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26 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 381 (2015-2016)
Gender Biases in Cyberspace: A Two-Stage Model, the New Arena of Wikipedia and Other Websites

handle is hein.journals/frdipm26 and id is 397 raw text is: Gender Biases in Cyberspace: A Two-Stage Model, the New Arena of Wikipedia and Other Websites Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid & Amy Mittelman* Increasingly, there has been a focus on creating democratic stan- dards and norms in order to best facilitate open exchange of information and communication online-a goal that fits neatly within the feminist aim to democratize content creation and community. Collaborative web- sites, such as blogs, social networks, and, as focused on in this Article, Wikipedia, represent both a cyberspace community entirely outside the strictures of the traditional (intellectual) proprietary paradigm and one that professes to truly embody the philosophy of a completely open, free, and democratic resource for all. In theory, collaborative websites are the solution for which social activists, intellectual property opponents, and feminist theorists have been waiting. Unfortunately, we are now realiz- ing that this utopian dream does not exist as anticipated: the Internet is neither neutral nor open to everyone. More importantly, these websites are not egalitarian; rather, they facilitate new ways to exclude and sub- ordinate women. This Article innovatively argues that the virtual world excludes women in two stages:first, by controlling websites and filtering out wom- en; and second, by exposing women who survived the first stage to a hos- tile environment. Wikipedia, as well as other cyberspace environments, demonstrates the execution of the model, which results in the exclusion of women from the virtual sphere with all the implications thereof IN TRO D U CTIO N ....................................................................... 382 I. THE PROMISE OF AN EGALITARIAN INTERNET: NEUTRAL, ACCESSIBLE, AND OPEN TO ALL ....... 384 A. Utopian Qualities of the Virtual Space ..................... 384 B. Copyleft Arguments for an Open and Free