Copyright is not gender biased

A few weeks ago I put my foot tenderly into the minefield of feminism, arguing in a blog “What Does Feminism have to with Copyright in Canada”, that statements made by Carys Craig, a law professor at York University to the effect that robust copyright protections were anti-feminist were off base. My argument was that copyright laws, unlike law in some other areas, is gender-blind and in fact copyright has been an important factor in strengthening protection and welfare for all creators, both male and female. To ensure my message got out, I tweeted it as well as posting it on my blog.

Perhaps not surprisingly this set off a twitter-storm of comment from several prominent feminists. Dr. Craig took me to task for “explaining” (she didn’t say “mansplaining” but that is the way I read it) to her “and others on the ‘feminist policy bandwagon’ that copyright is ‘totally gender blind’, so not an area of bias and discrimination; and (that) barriers to education, tech change and creativity are not feminist issues”. Indeed I did claim (does arguing a position amount to “explaining”?) that copyright is gender blind and thus should not be a target of feminists, but I did not say that education, tech change and creativity are not feminist issues. Of course they are. It’s just that these issues should not be conflated with copyright. As for the “feminist policy bandwagon”, what I actually said was that the Trudeau government had such a bandwagon that Dr. Craig and other anti-copyright activists were attempting to climb aboard

My post provoked some other interesting comments as well. One comment said “I like how he admits ‘there are incontrovertible areas of bias and discrimination against women’ and then asserts that copyright is not one of them. Because the patriarchy took the day off when copyright legislation was enacted?” No, the “patriarchy” was alive and well when copyright laws were drafted and the drafters most certainly had no intention of promoting a feminist agenda. That is a fact. It is also a fact that in crafting copyright laws, they made no reference to gender. Copyright laws have always given equal protection to authors, whether they be male or female. In fact, writing is one of the areas of early artistic and economic liberation for females (Jane Austen, George Eliot, the Brontë sisters, Louisa May Alcott and so on). So whether some of today’s feminists like it or not, while there is plenty of evidence of discrimination against females, copyright was not part it.

Ah, but one commentator said, without explanation, “totally gender blind is not by any means gender neutral”. Another took me to task by commenting “Saying ‘but the law applies equally to men and women is so 1980s”, because “facially neutral laws are skewed by the biases and assumptions of their makers”. It is hard to argue against this kind of non-specific assertion. To me a traffic sign that says “School Zone 30km”—to use a simple example– applies to all drivers, male or female, without any “biases or assumptions” built in by the drafter of the law, just as copyright law does. But what do I know? I guess someone needs to “explain” it to me.