Being a woman in geek culture

[unregistered]

 

[Stella_Omega]

Sorry, it was something of a rhetorical question.

AFIK, the reason guys hate seeing superhero type women, or non-sex-symbol-type women is because they have so rarely seen superhero-type or non-sex-symbol-type women. Not in games, not in action movies, not in TV shows, not in comic books. And, because they have never seen them they hate them.

The male executives of the media companies don't want to force these women on their (perceived) audience -- which they persist in believing is mostly male because they don't believe women exist in geekdom because they have an emotional stake in women not existing in geekdom-- and they thus conspire to make women invisible, fomenting the distrust and also the anger that these guys presumably feel towards women who they believe are never around.

Here we go round the mulberry bush.

 

[KoPilot]

It's so funny to me every time I see someone completely deny that this problem is self-perpetuating. It's a chicken-and-egg question, sure, but it's like they honestly believe that an egg just appeared out of nowhere. Tell them that a chicken or chicken-like bird had to lay it, and watch the BSoD flash in their eyes.

Entire fields of science have been invented to try and justify the But The Egg Just Appeared Theory.

 

[YourCaptor]

Ew. Please tell me you're joking.

Sarcasm. But if guys loose their shit over sex like this, it could be used to gain an advantage.

Does one have to be worse than the other? Both are horrible. There's certainly a flavor here, though; Because she says that women have sometimes been harassed in geek culture, they make sure to prove it on her ass. That'll show her!

It does not matter which is worse, but if they are the same it may not make sense to focus on a subculture but the whole culture instead.

And an internet to express it with-- not to mention IP searches so that a woman can receive phone calls at home from a thousand absolute strangers-- or, her boss can get them. Thing about geeks hating women-- they have access to some very modern tools to drive the message home. And men should never be expected to develop willpower? That's kind of patronising, don't you think? What are they, stupid animals?

Pretty much, mostly.

0) Because that would be rewarding an asshole for doing nothing.
1) because she hates her boobs and wishes they didn't exist on her body.
2) Because she loves her boobs and wants them to be seen only by people of her own choosing
3) because she knows that won't shut the dude up for more than a minute.
4) Because she knows that he'll send the picture to Reddit and invite his fellow dudebros to call her a sleazy slut and rate her for rape appeal.
5) Because she knows that he just might send it to her place of work if he feels like it, and she'll be blamed for showing it.

I'm not saying to actually deliver, but if someone cannot coherently form reasonable actions in the presents of the opposite gender, then it should follow that that gender can manipulate them due to the phenomenon.

 

[YourCaptor]

IMO, one of the solutions would be to make female characters much more numerous, more varied, less dependent, less side-kick-y. Let them be a natural part of the gaming world. Some of them can be sex fantasy, some can be badass, some can be single and adventurers/superheroes/whatevs.

The guys really become toxic when we talk about that. Why is that?

Actually I feel like the representation of strong female characters is not as abysmal as it is often made out to be. Yes there are less, but on the same hand games are primarily marketed towards guys who would ID more with guys. If developers suddenly decided to target male and female audiences equally, they would have plenty of existing female character examples to be inspired by.

Strong female game characters are not a recent development either, I grew up with a couple.

For example

Samus

(one of the most bad ass characters ever, leading a franchise containing 13 titles and making regular cameo appearances in other games)

Zela

(the legend of Zelda series is named after her (21 titles), and while Link is the playable character, the world and story revolves entirely around her. She also makes appearances in the form of Sheik, which is a masked ninja type character.)

Lara

(Another lead of her own series (10 titles). The game was all about her fearless adventures, no “soft girl” characteristics. Yes she was sexy, she was a female Indiana Jones type character.)

Female characters have also always existed in all the major arcade fighting games, like street fighter. Many classic games also allow you to chose a generic male or female character at the start, like pokemon, so all the fame the males get in those games is the exact same thing for females.

Anyway, my point is good female characters exist and they are loved. More would be nice, but I don’t think fans are somehow adverse to a strong female.

 

[Primalex]

It's so funny to me every time I see someone completely deny that this problem is self-perpetuating. It's a chicken-and-egg question, sure, but it's like they honestly believe that an egg just appeared out of nowhere. Tell them that a chicken or chicken-like bird had to lay it, and watch the BSoD flash in their eyes.

Funny thing, as I've been the first to mention this in this thread. It only took this thread 500 more posts to make you come up with what I've already written before.

And I guess, now it's suddenly true, because you wrote it, hm?

Thank you, you made my day.

 

[KoPilot]

Funny thing, as I've been the first to mention this in this thread. It only took this thread 500 more posts to make you come up with what I've already written before.

And I guess, now it's suddenly true, because you wrote it, hm?

Thank you, you made my day.

No, it's suddenly true because I'm not a 4chan reject.

 

[KoPilot]

I also don't read half of what you post, remember?

A broken clock may be right twice a day, but still doesn't mean it's not fucking useless.

 

[Primalex]

No, it's suddenly true because I'm not a 4chan reject.

Glad to know that 4chan didn't reject you.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Sarcasm. But if guys loose their shit over sex like this, it could be used to gain an advantage.

What advantage do you think it would gain?

It does not matter which is worse, but if they are the same it may not make sense to focus on a subculture but the whole culture instead.

It might be better to tackle the whole culture in smaller bits. I can't kick a whole mountain range down. I can kick a small boulder. And then another boulder.

Pretty much, mostly.

Wrong. Men are thinking human beings. If they act like animals it's because they perceive a benefit from doing so. Feminism-- oddly enough-- does men the compliment of assuming they can stop pretending they are nothing but animals.

I'm not saying to actually deliver, but if someone cannot coherently form reasonable actions in the presents of the opposite gender, then it should follow that that gender can manipulate them due to the phenomenon.

A person of that gender might not be capable of suchlike manipulation.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Funny thing, as I've been the first to mention this in this thread. It only took this thread 500 more posts to make you come up with what I've already written before.

And I guess, now it's suddenly true, because you wrote it, hm?

Thank you, you made my day.

Witness primalex's sad little ego, snatching crumbs when he can.

 

[Primalex]

Witness primalex's sad little ego, snatching crumbs when he can.

You are sad, because I don't care about your snatch, right?

 

[KoPilot]

You are sad, because I don't care about your snatch, right?

Oh no, a man doesn't want to fuck Stella, who doesn't give a shit about fucking men anyways

What ever will she do, continuing to have all that amazing sex without him

Also

Men are obsolete anyways.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Why take his bait? He-- and everyone else -- knows how lame it is.

 

[KoPilot]

Why take his bait? He-- and everyone else -- knows how lame it is.

I just really wanted an excuse to link to those two things as a retort to somebody somewhere. :[ Though really, you could just reply to everything he says with them.

Anyways...

Here's a cute blog about, well, monster boyfriends. Most of the art is done by girls, and goddamn I love it when young women draw the shit out of dudes they find hot, realism be damned.

 

[midwestyankee]

Oh no, a man doesn't want to fuck Stella, who doesn't give a shit about fucking men anyways

What ever will she do, continuing to have all that amazing sex without him

Also

Men are obsolete anyways.

I read the article and all I could think of was Jeff Goldblum in his best Dr. Ian Malcolm manner suggesting that something might go wrong. "If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh... well, there it is."

 

[reallyunsure]

Speaking as a man in geek culture - sorry about that. I'm trying to make it suck less. It's slow going, but at least things will be better for our daughters.

 

[KoPilot]

Speaking as a man in geek culture - sorry about that. I'm trying to make it suck less. It's slow going, but at least things will be better for our daughters.

Thank you, thank you!

 

[KoPilot]

I read the article and all I could think of was Jeff Goldblum in his best Dr. Ian Malcolm manner suggesting that something might go wrong. "If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh... well, there it is."

I'm surpringly ok with a planet dominated by sentient, intelligent lady dinosaurs.

 

[satindesire]

Exactly how common are women in all of this?

My geek thing these days is video games, if that is still geeky.

When I play L4D2 online, I would guess 1 out of 100 players is a woman/girl. Maybe 1 in 50 on co-op, interesting.

In KSP I suspect numbers may be closer, maybe 1 in 20. Out of the streamers (like 6 I think) 1 is a woman.

So it could be expected that someone who spends all there time with these activities would covet the occasional woman.

In a way I think movies are even worse. Even in L4D2 a zombie first person shooter, the female characters are equally as flat as the males.

While in movies, I've got this thing where I pay attention to the female characters to see if
1. a woman has lines
2. the lines are not about a man
Few movies contain both.

http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp

Boom. 45% of all gamers are female.

But would you describe them as geeks?

Give me a definition of geek most people can agree on and we'll go from there.

You can't do that, really, though. There's too many variables. Like gender, geek is something that needs to be self-identified.

If you call (basically) the entire online community for a game one individual group, then yeah I guess. Ive been a part of a few gaming communities, and the great thing about video games is that nobody cares. Nobody cares about your sex, sexuality, religion, race, etc. They only thing they care about is that you're good or not. All the people who do say anything to a woman (outside of joking as friends) are all 13 year old boys that don't know what a vagina is and are only mad because they got turned down by a kick ass woman.

I'm talking from my own experiences. Woman, although rare, are treated like everyone else. I've met every person on the spectrum from gaming, and nobody cares who you are. They care if you're good, or if you're a good person.

So no, from my experiences, they don't get judged by being a woman. Sure, considering most gamers are dudes, they're different, but nobody cares. Everyone brings something different to the table.

*sad sigh*

It's great and all that you've never experienced the harassment that women get in the geek community seeing as how you're not a woman and all.

Please, continue to tell the entire thousands of us that have shared similar experiences that they just don't exist because you, one person, haven't seen it yourself.

I haven't seen yellow cake uranium in person either, but that doesn't mean I don't know it's real.

 

[satindesire]

I work in the fucking gaming industry. You seriously gonna mansplain me?

Of course he is. Because sexism isn't real, didn't you know that? Silly woman.

It's seems that a lot of the assholes are video gamers. I'm really happy I never found video games all that fun to play. They bore me very quickly. I'll stick to comics and table top games.

Unfortunately, I've found that where there are geeks, there is rampant bigotry of all kinds.

My experiences in comic book communities and gamer communities means I've had exactly the same experiences in both. One "kind" of geek culture isn't inherently going to be "better" or "safer" for women than the other, unless it is predominantly and by a large margin female. And good luck with that.

I think maybe the problem is that with guys, sex always comes first. It takes will power to expedite a secondary interest.

Even newton wanted to fuck women first, math was second. I suspect if it wasn't for the plague and the culture at the time, the dude would have been mouth breathing as well... if he wasn't.

So heres a question. Why don't women just take advantage of this fact.

Geek "Eww a girl that is so gay"

Geeket "If you shut up for one game I'll show you a boob."

...............

Are you fucking kidding me?!

IMO, one of the solutions would be to make female characters much more numerous, more varied, less dependent, less side-kick-y. Let them be a natural part of the gaming world. Some of them can be sex fantasy, some can be badass, some can be single and adventurers/superheroes/whatevs.

The guys really become toxic when we talk about that. Why is that?

Because they know the fantasy that our culture has allowed them to believe--that they are more powerful, smarter and better than us...is just that. A fantasy. A fallacy. And the minute we realize this and wrest our equality out of their hands, they lose the ability to lift themselves up by making us small, and that TERRIFIES THE SHIT OUT OF THEM.

As Stella said:

Witness primalex's sad little ego, snatching crumbs when he can.

Prime example of a terrified man who doesn't want sexism to be real, because then he would be forced to own his shit, and that prospect is too hard and scary. So instead of being courageous enough to buck the trend of being a sexist bastard, he throws himself into it 100% because he's too much of a coward to fight it.

Which is why so many men are here so loudly proclaiming to all who will listen that SEXISM ISN'T REAL U GUISE Y WON'T ANYONE LISTEN 2 MEEEEE??? Because they know they're powerless to stop us from rising up socially and culturally, and they don't want anyone to find out how scared they are of that.

The sad thing is, every time of them comes back time and time again to argue with logical fallacies, outright lies and blind sheep-like ignorance, they've already proven it to everyone.

These days...I don't respect anyone who buys who-hog into this cultural bullshit that women are inferior and stupid and weak and that men are unchangeable and predatory and evil. Anyone who just swallows this myth that doesn't give anyone any room for personal growth, evolution or individuality without for a second questioning it's validity and worth as a social model, regardless of how many people it hurts, deserves to be frightened of the change they're seeing.

They deserve to be frightened of our independence. Because we ARE powerful and we were badass enough to challenge the model. We were courageous enough to stand up and speak out regardless of the fact that it would make us targets. We didn't care. It was worth it. And we were brave enough to do it, smart enough to educate ourselves about it so we could answer every argument with FACTS instead of frightened babbling and lies.

I don't pity them. They got themselves into this shit, and we'll drag them kicking and screaming towards equality no matter how hard they fight to keep bigotry alive.

Here's a cute blog about, well, monster boyfriends. Most of the art is done by girls, and goddamn I love it when young women draw the shit out of dudes they find hot, realism be damned.

That is absolutely amazing. I love it!

Speaking as a man in geek culture - sorry about that. I'm trying to make it suck less. It's slow going, but at least things will be better for our daughters.

Thank you! You're amazing!

 

[Primalex]

These days...I don't respect anyone who buys who-hog into this cultural bullshit that women are inferior and stupid and weak and that men are unchangeable and predatory and evil.

Hey, we agree here! Women are, of course, as predatory and evil as men.

And men have changed so much that now _women_ come up and say:"Uh, sorry, that was not the kind of man we wanted."

 

[Stella_Omega]

Hey, we agree here! Women are, of course, as predatory and evil as men.

Of course that isn't what she said at all. Obviously. You don't agree with her. You agree with the little chipmunks in your head.

And men have changed so much that now _women_ come up and say:"Uh, sorry, that was not the kind of man we wanted."

As usual, you've invented a meaning that isn't there and used it to come up with a conclusion that doesn't make sense.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Speaking as a man in geek culture - sorry about that. I'm trying to make it suck less. It's slow going, but at least things will be better for our daughters.

Bravo. We need all the help we can get

 

[DarlingCunt]

I was watching a youtube video today called "Nerd Nummies" or something like that, and I found the hostess to be profoundly annoying. She kept talking in a baby voice, and quoting really dumb memes like "I can haz cheezeburgers!" I don't think people really act like that. To me, it seemed like she was really pushing the whole, "I'm nerdy! I know memes!" envelope just a bit. That isn't to say that she's not a nerd or anything, but do you think it's necessary for girls in the geek community to appeal to the male geek demographic the way she did? She just seemed very unrealistic to me. It screamed, "I'm being cute, pay attention to me, subscribe to my channel, RaWr!!!!"

tldnr; It'd be nice to have a series of Youtube videos where a girl can host a nerd/geek-related show without spewing out random memes or quotes for no reason. It was almost like she was saying it to prove that she was "a nerd". Isn't just enjoying games/comics/science/whatever enough? Maybe I'm over analyzing, and she's just naturally annoying. But it irked me, and I couldn't help but wonder if it was all scripted to appeal to a male demographic.