Monitoring the gender gap in the coverage of biology professors on Wikipedia

Women are under-represented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, especially in senior positions. One known reason is the limited visibility of female scientists, which discourages young women from entering STEM fields, thus perpetuating the gender gap. A number of studies have shown that women, including those in academia, are less likely to have a Wikipedia biography than their male counterparts, and that, when they have a biography, it tends to be underdeveloped. Since Wikipedia informs a large portion of society on a daily basis-especially young people-who is covered on the platform, and who is excluded from it, matters. Therefore, a number of projects have been created to increase women's coverage on Wikipedia. Using a recently generated census of 2104 female and 3721 male tenured and tenure-eligible faculty members affiliated with the biology departments of all United States R1 universities, we examined the extent to which biology faculty are covered on Wikipedia. Women in the census were significantly less likely to be featured on the platform than their male peers until 2018. However, the trend reversed in 2022, and women were 25% more likely than men to have a Wikipedia biography in 2024. In addition, women's biographies tend to be longer than those of men. Our results highlight the importance and effectiveness of projects aimed at improving women's coverage on Wikipedia.