When did this change?

[barbarienne]

I am older than most of the young women who get metaphorically kicked in the teeth by the "fake geek girl" appellation. I'm sure age is a factor in that bullshit. The whole mess is based on the completely stupid notion that good-looking young women get into geekdom solely for the purpose of taking advantage of geek men

Comments

[dorianegray]

This is a very interesting point. And now that you mention it, yes, my experience parallels yours. In the early 1990s I was the only girl on the Dublin gaming scene. A few more would turn up to conventions, but I was the only one around on the day-to-day type basis. And the boys certainly weren't saying "no gurlz aloud". If anything, they were kind of disappointed that I didn't have any female friends I could bring along.

[barbarienne]

Yes, exactly, "Maybe you could get some of your friends to play" was something I heard more than once.

[delkytlar]

Thinking back to my early experiences at cons (Star Trek cons in NYC in the late 80s), there were plenty of women around, of all ages. I remember having some great conversations with many female fans, as well as seeing one faint dead away on seeing DeForest Kelley talking to me in a hallway. I can't speak for fandom at large, and I'm probably not your typical fan, but my buddies and I never thought twice about female fans being around.

I have encountered fans (specifically in Transformers fandom) who bemoaned the lack of women at their events. I gave them some tips on how to make their events more inclusive and welcoming, and was hailed as a savior. Two weeks later, they started up the same complaint. I had to shrug and leave them to their own devices.

[barbarienne]

I was at those ST cons in NYC in the late 80s. Glad to get some confirmation from the men's side of things.

[sartorias]

Because the girls aren't cooperating by putting out?

When I hit fandom, it was with my Boomer age mates. The guys loved it, because they looked on us as feeding time (though a lot of us didn't know it at the time.) But I wonder if younger women are so not offering themselves as sexual toys, but competing on the level that guys compete with each other, which pisses a lot of them off.

[barbarienne]

Then these are very stupid guys who don't understand what will make a girl want to get into the sack with them.

Who is telling them that "You suck!" is a mating call? How can these guys not figure out the problem there?

[sartorias]

Yup. My guess is that they don't want any more competition than they get with guys, that deep down, there's still the "girls are weaker and dumber" dynamic still stinking up human relations.

[mcjulie]

Theory 1: Could be an Internet thing, caused primarily by the ability of jerks who think this way being able to feed & reflect off each other. If memes are viral thoughts, then this is a nasty infection, like swine flu.

Theory 2: It's backlash caused by more women occupying geek spaces and being vocal about their dislike of the sexism and misogyny they encounter there. (The "vocal about their dislike" part is important, see: recent SFWA controversy.)

Probably a bit of both, maybe other things too.

Personally, I think the only FAKE geeks are anybody who would complain about "fake geeks." Real geeks want everyone in the world to like the stuff they like, and they're disappointed when it doesn't happen. Anybody trying to gatekeep geekery isn't being a geek, they're being a snob. (Which reminds me of the way the academic literary world tries to gatekeep against SF & F.)

[barbarienne]

Yes, definitely a higher profile these days. The internet offers the idiots support and makes them think their stupidity is correct. It also allows women who previously suffered in isolation--or just didn't even think about the problems--to discover that they aren't the only one, and to start banding together to make changes.

Those two groups are clashing. I sure hope the smart group wins.

[ospreys_view]

You know, I never had any problems at cons either and I was attending them in the late 80s. Maybe I just didn't notice,

All through college (mid 80s), we had a gaming group that was evenly split between men and women. It was the best gaming group I have ever been in. There were times we got to laughing so hard we couldn't speak much less role the dice. It was a fun way for everyone to blow off some steam. But now, maybe none of us would be considered serious gamers by today's standards because we talked and joked about all sorts of things including the game plot while we played.

[barbarienne]

I've often been the Smurfette of an RPG party, but I've also been in groups where the gender mix was more balanced. The latter were definitely more fun, for much the same reason.

While I do enjoy game sessions where everyone is taking it seriously and staying in character, the high laughter times are always when people are joking about.

[ospreys_view]

The best times were when the joking around was actually in character. We, too,also had a pretty good time when we were serious about the game. It all depended on was was the DM and the storyline. We had a pretty creative group that often created their own story lines rather than using the published scenarios.