Some background on the gender gap It was apparent many years ago that the majority of editors are male A number of questions immediately sprang to mind How many are of which gender What is the cause What effect does it have The research on even the first question was slow in coming and not great when it arrived An initial survey gave the 9 female so often quoted Systemic flaws meant that was probably nearer 16 Subsequently the age has risen perhaps because the Internet in the Western world at least has a much more even gender balance of users than 5 years ago The cause has been suggested to be many things including Because women don t like confrontation Because men are rude to women Because it s a man s environment innately hostile to women locker room theory Because women don t have time to edit Because it s technical and several more The above have all been debunked to some extent The only research I am aware of that provides a partial answer suggests that it is related to confidence The big unanswered question is Is it something men like doing more than women We needn t bother ourselves as to whether that is nature or nurture but if women are more disinclined to volunteer for encyclopaedia writing per se and lets face it almost all men are disinclined too then we have another potential cause As to the effect there is certain research that indicates that subjects of interest to women are less thoroughly covered than subjects of interest to men This research has systemic issues though Secondly there are some issues about the way that female biographies are presented and linked it is by no means clear that this is as a result of the gender gap indeed closing the gender gap might exacerbate it Thirdly there appear to be more missing female biographies at the level that get one or two views a day Again while editathons focussed on adding female biographies can address this in a very small way it is not clear that closing the ratio between genders of editors will HTH All the best