While reading April's latest post (which doesn't seem to be generating quite the wild fire I expected, not sure if that's good or bad) I was reminded of one I did near the start of the year. Unlike the current topic of nice guys mine is more about geek guys and the hard times they dish out and receive. Enjoy.
I consider myself a geek and since I'm male that would make me a male geek. One of the topics that's been pretty hot these days is how male geeks treat female geeks that try to get into the various types of geekdom (games, Star Wars, computers, etc...). Something I see are often long posts about how male geeks are so horrible to female geeks and how those male geeks are so terrible for their misogyny. One thing I don't see a lot is exactly where that treatment comes from. Well some might talk about it but I don't think its being brought up enough to be effective. So why don't I just throw in my two cents.
Short and sweet do you know what led to a lot of males to get into geekiness? Being socially awkward can be quite painful when confronted by "normal people". There's only so much abuse one can take from the "normal guys and girls" before you just leave for greener grass. As a way to carve out their own piece of existence they went off to make their geek communities. Dungeons and Dragons, Star Trek, interest in math and science, etc... Finally these guys had their own slice of heaven where they could not just exist but live without being harassed.
Well after a while girls started to show interest in some of those same things and, like any person who is looking for people with similar interests, tried to work their way in with those male geeks. While there are plenty of guy geeks who have no problem with this (either because they are hoping for romance/sex or because they are extremely excited to have someone to share interests with or whatever) there are those who don't take kindly to the "invasion of their space".
Hold up a bit. I think this needs a bit of explaining. You see to an extent I think some of that apprehension toward female geeks may be justified. Think about it like this. A lot of male geeks are heterosexual and are therefore interested in girls/women. Thing is they may be taking interest in "normal girls". You know the ones that probably had a hand in ostracizing those male geeks and driving them off to their own slice of heaven to start with. So when they see girls coming in they feel threatened. The very fact that they are girls is probably triggering something. Triggering something that doesn't go off with other guys coming in (because guys don't match their sexual orientation).
Now I'm sure that someone, somewhere, is flying off the handle because I'm not damning male geeks for their horrible treatment of female geeks, whining about male privilege, or some other easy score for points. Well fuck them because they aren't paying attention.
The reason I want to flesh this shit out is because if people really care about female geeks not being harassed by male geeks then let's actually get to why they do it rather than writing them off as woman haters. Despite the way I've been done by women in my life I don't want them to be excluded from the geekdoms they want to get into for such sexist reasons. I'm not trying to excuse their behavior. I'm trying to figure it out because how can you stop something if you don't know how and why it happens?
