Wikipedia biographies favor men

Wikipedia biographies favor men was a news article published by Examiner.com on January 12, 2011, written by Gregory Kohs.

Methodology

A few notes on the methodology of the biographical gender research:

• MZMcBride pulled a randomized selection of 500 Wikipedia biographies of living persons (BLPs) for Kohs, at his request. McBride used the following code:

SELECT

page_title

FROM page

JOIN categorylinks

ON cl_from = page_id

WHERE cl_to = 'Living_people'

AND page_is_redirect = 0

AND page_namespace = 0

AND page_random > RAND()

ORDER BY page_random

LIMIT 500;

• Kohs then took the first 200 names from the list and pasted them into a spreadsheet. He then marked with an "M" or an "F" all of the unambiguous names that easily identify to a gender -- e.g., "Mike" and "Mohamed" are male, "Carolyn" and "Edith" are female. He left blank all of those that could have any reasonable level of ambiguity... and he was conservative -- he left blank names like "Sandy" and "Casey". Many non-Western names, he had no idea and thus left blank ("Suriya" and "Nyjer", for example).

• Then, Kohs manually looked up on Wikipedia each of the blank entries. All but one were fairly easy to identify their gender -- Kohs noted that the majority (or the near majority) either played rugby or soccer, or were an Olympic athlete.

Studies like these are stuff that any of the 50+ staff members of the Wikimedia Foundation should be turning out on a daily basis, but Kohs does them for free.

Data set

Here is the list of 200 names:

Renee_Sands F

Otis_Hudson M

Mamuka_Gorgodze M

Fikre_Selassie_Wogderess M

Douglas_Rae_(businessman) M

Erik_Ellington M

Martin_Bryant M

Edgar_J._Malepeai M

Robert_Gavron,_Baron_Gavron M

Shirley_D._Bowler F

Steve_Bryles M

Mike_Garcia_(NL_pitcher) M

Kyle_Freadrich M

Venod_Sharma M

Steven_Hill_(model) M

Dagmara_Dominczyk F

Thomas_Gill_(footballer) M

George_Phang M

József_Tabaka M

Clara_Morgane F

Warren_Spannaus M

General_Khodaidad M

Hans-Jürgen_Ripp M

Pete_Smith_(announcer) M

Brett_Hauer M

Albertino_Essers M

Kerry_Brothers,_Jr. M

Georgi_Petrov_(footballer_born_1974) M

António_Soares_Carneiro M

Jonílson_Clovis_Nascimento_Breves M

Nikola_Đuričko M

Rasmus_Fleischer M

Larry_Playfair M

Crispian_Mills M

Guy_Mariano M

Teruhisa_Moriyama M

Jihad_Azour M

Claire_Gibault F

Martha_Wash F

Fay_Kleinman F

Greg_Gall M

Francesco_Lorenzon M

Christopher_Hall_(sculptor) M

Juan_Toya M

Wilfried_Van_Moer M

Michael_Saward M

Yahiya_Doumbia M

William_B._Rudman M

George_Wuerch M

Brian_Orser M

Wellington_Sandoval M

George_Moose M

Ana_Kokkinos F

Christian_Fortune M

Travis_Smith_(artist) M

Dax_Riggs M

Julian_Burnside M

Boss_Bailey M

Aharon_Megged M

John_Sinisa M

Irvine_Arditti M

Jim_Kacian M

Mona-Jeanette_Berntsen F

Adrian_Falub M

Martín_Lasarte M

Casey_Fossum M

Struther_Arnott M

Finn_Jebsen M

Edith_Hunkeler F

Clive_Baker M

Ed_Annunziata M

John_McLaughlin_(musician) M

Pervin_Shroff F

Masako_Jō F

Calvin_Jones_(baseball) M

Mike_Saenz M

Sarah_Jaffe F

Alexander_Bachmanov M

Guy_Allison M

Ababu_Namwamba M

Luke_Arscott M

Konstantinos_Thanos M

Monica_Mæland F

Dave_Faulkner_(musician) M

Khalil_Ibrahim_Al-Zayani M

David_Ackert M

František_Dřížďal M

Ronald_L._Ellis M

Janet-Laine_Green F

Megumi_Sato_(athlete) F

Gakuya_Horii M

Camilla_Henemark F

Kyle_Snyder M

Arsen_Fadzayev M

Carolyn_Waldo F

Joan_Lippincott F

Mohamed_Refaie M

Sultan_Hashim_Ahmad_al-Tai M

Lucía_Etxebarría F

Luke_Williams_(wrestler) M

Patricia_Gaffney F

Abdul_Rahman_Al-Athel M

Kwon_Tae-Man M

Mark_Trombino M

Kiyomi_Niwata F

Slavko_Lukić M

Azar_Karadas M

Amanda_Schull F

Adele_Scheele F

Christian_Giantomassi M

Evangelista_Santos M

Bobby_Hutcherson M

Sandy_Collins_(tennis) F

Steve_Witiuk M

Janusz_Waluś M

Lati_Grobman F

Bob_Atha M

Fredrik_Larsson M

Mike_McCall M

Eugenio_Colombo M

Renos_Doweiya M

Conor_Gill M

Stefan_Uteß M

Theodore_Long M

Tony_Howorth M

Abel_Masuero M

Anísio_Abraão_David M

Cedric_Payne M

Pierre_Aubé M

Johnny_Chester M

Martijn_van_der_Laan M

Dick_Dreissigacker M

Sudsy_Monchik M

Pran M

Sandra_A._Gregory F

Enkel_Dauti M

Jerry_Kenneth_"Ken"_Swilling M

David_Southwick M

Suriya_Bala_Kerisnan_Thevar M

Norman_N._Li M

Bryan_Wenzel M

Danny_Manning M

Kay_Tse F

Brad_Fraser M

Peter_Tomasi M

Laurie_Levenson F

Joe_Labero M

Alexander_Korolyuk M

Drew_Anderson_(outfielder) M

Robert_"Mack"_McCormick M

Junie_Donlavey M

Silvan_Zurbriggen M

François_Cluzet M

Joe_Henderson_(runner) M

Mike_Symon M

Tomás_Teresen M

Patrick_Côté_(fighter) M

Plumb_(singer) F

Monica_Roşu F

Sam_Daly M

Mark_L._Polansky M

Frederick_Sumaye M

Steve_Rizzono M

Roy_Frumkes M

Charles_M._Blow M

Margaret_Rudin F

Matthieu_Bochu M

Peter_Iwei M

Adam_Greenberg_(baseball) M

Marvin_Frederick M

Natalie_Spilger F

Maurice_Dalé M

Sachiko_Chijimatsu F

Ko_Gi-Hyun F

Peter_Howitt M

Ivan_Stojmenovic M

Mark_Shulman M

Karloff_Lagarde,_Jr. M

Vasilie_Simiocenco M

Jill_Colucci F

Glen_Osborne M

Ingrid_Hadler F

Andrei_Khodykin M

Danilo_Tomić M

Kevin_James_(actor) M

Domingo_Liotta M

Jesús_Pérez_(boxer) M

Craig_Krampf M

José_Varacka M

Gregg_Bingham M

Nyjer_Morgan M

Jérémy_Denquin M

Alan_Milburn M

Farhad_Reza M

Cameron_Donald M

Paddy_Carr M

Bud_Day M

Richard_Aylard M

Tara_Buck F

Eric_Mackenzie_(Australian_rules_footballer) M