International Women's Day: Through the eyes of Wikimedia Foundation's Masana Mulaudzi

The walk to women freedom and liberation from the male-dominated society began several years ago, thanks to Clara Zetkin of Germany and the likes of Wangari Maathai of Kenya among other great women whose contributions are embraced and respected today.

On March 8, 2024, the world marked the 113th International Women's Day to celebrate and push further the women liberation agenda, especially in the countries where women are still voiceless and regarded as “properties and objects.”

To observe the 2024 International Women’s Day (IWD,) Citizen Digital interacted with one Masana Mulaudzi, who is among the Top 100 Global Women of Inspiration.

The economic analyst and civil society actor has over 15 years’ experience working on violence prevention, social cohesion, economic justice, feminist and social movements in Africa, South America and the Middle East.

Currently, Masana also works at the Wikimedia Foundation, where she is the Senior Manager for Campaign Programs and supports organizers working to advance knowledge equity, with a primary focus on gender equity, across the globe.

In 2021, she was recognized as one of the Top 100 Women in Gender Policy globally for her work on feminist movements and leadership.

According to Masana, there's an imbalance in the information available about or by women on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, hence the announcement to dub the month of March as ‘Women’s History Month’ by the Wikimedia Foundation.  The campaign has been christened ‘Wikipedia Needs More Women.’

“We invite everyone to join initiatives worldwide to bridge knowledge gaps on Wikipedia and beyond,” she emphasized.

But why does addressing the gender gap on Wikipedia matter so much? Masana says Wikipedia's influence extends to many Large Language Models in use today, and that It's a primary source of training data, making it crucial for it to reflect the entirety of human knowledge.

It emerged that, despite being half of the world's population, women constitute only 19% of content on Wikimedia projects, and just 13% of Wikipedia editors identify as women.

In Kenya, only 30% of biographies on Wikipedia about notable personalities are about women.

"It is inspiring to see the progress made across the African continent to improve gender equity on Wikipedia and beyond," stated Masana.

"As one of the world's top resources for information, it's critical for Wikipedia to represent the full, rich diversity of all humanity. When more people from Africa contribute to Wikipedia, we move closer to achieving this vision."

Other feminists have also amplified their voices, emphasizing on having a gender equal world; a world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world which is diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated to inspire inclusion.

The first International Women's Day was commemorated in 1911, thanks to German activist and socialist Clara Zetkin whose spirit lives on over a century later.

The women event was observed on March 19, 1911 in various European countries, with rallies and events calling for women’s right to vote and an end to gender discriminations.

Since 1914, March 8 has been the fixed date for International Women’s Day; it was moved to make it in line with Russian women who celebrated the day on February 23 on the Gregorian calendar.

The International Women’s Day was officially recognized by the United Nations in 1975.