[davidhansen]

I'm not sure why the author of this article somehow thinks that geeks deny the existence of sexism in geek culture. The reality is that it's widely known and accepted. If the author wants to find something to rail against, he should have chosen the fact that everybody knows, but nobody cares.

I'm not going to defend the treatment of women in geek culture, as much of it is indefensible. but it seems that few people bring up one of the most important factors in its existence, one which has nothing at all to do with objectification. It has more to do with envy, anger, and an amazing ability to hold a grudge.

Many HN readers are from a younger generation than myself. Many of you grew up always equating geek with "cool", and have no conception of what it would be like to be treated as nearly subhuman for liking computers. Some of us, however, remember the torment, the humiliation, the violence, the scorn and the ostracism of finding science, electronics, and computers fascinating. There was, indeed, such a time. Many nerds who endured poor treatment at the hands of their peers developed deep emotional traumas that, to this day, exist to some extent or another. One of these traumas is borne of the experience of being not merely rejected, but openly mocked by girls during the most critical time in a young man's life when he is supposed to develop his sense of social status and sexuality. Frustration and humiliation is quick to turn to anger, and from anger, a deep rooted misogyny.

The result of this kind of upbringing is often a socially stunted man who, despite all his powers of logic and reason, finds it difficult to reason away the anger that he knows shouldn't be there, but is. He witnesses sexism and mistreatment of women around him, but he lacks the empathy required to say or do anything about it.

This concludes my armchair psychologist's analysis of one possible dimension of a hypothesis of why many of my generation permits geek culture to allow rampant sexism.

Caveats: I have no data or training in psychology to suggest this is at all a significant factor. But I am quite familiar with the phenomenon, and I know several other nerds who experience the same thing. I mention it only because it seems the zeitgeist is that men don't even see the sexism. I posit that many do see it, but it doesn't matter to (a good portion of) them. And that a possible cause of this in geek culture specifically is latent adolescent anger at women.

[da_dude4242]

"Some of us, however, remember the torment, the humiliation, the violence, the scorn and the ostracism of finding science, electronics, and computers fascinating. There was, indeed, such a time. Many nerds who endured poor treatment at the hands of their peers developed deep emotional traumas that, to this day, exist to some extent or another. One of these traumas is borne of the experience of being not merely rejected, but openly mocked by girls during the most critical time in a young man's life when he is supposed to develop his sense of social status and sexuality. Frustration and humiliation is quick to turn to anger, and from anger, a deep rooted misogyny."

The irony here is that the stigmatization of "nerds" was/is a product of males falling outside acceptable gender roles as well. Calling these males "privileged" is a way to dismiss and marginalize them.

Why is it that the majority of feminist articles I run into feel the need to dismiss the problems of "privileged" in making an argument for their perspective? They are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps it's selection bias and only controversial articles float to the top but it really seems like this is the norm.

[wanorris]

This is a pretty good starter inventory for what feminists mean when they talk about "male privilege".

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/

You may disagree with the analysis behind the list's construction, but I see little if anything on that list that obviously gets crossed off the list by virtue of being a geek.

Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the idea that geeks have male privilege does not exclude the possibility that there is another form of privilege that they lack that others have. Some other types of privilege that are sometimes considered are white privilege, class privilege, heterosexual privilege, etc. You can have male privilege but not white privilege, etc.

In other words, privilege isn't simply a binary have/don't have thing such that geeks have it and women don't.

You could make an argument that there is some sort of gender-stereotypical privilege that, say, football players share in but geeks do not. Is that where you were going?

[127]

I was one of those nerds. I was not bullied by girls, but by guys. Most of the girls were really nice and lovely, in fact. I have nothing but fond memories of girls from those times.

As such I find your hypothesis quite hilarious and insulting. Misogyny in Newspeak does not mean hatred of women, it means things women hate. Think about it. More often than not it is a pure strawman.

Your logic chain goes as such: bullying -> misogyny -> boobies in entertainment.

My logic chain goes as follows: I like boobies -> boobies in entertainment.

Somehow you jump from sexism to misogyny without blinking. Those are two completely different things.

[Mithrandir]

As well as gaining points by distancing oneself from unpopular kids, one loses points by being close to them. A woman I know says that in high school she liked nerds, but was afraid to be seen talking to them because the other girls would make fun of her. Unpopularity is a communicable disease; kids too nice to pick on nerds will still ostracize them in self-defense.

From http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

[bitops]

[The "you" below is not personal.]

> The result of this kind of upbringing is often a socially stunted man who, despite all his powers of logic and reason, finds it difficult to reason away the anger that he knows shouldn't be there, but is. He witnesses sexism and mistreatment of women around him, but he lacks the empathy required to say or do anything about it.

Boo the fuck hoo. If guys weren't so hung up on trying to explain everything rationally, they might experience empathy without trying very hard. Most guys out there who want to "be sensitive" are putting on a nice liberal face so that they appear to have the right opinion.

I'm a guy, and can state from experience, that most guys are more concerned with being right and looking good than being empathic and in touch with their feelings. The issue is that with empathy comes understanding, and so you might see what a jerk you are sometimes.

Consequently, we're way too hung up on pride and being the alpha. Until guys can take a step back and admit that they might not have all the answers all the time, the thoughts, attitudes and opinions stated in the article will not go away.

[rdtsc]

I blame fucked up educational and general (I presume US?) culture. Let me give you another possibility. A country where liking math, computers and being good at those subjects earns you status and admiration including from girls. I remember tutoring some girls in those subjects, helping them with the homework and eventually dating them. It mostly based on my status as being #1 in those subjects got me the equivalent I guess what a football jock would get in an American high-school (and I know because I went there too, so I can compare).

However there is another element here and that is there are different kinds of women and it is not about girls vs boys but about assholes vs everyone else. When a girl was mean to me it was because she was an asshole not because she was a girl. I wouldn't want to be admired or liked or even be in the company of anyone like that.

Now to get back to the original subject I think often apparent misogynism is the result of socially inept/stupid behavior on behalf of male geeks. When there are 20 male geeks and one woman gets included in the group, the geeks start acting stupid and saying stupid things. Sorry I can't put it another less direct way. They often try to impress the woman or vie for her attention. Trying to outdo each other they end up making some inappropriate sexual joke, or even end up propositioning her. Sometimes hateful remarks are just sad attempt at teasing and trying to be more "direct" and "open" with her. Pretty soon she will be running away without even looking back. I know I am stereotyping geeks here as sexually frustrated, socially inept individuals, but that is because often I see it happening like that. So my idea is that misogyny is sometimes only apparent and stems from social ineptitude, rather then a genuine hatred of women as a gender (Not that it makes the woman feel a lot better as a result...).

[GigabyteCoin]

Any women that have been in my CS classes most certainly were not flirted with. They were 100% of the time "just another guy", and knew that before joining the class.

[neutronicus]

Considering that one thrust of the article seems to be that anyone (particularly anyone female) who despises comic book store patrons is justified in doing so, I think you're on point.

[wpietri]

Some geeks certainly deny the sexism -- he gives an example of one -- so I think an article on male privilege has to start out there.

I also think trauma can work both ways. My abuse for being a nerd didn't teach me that women were bad, it taught me that being mistreated for being different is bad. Ergo my hatred of sexist behavior in my industry.

More generally trauma can explain bad behavior, but I don't think it excuses it. (Not that you're suggesting otherwise, but I want to make sure people here don't slip into a common error.) A lot of physical abusers have been abused themselves. But a lot of abused people don't go on to abuse anyone else. There may be a reason that somebody is a sexist jerk, but we should still hold them to account.

[sqrt17]

> Some geeks certainly deny the sexism -- he gives an example of one -- so I think an article on male privilege has to start out there.

How is sexism a privilege? Sexism may be a bias, or as the grandparent hypothesizes, a lack of empathy;

Privilege may arise as a result of these biases (just as much as it would arise as a result of any other bias, against rural people, people with non-majority ethnicity, against unattached males over a certain age, etc.), but contrary to the title, the article is about sexism and not about privilege.

[zasz]

Look at all these comments. I see a lot of geeks denying that sexism exists. The appeals to hunter-gatherer psychology are especially precious.