Nerd Culture is Not a Contest

Recently a friend tagged me in a Facebook post requesting the opinions of female nerds on the "place of women in geek culture today" and I may have gone on a wee rant. While I don't think the person/people who posed the question meant anything by it other than to gain some knowledge, the phrasing sparked an unexpected reaction from me. The "place" for women in geek culture (or any culture for that matter) is the same today as it has always been: Wherever the hell we want. There is no more a "place" for women than there is a specific "place" for men in geek culture. This is another example of women being categorized as different, specifically in a way that men simply wouldn't be. This is what perpetuates the notion that women have to prove their worth as nerds. This is what perpetuates the notion that women fit into a specific box to be judged. There is no specific "place" for women in geek culture, because we are complete humans with differing personalities, ideals, interests, and goals in life. Just like men.

We all know about gatekeeping by now, right? It's the notion that a female nerd can, at any moment, be quizzed about her fandom in order to determine her legitimacy as a nerd. It's absurd. It's insulting. It's embarrassing to the entire nerd culture. Every time a woman is grilled about her level of knowledge or dedication to her fandom, or is attacked/threatened for daring to voice her opinion about a fandom (or worse, demands to be treated with respect) nerds as a whole start to look like a bunch of whiny trolls who never learned how to share their toys. It's embarrassing. What's worse is that this behavior is not exclusive to male nerds.

Women have been taught since we were children that we will be judged by others for our every move, and that we should judge others as well. Those lessons may not have been taught in so many words, but they exist all the same. This behavior tends to be even worse among women in stereo-typically male dominated cultures like geeks and sports fans. We judge each other, and build up our cred by tearing down others. We proudly proclaim that we're "not like other girls" as though that's an accomplishment (or even makes sense). We judge other women for showing too much skin, or not showing enough. We proclaim loudly what we do that makes us "real" gamers and geeks instead of the dreaded "fake geek girl." The problem with this, of course, is that there is no magic formula that creates a female geek. There is no specific level of geekery we have to achieve, no ratio of clothing to skin we must maintain in order to unlock the Geek Girl Achievement. 

We need to accept each other for who we are, regardless of how we came upon our fandoms or how revealing our cosplays are. It doesn't matter if your boyfriend introduced you to Star Wars, or if you've been playing with lightsabers since you were 3; what matters is that you love Star Wars and I do too and we should totally talk about our hopes and fears for Luke's role in The Force Awakens. It doesn't matter if you play Halo or Candy Crush, if you have only watched the current Doctor Who or if you grew up with Tom Baker, if you have devoured every word of Tolkien or have only seen the movies; we're all fans. Period. None of us has any right to judge the legitimacy of anyone else's level of geek. Fandom isn't a contest, and the sooner we stop treating it that way, the sooner we can go back to arguing over real issues like whether we need a Miles Morales Spider-Man movie more than another Peter Parker one*.

(*The answer is: If you push the Captain Marvel movie back one. more. time. I will find you, and I will end you. That being said, Morales deserves a movie of his very own.)

Panel at Gen Con Goes Awry, Backlash Begets Harassment

Comic conventions have a reputation for having reputations. Some of them are good: A convention is a place where thousands of people who have been picked on and bullied their whole lives for being nerds can come together to celebrate their fandoms openly. Some of them are bad: If you’re a woman or a minority, you’re probably still going to encounter at least some bullying or harassment. This is not to say that being a geek is still the same tired, old boys club it used to be, but women and minorities still often have to prove themselves before being taken seriously as a “real” geek, and representation is still something we have to fight for. This is why seeing panel discussions about diversity and representation in comics, movies, gaming, etc. at a convention has such a deep meaning. Recently, however, one such panel at the well-respected Gen Con in Indianapolis (you may remember earlier this year when the convention threatened to leave Indiana over their ‘Religious Freedom Bill’) has received quite a bit of controversy.

From the moment it was announced, the Writing Women Friendly Comics panel at Gen Con was getting press. While the panel sounded both interesting and compelling, it lacked a pretty essential component – women. The panel moderator, Bill Willingham, author of Fables comics (a series praised for its inclusiveness and popularity with female readers), and every other panelist were male. Thankfully, after The Mary Sue brought this issue to light, female writers Delilah Dawson and Alina Pete were added to the panel. It felt a lot like a win. Rejoicing occurred. At least, that is, until the panel actually happened.

Apparently, Willingham took issue with the panel being modified, and was not at all shy about voicing his contempt. From the moment he opened the panel, Willingham set the tone by making his feelings about The Mary Sue’s article crystal clear:

“This is NOT a women in comics panel…A certain rabble-rousing website with no journalistic integrity whatsoever tried to redefine this as a women in comics panel…”

From there, he moderated the panel with an iron fist: repeatedly interrupting any woman who spoke, refusing to call on women or people of color for audience questions, and defensively rebutted any mention of male, white privilege. Several first-hand accounts of the panel from shocked audience members immediately began popping up online. One in particular, a blog post by Candice Huber, has not only been shared repeatedly, but has caught the attention of journalists and internet trolls alike. In addition to being a woman and a geek, Huber also happens to be the owner of the popular, geek-centric bookstore, Tubby & Coo’s in New Orleans (you can read more about the bookstore in the article I wrote when they opened). She was so upset by Willingham’s behavior at the panel that she has made the decision as a small business owner to pull his books off her shelves. I spoke with Huber to get a bit of clarification on her decision and how it’s been received:

She Blinded Me with Science: Special Print-Only Edition

This is a print-only, special edition of She Blinded Me with Science (usually these posts are supplemental to my science segment on local radio show, The Week in Geek). Enjoy!

An amazing thing happened yesterday. Scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) landed a probe on a comet for the first time ever in the history of humans.

First image from Philae of the surface of Comet 67P/C-G

After hitching a 10 year ride to reach Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on the Rosetta satellite, and a 7 hour descent to the surface, Philae bounced twice (due to the comet's weak gravitational pull), but was able to use it's thrusters to force itself back down to the surface. Despite some issues firing the harpoons intended to anchor the probe to the surface of the comet as it spins through space, Philae is currently nestled near a cliff on the comet's surface, about a kilometer from its target landing spot. Though it is currently stable on the surface, Philae is still not properly anchored. Due to its final landing location, there are some concerns about the ability for Philae's solar panels to gather enough sunlight to properly power the probe.

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

It wasn't a perfect landing, but it was a success nonetheless. Very rarely do complicated maneuvers like these go perfectly their first go-round, and this mission was nearly impossible to properly train for. Comet 67P/C-G is oddly shaped, a fact no one knew until July 2014, which gave project scientists an incredibly short window to calculate an appropriate landing site in a Goldilocks scenario (not too cold, not too hot, close to a scientifically active area to gather good data, but not so close as to risk damage, good timing to ensure enough surface sunlight will be available throughout the mission, etc.). Additionally, despite an imperfect landing and potential stability and power issues, the mission has been providing scientists with valuable data throughout Rosetta's 10 year flight to reach Comet 67P/C-G, and Philae has been successfully transmitting valuable and historic data images since its landing. This is an amazing thing that has occurred during our lifetime, and I feel privileged to bear witness to scientific feats such as this.

Monika Jones and Dr. Matt Taylor. Photograph: European Space Agency/PA

It is unfortunate, however, that in 2014, during a time of great scientific achievement, we are still struggling with issues of social privilege and misogyny. British scientist Dr. Matt Taylor is the ESA Project Scientist on the Rosetta Mission, and has been a recognizable and much talked about personality for the project. Much like Curiosity Rover engineer, Bobak Ferdowsi, Taylor has been lauded by the media for not being the stereotypical stuffed-shirt, lab coat wearing, old man scientist spokesperson. Unlike Ferdowsi, Taylor was not thrust into the limelight by the media. He has been at the forefront of the mission for awhile; giving news briefs and speaking publicly about the mission was an established aspect of his role in the project prior to the landing. Nevertheless, he chose to don a shirt covered in half-naked women on the day that he knew the world would be watching. Achievements like the Philae Landing are a big deal, not just for the advancement of scientific achievement, but for inspiring a younger generation to pursue study and a career in the sciences. How many young minds were opened to the fantastic world of space exploration when Neil Armstrong's foot famously touched the surface of the moon? That was in 1969, when entire families gathered together around the one, tiny television set they had between them to witness history. In 2014, when many own several TVs, computers with instant internet access, and have the ability to watch live television on their smart phones, it is mind-boggling to imaging the number of young, impressionable eyes that were fixed on bright screens to witness history, and consequently this shirt:

Now, I don't know why Dr. Taylor chose to wear that shirt. Perhaps that is simply the shirt that he wears on Wednesdays, and no thought went into his wardrobe selection whatsoever. I cannot presume to know what his motivation was when he buttoned up that brightly colored shirt covered in half naked women wearing latex and lingerie. I cannot even presume that he had a specific motivation other than to simply put on a shirt. What I can say, is that as the Project Scientist and an established spokesperson for the Rosetta Mission, that neither he nor any of the many people around him thought that perhaps wearing a shirt that sexually objectifies women on the day that Philae landed and the whole world would be watching might not be the best choice is indicative of the much larger, systemic issue of sexism in the STEM community. Now I am not, by any means, claiming that Taylor himself is sexist. I don't know him. What I am saying is that by wearing that shirt while acting as a representative of the scientific community and of the ESA, a message (intentional or not) was sent that the sexual objectification of women in the workplace is acceptable.

To be clear: I do not believe that there was any malicious intent involved here, but I do feel that it is important to draw attention to these instances when they occur. We, as a society, have collectively determined that sexual harassment is unacceptable, especially in the workplace, and this was no less an example of sexual harassment than slapping the rear end of a coworker. (Before anyone brings up that I'm projecting my American expectations onto a European society, I assure you, it's not acceptable there either.) In my opinion, ignoring this situation as a harmless, albeit unfortunate, fashion faux pas is just as dangerous as claiming "boys will be boys" when an office worker slaps the rear end of a coworker as she walks by.

The Open Harassment of Geek Women is Absolutely a Thing

Internet trolling is not new. Nor is it exclusive to women. Those facts, however, do not mean that it is any less important to discuss it. There is an alarming amount of vitriol and hate pouring out of every nook and cranny aimed directly at women who dare to refer to themselves as geeks, and (even worse) decide to openly speak about their fandom. This happens regardless of what these women are speaking about, but it is particularly harsh and abundant if/when a woman speaks critically about an aspect of gaming or comics. Recently, I had a rather disturbing back and forth on Twitter with a guy who apparently saw nothing wrong with the Milo Manara Spider-Woman variant cover. It seems that some guys still feel the need to mansplain just how much women everywhere have over-reacted to the now infamous cover art (often completely misunderstanding or blatantly ignoring why we’re upset about it). In this particular instance, the guy started off with a common argument: claiming that she’s supposed to be posed like a spider. When I pointed out just how not spider-like the pose is, his true feelings quickly emerged in a string of tweets that essentially called my intelligence, knowledge of the subject, and even my own sexuality into question:

Marvel Responds to Spider-Woman's Butt!

I wrote a post earlier this week about the 'Spider-Woman' variant cover controversy. In it, I expressed my displeasure for the only reaction I had seen from someone at Marvel about their distasteful choice to have an erotic artist produce a variant cover for the first issue of a series aimed at women. At the time, all that had been said was from their VP of Publishing, Tom Brevoort, and it was less than stellar. In fact, it was dismissive and ignored the actual issue altogether: 

"It’s also, for a Manara piece, one of the less sexualized ones, at least to my eye. Maybe others feel differently. But given that the character is covered head-to-toe, and is crouched in a spider-like pose, it seems far less exploitative to me than other Manara pieces we’ve run in previous months and years."

Now, thankfully, we have a more in-depth statement from Marvel's Editor-in-Chief, Alex Alonso via an interview with Comic Book Resources. He says, in part:

Some Exciting Announcements:

Thank you to the Super Guillory Brothers for having me on their show to discuss common issues facing female geeks!

Thankfully I haven't had to endure the kind of abuse and harassment wonderful people like Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency is currently experiencing as a backlash for her fantastic video series about the (often harmful) representations of women in gaming, Tropes vs Women, but we have all felt varying levels of harassment throughout our lives. Such instances are why I created She-Geeks and work to shine a much needed spotlight on women's issues in geek culture.

This is why I am also delighted to announce that I have been invited by The Mary Sue to join a panel created to author the new harassment policy for New York Comic Con (and possibly all ReedPOP conventions)! I am honored to have been asked to participate, and am excited to work with other, like-minded individuals to help keep conventions a safe place for ALL geeks!

For those of you enjoying Dragon*Con back in my hometown, stay safe and have a blast! I'd love to hear about your experiences and maybe see some of the fantastic cosplay I know the Atlanta crowd is capable of!

Spider-Woman's (now) Famous Butt

I wasn't going to write this since there are so many wonderful criticisms already circling the internet, but since a conversation was sparked among friends on Facebook via an article I shared, and since several people have asked for my opinion about it, here goes:

In case you've been living under a rock, the controversy I'm referring to started when the variant cover for 'Spider-Woman #1' by Milo Manara was released. Now, it is important to keep in mind that it was announced that 'Spider-Woman' would be getting her very own series at the Women of Marvel panel at this year's San Diego Comic Con. These panels are wildly popular sit downs where some of the prominent female writers, artists, creators and editors at Marvel speak openly with fans about topics ranging from sexism in the comic industry, to getting a foot in the door, to their favorite series. Make no mistake, these panels exist because Marvel (and the comic industry as a whole) has finally started to acknowledge that women not only read comics, but crave story lines that don't involve putting a superhero's dead girlfriend in a refrigerator, or the brutal rape and murder of an otherwise capable and formidable female superhero in order to elicit her male counterpart's heroic revenge story arc. Considering, then, that this series has essentially been touted as another instance of Marvel's current strides to court female readers, it came as more than a slight shock when we found out that Marvel had tapped legendary erotic artist, Milo Manara, to create 'Spider-Woman's variant cover. This is what he gave us:

Is she mooning the city, or is that just an open invitation? (Image from Comic Book Resources)

Now, there is a list of basic things that are wrong with this cover art that need to be touched on before we delve into the controversial, sexualized depiction of Spider-Woman. In my opinion, this is an all around poorly produced piece of art. This isn't the caliber of work one would expect from a professional artist working in the industry since 1969; it's first year art student quality, at best. His lines are sloppy, the shading is either too heavy or too soft, and her features are flat. While realism isn't exactly the first word that comes to mind when we think about comic art, artists should take things like human anatomy and basic physics into account when drawing figures. Manara, clearly, did not. In fact, she appears to be in need of medical assistance: her right shoulder is dislocated, her left shoulder is missing, her right hand appears to have been run over by a car, and judging by her left leg, her thighs are twice as long as her calves. That's all without even touching on that anatomic nightmare going on between her chest and her enormous butt (which, taking perspective into account, I've estimated to be about 4x the size of her head).

Doctor Who Series 8 Premier Review

*This review is cross-posted to the Krewe du Who blog*

Do NOT read this post until you've seen the series 8 premier, 'Deep Breath'. To quote River, "spoilers".

Girls and Film!

Everyone who's anyone is talking about the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' lately, and for good reason. Starting as early as last Thursday's midnight previews, 'Guardians' has been breaking records and setting new movie premiere standards all over the place! Along with destroying the previous record for an opening weekend in August, 'Guardians' also broke the record for the most women movie goers for a Marvel film. According to exit polls, 44% of the audience this weekend was female. That beat out 'The Avengers' by 4%; not much, but still a significant number. The question is, what is it about this movie that attracted so many more women than the other Marvel films (and 'Avengers' for that matter, but since the Guardians are often considered to be the Cosmic equivalent to the Avengers I'll focus on them)? I've seen it, of course. Hell, I've seen it twice already (yes, it's that good), but I've also seen every other Marvel film out there more than once. That's to be expected; I'm a geek. I suspect, however, that since the numbers of the other Marvel movies are so much lower than 'Guardians', it's safe to assume that we can't attribute its record breaking numbers exclusively to She-Geeks. So, what's so special about 'Guardians of the Galaxy'? Let's visit some of the most likely theories:

Do We Really Need a Female Thor?

Autumn, it seems, is becoming the season of change for the Marvel Universe, and (as is geek nature) not everyone is happy about it. One of the most controversial changes is that Thor, The God of Thunder, will soon be a woman. 

Apparently, the current Thor will somehow be deemed unworthy to wield his famously picky hammer, Mjolnir, and a woman will be stepping in to take his place. This is not like any of the numerous alternate realities in which a woman ends up with Mjolnir (like the “What if” issue when Jane Smith kicked some ass as Thordis), or in the current reality when Storm was able to use the real Mjolnir to destroy the fake hammer that Loki gave her several decades before (because that wasn’t convoluted at all). No, we are being assured that this is the real deal; she will be Thor. According to writer, Jason Aaron,

“This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR. This is the THOR of the Marvel Universe. But it’s unlike any Thor we’ve ever seen before.”

Here is where my first issue with this announcement crops up (which my friend, Dave, of The Week in Geek, will probably be surprised to hear): What Aaron has essentially implied is that ‘Thor’ is not a name, but a title. Thing is, much like Superman, Thor was born Thor. He is the son of Odin. He is the God of Thunder. He is Thor. It’s going to take some damn fine writing to make this fundamental concept change work, in my opinion.

Now, we don’t yet know the identity of this woman. In fact, the whole of what we do know can be summed up in this snippet from the announcement:

“The story behind her is that she created herself. She was saved by Thor, and she came down from Earth – followed him – and made herself look like Thor. And now she’s taking over.”

What is even more confusing than the sentence structure of that announcement, is that it was delivered by Jenny McCarthy (yes, that Jenny McCarthy) on ‘The View’. No, that’s not a typo. Marvel decided to make the announcement that Thor will now be a woman, on ‘The View’. The only way they could have made this a more obvious marketing stunt is if they paired the announcement with the arrival of new ‘Thor’ brand tampons. I would be genuinely shocked if there has ever been another segment on ‘The View’ about a comic book. Ever. Their choice to announce that one of the oldest Marvel superheroes is suddenly going to be a woman, on a daytime talk show aimed at housewives and stay at home moms, screams pandering to me. This doesn’t seem like a groundbreaking, well thought out decision. No, this seems more like a cheap, easy way for Marvel to throw a pair of tits on an established character that is already earning them tons of money (thanks to the popular movies which will likely not follow suit with the gender swap), and point to it as proof of their progressive thinking and general support of women everywhere. The most disturbing reaction I’m hearing from a lot of women is that we should be thanking Marvel for taking such a daring step towards gender equality. I think that’s crap. If Marvel is truly interested in equally representing women in comics, they can either start seriously promoting any of the female superheroes they’ve already got, or they can work to create a new dynamic female superhero that is representative of women without being a flying sex symbol (pants, people, women can wear pants). Sorry, guys, but I don’t feel the need to thank Marvel simply for throwing womankind a bone.

All that being said, I am willing to give Aaron and the rest of the creative team the chance to come up with some sort of epic storyline in which this all makes sense. I really would like to believe that perhaps they are trying to do this for all the right reasons. At the end of the day, though, I worry that this is going to alienate more readers than it draws in.