingual cooperation with numerous Wikimedia affiliates and non-profit organizations, feminist groups, cultural organizations to encourage contributions by local communities. Participants are encouraged to select topics related to the theme, but also to promote intercultural dialogue, mutual respect, and knowledge sharing on feminism thereby enriching users’ understanding of diverse ways of life. This year over 42 language groups coordinated by local affiliate organizations, nonprofits and Wikipedia editions have been organized from over 38 languages and 26 countries.

We’re launching a new initiative as part of the series, called #WeTogether. This initiative aims to spotlight the dedicated individuals, who have tirelessly contributed thousands of volunteer hours to document the celebration of women in folklore and folk culture on Wikipedia. Over six years, countless people have worked behind the scenes, resulting in thousands of articles for Feminism and Folklore. They include organizers of local language editions across various Wikipedias, ambassadors championing our cause in different regions, and an international team working tirelessly to ensure the success of our campaign.

If you wish to join the Feminism and Folklore project, please join via the one of the editions through the local pages of one of these project pages on our official contest page. For media queries or any general queries related to our campaign, please email support@wikilovesfolklore.org.