Category Archives: Feminism

you don’t deserve a thing

May 29, 2014 6:16 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I was writing up a post on conventions in general but current events have taken precedence and I will release that post another day.  Over the weekend another in a seemingly endless series of mass murders took place in California.  A young man injured 13 people and killed 7 including himself in a vengeance rampage that seemed to be fueled by his lack of a love life.

I first heard about this on Monday and the online article that I read linked to his last YouTube video where he explained what he was going to do.  It was a 7 minute long self-pitying rant about how his love life was unsatisfactory and how he had done everything required of him to “get a girl” and how he literally blamed the entire world for what he was now going to do.  He apparently also wrote a 100+ page long manifesto that went into more detail but after hearing his video I felt I didn’t need to hear more.

One thing that struck me is the way he continued to use words like “deserve” or “fair”.  He said that for all his efforts he deserved love and that women were not being fair by denying him that love.  In his mind they were not people.  He in fact refers to them as animals.  To him they were merely prizes to be won if he put in the hard work and effort.  He really didn’t care about their happiness or what they wanted.  All he cared about was his own happiness.

This holds up an uncomfortable mirror up to all the male gender and how we relate to women around us.  Do we really see the women in our lives as equals?  Or do we instead see them at best as second-class citizens and at worst as inanimate objects to be used at our discretion?

What’s particularly troubling is this idea that there is a magic formula for “being loved” and that it’s all a merit based system.  The notion that if you persist enough and do all the right things that eventually you will wear down the woman of your dreams and make her your own, regardless of how she feels about it.  This turns the woman into an objective to be won and conquered and is pure misogyny plain and simple.

In this life you don’t deserve a thing.  You are not guaranteed to get the woman of your dreams, guys.  If you’re going to find that true love of your life then it has to be a two-way street and the attraction has to be mutual.  If it’s not there, then it’s not there and it’s time to move on and get on with your life.

Posted in: culture, current events, feminism, life in general, relationships

nerd equality

October 29, 2013 8:30 PM , Leave a Comment ,

A couple of weeks ago I sat in on a panel about upcoming sci-fi books for the Fall and Winter seasons.  The line to get into the panel began forming about an hour ahead of time and by the time they let us in we easily had over 200 people trying to get into a room that would only hold 100 at most.

The crowd was thoroughly a heterogeneous lot.  All ages, all races, all manner of people and at least 50% female.  Now the reason I mention the last is that this is a thoroughly different situation than those that I encountered when I went to my first sci-fi convention back in the 80’s.

Back in those days the female nerd was almost unheard of.  Nerd culture was very much an old boys club in more ways than one.  Nerds always complained about being excluded and picked on by the cool kids and society in general but here they were doing the same to other fans.  Nerds did not exclude female fans outright but neither did they make them feel very welcome.

I noticed this type of behavior into college.  The gaming and sci-fi club admitted female members but usually the member was “the girlfriend” of this guy or “the sister” the other guy and the male members never went out of their way to invite female members to participate in gaming nights, and only included them when they were short a player.  Which is a really bizarre reaction as nerds typically want to meet women, and here they were shunning them.

After college my gaming activity dropped to nothing.  My only interaction with this world was through conventions.  I noted that the bad behavior continued unabated.  The worst incident I recall was at a panel for a TV show featuring a lead actress that had been invited to speak.  The talk was marred by jerks in the back of the room making constant catcalls until they were asked to leave.  At the end of the session as we were all filing out I heard a pair of guys talking.  One told the other how bored he was and how she “should have flashed the audience”.

But something was quietly happening in front of everyone’s eyes.  A small trickle of female fans was slowly growing into a mighty stream.  Not only were they attending the conventions in greater numbers but they were taking up positions of importance in the fan groups that organized these.

Those early pioneers that suffered through the “second class citizen” treatment in the 70s and 80s had grown up and transmitted their love of sci-fi and nerd culture to their kids and a new generation of female fans thoroughly inculcated in nerd culture was growing up.

Another thing happened separate to all of this.  Nerd culture had come into the limelight in the 90s.  With greater exposure came a wider fan base.  Female fans from the mainstream that refused to be marginalized entered the equation and forever changed things in the nerd world.

These new fans demanded to be heard.  Writers, artists, and those creating content began to take notice and slowly began to provide content aimed specifically at this new market.

A few remnants of the bad old days still remained however.  The “booth babes” phenomenon of the early 00’s drew in male fans by having models wear skimpy outfits.  This was quashed by those that pointed out how women were being objectified by these displays.  In the late 00s came a call to action from several prominent female gamers to stop the cyber bullying ways of certain male gamers online.

Is it a perfect world now?  By no means.  Old attitudes take time to die out.  Harassment of female fans still happens at conventions from time to time.   Now however this is dealt with as a crime and not ignored.  Those caught harassing others are at the very least ejected from the convention if not turned over to local authorities.

The younger generations coming into this culture seem to come into it with a more open mind.  I wander along the milling crowds of fans at this convention going from display to display.  Everyone happily mingling together.  The thing about nerd culture is that (for the most part) it has always been more open and accepting of different cultures, points of view, and different ideas.

We never discriminated along racial or religious or other socioeconomic divides.  Why did we discriminate along gender lines?

Posted in: feminism, life in general