Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

[Cygnia]

She Wanted to Do Her Research. He Wanted to Talk ‘Feelings.’

 

The evasion of justice within academia is all the more infuriating because the course of sexual harassment is so predictable. Since I started writing about women and science, my female colleagues have been moved to share their stories with me; my inbox is an inadvertent clearinghouse for unsolicited love notes. Sexual harassment in science generally starts like this: A woman (she is a student, a technician, a professor) gets an email and notices that the subject line is a bit off: “I need to tell you,” or “my feelings.” The opening lines refer to the altered physical and mental state of the author: “It’s late and I can’t sleep” is a favorite, though “Maybe it’s the three glasses of cognac” is popular as well.

[Pattern Ghost]

From the same article:

 

 

 

He closes by assuring her, “That’s just the way things are and you’re gonna have to deal with me until one of us leaves.”

 

[Lucius]

 

Summary: "Heroic characters in a fantastic bronze age world go on an epic quest to hold their entire society - up to and including Gods - accountable for facilitating the crime of rape."

 

 

http://adept-press.com/ideas-and-discourse/other-essays/goddess-of-rape/

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Sometimes I wish I were a palindromedary

[Cygnia]

Oh, Is It That Week Again?

 

This has been going on so long that it’s a cycle now. Every so often– usually, it’s two or three times a year– some guy in the comics industry will do something so horribly misogynist and un-evolved that it blows up into a news story in the comics blogosphere for a couple of weeks. Everyone weighs in and then we all move on. Because, y’know, that’s just the way things are.

That’s the thing that frustrates me so much. That we all just shrug. Well, of course. It’s comics. Everyone in comics is damaged and weird. That’s the landscape. What, you expected them to be LESS damaged and awkward with their treatment of women? Climb off the rainbow, you ridiculous idealist. Expecting maturity from comics people is about as realistic as hoping for a magic dog that eats garbage and craps money.

That is a cognitive disconnect that just baffles me. Superhero comics are supposed to be about idealism. About characters that are better. Y’know, it’s why they put the actual word HERO in there. In the very first Superman story EVER, the one that jump-started the entire industry, Superman takes out a wife-beater. Because it was baked into the culture that bullying women was wrong. Duh.

[Cygnia]

Is Technology To Blame For Threats Against Female Journalists?

 

Many people chose not to understand the difference between trash-talking and the abuse hurled at women, which tends to be gendered, reference historic discrimination, and leverage legitimate threats. Online threats of stalking and rape are easier to dismiss as “just words” if rape or avoiding being raped doesn’t shape your passage through life as it does most women’s.

[Cygnia]

 

The Proto-Trolls Who Attacked the First Woman to Sell Products with Her Face On Them

[Sociotard]

BYU team (50% women) wins cybersecurity competition. They are unusual in that most teams are male dominated.

[Pattern Ghost]

Another sexist robot

[Lucius]

 

I apologize if this has been posted, I don't remember seeing it:

 

 

 

I stumbled across it here

 

http://www.verycutegm.com/?p=435

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I wish I could lie back and let the palindromedary do all the work

[Pattern Ghost]

Mixing some genres to fail to make that point. Twilight -- despite its faults -- was a romance. Bella was a protagonist. A horrible human being, perhaps, but she achieved her story goals (get the guy) through her own efforts (long list of stupid antics). All that meme-thing says is "I prefer one genre over another." I prefer Harry Potter over Twilight, and have read both. But it's an apples to oranges comparison. One is a subgenre of Fantasy, one is a subgenre of Romance (category romance, that is).

[ghost-angel]

Mixing some genres to fail to make that point. Twilight -- despite its faults -- was a romance. Bella was a protagonist. A horrible human being, perhaps, but she achieved her story goals (get the guy) through her own efforts (long list of stupid antics). All that meme-thing says is "I prefer one genre over another." I prefer Harry Potter over Twilight, and have read both. But it's an apples to oranges comparison. One is a subgenre of Fantasy, one is a subgenre of Romance (category romance, that is).

 

That doesn't mean we can't question the passivity of the women and the toxicity of the relationships. Regardless of genre considerations - Bella was given zero agency in the stories, which is not a genre thing (there are plenty of romance novels where the leading women are given agency; see the entire myriad of modern romance-urban-fantasy novels that Twilight falls well into genre with: plenty of lead women with agency.) Bella is a bad example of a character no matter what genre you're comparing her too, the depictions of relationships were especially unhealthy, making them especially bad examples of Romance.

[Pattern Ghost]

That doesn't mean we can't question the passivity of the women and the toxicity of the relationships.

 

And I didn't say we shouldn't. On the other hand, I do question the assertion that Bella is at all passive. In fact, she manipulated Edward throughout the series. She pursued her story goals (i.e., she bent Edward to her will and made him betray his morals -- I mean, "won his love") with as much tenacity as any female character in Harry Potter. It's her goals* that are questionable. If you think she was passive, you need to re-read the books.

 

 

 

*Edit: "Methods" may be a better term. (Though those require a string of short term goals that are problematic at best.) The difference is really that Bella is entirely selfish in her pursuit while the heroic characters are selfless.

[death tribble]

*Edit: "Methods" may be a better term. (Though those require a string of short term goals that are problematic at best.) The difference is really that Bella is entirely selfish in her pursuit while the heroic characters are selfless.

That I think is one of the reasons that both men and women have a problem with Twilight. We are living in an age where women are being shown as being fighters and capable of self sacrifice but Twilight harks back to the old days. I have a great regard for Eowyn, for Xena, for Scully, Ziva David and for Johansson's Black Widow. I would point to these as good role models for girls growing up. What they do afterwards is up to them.

[gewing]

That I think is one of the reasons that both men and women have a problem with Twilight. We are living in an age where women are being shown as being fighters and capable of self sacrifice but Twilight harks back to the old days. I have a great regard for Eowyn, for Xena, for Scully, Ziva David and for Johansson's Black Widow. I would point to these as good role models for girls growing up. What they do afterwards is up to them.

Honor Harrington, Paksennarion...

[Pattern Ghost]

Honor Harrington, Paksennarion...

 

Demelza

[death tribble]

I put down those examples from film and television that I could immediately recall so my pardon from all posters for those that I did not put down from any media.

[Pattern Ghost]

I only know Demelza from her TV appearance. I don't really read period romances, but the wife ropes me into watching some. Demelza handles her relationship issues a lot better than Bella.

[death tribble]

And I don't know which character you mean. sorry.

[Pattern Ghost]

And I don't know which character you mean. sorry.

 

That's OK. She's in the Poldark series. Like I said, I'm not a huge romance reader or viewer, so she's the first good example of a character from that side of things I could think of. Point being that whether you look at her relationship mainplot or her adventure/supernatural subplots, Bella's not the greatest example for young women available in literature or film.

[Cygnia]

Surprise! Frat Bro Comment Sections Are Teeming With Misogyny.

 

Of course, no one who’s been reading the internet over the past decade will gasp at the revelation that insecure misogynists hang out in the comments section or that fraternities are petri dishes overflowing with the bacterial goo of hate speech. Thanks to the phenomenon of email leaks, interested observers have gotten to see that, across geography and school tier, fraternity members speak horribly offensive things within their own ranks. For years, the University of Chicago’s Jewish frat, Alpha Epsilon Pi, passed around emails with anti-black and anti-Muslim language. At Dartmouth, a frat told its first-year members they needed to “move on” from hand jobs to blow jobs. In 2013, a member of Georgia Tech’s Phi Kappa Tau frat sent an email with the subject line “Luring Your Rapebait” that advised recipients to “encounter,” “engage,” “escalate,” and “expunge” women.

[Cancer]

Social fraternities have always been seething cesspits of privilege and bad behavior which they get away with only because of money and connections. Bayonetting every last one of them sounds good to me.

 

I merely question whether a rant about them belongs in a thread nominally about geek communities. Frat-boys are not and have never been geeks.

[Cygnia]

Considering I've now seen geek-oriented frats, I think it's valid.

[Cancer]

Really? Hm. That's new to me. You can tell I work at a university without social fraternities/sororities, I guess.

[Burrito Boy]

If we're going to start listing women who can fight, don't forget Dark Agnes de Chastillon, Red Sonya of Rogatino, and Valeria.

[ghost-angel]

If we're going to start listing women who can fight, don't forget Dark Agnes de Chastillon, Red Sonya of Rogatino, and Valeria.

 

I think this sidesteps the actual issue ... it's not entirely about "women who can fight" or "tough women who fight for something" it's about Agency, they have full control of their persons, their stories, and their directions. And they'll fight for it.