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Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities


Tasha

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I'm not sure males get to announce that things are getting better; it's not like w ever experienced them as being worse. I've being to going cons or various sorts for more than 20 years and I've never seen any harassment to speak of, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there. These days I keep weather eye out for it, but again it's not likely to happen when I'm looking.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I'm not sure males get to announce that things are getting better;

 

I don't think such a blanket statement applies. They were responding to a question I asked about a particular type of con. A type which hasn't really been mentioned for its outright ass-grabbery here. So, the answers are by their nature limited to personal observation, and in no way intended as a blanket announcement as you're implying.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

 

I don't think I agree with the responses to the "Why did she stay?" question there. I get the general theme of asking what's wrong with the abuser and not what's wrong with the victim, but "Why did she stay?" is an important question to examine. (Not to ask the victim, necessarily.)

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I was going to mention it, but couldn't think of a way to phrase it that didn't detract from the main point of my post above. (Notice I only used the female pronoun when quoting the article, though.) I know I responded to a surprisingly equal numbers of domestic violence cases where the wife was the aggressor when I was an MP. I only had to manhandle two people out of dozens of arrests made, and one of those was a wife who threw hot water in her husband's face for going out with the guys after work when he got home (just shy of boiling, and only because it had cooled by the time the husband got home). She then started a fight with the responding MPs (Me and my partner and the patrol supervisor who came as backup, yep, three of us. Two of us pretty big.)

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I am obliged' date=' for the memory of a dead acquaintance, to gently remind us all that domestic violence is not strictly a men-against-women thing. This is not intended as a thread derail.[/quote']

 

I do know this, but that is really beyond the scope of this particular thread. Domestic Violence is really only a small part of what I was trying to discuss in this thread.

 

It's really about the very annoying phenomena of how women are treated in Geek/Nerd Spaces(Communities). It's a problem that is honestly prevalent in any stereotypically Male hobby/interest. To be treated as the bubble head who can't possibly know anything. Believe me, that I also see this in the Hot Rodding/ Car enthusiast community. I have to admit that it's fun to blow their mind when I not only understand what they are talking about, but I can show that I know more than they do. It's really annoying to have to prove myself, when I see males who are assumed to know what they are talking about.

 

Perhaps it's because with the Women's movement in the 70's and how women have become more equal in society. We as a gender are starting to show our interest in areas that are outside traditional women's interests. When new people start to appear in a community that community pushes back. Someday I would also love to have a discussion about Racism in Geek Communities. Being basically white, I don't have the experience to actually talk about this from any point of view but as one of the Privileged. That would be a different thread and I dont want to derail this IMHO very important thread.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I do know this, but that is really beyond the scope of this particular thread. Domestic Violence is really only a small part of what I was trying to discuss in this thread.

 

It's really about the very annoying phenomena of how women are treated in Geek/Nerd Spaces(Communities). It's a problem that is honestly prevalent in any stereotypically Male hobby/interest. To be treated as the bubble head who can't possibly know anything. Believe me, that I also see this in the Hot Rodding/ Car enthusiast community. I have to admit that it's fun to blow their mind when I not only understand what they are talking about, but I can show that I know more than they do. It's really annoying to have to prove myself, when I see males who are assumed to know what they are talking about.

 

Perhaps it's because with the Women's movement in the 70's and how women have become more equal in society. We as a gender are starting to show our interest in areas that are outside traditional women's interests. When new people start to appear in a community that community pushes back. Someday I would also love to have a discussion about Racism in Geek Communities. Being basically white, I don't have the experience to actually talk about this from any point of view but as one of the Privileged. That would be a different thread and I dont want to derail this IMHO very important thread.

 

But also an interesting one. So, for that matter, might be the topic of males in traditionally female spaces.

 

It occurs to me that one relevant complicating factor is that, online, there's a lot more room for deception and doubt on the very issue of what a person's actual sex or gender IS. And on the Hero forums in particular there is a history of the entire community being taken in by a male who was using not one, but two seperate female personas. Around here, I've seen that lead to a cool or even suspicious and challenging response to a new female especially if she seems to be making a point of being female.

 

Both here and online generally, of course, there are also the females with male or deliberately gender-amgibuous names or personas - precisely to avoid exactly the kind of problems this thread addresses.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary notes that Lucius has been taken for female, despite an obviously masculine name

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Huh, I just had a thought. (A dangerous precedent, it's true.) Speaking of "roleplaying," is the more recent influx of women in the hobby due to Vampire LARP from the '90's onward? I was just thinking that's about when I started seeing more women involved in the hobby. Some were kinda fringy, some were basically geeky and socially awkward; but there seemed to be large enough numbers were many were probably going to stick with "roleplaying" as a hobby for a long while, possibly the rest of their lives. I wonder if attending cons and such now that the relatively young women are grown up is an outgrowth of that.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Huh' date=' I just had a thought. (A dangerous precedent, it's true.) Speaking of "roleplaying," is the more recent influx of women in the hobby due to Vampire LARP from the '90's onward? I was just thinking that's about when I started seeing more women involved in the hobby. Some were kinda fringy, some were basically geeky and socially awkward; but there seemed to be large enough numbers were many were probably going to stick with "roleplaying" as a hobby for a long while, possibly the rest of their lives. I wonder if attending cons and such now that the relatively young women are grown up is an outgrowth of that.[/quote']

 

Not from the LARP, but from the Vampire: The Masquerade rpg itself. Thats when i noticed a huge influx of females into the hobby was after this game hit in popularity. It happened to hit during the height of the Anne Rice era of urban fantasy and took its cues from said fiction. The end result is that it was the first pen and paper rpg that had a major appeal to potential female gamers.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

 

Here I must agree only in part. These questions are ultimately important, but not particularly relevant at the time. As a DV prosecutor, I had almost no serial abusers, but I had several serial victims. I do not question that they were really and truly being abused in each case, so that leaves the question - what gave the dear lady such a punchable face? No, that's not the question - why did she keep finding partners interested in punching her? We had a predatory theory of abusers, which made prosecuting them feel good but had very little to do with reality 98% of the time - life is thankfully not a John D, MacDonald novel.

 

Asking her what's wrong with her while she's in the relationship is not helpful - but damn someone should ask after she's out of there, shouldn't they? That's not "concern trolling" that's just concern - the third time your friend gets hit by a car, you'll surely ask about their relationship with streets, right?

 

I don't know the right answer.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Not from the LARP' date=' but from the Vampire: The Masquerade rpg itself. Thats when i noticed a huge influx of females into the hobby was after this game hit in popularity. It happened to hit during the height of the Anne Rice era of urban fantasy and took its cues from said fiction. The end result is that it was the first pen and paper rpg that had a major appeal to potential female gamers.[/quote']

 

The Amber DRPG community always had a lot of female players, too. I think the social focus in both games is more attractive to a lot of female roleplayers than the combat focus in other games. (Though my sister-in-law is quite bloody-minded both in her DnD days when she was younger and now in her computer rpg days.)

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

But also an interesting one. So' date=' for that matter, might be the topic of males in traditionally female spaces.[/quote']

 

One might expect there to be symmetry, but in my experience there isn't. At a professional level, a woman who takes a position as - say - Head of Surgery is quite likely to butt heads with older colleagues who feel a woman can't do their job. A man, on the other hand who takes a job as a nurse or pharmacist, where 90+% of the staff are likely to be female, is unlikely to get any particular push back. I've just come back from addressing a meeting of pharmacists: 96% of the attendees and 100% of the organisers were women. It never occurred to me (and probably not to them) that it was inappropriate for a man to be at the meeting, or that my opinions should be seen through the prism of gender.

 

Even outside work, I've found it easy to take part in "women's hobbies". A few weeks ago, I needed to borrow a top hat (see avatar :)), so went to see one of my wife's friends. They're part of a historic dance group and make their own costumes. Perhaps not unexpectedly, it's a 100% female group: there are a couple of male dancers, but no male costumiers. As part of the costume discussion, we looked at my waistcoat and when I said that it was early 20th century, instead of the later date that had been suggested, I didn't get a "How could you possibly know?" look or a patronizing response, I got a serious discussion about buttons. And an even longer debate about period ways of tying a cravat.

 

With the single exception of womyns' studies :), I think most women are perfectly accepting if a man is interested in something that they are also interested in. In contrast, I have often found some men to find it incomprehensible or even threatening, when women claim to be interested in something that they are interested in. I honestly have no idea what that's about.

 

The palindromedary notes that Lucius has been taken for female' date=' despite an obviously masculine name[/quote']

 

They probably figure it's a fancy-pants version of Lucy :)

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

But also an interesting one. So, for that matter, might be the topic of males in traditionally female spaces.

 

 

Sadly, the one example I've been exposed to is working hard to make it All About the Men in the fandom -- even though the target audience is young girls (My Little Pony: FiM). And there's been some horrifying incidents of creepy harassment at these so-called "BronyCons". :mad:

 

"But us guys aren't all LIKE that!"

 

Fine. What are you doing to stop the ones that ARE?! Especially when there are children involved now...

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Not from the LARP' date=' but from the Vampire: The Masquerade rpg itself. Thats when i noticed a huge influx of females into the hobby was after this game hit in popularity. It happened to hit during the height of the Anne Rice era of urban fantasy and took its cues from said fiction. The end result is that it was the first pen and paper rpg that had a major appeal to potential female gamers.[/quote']

 

Yep, though the Vampire LARP was always vary popular with the ladies as well.

 

I was in school during this time and worked at a game store.

 

I had never seen any other game attract quite so many female gamers in such large number, many of them completly new to the hobby.

 

At one point in time, we had just about every actress in the theatre program at two seperate high schools playing Vampire.

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Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

With the single exception of womyns' studies :)' date=' I think most women are perfectly accepting if a man is interested in something that they are also interested in.[/quote']

 

Pretty much my experience as well, however...

 

I have had some issues with women in fitness activites like Yoga or Pilates that have reservations about letting a man into an all female group. Understandable though, given the "meat market" attitude many people have about working out.

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