Geek Cultural *isms
Jul. 30th, 2010 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brynndragon(from Cause I'm Nerdcore Like That; he uses "nerd" where I'd use "geek", but I assure you, it's not enough of a cultural difference for these problems to not exist in my social circles)
There are long-established portions of the culture that define what a nerd looks like and who is allowed to speak and have their voices heard within nerd circles. The dominant face of the nerd culture is a straight cis white male one. He consumes, he indulges his devotion, he discusses, he creates. When he does, men are the only ones that are full partners in the collection of trivia, media, and information; women are the other half of the planet, the half you have to explain things to. Girlfriends are not supposed to be interested in what you are doing, they are supposed to cower in AWE. They’re supposed to marvel at your ability to work everything from the Linux operating system (yes, we understand, you loaded Ubuntu on a Graphing Calculator. WE ARE NOW SEXUALLY ATTRACTED TO YOU AND OH PLEASE TELL US ABOUT YOUR GUILD ON WARCRAFT) to the toaster. They are supposed to listen to your boring, surface-level dissection of comic book dynamics. They are supposed to find your "get back in the kitchen" "jokes" to be just the highest order of wit. If women accidentally have opinions about things, they must submit them to the scrutiny of the male intellect, which has full veto power on everything women think they know about nerd culture. They are quite vicious about defending the things they love from the tiny thoughts of women.
(as an aside, the comments on that article are actually worth reading. I have to start using this one: "In the words of George Takei, "If my partner sucked that hard I’d never leave the mansion.")
(You made it to the bottom of the post! Here's a bonus comic)
There are long-established portions of the culture that define what a nerd looks like and who is allowed to speak and have their voices heard within nerd circles. The dominant face of the nerd culture is a straight cis white male one. He consumes, he indulges his devotion, he discusses, he creates. When he does, men are the only ones that are full partners in the collection of trivia, media, and information; women are the other half of the planet, the half you have to explain things to. Girlfriends are not supposed to be interested in what you are doing, they are supposed to cower in AWE. They’re supposed to marvel at your ability to work everything from the Linux operating system (yes, we understand, you loaded Ubuntu on a Graphing Calculator. WE ARE NOW SEXUALLY ATTRACTED TO YOU AND OH PLEASE TELL US ABOUT YOUR GUILD ON WARCRAFT) to the toaster. They are supposed to listen to your boring, surface-level dissection of comic book dynamics. They are supposed to find your "get back in the kitchen" "jokes" to be just the highest order of wit. If women accidentally have opinions about things, they must submit them to the scrutiny of the male intellect, which has full veto power on everything women think they know about nerd culture. They are quite vicious about defending the things they love from the tiny thoughts of women.
(as an aside, the comments on that article are actually worth reading. I have to start using this one: "In the words of George Takei, "If my partner sucked that hard I’d never leave the mansion.")
(You made it to the bottom of the post! Here's a bonus comic)
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-06 03:54 am (UTC)And there's also a stereotype that nerds generally don't have girlfriends. Maybe there's a correlation...