Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/Women's sport
Draft post edit
I often get asked why I write about women's sport and disability sport on Wikipedia. What is in it for me? Why women's sport and disability? How does this work benefit Wikipedia? Why should sport organisations care about Wikipedia enough to give us media access?
Fundamentally, as a sport fan, I love both women's sport and disability sport because it is exciting, entertaining and competitive. The competitors I have met are nice and appreciate work I do to assist in letting more people know about them. As a woman, I write about both because women's access to sport has all sort of historical and cultural ties to other aspects of women's lives and their personal well being. The same is also true for people with disabilities. Sport is a health issue: The more women and people disabilities are involved, the healthier they are. Sport is a leadership issue: Women have historically had opportunities for leadership in a sports context that they have not had elsewhere, with many women using their experiences outside of sport. Sport is a human rights issue: Corrective rape as a problem for society to address became much more visible following the" rape of a woman on the South African women's football team. Sport is an equality issue: It highlights inequalities found elsewhere in society, including issues like women receiving less pay and media coverage for similar work done by men.
Yes, on the very high level, the sport organisations running the show make lots of money, but they provide a lot of support to those things: They hire knowledge and culture curators known as sport librarians to share knowledge at publicly accessible, university affiliated libraries in places like Fiji, Asia and in Africa. They spend money developing wheelchairs and prosthesis, which in turn makes advance technology more available to everyone who needs it, including non-sporting people with disabilities. They invest in programs for women, giving them leadership opportunities that often are not available elsewhere in societies in places like Oceania, Asia and Africa.
Getting these sport organisations like the International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee, FIFA, the International Cricket Council, the PGA and FINA on board and supporting the Movement means large amounts of cultural and historical knowledge and capital can be brought to Wikipedia. The Wikipedia community benefits having better pictures and better access to sources for article content. The Wikimedia community also benefits by providing opportunities for contributors to do really cool things like going to the Paralympics, Olympics and other major sporting events. Wikimedia's reputation benefits because sport journalism places high value on these relationships as it demonstrates trust inside that community. The sport organisations benefit by having a trusted resource for the wider community to use to get information, with recognition that Wikipedia is used by everyone in terms of how they think about a topic. Everyone can win if we work together.
And there is the side benefit that we can draw additional attention to important issues in society that need more attention like disability women's health, human rights, equality and leadership by providing opportunities and improving content.