Geek Culture Lives Up to Ugly Stereotypes
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It's easy to pity tech geeks for having to live with the stereotype that they're undersexed, sexist, tone deaf, and mean-spirited. Easy to pity them until you see that geeks are their own worst enemy when it comes to upholding this stereotype. The latest tech world sexism scandal—involving Yahoo-sponsored lap dances at a conference—inspired Gawker to compile a list of some of the most recent sexism scandals in the tech world. Why on earth does the world of high tech create so many occasions for its ugliest members to send signals that indicate that they think that men are for thinking and women are for shutting up and stripping?
No doubt sexism deniers would say that the incidents listed on Gawker—which involved strippers, jokes about strippers, booth girls, and mean-spirited jokes aimed at a woman whose body didn't fit the exacting standards of audience members whose exposure to actual women is debatable—are not a matter of aggressive sexism. We've heard all the denials before: Feminists should get a sense of humor. What's wrong with a little sexiness at a tech conference? Geeks don't realize that lap dances send the signal that women aren't welcome. Et cetera. But incidents like the lap dances don't occur in a vacuum, but in an industry where women often face vicious treatment from some corners if they dare present themselves as the equals of men. Take the treatment that tech guru and blogger Kathy Sierra attracted, seemingly for no reason other than her willingness to be a woman with respect and authority in the industry. In this environment, conference entertainment that implies that there are no women in the audience certainly sends the message that the tech world is the He-Man Woman-Haters Club.
It's too bad, really, because many male tech geeks want a culture that's more welcoming to women. The "no women allowed" message many women perceive is being sent by a minority of men in this world. But men who find this kind of sexism disgusting still feed the beast when they quietly roll their eyes and move on. Sexists see silence as consent. Male geeks who want a culture more welcoming to women need to speak up when they see sexism, or this kind of thing won't end.
Comments
Ah, another "men suck" article from Amanda Marcotte.
By: Gretz | Tue, 01/12/2010 - 10:21
Really, having Amanda drill down into "even geeks are ugly perverted monsters" was unnecessary. Just about every aspect of male sexuality bothers Ms Marcotte, so this isn't much of a surprise.
Really, the geek end of the spectrum is even more villified for being disgusting perverts than men in general, but Ms Marcotte can't bring herself to really find the root cause. It couldn't be that being steeped in a community that looks at geeks with a gag-reflex and "eww!", coupled with the only examples of success in relationships being from jocks, movie stars and billionaires, the constant reinforcement that "men are wallets", 30 years of feminist "men suck", and the clear message that our attractiveness to women is primarily financial, you still have to wonder why ugly geeks return the contempt they're shown?
Of course not. Women have no contribution to this state. Women are saintly, perfect, innocent. Their contempt for men in general, and geeks in particular, is incidental.
Oh, and where it comes to lap-dancing: if any woman choses that as a way to pay her bills, instead of, say, studying her ass off, getting certified, pulling cable, late nights in a freezing data center, crawling under desks and in plenums, well, it's her body, and her choice. Most of us geeks are painfully aware that for many of us, the only reason for the attention is financial, and we don't need you go grind our noses in that point, we've been aware of it since our teens.
Broad Brush
By: xxreader | Thu, 10/22/2009 - 11:44
I work for a small software company, in an office with 4 talented, male programmers. Two of my co-workers are married and very active fathers. Never heard a sexist comment from either. The third is married and a born again Christian. Never heard a sexist comment. The fourth is right out of college and very respectful. Never heard a sexist comment. Perhaps this is just because I am one of two women in the office and they're only sexist when surrounded completely by men. Who knows?
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I've seen much more sexism in a sales environment (trade shows, conventions, etc). These are not tech shows, they're trade shows related to the niche industry for which we develop software. Salesmen taking potential or existing customers to strip clubs then bragging about it the next day, getting them laid in Vegas, etc. I've had my breasts looked at during sales presentations much more than my eyes.
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At one conference, one of my vendors tried to whore me out at a bar in a convention. His words "I'm buying you all these drinks, are you going to go home with 'Bill' or what?" Talk about a dirty salesman. We don't do business with him anymore. The majority of my experience at trade shows/conventions has been positive - majority are polite and respectful.
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Do I think trade shows/conferences are an appropriate venue for lap dances? No way. Let's stop placing people in neat little boxes and painting them with a broad brush already.
Geek culture?
By: Ketone | Wed, 10/21/2009 - 15:10
I'm not sure that the Yahoo conference is the best example of sexism in the tech industry. I presume that the idea for lap dances came from the management/marketing types, who aren't necessarily "geeks." My guess is that they were specifically trying to target the Taiwanese male tech geek audience (not sure whether they could have gotten away with that in the United States), so in that sense maybe you could blame the lap dances on the sexism of that group, but the Taiwanese male geek culture may not be fully representative of male geek culture elsewhere. Taiwan does seem have more of a patriarchal society than the United States, for example.
It's not the geeks - it's you
By: Xando | Wed, 10/21/2009 - 14:46
In the world of 'normal' people, everything has subtext. In the world of 'geeks', nothing does. Geeks, having spent their entire life developing intellectual gifts in preference to social gifts, have only a limited understanding of the kind of subjectivity most people take for granted. As a result, instead of carefully watching their words/actions they simply develop very thick skins and take offense at almost nothing.
And this behavior pattern is necessary. The sort of intellectual labor these folks do requires intense passion combined with extreme de-personalization. They need to be able to fully invest in ideas without linking those ideas to their self-worth.
The solution isn't for geeks to be more 'female-friendly'. It's for 'normal' people to understand how geeks actually operate and accommodate a world where someone will call you an idiot to your face without actually having any personal animus towards you.