Emily Temple-Wood is an accomplished college student and aspiring biologist, an EMS volunteer, a research assistant and a Wikipedia contributor. Shes also a woman. Because of her gender, Temple-Wood said shes been subject to a constant bombardment of harassment. Online trolls frequently contact her soliciting dates and sexual favors. They condescendingly discuss her body, and insult her with profanities and sexist comments. Instead of ignoring the misogyny or engaging the trolls,the 21-year-old molecular biology student at Loyola University decided to turn the negativity into an opportunity for empowerment. For every harassing email she receives, Temple-Wood has vowed to write a Wikipedia article about a woman scientist. Back in 2012, Temple-Wood co-founded WikiProject Women Scientists, an initiative dedicated to ensuring that women in science were adequately represented on Wikipedia.A 2013 profile of Temple-Wood described the beginnings of that project: Despite her academic commitments, Temple-Wood has made it her mission to ensure that female scientists get their due recognition on Wikipedia. She co-founded the WikiProject Women Scientists last November after coming across WikiProject Womens History-Ada Lovelace Day 2012, which exposed a significant gender bias across Wikipedias science domain. A substantial number of female fellows belonging to the prestigious Royal Society, a sort of whos who in the world of science, had no Wikipedia articles written about them. I got pissed and wrote an article that night, Temple-Wood said. I literally sat in the hallway in the dorm until 2am writing the first women in science (Wikipedia) article. Temple-Wood's WikiProject was a huge success. According to a Wikimedia blog post this week, the initiative helpedmore than 370 women scientistsappear on Wikipedias front page Did you know' section. Siko Bouterse, a former Wikimedia Foundation staff member, said Temple-Woods impact on the online encyclopedia's gender gap has been epic. Shes created hundreds of articles about women scientists, including articles that address multiple gaps in Wikipedia -- its really important that shes not just writing about white women scientists, shes also working to address underrepresentation of women of color in Wikipedia and looking at other points of intersectionality as well. And perhaps most importantly, because were much stronger collectively than alone, Emily has taught and inspired others to do the same, said Bouterse on the blog. Temple-Wood, who will be heading to medical school in the fall, has thank[ed] her harassers for helping to fight against systemic bias on Wikipedia. Due to their horrible emails, she already has a backlog of articles to work on. Other Wikipedians are reportedly following in her footsteps, using this sort ofpositive punishment to fight inequality. When I was a kid, I could count the number of women scientists I was aware of on one hand. But I know our daughters are going to have access to so much more free knowledge about scientists who look like them, thanks to Emilys efforts, and thats really powerful, said Bouterse. Loyola University's Study Buddy blog created a video detailing Temple-Wood's many achievements. Watch it here: H/T: Jezebel -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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