WP:THREATENING2MEN: Misogynist Infopolitics and the Hegemony of the Asshole Consensus on English Wikipedia

• In Event: Feminists Examine Violence and Heroism

Abstract

Abstract: This essay examines the maintenance and operationalization of misogynist infopolitics on Wikipedia, particularly as it occurs through sanctioned modes of “Wikilawyering” and coercive consensus. Drawing on my work of writing and editing articles about campus sexual violence, I document the way a group of Wikipedians mobilize expertise in Wikipedia’s policies in order to censor information that challenges male privilege – a privilege that is itself at stake on Wikipedia in ways that other forms of difference – on various grounds of notability and validity as per Wikipedia policies, and not “reality” as such. I then examine the ways in which these policies are used to produce consensus, a process I refer to as the hegemony of the asshole consensus because of the ways in relies on deference to “pragmatism” and fears of harassment. I conclude by making a “positive move,” proposing that Wikipedia shift from “filling the gender gap” and introducing women into a hostile culture, and towards a cultural shift model that places gendered social consciousness at the core of training future Wikipedians – male and female – to produce knowledge and information in ways aware of gendered relationality. Speaking to the constitution, reproduction, and imbrication of male privilege and expertise, this essay contributes to wider conversations occurring at the intersections of media studies and science and technology studies.

Author

• Bryce Peake, U of Oregon