On Feminism and Geekdom:
I am a geek.
I could go on about my geek-cred, to prove that I'm somehow "worthy" of calling myself a "geek". But I don't need to: this isn't about proving "geekier than thou." I don't care who's more geeky. If you identify as a geek, that's enough for me. We've something in common.
I love geek culture. I think it's a wonderful, amazing, vibrant thing. But I am not blind to its flaws. And it's been going through some growing pains as of late.
If you go waaaay back, the roots of geek culture really started with the Romantic movement: the Shelleys, Byron, even Babbage and Lovelace. It got a shot in the arm from early pulp magazines, as fan letters had their addresses printed, and people began writing to each other to discuss the stories they were reading. But it all really exploded with Star Trek (though Doctor Who fandom in the late 60s and early 70s helped foster what Trek fandom built, too).
The interesting thing is: women have always been an important part of geekdom. Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace were critical to our culture's roots. When Trek fans tried to save the show, it was women who had the time to organize the campaign to attempt to save it (and they did save it after the first season). Women were, yes, a smaller percentage of geek culture in that time... but they held disproportionally large percentages of leadership positions in the community.
The rise of the home computer has shoved geek culture into the mainstream. The internet changed everything, and it changed nothing. It sped things up, it made it easier for more people to get in contact with each other, and it made geek culture more accessible. But none of the "rules" of geek culture changed. (Don't believe me? Check out Henry Jenkins' book "Textual Poachers," written in the mid-90s, just before the internet went mainstream, as a cultural examination of geek culture. Everything we're doing on the internet now, we were doing back then. It was just slower, with a more limited audience.) Patton Oswald wrote something a year or two back about how geeks today have it too easy, because it's too mainstream now, and geekdom is dying. It's not dying -- it's evolving, as it's always done. This is a big change, but it's not a death.
But as geek culture goes mainstream, there's a cognitive dissonance which must be addressed. There's how geek culture has been seen from within, and how it's been seen from the outside. These two images are not fully compatible.
I see a lot of geek-self-loathing, often from so-called professionals. In many ways, it's an outsider's perspective, shared from inside the culture. In this world, geeks are all 40-year-old male virgins with no social skills who don't bathe and who are grossly overweight and who still live in their parents' basement. I would be lying if I said this stereotype didn't exist within the culture. Yes, there are those who lack social skills -- geek culture welcomes people with Aspergers' or similar mental frameworks. We know how to deal with them: we love Spock and Data. And such people are often drawn to geekdom because they recognize themselves in those characters (consciously or not). Many times, people with these mental frameworks have poor social skills, and indeed, sometimes that combination of poor social skills and a lack of interest means they're not sexually active. (I'll be honest, though -- I've never met a geek over the age of 25 who lived in their parent's basement. I'm not entirely sure where that stereotype comes from.) On the other hand, if you spend any time among geek culture, you will also see that the "virgin" stereotype is extremely uncommon. Go to a con after night falls, and you'll see the fetish crowd come out -- and they're often out in force. Yes, there are geeks who are overweight. And there are geeks who are in shape. And there are geeks of all body types, and genders, and sexualities, and races*.
*(While I'm not going to get into it here, I will note that geeks are overall more white than the overall population, and I do think that's a problem. But it's not something I really want to address in this essay.)
For the last decade or two, as geekdom has moved more "mainstream," geeks have had to deal with what often feels like an invasion from the outside world. To old-school geeks, who had to carve out a niche for themselves, who felt bullied and mocked and tormented by the rest of society, this can be a stressful thing. They've made themselves a home, where they're "safe", and now the rest of society is trying to follow them in. And there are people who come to conventions, who don't know who they're trying to dress up as, or who are just there for the parties and appear to care less about the culture.
But that doesn't necessarily mean they're not geeks.
What is a geek? Well, that's a very profound question, but in the end, the answer is, "It's what geek culture decides is a geek." I don't have a loud voice in overall geek culture, but I do have a voice, and I'll share what I think it should be. It's what a geek is to me.
A geek is someone who identifies as a geek, and who is always willing to learn more.
That's it. If they identify as a geek, and they are willing to learn more, that's enough for me. And I think it should be enough for all of us.
The roots of geek culture start with investigating, with going deeper than the surface layers, even in our fictional settings (maybe even especially in our fiction). No one started with all that knowledge already in their mind. We all had to research, or we were mentored.
But even then, we were geeks.
I understand where the impulse comes from. Geek culture is one which is theoretically based on knowledge-merit. We don't care about your income, about how fast you can run or weight you can lift. The geek pecking order is really based on how much you've done for the community, followed by how much you know about geek culture (and you theoretically know more about the culture when you've done more for the culture -- geek-culture-hating commentary from professionals notwithstanding). We debate the finer points of fictional settings, and those who make stronger debates earn more respect.
But there's something which is often forgotten. Those of higher standing in geek culture are not supposed to keep others from learning. Those of us who know more need to help those of us who don't know more. We coach and teach. I'm still a relative foundling with Doctor Who -- I have yet to see an episode with Romana. I could learn a lot from a Whovian. On the other hand, what I don't know about Star Wars is pretty minimal. And my wife is an expert on old-school "V" -- until I met her, I'd never even seen "V". We help each other grow.
Now, what does gender have to do with this?
That is an excellent question. What does gender have to do with it? The current discussion in the community is about "fake geek girls." Not about people invading from outside the culture, but about girls invading from outside the culture. As a culture, we're taking the outside lens of "geeks are overweight males with no social skills" -- even though we know better -- and applying it to newcomers.
There have long been groups within fandom which have been a bit (or a lot) sexist. I couldn't get into Heinlein because of his sexism. The video game subculture is currently going through some very difficult growing pains as women are fighting for recognition there. But, in theory, geek culture overall should be immune to this. We should be... but we're not.
This isn't a new thing. The original Trek series suggested that women could never be captains, and there was a lot of anger at Voyager from within the culture because the captain was a woman. While Marvel once recognized that they had a lot of female readers and tried to reach out to them, they and DC both now are focused entirely on the (straight white) male 18-34 demographic. Whether we want to admit it or not, we geeks are influenced by mainstream culture, and sexist elements seep into our brains and infect the culture here. And we often don't even notice it. As I've said before, privilege is insidious because it's invisible to those who possess it, and it can be painful to have it pointed out.
Add in the fact that mainstream culture doesn't see women as geeks, and doesn't want to see women as geeks (for what I suspect are a multitude of reasons I don't want to get into here), and we see I believe why women are getting the brunt of the current growing pains.
The new female geek who doesn't know much about the topic (yet) is far more visible than the new male geek. They're both there -- I've seen them both around conventions. I welcome them both, as long as they're willing to learn.
But the argument making the rounds that "fake geek girls/hot women are dressing up as characters they don't know because they want to torture geek men with fantasies of sex they'll never grant them" is wrong on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin. (There are variants of this, too, such as "putting on glasses and holding a video game controller doesn't make you a gamer-girl.") Putting on a costume when you don't know a lot about the character is okay in my book -- as long as you're willing to learn about them, of course. I wouldn't expect someone to have read every issue of Wonder Woman's appearances everywhere before putting on a tiara; I wouldn't expect the same of a more obscure character. And just because a woman is wearing a costume from fandom, even if it's a sexy costume, that doesn't mean either A) she's obligated to sleep with anyone, or B) that it's to torture men's libido. There are plenty of valid reasons that have nothing to do with men at all. Add in the fact that this argument completely ignores the GLBTQ community which is quite strong within geek culture, or that it contradicts itself as it suggests that all these many women want attention from the geek stereotype of the overweight virgin with no social skills... and that's just scratching the tiniest of surfaces of what's wrong with the current argument being made. There's nothing in there which is right.
If someone calls themselves a geek, that's enough for me to welcome them. If they're not interested in learning, then they'll quickly grow bored and leave. They won't remain in the community for long.
As for me, I'm not interested in raising the bar to make geekdom-entrance harder. We fought for social acceptance, and now we have it. There are geeks today who have more opportunities than we had before. Let's help them take advantage of them -- not restrict them from doing so. We should welcome all people who want to learn more. Even if they break from the stereotype we have so long attempted to shatter.
Yes, even if they're a woman.
I could go on about my geek-cred, to prove that I'm somehow "worthy" of calling myself a "geek". But I don't need to: this isn't about proving "geekier than thou." I don't care who's more geeky. If you identify as a geek, that's enough for me. We've something in common.
I love geek culture. I think it's a wonderful, amazing, vibrant thing. But I am not blind to its flaws. And it's been going through some growing pains as of late.
If you go waaaay back, the roots of geek culture really started with the Romantic movement: the Shelleys, Byron, even Babbage and Lovelace. It got a shot in the arm from early pulp magazines, as fan letters had their addresses printed, and people began writing to each other to discuss the stories they were reading. But it all really exploded with Star Trek (though Doctor Who fandom in the late 60s and early 70s helped foster what Trek fandom built, too).
The interesting thing is: women have always been an important part of geekdom. Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace were critical to our culture's roots. When Trek fans tried to save the show, it was women who had the time to organize the campaign to attempt to save it (and they did save it after the first season). Women were, yes, a smaller percentage of geek culture in that time... but they held disproportionally large percentages of leadership positions in the community.
The rise of the home computer has shoved geek culture into the mainstream. The internet changed everything, and it changed nothing. It sped things up, it made it easier for more people to get in contact with each other, and it made geek culture more accessible. But none of the "rules" of geek culture changed. (Don't believe me? Check out Henry Jenkins' book "Textual Poachers," written in the mid-90s, just before the internet went mainstream, as a cultural examination of geek culture. Everything we're doing on the internet now, we were doing back then. It was just slower, with a more limited audience.) Patton Oswald wrote something a year or two back about how geeks today have it too easy, because it's too mainstream now, and geekdom is dying. It's not dying -- it's evolving, as it's always done. This is a big change, but it's not a death.
But as geek culture goes mainstream, there's a cognitive dissonance which must be addressed. There's how geek culture has been seen from within, and how it's been seen from the outside. These two images are not fully compatible.
I see a lot of geek-self-loathing, often from so-called professionals. In many ways, it's an outsider's perspective, shared from inside the culture. In this world, geeks are all 40-year-old male virgins with no social skills who don't bathe and who are grossly overweight and who still live in their parents' basement. I would be lying if I said this stereotype didn't exist within the culture. Yes, there are those who lack social skills -- geek culture welcomes people with Aspergers' or similar mental frameworks. We know how to deal with them: we love Spock and Data. And such people are often drawn to geekdom because they recognize themselves in those characters (consciously or not). Many times, people with these mental frameworks have poor social skills, and indeed, sometimes that combination of poor social skills and a lack of interest means they're not sexually active. (I'll be honest, though -- I've never met a geek over the age of 25 who lived in their parent's basement. I'm not entirely sure where that stereotype comes from.) On the other hand, if you spend any time among geek culture, you will also see that the "virgin" stereotype is extremely uncommon. Go to a con after night falls, and you'll see the fetish crowd come out -- and they're often out in force. Yes, there are geeks who are overweight. And there are geeks who are in shape. And there are geeks of all body types, and genders, and sexualities, and races*.
*(While I'm not going to get into it here, I will note that geeks are overall more white than the overall population, and I do think that's a problem. But it's not something I really want to address in this essay.)
For the last decade or two, as geekdom has moved more "mainstream," geeks have had to deal with what often feels like an invasion from the outside world. To old-school geeks, who had to carve out a niche for themselves, who felt bullied and mocked and tormented by the rest of society, this can be a stressful thing. They've made themselves a home, where they're "safe", and now the rest of society is trying to follow them in. And there are people who come to conventions, who don't know who they're trying to dress up as, or who are just there for the parties and appear to care less about the culture.
But that doesn't necessarily mean they're not geeks.
What is a geek? Well, that's a very profound question, but in the end, the answer is, "It's what geek culture decides is a geek." I don't have a loud voice in overall geek culture, but I do have a voice, and I'll share what I think it should be. It's what a geek is to me.
A geek is someone who identifies as a geek, and who is always willing to learn more.
That's it. If they identify as a geek, and they are willing to learn more, that's enough for me. And I think it should be enough for all of us.
The roots of geek culture start with investigating, with going deeper than the surface layers, even in our fictional settings (maybe even especially in our fiction). No one started with all that knowledge already in their mind. We all had to research, or we were mentored.
But even then, we were geeks.
I understand where the impulse comes from. Geek culture is one which is theoretically based on knowledge-merit. We don't care about your income, about how fast you can run or weight you can lift. The geek pecking order is really based on how much you've done for the community, followed by how much you know about geek culture (and you theoretically know more about the culture when you've done more for the culture -- geek-culture-hating commentary from professionals notwithstanding). We debate the finer points of fictional settings, and those who make stronger debates earn more respect.
But there's something which is often forgotten. Those of higher standing in geek culture are not supposed to keep others from learning. Those of us who know more need to help those of us who don't know more. We coach and teach. I'm still a relative foundling with Doctor Who -- I have yet to see an episode with Romana. I could learn a lot from a Whovian. On the other hand, what I don't know about Star Wars is pretty minimal. And my wife is an expert on old-school "V" -- until I met her, I'd never even seen "V". We help each other grow.
Now, what does gender have to do with this?
That is an excellent question. What does gender have to do with it? The current discussion in the community is about "fake geek girls." Not about people invading from outside the culture, but about girls invading from outside the culture. As a culture, we're taking the outside lens of "geeks are overweight males with no social skills" -- even though we know better -- and applying it to newcomers.
There have long been groups within fandom which have been a bit (or a lot) sexist. I couldn't get into Heinlein because of his sexism. The video game subculture is currently going through some very difficult growing pains as women are fighting for recognition there. But, in theory, geek culture overall should be immune to this. We should be... but we're not.
This isn't a new thing. The original Trek series suggested that women could never be captains, and there was a lot of anger at Voyager from within the culture because the captain was a woman. While Marvel once recognized that they had a lot of female readers and tried to reach out to them, they and DC both now are focused entirely on the (straight white) male 18-34 demographic. Whether we want to admit it or not, we geeks are influenced by mainstream culture, and sexist elements seep into our brains and infect the culture here. And we often don't even notice it. As I've said before, privilege is insidious because it's invisible to those who possess it, and it can be painful to have it pointed out.
Add in the fact that mainstream culture doesn't see women as geeks, and doesn't want to see women as geeks (for what I suspect are a multitude of reasons I don't want to get into here), and we see I believe why women are getting the brunt of the current growing pains.
The new female geek who doesn't know much about the topic (yet) is far more visible than the new male geek. They're both there -- I've seen them both around conventions. I welcome them both, as long as they're willing to learn.
But the argument making the rounds that "fake geek girls/hot women are dressing up as characters they don't know because they want to torture geek men with fantasies of sex they'll never grant them" is wrong on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin. (There are variants of this, too, such as "putting on glasses and holding a video game controller doesn't make you a gamer-girl.") Putting on a costume when you don't know a lot about the character is okay in my book -- as long as you're willing to learn about them, of course. I wouldn't expect someone to have read every issue of Wonder Woman's appearances everywhere before putting on a tiara; I wouldn't expect the same of a more obscure character. And just because a woman is wearing a costume from fandom, even if it's a sexy costume, that doesn't mean either A) she's obligated to sleep with anyone, or B) that it's to torture men's libido. There are plenty of valid reasons that have nothing to do with men at all. Add in the fact that this argument completely ignores the GLBTQ community which is quite strong within geek culture, or that it contradicts itself as it suggests that all these many women want attention from the geek stereotype of the overweight virgin with no social skills... and that's just scratching the tiniest of surfaces of what's wrong with the current argument being made. There's nothing in there which is right.
If someone calls themselves a geek, that's enough for me to welcome them. If they're not interested in learning, then they'll quickly grow bored and leave. They won't remain in the community for long.
As for me, I'm not interested in raising the bar to make geekdom-entrance harder. We fought for social acceptance, and now we have it. There are geeks today who have more opportunities than we had before. Let's help them take advantage of them -- not restrict them from doing so. We should welcome all people who want to learn more. Even if they break from the stereotype we have so long attempted to shatter.
Yes, even if they're a woman.