Nerds: Stop hating women, please
newstatesman.com
newstatesman.com
Nowhere does he claim hatred for women in general.
The formula for such articles is this: look for statements that contain a bunch of negativity and anger at the state of things from a certain person's viewpoint, see if the target party of this anger constitutes people who happen to be females, and if yes, brand them as misogynistic.
I am pretty sure that the person in question has loved a woman, loves his mother, etc.
Yes, nerds are overly critical people, but making the world a sterile and politically correct place where a person is crucified for posting some bile on his personal Facebook is not the solution.
Deliberately misinterpreting every piece of bile that targets a set of people who statistically happen to be females is even worse.
'Misogyny' is used dangerously loosely these days, and overuse drives attention away from the real problems women face.
Encourager of geek girls here, with a really smart girlfriend who happens to be a great developer
It's a trend in the kind of SEO douchebaggery we should consider boycotting.
Whilst the article does perhaps go over the line in saying the behaviour is characteristic, the post it replies to is far worse, and is aggressively misogynistic.
But I have to conclude that the OP was referring to the title of the article. By saying "Nerds: Please stop hating women", it frames the conversation with a starting assumption that, well, nerds hate women. I understand that every content company/website optimizes for readership, and controversial titles garner more pageviews, but I have to agree with OP that vilifying the "Nerd" class as "hating women" is a bit over-the-top.
Especially meta-hilarious is the fact that it obviously is addressed to male nerds, but doesn't make this distinction, thereby also implicitly reinforcing the idea that when someone uses the word "nerd" as a class, we should assume they are just talking about men, and women are not a significant contingent of that class.
Yes, perhaps the article should have been entitled 'Some Male Nerds - please stop hating women'.
That sounds just about specific and nerdy enough :)
The original post is many things, none of them good. I can't say I see convincing evidence of categorical hatred of women, but certainly it is elitist, entitled, paranoid, and puerile. It's creepy and unprofessional, and it's not even well-written. But one point can be extracted from it: that there really is a toxic cycle of mutual predation going on here. The things he claims happen do happen, not the majority of the time, but not in insignificant numbers either. I do not claim the post itself has a point: much like its response, it loads the problem onto one side only, refusing to acknowledge the mutual or cyclic nature of the situation. The reverse also occurs, not a majority of the time, but again not in insignificant numbers. And they both ruin things for a lot of people: far more than are actually involved in the problem itself.
"...the REAL Nerds, who YOU secretly think are REALLY PATHETIC..."
"And also, if ANY of these guys that you hang on tried to talk to you out of that Con? You wouldnt give them the fucking time of day. Shut up you damned liar, no you would not. Lying, Liar Face"
Obviously many of us nerdy, introverted types grow up thinking 'girls don't dig us' but not all of us shed that image when we reach adulthood.
It presumes women are not nerds. Just like
> Obviously many of us nerdy, introverted types grow up thinking 'girls don't dig us'
presumes heterosexual women and homosexual men are not 'nerds'. I realise that's not the intention of the sentence, but it's very easy to read it that way.
I'm a dragon-con goer. I've actually never thought that anyone not interested in what they were doing (and not getting paid for it) would be trying to fake their way in, be it an oddly dressed man or woman.
As regular street clothed people mainly interested in the video gaming track(s), my SO and I were probably thought to be the posures by many of the cos-players.
I don't grok this attitude, but then maybe I'm not entirely the obsessive introvert geek stereotype.
...and not project their actions on an entire gender or community
So, as a nerdy teen that was unfortunately probably quite misogynistic, I write this post, to perhaps explain (but not to justify) the bitterness and hatred that many fellow geeks harbour. Whilst I'm not saying women don't have this experience too, I don't think it's exactly the same, and I also don't know if a lot of "normal" people appreciate just how devastating it can be.
See one thing I'd like to say is that whilst the situation is bad for everyone, the minority status of girls in gaming (at least in the early 2000s) meant as a teenage boy, it felt like they had a certain privilege. So what I'll do is try and illustrate my feelings as they used to be in the hope of providing a better understanding of it all.
This is how I felt as a kid.
Here me out, as I'm just trying to explain people's attitudes. As a nerdy, bad at socialising, rejected by anyone (due to being creepy/awkward/unconfident/ashamed) guy growing up, you find a sanctum, a cave, full of people like you, where instead of like at school where people are "ranked" on their social ability, they are instead ranked on their gaming ability, knowledge, ability to stick at a shitty internet argument, whatever. Either way, it feels like your world where you're free of the bullshit that comes with being a nerdy teenage boy. Free from the bullying, the failure, the powerlessness. The only issue is that you are one of a giant mass of people - it's extremely hard to discern who you are simply because everyone is pretty much like you - slightly sick sense of humour, loving LAN parties, wearing nerdy t-shirts. As a guy you're kind of part of a big mass and you feel like there is no way to discern yourself, or get attention (and attention is important if you lack a normal amount of it).
So then, a girl comes along. Everyone fawns over them, gives them huge amounts of attention, invites them to everything - say you spent months trying to befriend people enough to get invited to the coolest LANs or OPed on the most popular IRC channels. A pretty girl in nerd circles was seemingly such a rarity that they'd have this shit given to them instantly, lavished with attention (and as we can see now, not necessarily the good kind). It was even worse if they were pretty and wore "slutty" cosplay outfits - now you're competing for the attention of the girl again and it's just like school and that horrible place we abandoned. So you get jealous, bitter, and resentful. You get even more jealous, bitter, and resentful when said girls make blog posts about how bad they've got it, when they are getting all the attention and advantages you've dreamed about since you can remember, but all they have to do is put up with a little creepiness? How dare they. You try to talk to them, a half assed flirt (because you don't really get the chance to talk to girls) and are shot down as being creepy and only into girls for sex - not true - you sometimes feel the deepest connection you've ever had for someone because they have bridged into your world and might just be the one. Your mind gets completely carried away like this because you're confused, jealous, naive and desperate. You have no idea what to do, only that this girl has gone and taken the only known quantity you had and made it just like the shitty world where you felt worthless and helpless. So yeah, bitterness and resentment.
Now, I've grown up a lot now, and through hard work and finding a father figure in day-to-day life, am a confident, rounded guy, and don't have these issues, and realise just how wrong I was.
I'm not saying the above is "right" in any way shape or form, but in order to fix the internet community we have to understand just why people are so resentful and misogynistic. My experiences weren't true for all people, and they were not in any way accurate, but I definitely did harbour feelings like this until I grew up and grew into a decent human.
The funny thing is, they've left their scars and in some ways I remember it like it was yesterday.