(x) EXCLUSION---expansion of copyright law stymies feminist creativity, and is a patriarchal drive to control women’s authorship. Only the alt’s feminist analysis can solve.
William Michael Schuster 21, assistant professor at the University of Georgia Terry College of Business with a courtesy appointment at the University of Georgia School of Law, Miriam Marcowitz-Bitton, Professor of Law at Bar-Ilan University, Deborah R. Gerhardt, University of North Carolina School of Law, 2021, “An Empirical Study of Gender and Race in Trademark Prosecution,” University of North Carolina School of Law, (94) pp. #-#, https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1564&context=faculty_publications, eb
With regard to gender, Brauneis and Oliar found that two-thirds of registered authors were male but that this gender gap differs across types of works. 93 Female authors also increased their representation over time.94 Still, the proportion of registered female authors remained at less than the proportion of women in the labor force.95 The fields least dominated by male authors were art and text, while the fields most dominated by men were movies and software.96 The degree to which female authors were increasing in representation varied by type of work97 and was driven mainly by textual works.98
A number of scholars analyze the intersection of copyright law and gender from a feminist perspective, and some conclude that the doctrines and the institutions that apply it have done so in a way that undermines women’s creativity. Professor Shelley Wright conducted an early feminist analysis of copyright law, focusing on two genres that were denigrated despite—or perhaps because of—significant contributions from women: the English novel and needlework.99 She concludes that creative women have been marginalized by ideologies surrounding the artistic process such that women authors and artists are not recognized as creators of “art” but rather of “crafts” and “domestic arts” below the minimum threshold for legal protection.100 Copyright law’s economic and moral rights, by contrast, are more individualistic and patriarchal, such that protected categories of art become “masculinized.”101
Other legal scholars suggest that copyright tends to exclude female forms of creativity and knowledge.102 Copyright laws thus have an impact upon whether women are treated equally to men in copyright-related contexts.103 Copyright doctrine’s focus on individual author control over works may also interfere with feminist use of collaborative authorship or relational structures104 rather than ensuring dynamic audience participation in the creative process.105 Similarly, copyright law provides lesser protections for derivative works, such as fan fiction and art, that are often produced by and for women.106