Women of the Internet, start your editing engines. If it’s one thing we’ve learned recently from go-to Web info source Wikipedia, it’s that what the user-edited encyclopedia could use more of is you.

Researcher Santiago Oritz has developed Wikipedia Gender, “an interactive visualization that shows which articles have more male or female editors”. The graph matrix runs the spectrum of user ratio against female-to-male, with scrollover dots and a color key that help identify specific subjects. Two things immediately become clear: First, that the number of male editors far outweighs female editors (as reported by the New York Times earlier this year, women make up just 13% of total contributors). Two, that, apparently, the only subjects where the ratio almost levels out are on drastically female-body-oriented subjects like menstruation, or, for reasons that could perhaps merit their own article, gender identity. In fact, of the 3,000 articles analyzed by Ortiz, the only article that has a female majority is the one for the Cloth Menstrual Pad. Understandable, but….yikes.

Erika Ebbel Angle, host of the live science show “The Dr. Erika Show”, has two costume elements that should tell you everything you need to know; a lab coat, and her Miss Massachusetts tiara. The tiara in particular is a big hit with the studio audience of kids, most of them girls. Ebbel Angle, who is an MIT graduate with a Ph. D. in biochemistry, says the crown-and-labcoat pairing is meant to subvert what she feels is a stereotype about female scientists, and their presumed slovenly appearance. She wants to prove beauty and brains are possible for scientific women, and makes sure that the kids are getting the message.

But swinging too far to an emphasis on beauty is its own extreme stereotype, and Ebbel Angle’s show is seen by some as a case of protesting too much. If popular entertainment for the age group can be taken as a reasonable sample of our cultural mores, the show is speaking that language, and using it to make science more inviting. The “Princess Scientist” concept is tailored to its target audience of young girls, many of whom could be drawn to consider an area they had not otherwise. At the same time, it re-enforces an ideal of the smart, career-oriented woman who should also maintain a perfect physical appearance. It seems like, either way, there’s no winning. The real question becomes whether it is more important to appeal to impressionable would-be female scientists or enthusiasts, or to examine why this spectrum exists, and what can be done to change the perception of choices for the way women represent themselves.

It all started with She-Ra. I was strolling through Target and I saw The Princess of Power on DVD. I thought my daughter might get a kick out of the ’80s cartoon I grew up on. So I grabbed the story of He-Man’s twin sister and introduced my daughter to a whole world of girls who save the day and fight the forces of evil.

So began my four-year-old daughter Brenna‘s love affair with superheroes and my education about a whole world of storylines and characters that I would soon become intimately familiar with.

We moved on to Justice League cartoons and movies, some of which seemed a little too adult for my pre-schooler. But she just wanted a show with as many girls as possible. Sure, she loved The Flash and Martian Manhunter, but she needed more Hawk Girls. Younger shows, like the Super Hero Squad, were exciting but left her a little frustrated.

If ever there were a story meant for us, this is it. Graphic artist and photographer Mark Rodriguez has twin daughters. Those two girls like very different things. That’s ok by him, he created a room for them that gave them the best of both worlds. Check it out! 

Apparently, Google thinks we’re men. Their ads preferences page was recently brought to my attention. It breaks down your internet searches by categories and then infers your age and gender based on what you’ve looked at. And according to them, all of us here at The Mary Sue are 25-34 year old men. At first it seemed like perhaps “male” was just the default for those who didn’t have their google internet history turned on and as ridiculous as that would be, all Susana (results above), Jamie and myself all had our history set to on, which means these assumptions where made on our internet usage. It makes me consider what DC Comics Demon Knights writer Paul Cornell tweeted earlier, “Do you think that Google may not have considered the tastes of geek girls?”

Over on the Together For Jackson County Kids blog on Tumblr, one Wisconsin teacher is making an effort to tear down gender stereotyping of children by telling them “It’s okay to be neither.” Melissa Bollow Tempel writes her story about the kids she’s taught and how she goes out of her way to make them feel accepted no matter how they look, even if they’re a girl who wears hoodies from the boys’ department.