Women in the Metaverse and the gender data gap: a cultural approach

Abstract

The metaverse is an immersive and interconnected technological environment that we are already a part of. We live in a “meta” environment compared to reality, in which the digital world and the analog world continuously intersect in an uninterrupted flow. We are surrounded in our daily lives by digital connections and objects that connect with each other and with the real world, from which they draw data. In the metaverse, whether understood in this broad sense or in a narrow sense, social structures and gender biases are reproduced, with all the elements of intersectionality existing in reality, deeply rooted in the socio-cultural context and represented in the data used by algorithmic models. The predominance of men in the fields of study and work in information and communication technologies, where algorithmic models are developed, does not facilitate the overcoming of these problems. The data underlying artificial intelligence and the metaverse reflect the gender biases observable in work, education, scientific research, journalism, and many other sectors. However, digital technology, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse can offer opportunities to overcome the gender gap.