Sexism in Nerd Culture

Hexartes

This splintered off from the privilege discussion. Basically, what do you think about objectification of women in comics, objectification of men in romance novels, et cetera.

Ace Rimmer

I think the problem with women in comics is that it appears the drawers haven't actually seen one in real life.

Hexartes

Well, of course they haven't. They don't have eyes, or brains for that matter.

Salix Babylonika

I can already tell this is going to be a mature discussion. :|

Ace Rimmer

Kexruct said:

Well, of course they haven't. They don't have eyes, or brains for that matter.

Or waists

Viani

Wait a second, I thought characters like Lady Death, Yoko and Lara Croft were extremely sexy because being realistically sexy in the game wouldn't be a good enough selling point, and since it being a fictional media, being fantastically sexualized is okay....because they aren't real?

Justice4243

Comic books are stylized in general. Comic proportions also tend to be slightly diffrent than human proportions

 Men are often portrayed a specific way as well (tall, muscular, etc...). Though with women, somehow artists sometimes go way to fire and end up drawing stuff that could exist with a human skeletal structure. 

Viani

Should I launch the TF2 Megan Fox missile or has that ground already been sundered?

sunn wolf

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Mojave Music said:

I can already tell this is going to be a mature discussion. :|

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Viani

[MEGAN FOX MISSILE, HERE BE LAUNCHED BY CODE 18!]


Megan Fox did not ruin the Micheal Bay Transformers Movies!

It was a revolutionary concept that skyrocketed the amount of money the movies made OVERSEAS! AND IN AMERICA!


And also the Autobots took a backseat to the US Marines because the FCC's regulations on using the US Military in movies makes it so they can't be put into a negative light.

sunn wolf

Viani said:

the FCC's regulations on using the US Military in movies makes it so they can't be put into a negative light.

is this actually a thing

Viani

Yes, I don't remember the name of it, it was brought over from the Hayes' Code, and there's a position in the FCC that has the final say on how the US Military is portrayed in a motion picture. SHIT I WISH I COULD REMEMBER IT.

In other words, putting the US Military in your movie just to get their asses kicked is a big no-no, so you have to change how they work in the movie if you want it to pass through uncensored and unaltered. Kind of why the American Godzilla movie was fucked up so bad because they couldn't have it just destroy shit and win, they had to have the military beat Godzilla.

Corporal Forsythe

U.S. MARINES #1

Manly McMacho

Viani said:

Yes, I don't remember the name of it, it was brought over from the Hayes' Code, and there's a position in the FCC that has the final say on how the US Military is portrayed in a motion picture. SHIT I WISH I COULD REMEMBER IT.

In other words, putting the US Military in your movie just to get their asses kicked is a big no-no, so you have to change how they work in the movie if you want it to pass through uncensored and unaltered. Kind of why the American Godzilla movie was fucked up so bad because they couldn't have it just destroy shit and win, they had to have the military beat Godzilla.

Because nothing screams "military superiority" like insecurity

sunn wolf

Corporal Forsythe said:

U.S. MARINES #1

if you post the word 'military' 3 times and then look into a mirror at midnight, Forsythe will climb out of it :>

Corporal Forsythe

sunn wolf said:

Corporal Forsythe said:

U.S. MARINES #1

if you post the word 'military' 3 times and then look into a mirror at midnight, Forsythe will climb out of it :>

And it better be a clean mirror to or you're getting a stern talking-to

Ace Rimmer

Anyway, to get it back on topic.

I think that at some point geek culture was male dominated but I dont know now and I think some nerds feel their space is being threatened.

Viani

I still don't know why the US Military isn't allowed to be over-powered by giant radioactive Gungnirotyrannoids, Pseudopodal Kaiju or Atomic Celestial Sentient Machines in fictional media.

I think it has to do with respecting and supporting the troops.



Edit: There are no nerds feeling like their space is threatened. I've never seen them, or head of them on the internet. Every nerd I have met has been pretty chill about their fictional sex objects.

Justice4243

My experience has been that nerds usually desire MORE not less female involvement. I'm not sure where these fabled groups of male nerds who put up the "No girls allowed" signs up are, but I've yet to see any.

Now, I've seen examples of male nerds having poor interactions with women, but not a lot of evidence that it stems from some desire to keep things a "boys club".

Tachyon

Justice4243

Not to say sexism in nerd culture doesn't exist. 

As discussed, the comic book industry is rife with it. But that doesn't mean it stems from some desire to keep women away.

Ace Rimmer

Maybe I have a different set of experiences being an Communist TG Euroweenie

Justice4243

DAMN THOSE SIX YEAR OLD NERDS AND STUFFED TIGERS! THEY NEED TO CHECK THEIR MALE PRIVILEGES.

Justice4243

Ace Rimmer said:

Maybe I have a different set of experiences being an Communist TG Euroweenie

Did you just try to be flippant because a couple of posters disagreed with you? 

You're not exactly fostering a great discussion environment by behaving this way.

Salix Babylonika

sometimes we lie around and we 

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Viani

I thought it was a "Oh I wish women would run around dressed like Lady Death"

and then the Lady Death comic popped up and the nerds rejoiced going "YAY!"

because no real woman would dress like Lady Death...


well, until the next cosplay convention.

[[insert Lady Death cosplay.jpg here]]

DEER LORD PRAISE THY ANTLERS

PlutoniumFist

When I look at nerd culture, I tend to see sexism not from the crowd but from the creators (excluding the random jerks you'll come across on Xbox Live or whatever).

It's never the active stereotypical version of sexism that we're aware of. It's the writers who include pages and pages of Stephanie Brown being tortured fetishistically. It's the artists who focus a dialogue shot on Mary Jane's breasts when you only ever see Spidey's face. Things like that.

Manly McMacho

Justice42 said:

My experience has been that nerds usually desire MORE not less female involvement. I'm not sure where these fabled groups of male nerds who put up the "No girls allowed" signs up are, but I've yet to see any.

Now, I've seen examples of male nerds having poor interactions with women, but not a lot of evidence that it stems from some desire to keep things a "boys club".

As I said in the other thread, this may be true but so many nerds, specifically gamers, discourage women from joining their spaces by assuming their interest isn't genuine (via the "gaemrgurl" phenomenon).

PlutoniumFist

You people type too fast.

Manly McMacho

PlutoniumFist said:

It's never the active stereotypical version of sexism that we're aware of. It's the writers who include pages and pages of Stephanie Brown being tortured fetishistically.

wait what

Viani

PlutoniumFist

Stephanie Brown. She was Robin for a while before being tortured to death by Black Mask. I can look for some of the images, they're pretty disgusting. Pure torture porn.

After she died, the story mostly focused on Batman's feelings and how he hated himself for not being able to save her.

PlutoniumFist

Yeah, that's it.

Manly McMacho

Oh, I thought you meant the Twilight author. nvm

Tachyon

^ Stephenie Meyer.

PlutoniumFist

I wouldn't be surprised if someone, somewhere, has written that into a comic.

Manly McMacho

^^...Oh.

Salix Babylonika

Manly McMacho said:

Justice42 said:

My experience has been that nerds usually desire MORE not less female involvement. I'm not sure where these fabled groups of male nerds who put up the "No girls allowed" signs up are, but I've yet to see any.

Now, I've seen examples of male nerds having poor interactions with women, but not a lot of evidence that it stems from some desire to keep things a "boys club".

As I said in the other thread, this may be true but so many nerds, specifically gamers, discourage women from joining their spaces by assuming their interest isn't genuine (via the "gaemrgurl" phenomenon).

that exists, but I think it's the result of the creators' sexism, not the cause of it.

I might be wrong though.

Viani

She later served briefly as the fourth Robin, and in 2009, became the third Batgirl. From 2009 to 2011, s

Holy jesus shit, he's gone through a fuckload of assistants.

RocketRunner

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Anyways,
I'm a little neutral towards this topic, because, guess what, my experiences do not neatly line up with all this talk of "fake geek girl" accusations (not that I can't imagine that happening, don't get me wrong). I say that because I'm in a nerd club where all of the people in charge of it are female (furthermore, one was in the military and one is getting a degree in sports management or something similar-and this
is a college that's in Division 1 Basketball), I was introduced to said club by a female friend, and there are a few additional female members (the club apparently used to not have many males in it). There's also the occasional female who's in some game group or clan.

I mean, I'm of the opinion that women can be geeks and such, all I'm saying is that there's quite a few in my neck of the woods.

Viani

Theres a FUCKLOAD in the northern regions of Montana.

Beholder

I am a bit ambivalent about women in comics. On one hand, objectification is definitely here, and it doe not disappear just because some of them can be badasses too. On the other hand... I, too, enjoy "sexy" depictions of women (blushes). Then again, just because I enjoy is does not mean it is entirely ok

As for objectification of men - I think it is much rarer issue than thought. Even in romance novels.

Manly McMacho

As for objectification of men - I think it is much rarer issue than thought. Even in romance novels.

I think that's because while they're definitely sexualized, they're not quite objectified. They aren't made into objects to be used for the woman's enjoyment, they're giving her the enjoyment on their own terms.

Hexartes

That's a good point: where does sexualization end and objectification begin?

Unknown

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Manly McMacho

And that's why you don't see too many male characters being objectified. When the love interest is female, she's secondary to the plot. When they're male, he IS the plot, with the female main character doing all in their power to give themselves to him.

Justice4243

Justice42 said:

My experience has been that nerds usually desire MORE not less female involvement. I'm not sure where these fabled groups of male nerds who put up the "No girls allowed" signs up are, but I've yet to see any.

Now, I've seen examples of male nerds having poor interactions with women, but not a lot of evidence that it stems from some desire to keep things a "boys club".

As I said in the other thread, this may be true but so many nerds, specifically gamers, discourage women from joining their spaces by assuming their interest isn't genuine (via the "gaemrgurl" phenomenon).

I wonder if a lot of this is because of the "gamer girl" phenomenon? I think the idea was sort of around back in my hay-days, but I'm not sure if anyone really tried to capitalize on it or identified as a gamer girl then.

Salix Babylonika

I think the problem is that the backlash to certain ridiculous ads (y'all know the ones) got incredibly out of hand and suddenly every woman who was at all nerdy was some evil corporate agent trying to steal nerds' money and hearts.

This is of course untrue, but that's the kind of thing you can end up believing if all of your friends think exactly like you do and you're already rather sexist.

millercross

Oh hey I have thoughts on this.

My experience has been that nerds usually desire MORE not less female involvement. I'm not sure where these fabled groups of male nerds who put up the "No girls allowed" signs up are, but I've yet to see any.

Tony Harris is a most recent example of how this attitude can be found. And while he's also a content generator, I think he definitely counts as a nerd.

I think that's because while they're definitely sexualized, they're not quite objectified. They aren't made into objects to be used for the woman's enjoyment, they're giving her the enjoyment on their own terms.

• This is why the whole argument that men in comics/media in generally are just as sexualized and unrealistic as women are reeks of bullshit to me, really. This and the fact that men in media in general are also often empowering fantasies created for men too.

  It's the artists who focus a dialogue shot on Mary Jane's breasts when you only ever see Spidey's face. 

  If you are referring to Superior Spider-Man, then I think a very important aside would be that there's such a thing as plot-relevant objectification and that in this particular case, it's almost tolerable if only because the story itself does not condone at all what Doctor Octopus is doing in that scene and you're supposed to be creeped out by it as well as think awfully of him. 

  
  

  When I look at nerd culture, I tend to see sexism not from the crowd but from the creators (excluding the random jerks you'll come across on Xbox Live or whatever). 

  I've found sexism and general bigotry on both sides, really. Admittedly, I've never experienced them firsthand (I'm mostly lucky in that I avoid most nerd hangouts, stints on TvT notwithstanding) but I've heard multiple accounts from female friends who are unable to go to comic book stores without being harassed, humilliated or just being treated poorly in general and such. 

millercross

how do i format so that it doesn't look like shit

Tachyon

millercross said:

how do i format so that it doesn't look like shit

delete all the crap like this

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and you should be good