Profs contribute to first gender encyclopedia

In 2003, the reference director of one of the top reference publishers in the world approached professor Jodi O'Brien about editing the first ever encyclopedia of gender and society. Her response was, "No. You're nuts."

The leaders at Sage Publications negotiated over the course of half a year about whether such a daunting task could be accomplished, until Sage finally convinced O'Brien to take it on.

After five years of hard work, the celebration for the final product took place on campus last Wednesday. In addition to O'Brien, 18 other faculty members contributed their work to the encyclopedia.

The encyclopedia is a comprehensive, two-volume edition covering the major theories, research, people and issues in contemporary gender studies. It is distinguished by a cross-national/cross-cultural perspective that provides comparative analyses of the life experiences of men and women around the world.

"Now that we've done it, I definitely think it's a good idea, especially in the way that it brings scholars together from around the world," O'Brien said.

The idea behind the encyclopedia is to familiarize people with how gender shapes our society and culture in ways often taken for granted. It covers topics from Barbie to global agrarian development to cancer.

One entry tells the story of how the creators of Barbie agreed to pay an extra three cents per Ken doll in order to include the gender-identifying hump.

Another article describes how American micro-lenders are more inclined to give money to men in developing countries, despite the fact that in some areas women have been in charge of farming for years.

The creation of the encyclopedia was difficult on many levels. Not only is the field of gender studies vast, it is constantly changing. The encyclopedia had to be current enough to be relevant but standardized enough to be enduring.

While many students are in the habit of turning to online sources to find current information, O'Brien said these sources cannot offer the same promise of accuracy.

"Encyclopedias legitimate knowledge. That's what's kind of scary about creating one," O'Brien said. "Sources like Wikipedia and Google are great. It's great that we have that instant access, but the bottom line is that there is no substitute for carefully gathered knowledge written by people who are experts in the area and edited by several people."

Not only is all of the information more authoritative than online sources, it is compiled and organized by experts.

"Just looking at the list of topics itself tells you what some of the significant contemporary topics are," O'Brien said. "With things like Google or Wikipedia, it's like going into a library in which all the books are just laying on the floor, you know, nothing's categorized."

The convenience of Internet can compel students to ignore treasure troves of information. While encyclopedias might require a little more walking, they could save time in the end by side-stepping the need to filter fact from fiction, current from obsolete.

"There's this notion that things like books and encyclopedias are dead, but in fact I think they are more important than ever now, because we need a way to cross-check [sources like Wikipedia]," O'Brien said. "I think it's important to remember that these sources are there, and maybe it's worth making the trip to the library."