Tuesday, June 16, 2009

even male geeks are sexist

I've lost count of the number of times I've had showcase posts pulled from forums purely because they didn't fit a certain "geek ideal" - the male one.

The only girl geeks that seem to be accepted by male geeks are women that act like tomboys, the femme fatale or cute girl ie. certain sexualised stereotypes of women.

I am not a tomboy or a hyper-sexual woman. I'm just a regular girl who's into geeky things and I know that I'm not welcome in the sexist world of "male geeks" and I don't want to be but I'm still calling them out.

For a bunch of people supposedly shunned by the mainstream society, they are still able to wield their male privilege without much resistance. The "geek subculture" is a culture dominated by males and entails all the same issues that other male dominated cultures have.

- Still Not Wanted: Girl Geeks @ Shakesville 090616

- Gender difference in math ability variability @ Restructure 090609

1 comment:

  1. Some male geeks just don't get it when you tell them they're being offensive. A few years ago I went to a Linux event in England (the people putting it on had been running a podcast, but that stopped in 2008 and the live thing ended last October). This was the first live show they did and the talks were excellent, but the actual live version of the podcast was dreadful - nearly all off-topic, foul-mouthed and smutty. I hated it - it was like being back at boarding school (shudder). I made the excuse that "the ladies" wouldn't like it (there were a few of them), but the truth is I didn't either. I was told I should listen to someone else's show instead, which is how they responded to anyone who encouraged them to use fewer F-words.

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