Birth of Rosie Gojich Stephenson-Goodknight in Gary, Indiana; later known as Rosiestep, she became a major figure in efforts to close Wikipedia’s gender gap.
December 5, 1953 marks the birth of Rosie Gojich Stephenson-Goodknight, later known on Wikipedia as Rosiestep. She was born in Gary, Indiana, in the United States, and would go on to become one of the most visible volunteers working to address the encyclopedia’s gender gap.
Her birth belongs in the history of digital activism because it precedes a career that helped shift the culture of collaborative knowledge production. Stephenson-Goodknight became known for building and sustaining biographies of women and for organizing editors to improve coverage of women’s lives and contributions. In an online environment long criticized for reflecting older patterns of exclusion, her work became part of a broader movement to make public knowledge more representative.
The significance of her life is not tied to a single institutional role, but to the sustained accumulation of editorial labor, community leadership, and advocacy for women’s visibility. Her later achievements—including co-founding Women in Red and receiving major Wikimedia recognition—would make her one of the most cited figures in the movement to close Wikipedia’s content gender gap.
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