From Austin to A&M

New website is serious business.

2011-07-10T17:46:00.000-05:00

I've moved! I have my own website now, www.austintotamu.com.

This site will remain live as an archive, so feel free to browse. If you'd like to contact me, see the link on the new site.

Cheers!

Steampunk, Tech, and TARDISes: A Cosplay Tale

2011-07-01T16:35:00.003-05:00

Cross-posted at Geek Feminism.

So the idea of my cosplay project (which I have completed a big chunk of, but am putting on the shelf for a bit, so that I can mull it over in my subconscious) was pretty simple. Most people give these very simplistic answers about their motivations for their cosplay: it's fun, it's for the pure love of the show, it's about hanging out with other fans, I like the character, I like the character's costume, etc. I suspect, like most fan scholars, that something more complicated than those reasons go into cosplayers' decision-making. So I chose a particular cosplay trend—women cosplaying as the Doctor—and tried to get beyond those reasons, both through interviewing and by "reading" the costumes. Which, of course, has all got me thinking about my own motivations and decisions in the cosplay I wore to Gally. Obviously, the premise of my project is that cosplayers don't necessarily consciously know all the reasons they make the decisions they make in their cosplay, and I don't consider myself an exception to that premise. In fact, I knew I wasn't sure what it was about a steampunk TARDIS dress that held such a fascination with me. I only knew, as I told a friend at the time, that if I could dress as the TARDIS and wear a bustle at the same time, I'd be a happy lady.

Bustle time! Me in my steampunk TARDIS dress at Gally 2010. The dress consists of a white button up shirt, navy blue corset with appliqued windows, navy blue skirt with panels and a screen-printed "POLICE TELEPHONE" sign, navy blue bustle, and black headband with "POLICE PUBLIC PHONE BOX" painted in white.

When I started this project, I thought that my motivations for the TARDIS dress were mostly gender-related. After all, gender is something I think about a lot. When I met another TARDIS dress cosplayer at Gally, Niki la Teer, we chatted about how many TARDIS cosplays are not just women, but women wearing very femme costumes. I asked her if she interprets the TARDIS as female, and she said the TARDIS would be

"definitely female. [...] The way the Doctor talks about the TARDIS, talks to the TARDIS. Assuming the Doctor is straight, of course, you never know."

My own cosplay was very femme, and I share Niki's interpretation. Obviously, the TARDIS as female (and romantic companion of the Doctor) is now canon, with the wonderful Neil Gaiman episode "The Doctor's Wife." But this is an obvious example of one of my hypotheses in my project: namely, that cosplayers' costumes and choices reflect their personal interpretations of Doctor Who. In this case, we can surmise that women dressing as femme TARDISes interpret the TARDIS as a femme woman.

Me and Niki la Teer at Gally 2010. Niki is wearing a bright blue 50s-style flare dress, with repeating panels on all sides, topped by a navy-trimmed white cropped jacket. Not pictured is her cute hat, which is a pillbox designed to look like the light on the top of the TARDIS.

Niki dressed as a 50s-style TARDIS because that's the period from which the police box originated. As someone whose research interests mostly lie in the contemporary manifestations of the 19th century (mostly contemporary Jane Austens and neo-Victorianisms), steampunk is naturally fascinating to me. But I don't think this fascination is the reason I chose steampunk, or a Victorian-esque design for my TARDIS cosplay. What is it about steampunk and Doctor Who that seemed to combine so deliciously? And why the TARDIS? Why didn't I opt for a steampunk femme 10th Doctor (an option I considered briefly)? The answer seems to lie in the steampunk aesthetic itself.

So what is steampunk? What defines its aesthetic? Annoyingly, steampunk defies definition. One part Victorianism, one part science fiction, one part magic, and found in literary and material manifestations, in costuming/fashion, in film and in graphic novels, steampunk seems easy to identify and hard to define; á la Justice Potter Stewart, we know it when we see it. Or when we are faced with an overabundance of cogs.

Brass and wood steampunk laptop with turn key and brass pedestal feet, modded by Datamancer.

My favorite (non) definition of steampunk comes from Rachel A. Bowser and Brian Croxall, in their introduction to the special issue of Neo-Victorian Studies on steampunk. They claims that steampunk "seems precisely to illustrate, and perhaps even perform, a kind of cultural memory work, wherein our projections and fantasies about the Victorian era meet the tropes and techniques of science fiction, to produce a genre that revels in anachronism while exposing history's overlapping layers" (1). What does that mean, exactly? Steampunk is, firstly, not about the Victorian era (or the American 19th century, an increasingly popular setting in steampunk), but about a nostalgic vision of that era, populated by our "projections and fantasies." That's why steampunk costumers do things that would seem utterly bizarre to actual Victorians, like wear dresses made of all one fabric and color, or wear their corsets on the outside. Steampunk presents a romantic view of the past. Further, steampunk is not just historical fiction, a category that's been around for a much longer time, but Victorian nostalgia mixed with the "tropes and techniques of science fiction." This is appropriate, since science as an institution and science fiction as a distinct literary category both came into being in England in the late Victorian era. But the key part of this definition is this: "a genre that revels in anachronism while exposing history's overlapping layers." Steampunk is, according to Bowser and Croxall, anachronism, temporal hybridity. Steampunk, in all its manifestations, is about blending historical time periods. According to Bowser and Croxall, it

"asks us, perhaps via its material culture even more than through its fictional instantiations, to consider the apparent disjunction of a turn-key starter and a laptop computer. Then steampunk asks us to look harder and apprehend their aesthetic compatibility. Calling it aesthetic compatibility may, in fact, understate the point. In the laptop, modded by the technical artist Datamancer (Richard R. Nagy), the compatibility is operational: turning the key actually boots the machine. We might say steampunk takes the paradigm one step further and asks what happens when the markers of various time periods are estranged from their contexts and made simultaneous. [...] The point of modding your laptop to look like a turn-of-the-previous-century machine is not to create an object so radically mashed-up that one cannot discern its functionality, but to discover their aesthetic commonalities, to blend them in a way that verges on cancelling [sic] the difference" (6-7).

Basically, then, steampunk takes the past and combines it with the present, precisely to erase the differences between the two. "This approach to temporality," Bowser and Croxall claim, "has the simultaneous and paradoxical effect of minimising the categorical differences between time periods. Steampunk illuminates the compatibility of laptops and brass, of steam engines and nanotechnology. Steampunk insists, in other words, on our continuing status as 'other Victorians' and does so in part through a manipulation of temporality that in its very machinations invokes the temporal revisions and reversals of the Victorian era" (10). Our belief that we are like the Victorians is what makes steampunk so very appealing; it projects a compatibility between us and the Victorians, between our culture and the (Western) culture(s) of the 19th century, between our technology and the inventions of the Victorian era.

Promo shot for "The Next Doctor," picturing Mrs. Hartigan in a red Victorian gown with parasol, the Doctor, the "next" Doctor (Jackson Lake) in a red patterned vest, gold cravat, and tan overcoat, and Rosita (his assistant) in a brown and gold patterned dress over white shirtsleeves.

Doctor Who is a show that, similarly, revels in temporal anachronism. This is a show that likes to take us back to the past and remind us of our compatibility with that past. Russell T. Davies's era, in particular, rather enjoyed jaunts to the past, and had a love affair with the Victorian era. Notable examples of traveling into the past in the RTD era are "The Unquiet Dead" (1869), "The Empty Child" (London, the Blitz), "The Girl in the Fireplace" (France, 1727), "Tooth and Claw" (Scottish moors, 1879), "The Shakespeare Code" (London, 1599), "The Daleks in Manhattan" (New York City, 1930), "Human Nature" (England, 1913), "The Fires of Pompeii" (Pompeii, 79), and "The Unicorn and the Wasp" (England, 1926). Going back in time is not intended to alienate the audience from the past. Rather, these episodes are characterized (like steampunk) by multiple anachronisms, multiple simultaneous meanings, and play.


Giant steam-powered Cyberking, rampaging the city of London and coming into contact with the TARDIS hot air balloon.

Further, the hero/ines of steampunk are usually tinkerers, inventors, and adventurers, all categories into which the Doctor undoubtedly fits. The compatibility of steampunk with Doctor Who is something that even the writers seemed to recognize in the production of "The Next Doctor," set in London in the 19th century, in which the Doctor finds himself once again fighting the Cybermen, who construct a giant steam-powered Cyberking.

In this episode, Doctor Who becomes translated in a steampunk version of itself, in which the Doctor carries an actual screwdriver, flies in a hot air balloon, and wears a spiffy vest and cravat. He fights the same enemies, but they are now steam-powered. Doctor Who works in the steampunk mode because that mode and its own normal operations are very similar; the tinkerer/inventor Doctor is not that different from most steampunk hero/ines and anachronism is definitional to both.

But, as I pointed out, a steampunk TARDIS seemed so much better to me than a steampunk Doctor (although I'm still considering a steampunk femme 10th Doctor for another con). That may be because the most important thing in steampunk is not the bustles or the brown, but the tech. Steampunk has been described as a response to modern technology that has become sleek, small, and boring, exemplified by the iPhone or iPod. Contemporary technology is not only boring, it's a black box. It's outside gives no clue as to what it does or how it works, and it's impenetrable. Not literally, obviously, but our own culture makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the layman to tinker with hir own tech. DRMs, EULAs, and warranties all reflect a certain attitude about how appropriate it is to bust open your technology and mess around with it, and the non-mechanical nature of tech like iPods, computers, and cell phones make it difficult for most people to learn how to tinker with it anyway. This isn't just frustrating, it alienates people from the tech that literally shapes many people's lives. As I mentioned before, steampunk hero/ines are usually tinkerers; Bowser and Croxall argue that the high-adventuring hero/ines of steampunk "not only [...] build their own devices, but also [...] discover and develop the science behind them" (20). Steampunk "stages a rejection of received notions about how technology should be treated and who should discover, make, or modify it" (21).

The inside of the TARDIS from the Russell T. Davies era of the show.

Steampunk, then, remakes and reimagines technology. The cogs everywhere in steampunk art and attire are not merely decorative (even when they are decorative), but signal to the importance that mechanical and visible tech in the steampunk aesthetic. Steampunk tech is big, bulky, and its works are highly visible, with cogs, gears, and inner workings proudly on display. This tech is no black box. Scott Westerfield, author of Leviathan, claims that "the Internet is global and seemingly omniscient, while iPods and phones are all microscopic workings encased in plastic blobjects. [...] Compare that to a steam engine, where you can watch the pistons move and feel the heat of its boilers. I think we miss that visceral appeal of the machine" (qtd. in Grossman). Tech in steampunk becomes not just visible and workable, but difficult. Sean Orlando of Kinetic Steam Works claims that steampunk is for "people who want to struggle, lift and heave their technology" (Farivar). Apple gives us toys that are silver, slick, easy to use, and difficult to tinker with. Steampunk gives us something different: tech that is bronze, dirty, difficult, dangerous, and endlessly tinkerable.

The inside of the TARDIS for the current Doctor Who era.

If that's the case, then my choice of the TARDIS is no surprise, particularly when I think about how important I thought it was to sew some gold and silver clock parts onto the skirt and the white shirt. (I finished the costume right before the con, literally in the hotel, so I haven't finished this detail yet.) The TARDIS is not a perfect example of the steampunk aesthetic, since its many visible parts are a bit inscrutable to human companions, but it is steampunk to the Doctor. It's a very manual machine, requiring a lot of running around the console and pushing buttons, flipping large switches, and occasionally giving it a good thump, and it's parts are all highly visible, with so many knobs, buttons, and curiosities about. (This is true about both the TARDISes from the new series, though the 9th and 10th Doctors' TARDISes have more of a steampunk aesthetic in color scheme, since the machine has more faded, rather than shiny, colors, and is more navy, rather than bright, on the outside and bronze on the inside..) Further, we can see it work in the same way we can see the steam engine's pistons work. When the Doctor finally flips the switch, the movement in the center of the console and the loud noise the machine makes are both radical departures from the way our modern technology works. The TARDIS is certainly visceral, dangerous, and tangible in a way that a smartphone simply can't be.

This is not all to argue that Doctor Who is steampunk. In fact, I don't think that is true. Rather, I think Doctor Who is compatible with steampunk, and shares some of its aesthetic concerns. The Doctor is easily reimagined as a steampunk hero, and the TARDIS as steampunk technology. They both use the past to understand the present and future, and tend to collapse the categorical differences between time periods.

The best part is not that they are compatible, though, but that my interpretation of them as compatible is visible in my cosplay and my thought process as I constructed it. Every choice I made reflected the ways in which I thought steampunk and Doctor Who meshed and the ways in which I thought they didn't. (For example, I didn't wear spats or heels, but black TOMS shoes, since the 10th Doctor wears Converse shoes, and that, at least for footwear, function and comfort are more important in Doctor Who than prettiness.) Cosplay has the potential to show us much more than what characters a cosplayer likes, identifies with, or appreciates the costumes of. It can tell us more than "I love Doctor Who." If we look hard enough, we can read whole arguments and interpretations in cosplay. Fashion, after all, speaks volumes.

Works Cited

Bowser, Rachel A., and Brian Croxall. "Introduction: Industrial Evolution." Neo-Victorian Studies 3.1 (2010): 1-45. Neo-Victorian Studies. Web. 17 June 2011.

Farivar, Cyrus. "Steampunk Brings Victorian Flair to the 21st Century." NPR. All Things Considered. National Public Radio, 6 February 2008. Web. Accessed 17 June 2011.

Grossman, Lev. "Steampunk: Reclaiming Tech for the Masses." Time Magazine. Time Inc., 14 December 2009. Web. Accessed 17 June 2011.

la Teer, Niki. Personal interview. 19 February 2011.

Text size change

2011-06-22T17:23:00.000-05:00

Hey all. I'm going to start publishing my posts in a larger font. I noticed my original font was tiny, and I wanted to make the blog more accessible to those who have trouble seeing small fonts. I'll be going back over the next week or so to republish all my old posts in the larger font. Cheers!

Well, goddamnit.

2011-06-18T14:11:00.002-05:00

So, I haven't been around. Again. I'm sorry about that. I promised you a Doctor Who post! And a Doctor Who post you shall have.

Right now, I'm looking forward to homelessness at the end of next month (assuming I can even pay my rent next month, and my electricity isn't cut off at the end of this one). So, I've been doing a lot of crying. And hoping I can ask friends for money instead of my mother, because she'll be just awful about it.

I told my friends I'm not moving to Austin after all because I met a boy, because it's partially true, and because "I'm too broke to eat, much less move" sounded so much more pathetic. I'm about to have a master's degree! I was supposed to be upwardly mobile. Instead I'm looking at poverty worse than when I was growing up. Thanks, graduate school.

So I've been doing a lot of crying and not a lot of writing. Doctor Who post on the finale of this season (because, dude, WHUT) and ALSO a post about my Gally costume and steampunk aesthetics (more exciting than it sounds!) super soon.

Texas A&M does not offer protection to LGBT employees

2011-05-28T14:51:00.001-05:00

Dude. Apparently, Texas A&M does not offer discrimination protection to their LGBT employees. It's a goddamn tragedy. Garrett Nichols set up a petition to ask them to fix this deficiency:

To be delivered to: Dr. R. Bowen Loftin, President, Lt. General Joe Weber, Vice President of Student Affairs, Vickie Spillars, Executive Secretary to the Board of Regents, Dr. Christine Stanley, Vice President and Associate Provost for Diversity, Dr. Karan L. Watson, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Michael Benedik, Speaker of the Faculty Senate and Dr. Antonio Cepeda-Benito, Dean of Faculties and Associate Provost
“Include sexual orientation and gender identity in Texas A&M's official employment non-discrimination policies.”

Texas A&M's current employment non-discrimination policy does not protect individuals from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. It is the only Tier 1 institution in the state of Texas that does not offer these protections. (Both the University of Texas and University of Houston include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policies, and UT also includes gender identity.)

The administration at Texas A&M has expressed its verbal support of the LGBT community on this campus. We're calling on the administration to stand behind their words and officially protect this population from employment discrimination and harassment on the basis sexual orientation or gender identity.

You don't have to be a student or associated with Texas A&M to sign, so go do it!

A&M administration silent as anti-GLBT rhetoric flies

2011-05-27T21:10:00.005-05:00

Cross-posted at Left of College Station.

We ask that the administration address the recent series of events surrounding the Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender (GLBT) community on campus. We, as faculty, condemn the recent TAMU Student Senate Bill 63-106 (Sexual Education Equality in Funding Bill). By suggesting that students seeking guidance from the GLBT Resource Center are not represented by the terms 'family,' 'tradition,' or 'values,' this bill blatantly goes against Texas A&M's commitment to a diverse, unified campus that incorporates multiple perspectives as part of Aggie tradition and values. Other recent events--such as the secret recording and then broadcasting of GLBT meetings on YouTube--ostracize GLBT students form the safe space that the TAMU campus should be for all students. Such events, and TAMU administration's silence in the wake of these events, reflect the institutional forces that limit the representation of and support for historically marginalized and disempowered groups in our university. We acknowledge that these current events have incited a sense of fear and mistrust among the GLBT community. We reach out with empathy to all those affected and remain committed to addressing injustice as members of the campus community and as anthropologists. Further, we hold the administration accountable for addressing this issue in a timely manner.

-Statement unanimously approved by the faculty of the Department of Anthropology in May, from a memo to the upper administration at Texas A&M University, May 10 (emphasis added)

A&M students holding a sign reading "We are all part of the Aggie family" at the "Hands Across Aggieland" Unity March on April 15. (From the Texas A&M GLBT Resource Center Facebook page)
Following the groundswell of support from faculty, staff, and students in the Department of English, and with the advice and support of the department's directors and diversity committee, I am writing to endorse the statement of the Anthropology faculty in the memo addressed to you on May 10 concerning support for the Texas A&M Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender Resource Center in particular and more generally the GLBT community on our campus and the call for a positive response from the upper administration that affirms a re-commitment to diversity inclusive of sexuality and gender differences. The GLBT community, as a growing part of the Aggie family, deserves the support of our higher administrators, as well as our support at the departmental level. [...] Many members of the English department have expressed a desire to sign a petition in support of this position as well, but in the interest of acting quickly, I have decided not to collect those signatures at this time. Please note that many others do not feel that they can safely sign their names to such a petition. Let us hope for a future when the feelings of vulnerability that these silent ones experience will be dispelled by a campus community known for its civility, tolerance, and respect.

-Memo from the head of the Department of English, Dr. Killingsworth, to the upper administration at Texas A&M University, May 12 (emphasis added)

An A&M student at the GLBT Resource Center's "gay? fine by me." t-shirt giveaway on the National Day of Silence, April 20. (From the Texas A&M GLBT Resource Center's Facebook page)
You may think of me as a faggot, a queer, a poof, a fairy, or a dirty homo. You may think that I will certainly die of AIDS…some of you may even think that I should die because of it. I know people on this campus and in this community who think that I deserve the death penalty for being gay. That is the reality of being gay on this campus, Senators. Even if a GLBT man or woman never once experiences outright discrimination, the knowledge that if it weren’t for Texas politeness they almost certainly would stays with them. It is fear, a constant awareness that we have to have when we’re on a date or walking across campus, an undercurrent of uncertainty about how people will react to us holding hands, wearing a GLBTAggies t-shirt, or standing in front of an Aggie Allies table by the Academic Building.

That is why the GLBT Resource Center is essential. It was part of what kept me alive a year ago, having a community where I knew I could find support, be able to talk to people who knew what I was going through and had the funding and resources to help get me (and every other person who visits the center, gay or straight) the information and support that they need to make it through a day, a week, a year, a lifetime.

Because guess what Senators? Somehow, most of us still love Texas A&M. Despite everything, we still bleed maroon. That’s why we are still here, why we haven’t just up and left, packed our bags, and hit the road for California or New York. The people who work at the GLBT resource center could have just given up years ago; it would have been easier. GLBT Aggies and their allies are still bettering this campus through our involvement in the student body. But we will continue to fight to be recognized fully as Aggies, despite the Student Senate’s clear position that we are not.

-from an open letter to the Texas A&M Student Senate, signed "An Aggie No More" (emphasis added)

A&M student holding a sign reading "Hate is not an Aggie value" at the "Hands Across Aggieland" Unity March on April 15. (From Dallas Voice)

You may have heard of of the Texas House of Representatives passing a bill, introduced by Wayne Christian, that would require any public school with a GLBT student center—or any center "for students focused on gay, lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, transsexual, transgender, gender questioning, or other gender identity issues"—to have an equally funded center on "traditional values." While the supporters claim that they are only requiring equal time and funding for all sexualities, critics argue that the goal of this bill is to shut down university funding of GLBT centers altogether. Universities, after all, are all facing hard financial cuts, and the bill effectively forces them to choose between shutting down GLBT student centers or increasing expenses by funding two centers. And according to Inside Higher Ed, "the Young Conservatives of Texas, a group that worked with Christian on the legislation, did so with the hope that public colleges would respond to a law, if the bill passes, by ending support for existing centers." Supporters claim that GLBT centers preach the values of homosexuality, and make it difficult for students with "traditional values" to feel accepted on campuses.

The preposterous nature of the implicit claim of this bill—that is, that straight students with "traditional values" are unrepresented and marginalized, just as much as GLBTQI students—is captured by a column at the Texas Observer that begins

Imagine the plight of the heterosexual student stepping on to a college campus for the first time. How will he fit in? Should he tell his new roommate about his alternative hetero lifestyle? Will he be bullied, just like he was in high school, where he was mercilessly teased for being a sexual deviant? Where does a straight person turn?

This is not a reality for straight students. Heteronormativity is everywhere on college campuses, which is precisely why GLBT student centers exist. They are there to support GLBTQI students who face harassment and ostracization, precisely because homophobia is tacitly accepted by fellow students, faculty, coaches, and administration at most universities. There is a culture on campus that believes homosexuality is wrong, immoral, deviant, and chosen, and that culture is mainstream. It is sometimes clever and sneaky, to avoid accusations of outright bigotry, but it does not have to hide. It rears its head in the classroom, in the campus bookstore, in the local bars and restaurants, in the university policies and administrative action and inaction. Homophobia is institutional and societal, which is why GLBT student centers are vital to combating it.

What this bill intends is to cut off one more avenue for gay students who are depressed and/or harassed, to make it just that much harder to find justice when they are discriminated against, by their peers, their professors, or their school. These students don't have that much institutional power, and this bill is attempting to take away the small bit they do have, so that the mainstream university culture, of homophobia and heteronormativity, is unchallenged and unchanged.

This is all particularly true at Texas A&M, where outright homophobia, racism, and misogyny, are so common as to be unremarkable, and where "tradition" is a buzzword used to keep marginalized groups in their place. The Princeton Review ranked Texas A&M the 17th most LGBT-unfriendly university in the country.** In 2008, the Department of Student Life Studies did a study on the campus climate (which refers to the general attitudes toward diversity) at A&M and found that 70% of gay or bisexual students (as opposed to 2% of straight students) have felt uncomfortable at Texas A&M because of someone's reaction to their sexual orientation. The comments from straight students, however, are the most telling:

Having grown up with mostly women and being a male, I have picked up a few effeminate mannerisms which prompts some males to depict me as "gay" or "fruity", which is not the case. (Senior Hispanic male)

If I were gay I would not feel safe unless I hid that fact on campus. (Senior White female)

A&M is not a safe place to be gay, lesbian, bi, trans, or queer. These students recognize the culture of heteronormativity that exists at A&M, and the dangers of counteracting it, whether through your behavior (acting "fruity"), your sexual choices, or your identity.

It is clear that A&M is not in need of a "traditional values" center, and that its straight students do not face institutional and widespread oppression that needs to be countered with a center that would "encourage chastity or marriage between male and female students."* Seriously. If you were to sit in on one of my classes this last year, you'd have heard students call a woman a "prostitute" for wearing pink high heels, suggest that "men always want sex, and women never do," claim that it's "a compliment" for a woman to be catcalled by a stranger, argue that abortion should be illegal because women should "face the consequences" of sex, and that it is okay for men to browbeat women to make them shut up. And when that crap comes up in the classroom, I'm usually the only one to counter it. Which means either a) all of my students believe that heteronormative rapey nonsense or b) they are too scared to speak up. I know that a) is definitely not true, and I also know that I do everything I can to make sure that b) isn't true either. But I can only do so much in a classroom when those students know that an entire university tradition and history and tacit administration approval leave them vulnerable if they step outside of heteronormative value systems. Encouragement from a teacher can't overcome teasing, harassment, and ostracization from fellow students, and many of my Corps students have actually told me that they don't feel they can say things in class because it could get them harassed by their fellow members or in trouble with their section leaders.

"Normal" at A&M is being politically conservative, and being a "real Aggie" means supporting heteronormative conservative politics and values. "Traditional values center" could describe almost every building on campus, including the student health center.

Bumper stickers on a Texas A&M student's car, reading "Keep College Station Normal" and "Real Aggies Choose Life."

In late April, the Texas A&M Student Senate passed SB 63-106, the so-called "Sexual Education Equality in Funding Bill."*** This bill formerly supported Wayne Christian's amendment in the state budget, and proposed that the funding for the A&M GLBT Resource Center be halved, and allocated to fund a center on "traditional sexual education." Further, the bill claimed to speak on behalf of A&M students. It's weird, because the Student Senate bill seems to argue that the problem here is not one of political agendas, in which a dichotomy between "traditional values" and "not hating on the gays" is the main concern (like the Christian amendment), but focuses instead on "sex education." As if the main function of the GLBT Resource Center is provide sex education for queer people, and this needs to be "countered" by offering sex education for "traditional values" people. (Nevermind the whole lotta people on campus who are neither of those things.)

This misconception may be because of the smear campaign the Texas Aggie Conservatives (yes, those Texas Aggie Conservatives) have launched against the GLBT Resource Center since Wayne Christian's amendment became a thing. TAC is all for this Student Senate bill, and to prove it, they secretly taped an event on "butt play" in March, hosted and funded by the GLBT Resource Center, put it on the internet (heavily edited, of course) and proceeded to call it "pornographic" and thus inappropriate for a student group. (And, of course, since we are adults, there is absolutely nothing in the school's rules about pornography and funded student organizations. So go to hell, TAC.) From the TAC blog:

Is this really an appropriate use of university funds, mandatory student fees, taxpayer dollars, facilities, and donor contributions to Texas A&M University? Do A&M donors have any idea how their money is being spent?

Um, yes it's appropriate for university-recognized organizations to spend their money however the fuck they want to. That's kind of how it works. For example, if TAC, as a university-recognized organization, wanted to invite an Islamophobic speaker to campus, to talk about how dangerous Islam is, they should be allowed, and the university should allow them to use university facilities to do so. (Unless, of course, the university believed the speaker would be participating in hate speech or endangering the Muslim community on campus.) The point is, TAC doesn't get to arbitrarily decide that A&M won't fund and recognize groups that have seminars/speakers on what they personally find gross, like butt sex. (By the way, the video of the seminar they posted was so fucking tame. It was merely about how to engage in anal play while being safe and not hurting anyone.) I mean, I find TAC to be utterly abhorrent, and really fucking offensive, but that doesn't mean I should demand that A&M pull their recognition or funding. (They claim they get no university funding, which may or may not be true, but as a recognized group they do get privileges like the use of A&M facilities, which has monetary value, comped by student fees.) So when TAC claims with outrage that

Most Texas A&M students do not support the GLBT agenda, yet they are forced to pay for the GLBT activism center through mandatory student fees.

all I have to say is, no shit. I don't support your agenda, TAC, but I still pay for your privileges with my student fees. That's how it fucking works. When the university picks and chooses what organizations get funding based on their political or ideological agendas, that violates their commitment to viewpoint neutrality funding, which you claim to support by supporting the Student Senate bill.

The problem is that idea that politically conservative is "normal" at A&M. This is what allows TAC, the Student Senate, and various other A&M students to believe that their outrage about "alternative" or "deviant" sexual practices are something that the school should pay attention to. They are right, because they are "real Aggies." Because they are what A&M is supposed to be. Because they are normal, and everyone else is not. That's what caused student Bryan Neale to post this on the Texas A&M Student Senate Facebook page on April 24:

The fact of the matter is that A&M has always been known as a conservative university. That makes us different than 99% of colleges in the US. A lot of aggies past and present love that about A&M. The majority of Aggies are conservative, so a resource center for them is a great way to spread awareness on a number of issues. Frankly, the LGBT group is lucky to receive any kind of funding or recognition at all. (emphasis added)

That last bit is important. Students like Neale think that the conservative politics should direct the actions of the university, and if you aren't conservative, you're lucky that the university even listens to your needs. So if you want to counter homophobia, do it on your own time and money, and don't do it on campus. If you want to create a resource center that gives queer students a haven in a university full of discriminatory harassment, fuck you. Because you don't count. You aren't real Aggies. And that, that dichotomy between "real" and legitimate A&M students and those that are different and don't count, is precisely what is wrong with the culture here at A&M. That is what our administration should be discouraging and countering every goddamn day.


A black outline of an A&M Corps member playing a marching drum, surrounded by rays of rainbow colors.

On May 10, the Department of Anthropology sent a memo to the upper administration, criticizing them for their inaction after all this anti-GLBT activity. They condemned the Student Senate bill and stated that the bill and other actions (like TAC's secret taping of the seminar) made the campus an unsafe place for GLBT students. The head of the English department sent a memo seconding the Department of Anthropology's sentiments, and I know that a petition signed by faculty and graduate students is also under way in the English department. The Department of Psychology and the Women's and Gender Studies program faculty and staff have also publicly supported the GLBT community and the Department of Anthropology's memo. The Graduate Student Council (GSC) passed Resolution F2011.11 on May 11:

Whereas:        The Texas House of Representatives has passed the Texas Budget bill, HB 1 with Amendment 143, “Funding of Student Centers for Family and Traditional Values” (sponsored by Representative Wayne Christian), that requires Texas public colleges and universities, if they use state funds to support “a gender and sexuality center,” to provide equal funding to support a “family and traditional values center”;

Whereas:        The term “family and traditional values” is not defined by HB1 or Amendment 143 and is therefore difficult to promote and/or implement such education beyond services currently provided at Texas A&M University (through, for example, courses, current counseling services, and health care services);"

Whereas:        The term “family and traditional values” implies a false dichotomy that suggests “family and traditional values” and the GLBT community are mutually exclusive;

Whereas:        The Policy Institute of the Gay and Lesbian Task Force commissioned a Campus Climate Assessment Project which found that, of the respondents: 19% fear for their physical safety on campus, 51% have concealed their sexual identity to avoid intimidation, and 34% have avoided disclosing their orientation or identity to an instructor, supervisor, TA, or administrator due to fears of negative consequences, harassment, or discrimination; and that 36% of GLBT undergraduate students had experienced harassment in the past year;

Whereas:        The Princeton Review’s “The 373 Best Colleges: 2011 Edition” found Texas A&M University the 17th most “LGBT-unfriendly” campus in the United States;

Whereas:        The GLBT community at Texas A&M University (including students, faculty, staff and administrators) has been a historically marginalized and traditionally underrepresented group that faces distinctive challenges, therefore requiring mandated assistance and education to fulfill the Texas A&M University anti-discrimination policy;

Whereas:        Texas A&M University’s Diversity Plan states, “Our commitment to diversity, broadly speaking, encourages respect for individual differences. Respectful treatment of others affirms and encourages individuals to take pride in their identity and results in the inclusion of all in the ‘Aggie Family.’ The Aggie family is diverse. Diversity involves an exploration of individual differences in a safe, positive, welcoming, and nurturing academic environment.”;

And,
Whereas:        The Texas A&M University Statement on Harassment and Discrimination prohibits “discrimination, including harassment, on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, or veteran status”.

Therefore,
Let it be
Resolved:        That the Graduate Student Council of Texas A&M University, on behalf of the graduate student body, does not support the passing of HB 1 with Amendment 143 and strongly encourages the Texas Legislature to remove the “Funding of Student Centers for Family and Traditional Values” budget amendment;

Let it be
Further
Resolved:        That it is the opinion of the Graduate Student Council of Texas A&M University, on behalf of the graduate student body, that if HB 1 is passed by the legislature with Amendment 143, then current Texas Governor Rick Perry should veto the “Funding of Student Centers for Family and Traditional Values” budget amendment;

Let it be
Further
Resolved:        That the Graduate Student Council of Texas A&M University, on behalf of the graduate student body, requests that Texas A&M University continue to provide funding and support for the GLBT Resource Center;

Let it be
Further
Resolved:        That the Graduate Student Council of Texas A&M University, on behalf of the graduate student body, requests that President R. Bowen Loftin and other university officials continue their support of diversity efforts in accordance with Texas A&M University’s Statement on Harassment and Discrimination and Texas A&M University’s Diversity Plan.

Basically, huge chunks of the university's faculty, staff, and graduate students have gone on record to oppose the Student Senate bill and Wayne Christian's amendment, pledge their support for the Texas A&M GLBT Resource Center, and (this is important) chide (directly and indirectly) the upper administration for their silence and inaction during this whole debacle.

The administration's response was essentially a non-response. You can read the message from General Weber here, but it basically says nothing except, "We support you, but only if the law doesn't tell us not to. Have a good summer!" The "Wait...WHAT???" Blog states it well:

It seems that university administrators are, in fact, not willing to publicly and adequately address the specific instances of anti-GLBT hate that have occurred in the last several weeks. While we appreciate Weber and Parrott taking the time to meet with all of us yesterday, we also wonder if our fears, hopes, and concerns really got through to them. Lip service "public support" is nearly as harmful as institutional silence (which is what we have experienced up to this point).

[...]

And speaking of content, the message from Weber -- as many at the meeting yesterday feared might happen -- glazes over GLBT issues merely as issues of diversity on campus. While GLBT individuals do contribute to the diverse community at Texas A&M, the fact is that some who are vocally anti-GLBT do not see it this way. They see the GLBT "lifestyle" as perverse and in complete contradiction with University core values and missions. Beyond the mention of the acronym GLBT a few times, Weber's message does little to address the real issue: hatred toward GLBT people.

While the statements from various departments, and the GSC resolution, all directly address the issue of homophobia and anti-GLBT rhetoric and behavior, the administration seems unwilling to do so. They don't want to go on record, it seems, supporting GLBT students, nor do they seem to want to do anything to change the hostile, unwelcoming, unsafe environment that A&M is for many GLBT students, faculty, and staff. This is flat-out unacceptable. We clearly have a problem here, and it isn't being addressed. Frankly, I think the administration is being cowardly, and the GLBT population here is going to pay the price for their cowardice. Apparently, the Christian amendment is not in the Senate version of the budget, but even that is true, and the budget does not contain the amendment when it passes, that won't change the fact that TAC and other A&M students have engaged in hateful anti-GLBT rhetoric, and the administration has done nothing about it. It doesn't change the homophobic environment on campus, or make A&M a safer place.

o o o

*Also, WTF. Encourage marriage between male and female students? Is it really appropriate for ANY center at a university to "encourage" marriage at 20 years old? If a "traditional values" center were to do awesome things like give safe sex seminars or seminars on consent geared towards straight kids, that would awesome. (Yes, I know that wouldn't happen.) But apparently all a hetero center can offer is abstinence and "get married as soon as possible." So a hetero center wouldn't even benefit most hetero students, because they aren't virgins or want to get married after they graduate from college. Seriously, fuck that noise.

** You have to create a free account to access that link.

*** The Student Senate site is apparently under construction, so I couldn't find the link and full text of this bill. I will keep an eye on it, though, and link it when it goes back up. If you click on the Left of College Station link at the top, though, a helpful commenter put up the full text.

Volunteers needed for a study on Doctor Who cosplay

2011-04-01T12:09:00.004-05:00

squirrely TONKS as a femme!Eighth Doctor, photo by The Ricketandoo

The image of the obsessive, socially inept, immature science fiction fan is a familiar one. Popular conceptions of fans (in particular "Trekkies") are generally unflattering: the fan is incapable of separating reality from fantasy, a brainless consumer of program merchandise, and devoted to the memorization of worthless knowledge and trivia. Of course, fans know that this stereotype, while partially based in reality (we all have known one of those fans), does not represent the vast majority and extraordinary diversity of most science fiction fan communities. In particular, scholars like Henry Jenkins have overturned the stereotype that fan activities are fundamentally non-productive. What I mean by this is that this stereotype paints the SF fan as slavish to the interpretations and idea produced by other authors, namely the authors of the SF program. Even the fan activities that seem obviously productive and creative, like writing fan fiction or cosplaying, are usually depicted as mindless copying or appropriation of others' creative products. Fan fiction is not considered "real literature;" it's merely the re-mix of others' ideas. Cosplay is merely the copying (sometimes obsessively) of the work of costume designers. However, work has shown that fan activities like the writing of fan fiction are creative and productive, even if they are not necessarily counter-cultural or counter to the ideas and interpretations put forth by the program's authors.

I'm interested in how fan activities are productive, and how they create readings of the primary text (in this case, Doctor Who) and/or the fan community. In this study, I will focus on cosplay, which I see as reflective on both Doctor Who and the fan community/ies to which the cosplayer belongs. Because of the small scale of this current project, I will be looking in particular at the axis of gender in Doctor Who cosplay, focusing on the trend of "femme" Doctors (and the related trend of female fans crossplaying as the Doctor). The purpose of this research is to identify the rhetoric of femme Doctor cosplay and Doctor crossplay. My main research questions are: How are these cosplayers reflecting on and talking back to Doctor Who? How are they reflecting on and talking back to the fan community/ies? What does their cosplay have to say about gender in both of those spheres? How does the cosplay communicate these ideas and interpretations?

In order to complete this research, I will be conducting interviews with cosplayers about their creations, as well as collecting pictures of their cosplay. The interviews can be over the phone, Skype, or email, whichever you prefer, and are designed to last 15-20 minutes. If you've ever done a cosplay that you believe to be relevant to my research, in particular a femme or crossplay Doctor, I would love to interview you! Please contact me at austintotamu@gmail.com or in the comments to volunteer.

(Your identity in all write-ups of this research will be protected. You can choose how you are identified, whether by your real name, your online handle, or a pseudonym chosen by you.)

Frankly, I'm relieved.

2011-03-24T19:03:00.003-05:00

So I got my last rejection letter in the mail today, from University of Illinois. I had applied to Ph.D. programs last semester in a bit of a haze, still trying to cope with the Kevin nonsense that I wrote about here, still trying to piece my life back together after the break-up, not really sure what I wanted. And as this semester started, I felt my priorities shifting. Graduate school is pretty great, don't get me wrong. Where else can I be relatively financially secure (in debt, sure, but I eat and pay rent) for doing the things that I love, like teaching freshmen why rhetoric is important and writing essays about literature and cosplay? But there is a fundamental lack of perspective in academia. There's this weird culture here that makes it difficult to imagine yourself anywhere else, because the idea is that being a professor is the highest of goals, and if you end up doing anything else, you've either been unable to cut it or you've settled for something lesser. Which is fucking ridiculous, obviously.

This is not a place that encourages mental health. Sure, you can negotiate the profound ableist culture of the university, but you have to want to. And I'm not sure that I'm willing to be even slightly miserable for so long right now. I'm prioritizing my happiness right now, and my health, and the university is not the place for me to do that. I've been struggling here for the past year, and it's been a rocky year, so maybe after I take some time off, I'll want to come back, from a better place. But for the moment I need a breather. So this summer I'll be moving to Austin, and will not be in school for the first time in my life.

Getting nine rejection letters was still hard, no one likes rejection. And, frankly, I think I'm pretty good and some of those programs are stupid to let me go. But I'm relieved I wasn't accepted somewhere amazing. I kind of doubt my ability to say no to them, and I don't doubt how miserable I would be, moving thousands of miles away from any semblance of a support system, to start a four-year (at least) project I'm not positive I want. So rejection saved me from making a terrible decision, and I'm really excited about this new chapter of my life, and confident that graduate school is always a choice I could make later. I won't worry myself about what comes next for a while. I've been thinking long-term my whole life, and I'm ready for a little living by the seat of my pants.

Leaving graduate school, though, means that my writing will become even more important to me. I think I'll be devoting more time to this blog than I have in the past (gone are the days of me disappearing for a month because of finals, after this semester is over), and my pipe dream is to break into freelancing. One of the reasons I was rejected from all those schools, I'm sure, is that I was not shy about the fact that I wanted to focus on science fiction fan cultures and pop culture. I could have made my application more conservative, painted myself as a Victorianist with a weird interest in science and science fiction, but that's simply not the case anymore, and I didn't want to end up somewhere where they wouldn't let me write papers about Doctor Who cosplay and the manifestations of Victorian culture in steampunk fashion. Honestly, I couldn't be happy only doing those things here, on the side of my life. So I emphasized them in my applications, and I'm pretty sure academia just isn't ready to consider those legitimate interests. So we'll see if I can make any money writing about those things elsewhere. For now, even focusing on doing them here sounds more satisfying than seeing when I can squeeze my interests into a seminar paper every now and then.

I've had a few friends doubting whether they should express sympathy or congratulations for my rejections. I say go with congratulations. I'm really excited about this new chapter in my life, and none of my options have been closed. And I get to move from College Station back to Austin (only, for real this time), and totally reverse the title of this blog. :)

Checking in.

2011-01-20T16:24:00.001-06:00

Hey folks! I am, in fact, still alive, and plan to continue blogging. I've been feeling like I'm not being heard in my personal life lately, and I think that has contributed to this break in writing. But I am returning soon! With all my usual snark! Thanks to you folks who kept following me through the rough patch. I hope new-and-improved Courtney is worth the wait.

Shitty things that happen to me.

2010-12-07T12:43:00.002-06:00

So a thing happened over the break. It was awful and continues to be awful. And I am having a hard time talking about it, so I'm going to try and write it down.

Trigger warning. The following post describes threatened gun violence and a serious lack of respect for physical boundaries.

Thanksgiving break was more awkward this year than usual. Mom and Kevin (my stepdad) have been having problems lately, and from what I could tell before all the shit went down, it seems to stem primarily from the fact that they are living where Mom wants to live. When they got married, Kevin wanted to live in the country, despite the fact that my mother likes cities. So they moved to the country. To the middle of fucking nowhere. You have to drive 30 minutes to get to a grocery store, and Mom commuted 30 minutes every day to work as a recruiter in a warehouse. She didn't like it much, but when you live in the middle of nowhere, you take what you can get. Kevin worked for himself at home. Then this year, I don't know why or what was discussed, but they kept the house in the middle of nowhere and rented one in Dallas. (It's about a 2-hour drive, so the thought was that the middle-of-nowhere house could be for holidays and occasional weekends.) Mom returned to her old job in Dallas, which she likes much more, and she was ecstatic about the move and their new house. Kevin has apparently been miserable in Dallas. He doesn't like his job, he doesn't like the city, and has just done everything he can to make her miserable, too. They've been fighting constantly.

So I go visit, and it's awkward, like it always is with Kevin, because he is always weird about me being around. I think that part of it is that I always stick up for Mom when I think she's right (and more often than not, that's the case). He acts like we gang up on him or something. He also doesn't seem a big fan of me thinking I'm right about anything either, because he's got this inferiority complex and thinks that college-educated people just sit around making fun of and judging non-college-educate people. Anyway, the break goes okay, I spend a lot of time with Mom, and it's fun, and we drink wine and shop and do the things we do around Thanksgiving. A couple of days after Thanksgiving, we drive to middle-of-nowhere house, and hang out and drink wine. Kevin doesn't drink. After Mom walks inside to go to the bathroom, Kevin gets up and sits next to me and puffs himself up and says, "But I don't know why it doesn't chap your ass that your taxes pay for bums living under a bridge in Dallas." This statement was only tangentially related to what we were talking about. A couple of things: I was tipsy, and Kevin was not. Kevin is also a big fan of trying to be bigger than you when he argues with you, and gets up in your space, and does not fucking listen. We've had the Kevin-thinks-all-poor-people-are-totally-undeserving conversation. And it ended with me in tears. So he could predict what was going to happen. But I'm tipsy, and he pissed me off by bringing it up, so I argue with him instead of doing the smart thing, which would be telling him we are not talking about this. And he baits me, and tells me that he knows all poor people/homeless people are undeserving because of people that he knows. And won't listen to me when I tell him that most homeless people are vets, disabled, or single mothers. Numbers don't matter! Kevin has his opinions and anecdotes! Whatever. So I get in tears again, and I tell him I am not having this conversation anymore, and just because he doesn't have compassion for other people doesn't mean he can antagonize me for having it. I walk off. It is obvious why I walk off; he is not listening, he is acting as though my emotional reaction is completely illegitimate (and a sign of the illegitimacy of my argument), and we are getting nowhere except me being upset. You know, because of my silly lady-feelings.

I wash my face and go sit in the front yard. We had been in the backyard, so I hear Kevin and Mom yelling. Then Mom comes and yells at me because THERE IS A MIDDLE GROUND AND NEITHER OF US ARE WILLING TO SEE IT. Which is ridiculous, since my parents have NO IDEA where I stand on particular welfare issues. They don't actually give a shit, because they just know I don't disagree with their counter-factual assertions that most homeless people are lazy and deserve to starve to death.

After yelling at me, Mom goes back to yell at Kevin. I'm texting my friends a mile a minute, and call Adrienne, who calms me down a bit, and when I come back (it's been about 15 minutes or so), Mom and Kevin are STILL fighting outside. So I walk up, and I'm still, you know, angry, and tell them to please stop yelling about me, and just fucking talk to me. And Kevin says, "We're not yelling about you! We're talking about getting divorced BECAUSE of you!" And well, I've heard that one before. So I said, "No. You aren't allowed to say that. I've heard that from my father before, and he was just as full of shit as you are. Your problems with Mom are not my fault." And he was not happy about that response. We get into it, and Mom is pissed at me for yelling at him, and he's pissed at me for standing up for myself, and I'm pissed at Mom for not standing up for me or even listening, and pissed at Kevin for being a complete asshole without once recognizing the power dynamic in our relationship that makes every. fucking. disagreement. difficult. So he stands up and keeps getting in my space. And, dude. I had a verbally abusive father. He tried to physically intimidate me all the time. He knew that he would win every argument because he could, and he knew that he could just stand close to me to threaten me with violence. It didn't matter if he had any intention of actually hitting me, he just wanted me to know that he could. And so I back up. Multiple times. And I push Kevin away and I tell him to stop getting close to me. And he backs me up against a fence and puts his hands on my shoulders. At this point, I'm not even listening to what he says because my brain is in panic-mode. And I tell him to stop physically intimidating me (which upsets him) and to stop touching me, at which point he gets this horrified look on his face and sits down in the truck with the door open.

Mom yells at me, telling me, "He just wanted to hug you!" As if that made it better? I repeatedly told him to get off, and back up, and even pushed him back. I DON'T CARE WHAT HIS INTENTIONS WERE. I get to decide when I am touched, and that includes hugging. And instead of asking, "Can I hug you?" he continued to ignore my obvious distress and my desire for him to back the fuck off, because he thought that his good intentions and desires superseded my right to not be touched when I don't want to be. IF he had asked, I would have said no. I didn't want him to be hugging me any more than I wanted him to physically threaten me. I WANTED HIM AWAY. But my mother and him both acted like I was being irrational and crazy. And I tried to explain (very distressed, so I'm sure I wasn't entirely coherent) that he was triggering me, that I wanted him away to he would stop triggering me, and my mother said, "You think your bullshit is more important than anything." I have honestly never wanted to slap her as much as I did in that moment. It hurt to hear her say that, to know that she thinks my desire for bodily autonomy is just my irrational reaction to abuse.

And we aren't even to the bad part of the evening. At this point, emotions high, Kevin pulls out a gun. As far as I can tell, a loaded gun. (I don't know that much about guns.) And he fucking cocks it. My mother's reaction was puzzling, because while he is just holding the gun next to him, I think it's pointed more at us than at him, though it's not being aimed. She starts crying harder and screaming at him not to hurt himself. So I gather that this has happened before. The asshole has threatened self-harm with a loaded fucking gun to manipulate my mother more than fucking once. I'm more scared than angry, though, so I back up several feet (If he had shot it, very likely it would have hit one of us, because the trajectory of the bullet would have passed through him and we were standing in its way.) and yell at him to stop. He says to Mom, "She [he means me] accused me of being a pervert!" That, of course, didn't happen, but I think Kevin thinks I only have the right to say "no" to sexual touch, and thus my "no" meant that I thought it was sexual touch. I thought no such thing, and as I've never been sexually assaulted, by my father or anyone else, I was completely baffled by his interpretation of what just happened. But, you know, there's a loaded gun being held by an overemotional and obviously unhinged man, so I say whatever it is he wants me to say. I'm sorry, don't hurt yourself, we're only worried about you. I didn't mean any of it, but I was scared to death he was going to a) shoot himself, scar his son and my mother forever, and she would blame herself for the rest of her life or b) shoot me or my mother. He yelled and freaked out and waved it around until Mom finally got him to relinquish it, and she hands it to me (OH GOD, I thought, I don't even know how to make it uncocked! I just set it down in the grass next to me) and hugs him. And he gets out of the car and HUGS ME. And I'm so relieved that he isn't threatening violence anymore, and scared that if I get upset with him he'll freak out again, that I let him, and I keep saying "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." I think I meant it at the time--I'm fairly used to men convincing me that their crazy and violence is my fault.

Then he sits me down, since Mom has stormed off inside and said "I don't have to put up with this shit anymore" (truer words), and tries to have a heart-to-heart with me. I'm still, again, scared and emotional and upset, so I let him think we've made up, and I tell him he needs to go apologize. He is honestly baffled. "Don't you think she should apologize, too?" (Um, NO. You just held a LOADED GUN in our vicinity and threatened violence. NO, SHE DOESN'T NEED TO APOLOGIZE.) And I just look at him, aware that I can't even address how fucking not-in-the-pale his actions were, because who knows what will set him off again? And he tells me he's not happy, and shouldn't she care about him being happy? He goes inside and fights with her and comes out and she wants to leave. And so I am, of course, relieved we are leaving and I help her pack and she is upset, and she asks me to get him to talk to her again. So I go tell him, and he asks me if I care if they make up. I look him in the eye and tell him the truth; I only care that she is happy (and safe, but I didn't say that). He looks angry, which scares the hell out of me.

Finally, after much debating on Mom's part, we leave. About 10 minutes away, she asks me to take her back. I didn't know what to do, so I pull her over and tell her I can't go back there, because I'm afraid for my safety and for hers. "That thing with the gun--has that happened before?" She nods at me and says, "He would never hurt us." "On purpose, Mom. Do you think that was normal?" "No, he needs help. It's not normal." "Mom, it's dangerous. And it's manipulative." "But he might hurt himself if I don't go back, and it will be my fault." "NO. That would not be your fault. That would be his fault. All you have done is argue with him, and that does not warrant that kind of reaction." Finally, kind of reluctantly, she agreed to go on with me to Dallas.

Next morning, she asked me if I was okay. No, I'm not okay. "Why not?" "Because, Mom. I'm afraid for you, and I think that you are normalizing behavior that is manipulative and abusive. If that had been my boyfriend, you would have called the cops and forcibly made me leave that relationship. I can't and won't do that, though I do regret not calling the cops." And I know I shouldn't have said that. I knew it when I said it. But I needed her to hear that this was abuse. That threatening to kill yourself is emotionally manipulative, and the result is that she are too scared to leave. That is not okay. But what I needed her to hear and what she needed to hear were probably different, which is why I don't have any idea what to say to her now. I love her, and I'm scared for her, and I want her to be happy and safe. And I don't think she is either of those things now, and I wish she would decide to divorce him. I would be there for her, and would be her go-between, and go with her to the courthouse, and help her hire someone to move his shit out. I could be amazing at that. But instead I am sitting at home wondering if she wants to talk to me when I don't know if I can, doing fucking nothing to fix this situation. Because I can't fix it. And it's killing me.

Teaching composition: How do we make students conceptualize themselves as writers?

2010-12-05T22:07:00.005-06:00

At the risk of a very boring lead-in to this post, here's a thing I wrote for class! We had to write a kind of "what I learned this semester" assignment for my pedagogy class, after teaching according to the prescribed syllabus. So I thought I'd share it with you guys and get your thoughts, especially since I haven't been posting lately. So enjoy!

The main goal of a writing teacher is to improve her students' writing, but in order for this to happen, an instructor must convince her students that they are writers, not merely students, engineers, scientists, or mathematicians taking a writing course. By doing so, she can be more confident that her students will get something more meaningful and lasting from her class than a passing grade. In the worksheets that my students filled out at the beginning of the semester, most students indicated that what they would gain from my class was a basic competency in writing for their future professions. Those that find the class relevant only think it is relevant for their future professional life (and perhaps for the rest of their undergraduate careers). One student wrote, “My boss one day will expect me to write well, and will judge me on my writing ability, so I hope to improve my grammar and writing for my future job.” While there is nothing wrong with this personal goal, nor is it problematic for a writing teacher to indicate to her students that professionals are often expected to write in the course of their jobs, students will be more successful and will get more out of a writing course if they see writing as a skill they will use, and already use, outside of the classroom and the workplace.

Almost all students are writers before they enter a freshman composition course. They write emails; on a myriad of internet sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Livejournal, and blogs; in the margins of books; in notes, letters, and birthday cards; in diaries and journals; in school newspapers or yearbooks; and some even write fiction or poetry. They belong to discourse communities before they enter academia; they attend church, belong to clubs and organizations, volunteer, belong to service or social justice groups and communities. While students often think that a composition course will only help them to participate in the discourse communities to which they are newly inducted (academia and their respective professional fields), relating a composition course to the discourse communities to which students already belong should be a responsibility of a writing instructor, and doing so will help students to invest in the course beyond their commitment to learning grammar or getting a passing grade. Many of my students have told me that they do not see the relevance of my class to their lives, usually in response to my comments on their essays asking them to be engaged and interested in their writing. Indeed, how can I expect them to be engaged when the assignments are easier for them to complete successfully if they do not care about the topic at all? Assignments that ask them to be objective and without bias are difficult enough at their age, but I also think they are counter-productive when made high-risk major grades. There are ways to teach our students to summarize fairly and without overt bias, but basing a major assignment on those skills made my students feel as though their positions did not matter. After the first two assignments, which explicitly forbid students from making their positions their arguments, many of my students were cautious about sharing their positions in the third paper. More than once I heard in class: “So, we're allowed to state our opinions?” Because I had been teaching them to make arguments that could not reveal their positions, my students did not know how to conceptualize their positions as positions, supported with reasoning and argumentation, as opposed to opinions, mere statements of unsupported preference.

Further, these two assignments forced me to ban the word “bias” from my students' papers. All semester, I have struggled to convey to my students that everything written includes some bias, and thus to use the word as a weapon is not in good faith. Their use of the word “bias” in this way is partly a result of a cultural preference for objectivity, but our emphasis in ENGL 104 on objectivity in the first two major assignments does not help. By demanding essays that refrain from stating positions, and calling this objectivity, I produced students that believed arguing for a position is biased and illegitimate. And because my students did not argue for a position until the fourth paper, I was only able to talk with them about being fair, as opposed to objective, in arguing for a position for a few weeks. They did not receive almost any practice in this, despite the fact that this skill is just as important as avoiding overt bias when necessary. In fact, in most discourse communities, arguing for positions in a fair way is far more useful than summarizing objectively or analyzing without overt bias.

Another way that writing courses often do not position students as writers outside the classroom is by not allowing for revision. In most discourse communities, revision is an important part of the writing process, and if the community does not allow for outright revision, then it allows for responses, dialogue, qualifications, and corrections. Only in academia (and then only at the undergraduate level) is the draft turned in on a deadline a final one, graded with no chance for discussion, revision, or correction. This process decontextualizes student writing, and makes assignments unrelated to the discourse communities in which our students participate, where most texts are not utterly final and finite. Further, not allowing for revision does not encourage (or, as is sometimes necessary, force) students to draft multiple times, a process necessary for successful writing.

The solution to these problems is assignments that allow my students to participate in different discourse communities. In such a project, I would elicit from each student a discourse community to which they already belong (a church congregation, a blogging community, a school newspaper, an activist community) and have them work with me to produce a writing assignment positioned within that community. The first part of this project would be a fair, researched summary of the characteristics of the discourse community, while the second part would involve making an argument within that community. Because I think students should participate in and take responsibility for their own education, students would be responsible for working with me to create a rubric for assessing their assignment, based in part on the first part of the assignment. Both portions of this assignment would allow for revision after the draft is turned in. If students are unhappy with their final product (or their grade), they would have the option to revise.

This type of assignment would result in several positive outcomes. First, by having students identify discourse communities to which they already belong, it would position my students as writers outside the classroom. They would be encouraged to be invested in the assignment and in themselves as writers within a particular discourse community outside of a professional or academic sphere, which would likely result in their greater commitment to improving their writing beyond the desire for a good grade. Second, it would reduce the emphasis on objectivity that the current syllabus has, and introduce my students to position arguments, those arguments my current students have called “opinions” and “biased” all semester, much earlier. Third, it would allow for and encourage revision, indicating the vital role this part of the writing process plays. This would also allow for a discussion of how texts in other discourse communities allow for revision, discussion, response, and correction, and thus position students' writing as not merely anchored in academic or professional discourses. Last, this type of assignment would position other discourse communities as comparable and just as legitimate as the academic discourse community, to which the remaining course assignments would be written. The course would thus avoid the preference for privileged discourses, and the delegitimization of underprivileged discourses, that is found in both the university and in our larger culture.

It is the responsibility of the writing instructor to teach students to write, but to what end? Students who enter a freshman composition course should not be given only the option of becoming a better academic writer, but also a better writer within the discourse communities to which they already belong. The composition course should be an opportunity to become a better academic writer, a better blogger, a better editorial writer, a better Twitter-er, a better activist writer, a better newspaper column writer. Without that opportunity, what a student does in a composition classroom is unlikely to stick with her, unlikely to translate outside the walls of the university, and unlikely to give her the sense that she is capable of creating change through her writing.

A quick post about The Walking Dead

2010-11-01T11:06:00.005-05:00

The makeup for this show: phenomenal.

Cross posted at Geek Feminism.

Like any good geek, I love me some zombies. So of course I tuned in last night to AMC's new zombie show, The Walking Dead. And I found myself disappointed. Spoilers ahoy! (NB: I haven't read the graphic novel. This is just a review of the pilot that aired last night.)

The show starts with our hero, Rick, and his misogynistic partner, Shane, talking about how women and men are different. This conversations seems to function solely to tell us that Shane is a bit of a prick, Rick is a genuinely good guy (which I didn't really buy), and Lori, Rick's wife, is a bitch. Basically, it took about ten minutes for me to realize I was probably going to blog about this show, and not in a good way.

The dudes, who are police officers, get into a shootout, Rick is shot, and then we see Shane bringing him flowers in the hospital. (He assures us that he didn't pick them out himself, however. That's for sissy ladies. And he's not gay or anything gross.) Rick wakes up, the flowers are dead, and the hospital is full of corpses and ruin. I did like the set up here; Rick has no fucking clue what it going on, and he's still injured, so he basically cowers home, where he discovers his empty house and runs into Morgan and his young son, Duane. Their family was heading to the refugee camp in Atlanta when Morgan's wife became infected and got all zombified. She still hangs about, and they can't leave with her haunting them. Morgan wants to "put her down" and even attempts to in this episode, but he can't.

Anyway, Rick and Morgan arm themselves, keep open a line of communication, and Rick sets off for Atlanta, where he thinks his wife Lori and son Carl have headed. We find out that Lori and Carl are with Shane (and Lori is with Shane) outside of the city, because it's been overrun with zombies. Rick runs into the city on a horse (looking straight out of a zombie videogame), gets his horse eaten by zombies, and takes an incredible amount of time to seal himself up in a tank. (Seriously, this guy must have the lowest amount of adrenaline ever present in a human being. He moves like molasses.)

In case you missed it, he's a goddamn cowboy.

So far, I liked the story okay, and it seems promising for the character development of the people the show seems to care about. Unfortunately, none of those characters are ladies, who existed in this pilot for the sole purpose of helping to advance dude characters' development. Morgan's wife is in the refrigerator, gets absolutely no characterization (not even after the fact), and the only reason we even care about her is that Morgan and Duane are all traumatized by this. She gets a lot of face time in this episode solely because she's been stuffed in the fridge, and we're supposed to see her (rather pretty for a zombie) face through Morgan's eyes. And the only other lady character with a name is Lori, who gets very little screen time, and most of that is devoted to kissing Shane, presumably so we can see how whorey she is, since she got over her husband faster than it took for him to heal from a gunshot wound. And perhaps I'm being too harsh on the writers here; they may not want us to judge her so quickly. But it's difficult to tell, since that is basically the only thing she does onscreen, and the conversation in the beginning of the episode is intended to make us think she's a bitch. She doesn't ever get a side in that conversation, and we don't get to hear about what happened from another party, because she doesn't actually matter. She exists solely to develop Rick and Shane for us, and doesn't exist outside of those relationships.

Get me out of the refrigerator!

This episode failed the Bechdel test hard, despite being an hour and a half long, and a fucking zombie movie, not a rom com. It could easily have included two women talking about practically anything, including zombies and survival, if they were feeling uncreative. But it didn't, because it would have had to have two women talking on screen at the same time. And that, apparently, was too fucking difficult.

I think this show could get better. According to their cast of characters, there are at least some women playing a part in the show later. Significantly less than men, but they're there. Possibly, then, they will get some personalities and perhaps even plot lines not connected to their dudes and romantic relationships. But I was really disappointed by the premiere, and am not feeling particularly optimistic.

Attention The Walking Dead writers: women are not plot devices. And we don't like watching shows that don't think women matter as characters. Fix it.

Sometimes the Batt is hilariously infuriating...

2010-10-23T02:11:00.002-05:00

Like this article about a sophomore football player:

At first glance, Ryan Swope is the atypical Aggie - with shaggy blonde hair [you know, gay] and an Austin background [see? totally gay], he fits the College Station stereotype of Longhorns [Batt writers don't know how college works. Living in Austin makes you a Longhorn! Also having a particular kind of hair.].

Does this newspaper just not have an editor?

Privileged college students and "hobos": Exactly alike?

2010-10-11T15:00:00.002-05:00

So usually the Battalion is boring. But when it decides to spice up the boring with offensive, it goes all-out. One of this week's issues features an opinion piece comparing college students and "hobos." Yes, you read that right. Because privileged college students and homeless people are exactly alike! And comparing them is hi-larious! And "hobo" is a totally not-offensive, not-dehumanizing term!

I was only thinking about how I could eat my lunch and study at the library, but the lack of a home base made me feel like a vagabond. I gave the subject more thought and realized most college students demonstrate the habits of hobos.

Ahahaha! Get it? College students are just like hobos because they lack a "home base." Never mind that they have homes. That's not what being homeless is about! It's about napping outside!

Many off-campus dwellers find themselves in situations similar to this: a full day of classes while running on two hours of sleep simply will not cut it. What's a college student to do? We nap. Anywhere and everywhere we can: outside, inside, on park benches, on the stairs, in class, on couches in the library, on the grassy knoll, in quiet areas or loud. It is possible to find nappers in the most obscure places on campus.

We could debate about whether this author meant something different by using the word "hobo" instead of "homeless." Hobo implies some choice in lifestyle as well as carrying a slightly romantic air. That we've romanticized the "tramp" or "hobo" is in itself problematic; it allows things like this article to imply that homeless people choose to be homeless, or enjoy being homeless. It elides the systemic inequalities in our country that lead to crippling poverty and homelessness. It elides the fact that the vast majority of homeless people are single women with children, by putting forth the image of the "hobo," a carefree, wandering man. And the comparison of the homeless with college students assumes, incorrectly, that there's no such thing as a homeless college student.

What this article actually says is offensive enough, but what it elides makes it reprehensible.

It isn't easy to live the life of a college student, or a hobo, but it will not last forever. Unless you decide to further your education, a job after graduation will give you a bit more stability. The job you so desire will give you a constant influx of cash that will hopefully allow you to keep your cool in the presence of free food, while wearing clean clothes on a regular basis. Rest assured, this lifestyle is temporary.

This conclusion is horrifying. Let's not talk about actual homeless college students, for whom sleeping in the library is not just a convenient alternative to going to your dorm or apartment, but one of very few undesirable options. For whom getting something to eat, a place to shower, or a place to sleep are a struggle, all on top of keeping up with schoolwork and paying for tuition. This could have been a thoughtful article, one that pointed out that joking about being "homeless" because you're broke (not poor) and nap on campus is incredibly insensitive and offensive. It could have motioned toward the fact that A&M likely has its own homeless students, who have few resources in dealing with their struggle. Instead it emphasizes that your own "hobo" lifestyle in college is temporary (and thus humorous!). By celebrating the financial security of the upwardly mobile (and, for the most part, already middle- or upper-middle-class) students of A&M, this piece has a problematic takeaway: Your privilege means you can make jokes about whatever you want, because serious downers like homelessness and poverty don't touch your life. It's not a problem if it's not your problem.

If you're homeless in the Bryan/College Station area, contact Family Promise or Twin City Mission. (Feel free to list other resources in the comments.)

You can contact the opinion editor for the Batt, Ian McPhail, at opinion@thebatt.com, or the general editor, Matt Woolbright, at editor@thebatt.com.

Connecting with female characters in geek television

2010-10-06T00:19:00.005-05:00

Cross-posted at Geek Feminism.

s. e. smith wrote this amazing post a while back at Bitch's Push(back) at the Intersections: "I Just Don't Like That Many Female Characters." And I read it and was like, "OMG GEEK CULTURE." Because, really:

'I just don't really like many female characters, you know?'

I see this coming up again and again in discussions about pop culture; this is an attitude I myself once embraced and espoused, like it was a badge of honor to dislike most female characters. I thought I was being oh-so-edgy and critiquing female characters when really I was engaging in an age-old form of misogyny, where people prove how progressive they are by saying they hate women.

I know, it sounds weird. But there is a thing that happens where some feminists declare themselves firmly to be 'one of the guys.' I'm not sure if it's a defensive tactic, designed to flip some attitudes about feminism and feminists, or if there is a genuine belief that being feminist means 'being one of the guys.' Once you are 'one of the guys,' you of course need to prove it by bashing on women, because this is what 'guys' do, yes? So you say that you don't really 'connect with' or 'like' female characters you encounter in pop culture.

If feminists feel pressure to be accepted as "one of the guys," imagine how geek women feel, particularly early in their lives, when they often feel isolated from one another.

This tendency to dislike female character reminds me of another "being one of the guys" strategy: I often meet women who tell me proudly, "I just don't get along with women.* All of my best friends have been guys." These women also often think that this fact actually makes them progressive (because nothing's more radical than failing to create female-centric relationships!). And most of the women I've known who say this are geeks. It's actually one of the reasons it took so long for me to become friends with geeks, because "I don't get along with women" is dealbreaker for me. Any woman who says this is either a) telling me that I can never expect more than perfunctory friendship with them or b) inviting me to denigrate women as well, as the basis of our friendship. And no thank you.

Which is not, of course, to say that these ladies are horrible people. Women who refuse to connect with other women, fictional or real, are not causing the problem, but perpetuating it, because they've bought patriarchal narratives about women hook, line, and sinker. They seek connections with men, because men are the rational, smarter set, and by doing so they feel required to malign their own genders, because, as smith points out, "bashing on women" is just what dudes do. But loving other women, connecting with other women, is one of the most radical feminist act one can perform. And I think that goes for fictional characters, too, especially since I know that my personal path to feminism would have been greatly hindered if it weren't for Xena and Buffy.

So it hurts my heart when geeks inexplicably "hate" female characters on geek shows. Indeed, the two examples smith uses are actually from geeky/fantasy/SF shows: True Blood and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It seems like misogynist write-offs of female characters are disturbingly prevalent in allegedly progressive fan cultures (like the overtly feminist Buffy), and the ones that have been pissing me off lately are, of course, Doctor Who-related. A sizeable part of DW and Torchwood fandoms has a lot of ire for female characters from these series. The two I want to focus on, in part because hatred of these characters is well-represented in both fan communitities, are Gwen Cooper (from Torchwood) and River Song (from Doctor Who).

[Spoilers for season 5 of Doctor Who and Torchwood: Children of Earth (season 3) below the fold.]

[Trigger warning for imagined violence against female characters, slut-shaming, and other misogynistic language.]

Gwen Cooper

Now, Gwen is not perfect on this show. For that matter, neither is anyone else. Everyone on this show is flawed, most of them quite seriously. Under the stress and weirdness of working for Torchwood, Gwen is dismissive of her partner, Rhys, and then cheats on him with a fellow Torchwood employee, Owen. And, throughout the entire series, she's in love with Jack (who the fuck isn't), but marries Rhys anyway. So, Gwen has some personal failings. Compared with the failings of the other major characters, in particular Owen's unfeeling libertine ways and Jack's stringing along Ianto and sacrificing his own grandson, however, Gwen is about right in the middle of the Torchwood-employees-are-bad-people bell curve. However, unlike most of the other characters, a sizeable minority of fans violently hate her, to the extent that there is an Anti-Gwen Alliance on LJ, complete with youtube video. People call her things like "a selfish stupid slutty little gap toothed bitch who should die a very painfull death." So what the fuck is up?

She's ugly. If you think this, and also think that it is a legitimate reason to hate a (female) character, you're a douche. I mean, not only are you wrong, judging female characters solely on whether you want to fuck them or whether they live up to unrealistic standards of beauty makes you a misogynist, even if you're a lady. (More on this with River Song.)

She's whiny. From smith:

People who claim not to like female characters often have difficulty explaining why exactly. Take a character like Buffy, who is called 'whiny' for having opinions and not being shy about them, for occasionally being vulnerable and frightened and sad. It couldn't possibly be because her friends repeatedly fuck her over, she was yanked out of heaven to save her friends' butts, she's been burdened with huge responsibility, and she's constantly taken for granted, right? She couldn't possibly have any reason to be angry and to speak up about it, just like Tara has no reason to be angry either. Nope, they're both just whiny women. Write off, move on.

THIS. People who call Gwen whiny don't feel the need to explain why. And if they do, they hate Gwen because she acts like a woman (because, ew, who would want that?). From a Facebook thread about hating Gwen:

Yeah, I don't really watch Dr. Who, but I got the impression that Rose was a lot like Gwen, and I can't for the life of me understand why the writers like characters like this. I just find them so irritating. I don't get why women have to be all sappy in shows. Why can't there be more women like Xena or Ellen from Supernatural, strong without the sappy. I tend to like women characters better when writers don't feel like they have to make them all soft and whiney, because I just don't think that's really embracing feminism. It's keeping girls in the whiney category and keeping guys as the strong ones who don't whine a lot.

In other words, if producers would make female characters MORE LIKE MEN, then they would be less annoying. That, apparently, is feminism. Women who have feelings and express them are "all sappy" and "soft." Because, gross, right? smith again:

Much of this baseless hatred of women characters seems to be a reflection of internalized self-hatred. Being 'emotional,' for example, is a trait that society says is not acceptable for women, and thus expressions of emotion on the part of women characters are condemned. People will sometimes hide behind claims of 'stereotyping' to criticize women characters, arguing that the characters reinforce problematic ideas about women while little realizing that they themselves are reinforcing those ideas; people who claim that characters like Tara [from Buffy] are 'too emotional' and that this feeds ideas about 'hysteria' and women don't seem to recognize that they are reflecting a commonly held social attitude, that women should not be emotional. They ignore the very real reasons for Tara to be upset; seeing your lover shot and lying in a pool of his own blood, for example, is a very emotional experience.

Calling women who express their emotions sappy and whiny doesn't make you a feminist. Capitulating to sexist stereotypes about proper behavior, painting everything "feminine," like having emotions, as "soft" and "sappy," as not legitimate, is exactly the opposite of feminism, and doesn't do women any favors.

She's a slut. This one is particularly precious, because most Gwen-haters love Jack, the sluttiest** of all DW-related characters. People seem personally offended that Gwen is a threat to Jack and Ianto's relationship (obviously, before Ianto died in CoE), as if that particular flirtation is all about Gwen being a home-wrecker. We see that Jack both initiates and encourages their flirtations, as well as his tendency to rather unfeelingly brush off Ianto whenever Ianto tries to define their relationship or ask for committment from Jack. The image that Gwen-haters seem to have, of a happy, committed gay couple and a bitch trying to wreck it, is a constructed fantasy, one created for the sole purpose of maligning Gwen.

She's smug. Don't women know they should never act like they know anything? Gwen is often accused of acting too much like a know-it-all:

Can they kill Gwen in episode one? Please? I promise I'll watch all 10 episodes live if they do.

I just can't stand the smug bitch. Oh, look at me. I never get hurt, am loved by everybody, and have an adorable caring husband who loves me unconditionally even though I'm a raging knowitall bitch. Fuck. I'd prefer Ianto's sister coming back to join the force over more Gwen.

Anyone want to play a guessing game? Who else can we think of that never gets hurt, is loved by everybody, and has an adorable caring partner who loves hir despite hir serious committment issues? Oh RIGHT. Jack fucking Harkness. And while he certainly gets his share of being called "smug" on the internet, it's not by people who call Gwen smug. It's cool for him to act like he knows everything (and, of course, he does act like that), presumably because his penis gives him magical not-annoying powers. This is the real problem with hating Gwen: she and Jack are quite alike, and not by accident. But behaviors we find acceptable in men are simply not okay in women. And even if Gwen doesn't act like Jack, and goes around acting like a lady with her lady-feelings, she's still considered whiny and annoying by the fans. There is no winning this game.

River Song

People that hate River Song confuse me sometimes more than people who hate Gwen. Which isn't to say that Gwen-hate makes more sense, because if you hate severely flawed characters, WHY ARE YOU WATCHING TORCHWOOD, but River gives them a lot less to work with. Not that it matters, because it appears that folks draw from the same store of justifications when it comes to hating lady-characters. From Amplicate:

she is just so fuckin smug! she looks about 50 (especially in the weeping angels episodes) and shes still teasing the poor doctor about what they used her handcuffs for *shudder* i wouldnt mind seeing david tennant or matt smith use them but with her!! *shudder of disgust*. and she always calls him pretty boy and sweetie. it makes me sick, seriously. and i ABSOLUTELY HATE it when she says 'spoilers' in that smug voice of hers. and in dr who confidential she had to thow herself right ontop of poor matt, i bet she loved that, especially when she put her knee into matts groin continuously, which even matt admitted she did. and she was giggling away, probably fantasizing about using her handcuffs with matt.

sorry, this might be a bit harsh, but i just had to say how i much i hate the pig.

Even though River is a very different character than Gwen, we get the same string of reasons to hate her: she's ugly, she's a slut, and she's smug. Let's deal with the ugly thing first. Because, again, it makes you a douchebag, particularly when you only think someone's ugly because she "looks about 50"*** and especially when she's clearly gorgeous. I keep pointing this out, not because conventional beauty actually matters to liking a character, but because these characters are, for the most part, conventionally beautiful. So by arguing that these conventionally beautiful actresses are "ugly," fans capitulate to an unrealistic and problematic standard of beauty for women, one that insists that the great majority of women (including actresses and models!) will never actually be beautiful, but must continually strive for it. One that causes real harm. One that is used to police women who presume to attain any power or agency. Which is all to say, it is not a legitimate complaint to say that you hate a female character because she doesn't match your definition of fuckable or beautiful. Period.

Sometimes River also gets called "whiny," but more often people seem to have a problem with her "smugness," because female characters are in a double bind, just like actual women, whether in positions of leadership or just on the street. Act like a woman (like you have gross lady-feelings), and you're a whiny twit. Act like a man (like you know things), and you're a smug bitch. Observe:

I already REALLY don't like River Song (and just why that is I still haven't figured out) but she has been the closest thing, personality-wise, to a female "Doctor" I've seen thus far, and she makes me want to punch her in the neck.

Because only a dude can get away with acting like the Doctor. It's violence-inducing when a woman does it. Like Gwen and Jack, River and the Doctor are judged differently for having the same characteristics. Acting like the leading men is not okay for female characters, but neither is it okay for them to "act like women," because then they're whiny and girly. They simply can't win, which is sort of the point. Hating female characters doesn't have anything to do with some magical combination of characteristics that make female characters likeable. Rather, it has to do with misogyny and capitulating to a sexist culture, in order to show one's credibility in that culture.

You may have noted the excessive imaginative violence in the hatred of these two characters. Fans often imagine the deaths of these characters (preferably painful) or imagine inflicting violence on them ("she makes me want to punch her in the neck"). This is disturbing, and can be explained by the ways in which geeks feel more pressure to over-act hypermasculinity. Geek boys are often picked on or bullied in school for being beta males, and geek men usually continue to feel undervalued because of their perceived lack of "manliness." Their reaction to this bullying is very often not to subvert the patriarchal masculinity standards that they fail to meet, but to overcompensate for this lack by participating more enthusiastically in misogynistic and homophobic behaviors and language. And women who exist in this culture, and want to be accepted by these geek men, will also often capitulate with misogyny as well, and show their credibility in part by refusing to connect with female characters in television.

smith asks us:

What is so frightening about women characters who display emotions? What is so terrifying about storylines that center women?

Indeed. So let's, as geeks, start to value women, in all their complexity and variety, instead of deciding prematurely that any woman is only worthy of our contempt. There's nothing scary about accepting that women, fictional and real, are human beings.

__________________________________________

*Actually, they usually say "girls."

**I don't approve of the judgmental connotations the word "slut" carries with it. By using it, I'm just mimicking the language used by haters, not agreeing with the slut-shaming.

***Fuck, what is wrong with people? Are we really okay with the idea that women are just utterly unfuckable past the age of 30 or 40 or 50? I mean, really?

Learning Curve...

2010-10-02T14:08:00.003-05:00

My friend Rena wrote this post recently, about how her recent exposure to feminism has helped her to learn some things about healthy relationships. She's a lovely lady, and I hope you enjoy! (Courtney)

Cross-posted from JMBL.

Having just ended a relationship, I thought it might be a good idea to catalogue what this relationship taught me. Well, I was also partially inspired by another blog post I read.

This relationship taught me a lot about what I like and don't like... and what I want and don't want. Aside from personal preferences though, I also learned a few things about what a good relationship should be.

Relationships are built on trust and communication.

Well, I've always known that, really. It was one of my keywords back when I was 18, before I got married. Yet, I think I didn't pay enough attention to it . This applies really to any relationship: friends, lovers, family... the quality of the relationship will depend on the level of communication and trust.

The confusing part for me this time around was attempting to figure out how to make this work with someone who had some rather fundamental differences in belief. Yes, I believe it's possible for two people to not believe in exactly the same things, or necessarily be passionate about the same things, and still have a healthy relationship. It's something I had no previous experience with though, since my only previous relationship was with someone who shared all of my fundamental beliefs. I think that hesitation and confusion led me to be far more forgiving of some things than I ought to have been.

Warning Sign #1: No respect for Boundaries

One of the things that this experience really drove home for me was that someone who can't respect boundaries is not someone I ever want to be in a relationship with. When they ask me about things that make me cry, and know that this causes me distress, yet continue to ask and to push, that's a sign that they care less about hurting me than about what they want. When they ask me to do something to which I clearly say no, and continue to ask again and again, until I finally say yes, that's a sign that they're going to push for what they want, regardless of what might be best for me. When I clearly state that something is not okay, and they try to do it anyway, then claim they have forgotten... it's more likely a sign that they care more about what they want than about showing me respect.

Warning Sign #2: Reluctance to Clarify

First, a really great quote about how to clarify what you want from someone else before you enter into a non-exclusive relationship (though I think some of these things would be good to talk about before entering into an exclusive relationship also):

I always set down at the outset - what does the other person want to be told, or not, about other partners? How do we handle mutual friends, and who can get told, or can nobody? How much notice is needed before showing up? What things, sexually, are off-limits? Does the intimacy end at the bedroom door - all affection becomes friendly once outside it - or are we holding hands walking down the street and kissing on street corners? What labels or answers do we feel comfortable giving when other people ask? And the biggest agreement, which is if anyone's feelings change, the other person gets told immediately - whether it's growing disinterested or falling in love. Either one can make everything end badly.

(It's a great post, but please be warned if you go to read it, that some of the content may be triggering for rape victims.) When I read this post, it made me realize that there were several things I hadn't asked that I probably should have. Being in a relationship where the lines are fuzzy and you are often confused is a sign that you need to clarify. Reluctance on the part of the other person to make those clarifications is definitely a warning sign. Asking and receiving no response may be a sign that you need to get out.

Warning Sign #3: No Response to Feedback

With me, I was in a situation very different from any situation I'd ever experienced before. This really drove home the need to be able to give feedback and have that listened to and responded to. Yes, response is crucial. See my last post. Effective communication requires feedback. If I say something and get no response, I don't know if I was clearly understood. Good relationships require you to be able to both give and receive this kind of feedback, because good relationships are all about figuring out what works for all parties involved. There is no generic template here. Each pairing of people entering into relationships have their own unique preferences and issues. When someone cannot, or is not willing to, discuss feedback issues, that's a warning sign that they may not really care about that feedback.

Warning Sign #4: You Can't Take What I Say Literally

Everyone jokes around sometimes and uses sarcasm or irony to mock things. Sometimes. When I find myself needing to reverse the meaning of about half of what someone is saying though, that starts to become a problem. When their manner of joking is to frequently insult me, though they clearly intend it to be taken as a joke, I start to wonder if it's really a joke. And then I found this:

Our culture tells men constantly that women emasculate you, that they're gross and icky, that they ruin everything, that they deserve violence and punishment, thatthey ruin your life once you're married, that they deserve to be hated. And you and your buddies joking about how women are only good for sex and cooking are not fucking helping.

In this post, Courtney links to another post that has much more eloquent things to say about the issue than I ever could. The point though? The point is that just because you didn't really mean it, or just because you intended your words to be taken as a joke - doesn't mean that they were. When someone you're in a relationship with tells you that the solution to this is that you need to lighten up and realize that they are not serious/joking most of the time, that's a warning sign. The real solution? They need to work on clearer communication. Maybe they should learn to say what they actually mean instead of wanting other people to always understand that they do NOT mean what they are actually saying. It might even be a warning sign that they DO mean what they are actually saying, and that calling it a joke, or saying, "I would never actually mean that!" is merely an excuse to cover their butt.

Warning Sign #5: I'm Going to Tell You What I Am; That Makes it Okay.

Here's my last thing to keep in mind for the future. I recently read this article:

This is the “I’m Such A Dick” Gambit. And before we proceed, it is time to discuss. For the “I’m Such a Dick” Gambit, aside from being the world’s Number One Most Popular Rhetorical Device To Open Your Sexist Op-Ed With, is also one of the more fearsome and annoying weapons of psychological warfare in existence.

I really HIGHLY recommend the article. Because here's the thing: When someone tells you that they are a bastard, they're often doing it to manipulate you.

I’m such a dick! Do you not find me charming?

We have already established that this person is an asshole; he admits to it. We’ve also established that being an asshole is funny and cool. Your choices are to laugh along, congratulate him on his discernment — wow, people who aren’t Dick really ARE losers, aren’t they? — or RUIN EVERYTHING FOREVER BECAUSE YOU’RE MEAN AND HATE FUN. Magically, by admitting that he is a total prick sometimes, Dick has managed to leave you, the person who objects to his behavior, holding the bag.

Saying what they are is a ploy to take away our ability to object to their behavior.

(And if the confession is made with any degree of sadness, watch out. Chances are that you are dealing with a Level Two Dick, or “Pity Dick,” who is shielded from critique by his own poor self-esteem, forged from the fires of Hell into an unstoppable weapon that lets him get away with basically anything, because if you’re mean he might cry.)

Our response might even be to defend them: "No, you're not a bastard. You're just human." Now we've just given them permission to continue acting like a bastard. So when someone starts saying something along the lines of, "I'm such a bastard," it may be a warning sign that they actually ARE a bastard. Feeling bad is different from being bad.

Epilogue

I think I still have a lot to learn about how to have a healthy relationship with someone who doesn't share all of my fundamental beliefs. At the very least though, I've learned a lot about what to watch out for, and how to identify behaviors that are not simply differences in belief, but warning signs that this is not a person I can have a healthy relationship with, regardless of beliefs.

Quote of the Day

2010-09-25T09:05:00.002-05:00

On geeks and Nice Guys^TM:

Getting people past an individualized approach to sexism is hard enough most of the time -- it's that much harder when the people in question believe that they, too, have been persecuted (as "beta males") and thus know just as much about the topic as women. Let me be clear: geek men often do suffer by virtue of failing to live up to hegemonic masculinity. However, they are nonetheless still men with all of the privilege this entails, even if their patriarchal dividend is slightly smaller than that of some other men.

-Matt K, The Disenchanted World

Quote of the day

2010-09-20T09:17:00.001-05:00

"You know, conservatives always talk about how they want to return to some magical Golden Age of America, circa 1945 to 1960, and I say we start with bringing back the 80%+ tax rate that the wealthiest Americans paid at that time. Yay for nostalgia."

-Melissa McEwan at Shakesville

An unscheduled personal break

2010-09-20T08:46:00.001-05:00

So, Ryan and I broke up, which is why the end of my blogging break was followed by zero posts. My heart is a little broken, so it may take me a bit to get myself together and writing again. Just wanted to let you guys know I haven't forgotten about you, and I'll be back soon.

Some links for you.

2010-09-06T08:00:00.005-05:00

I don't know how cleansing this break was. A lot of it was me saying to myself, "ergh, I just don't care about the internet today." Which may sound like nothing, but "the internet" is the community in which I participate to make up for the fact that I have few friends in real life. So I did connect a bit more with them these past couple of weeks, and even made a few new ones. (It's fall, so there's new blood in the department. I'm pretty excited about that.) But I've just been feeling sort of apathetic and ungrounded. Clearly, all those folks who say the internet makes you less sociable and breaks up community are stupid. But I'm back! So let's get me out of this funk with a linkspam.

First, because I like starting with Doctor Who, I ran across this article at Overthinking It in which the author perfectly identifies why season 5 is just not doing it for me--a lack of thematic consistency. So ze re-writes the season to give that consistency, and it's actually pretty fucking amazing. It's also a long read, so bookmark it for later if you need to.

Another longish read about Doctor Who is the beginning of Ryan's fanfic, featuring the ginger Doctor. Yeah, you heard that right. "Leena and Red and Those Who Never Were." It's a million times better than every NuWho book I've ever read, which is a lot of them.

There were a number of fantastic posts about gaming, women, and sexism the last couple of weeks. It was kicked off by Pewter's "I Don't See Your Problem: Sexism, World of Warcraft, and Geekery" at The Mental Shaman. She also has a round-up of responses and related posts up at her blog. Related: "Ain't I a Gamer?" at the Border House and Quin's "Daughter of Zero Queens: Roleplaying as Resistance" (really recommended), as at the Border House.

Geek Feminism Blog also put up a post about "The Myth of White Male Geek Rationality" recently. It is, like, everything I've ever wanted to say to scientists, but with less swearing.

From Julian Abagond at Sociological Images, the perennial question I've heard in the gaming and anime worlds: "Why Do the Japanese Draw Themselves as White?" The answer: they don't. We only think we do because we assume white as default.

"In Defense of Being Crazy": Gayle talks about the importance of self-identification and language use in that process. (Full disclosure: I am actually a big fan of, and have a lot of respect for, both Gayle and s.e. smith from FWD.)

Sexist Beatdown is back! Amanda and Sady talk about Eminem, Rihanna, and domestic violence. Awesomeness, as it always does with them, ensues.

This lovely comic from Ampersand illustrates the sexism behind street harassment and the oft-repeated response that women should take it as a compliment:

I actually got catcalled on the street the other day. I was walking from my apartment to the corner store to get some cokes at about 9 or 9:30, and some dude called out, "Hey baby." (I couldn't see him, because our street is poorly lit. Presumably because there are no sidewalks.) I ignored him. "Hey sexy lady. Come over here!" I walked faster, and I was scared and pissed, because I immediately thought, maybe I should have brought Ryan with me. To walk 2 blocks. It was humiliating to think, even for a second. Fuck.

Via Sociological Images, this amazing video:

Transcript:

(A pretty thin woman in a yellow dress in from of a fake pink castle interior.)

If you find a man who's big and hairy and beastly and it seems like he wants to hurt you, buuut he's got a lot of money and a really big house, stick it out, you can change him.

(She does a little dance as the title "Advice for Young Girls From a Cartoon Princess" appears in chunky hot pink letter.)

Desire is when a man wants you so much that he's willing to yell at you and beat down your door and tell you if you don't eat with him, you don't eat at all. It also kinda means he wants you to be skinny.

There was once a really hot, successful man who was very goal-oriented and extremely popular who wanted to marry me, but I didn't feel like it was enough of a challenge. Never settle for something that doesn't feel like it's a challenge.

I don't like the term "beastiality;" it sounds...blegh. I like the term "interspeciality" because it sounds like "special."

Find a man who wants to imprison you with his love. The longer that you're trapped with the same person, it will start to feel like home. Stockholm!

You don't need to have fancy people friends. Things around your house can be your friends. Don't just sit on furniture--talk to it. Candlesticks are really good at love advice because they're French!

The key to love is to tolerate everything. Oh god...everything.

The lesson here is beauty is in the eye of the beholder--as long as the woman is good looking.

Um, YOU'RE WELCOME. This was one of my favorite Disney movies growing up. (I used to have a Beauty and the Beast tent set up on my bed, that I slept in. Maybe this is why I'm claustrophobic.) So I love this video inordinately.

Cuties

2010-09-04T22:13:00.002-05:00

Gayle's pictures of her adorable cat playing in the sheets inspired me to show you my babies, since I never have. Here's Captain Pusspants, my big squishy:

Get that camera out of my face, woman!

I love books.

The desk is where kitties belong.

Lucy (short for Lucilla Marjoribanks) doesn't like me taking pictures of her.

Hi there.

Guest post at The Rejectionist

2010-08-26T12:33:00.001-05:00

I am just a linker lately. I have a guest post up (with an astoundingly long title) at The Rejectionist, talking about how one can be a feminist lady and a Victorian science fiction academic at the same time. My life is full of negotiations, it seems. So go read it! And if you don't read The Rejectionist already, you should. It's rather fab.

Also, the Daleks would have been so much scarier if they were more like the Martians in this picture. Machine bodies that aren't clunky! Creepy-ass tentacles that actually do things! Daleks would so get owned by the Martians.

A break

2010-08-21T11:45:00.001-05:00

We need one. And, since my lower back decided to make it unbelievably painful for me to sit at the computer, walk, or do any-fucking-thing, today is a good day to start. Adrienne's off to Burning Man soon (envy!) and I need to be getting into school-is-about-to-start-I-have-prepared-nothing panic mode soon. So we'll be taking off a couple weeks from blogging, though I'll drop in every once in a while with links or pithy remarks. Enjoy the end of summer, folks! We'll see you when it's over.

She Geek: Women and Self-Labeling in Online Geek Communities

2010-08-20T12:00:00.002-05:00

(The following is a project I did for my sociolinguistics course, and I thought you guys might like it. Enjoy!)

My intent in this project was to examine the labeling of female-oriented geek spaces on the internet. What I found was that self-labeling of geek women often defeats the potentially subversive act of creating a female-oriented geek community.

I would argue that the mere creation or and participation in geek communities labeled “for women” are aggressive acts towards male-dominated geek culture. One of the reasons we can see these communities as a challenge to mainstream geek culture is the still-prevailing myth of internet neutrality.

This myth argues that since we are “disembodied” on the internet, everyone begins on equal ground.

Bodies don't matter in cyberspace. This is not how it works in real life, however, particularly in geek spaces. It is true that until you mark yourself as Other than the privileged class—male, heterosexual, cisgendered, abled, middle-class, and white—you will be assumed to be those things. However, this will not protect you from hate speech or sexist, racist, and homophobic “jokes,” since geek communities often engage in these forms of discourse. Even objecting to these discursive acts, without revealing the state of one's own body, will immediately mark you as Other, and leave you vulnerable to harassment and denigration. By labeling their spaces as for women, female geeks challenge the neutrality myth, by making their female bodies conspicuous and by demonstrating a need for safe cyberspaces for women.

In a study of the language of male gamers playing within a Quake server, Natasha Christensen claims that

Even though the world of cyberspace allows for the possibility that gender can be transformed, men in Jeff's Quake Server continue to relate to each other in ways which support male dominance and heterosexual male superiority. [...] In the bodiless realm of cyberspace, it is fascinating to note that men who are able to create an alternate world where masculinity is defined differently do not take this opportunity. Instead, real life is mimicked not only by taking on the physical attributes of strength, but also by using ways of talk that emphasize aggression and sexual dominance.

[…]

Therefore, in the same way that sports and war help to perpetuate the concept of male dominance through physical strength, the Quake server also promotes the idea of success through aggression and violence. [...] Sports and war games became a way for white middle class men to fight their fears of social feminization. At the turn of this century, online computer games are being used in the same manner. Computer geeks who are especially vulnerable to the accusations of being less than manly are able both through the actions and discourse on Quake to demonstrate the qualities required of hegemonic masculinity. Emphasis is placed on the strength of the masculine body while discourse sets the players apart from anything that is feminine.

The same patriarchal standards that put women at a disadvantage also disadvantage computer and other geeks. Often, geeks cite an experience of growing up with bullying and teasing, precisely because they do not live up to hegemonic masculinity. Instead of using cyberspace to fight against hegemonic masculinity, however, geek men often use it to buttress those standards and fulfill them discursively instead of physically. This is precisely why geek women find online geek spaces—necessarily discursive spaces—to be so unwelcoming and hostile. And it is through alternative discourse, whether blogging or forum writing or fanfiction, that women challenge this culture of hypermasculinity.

By marking their spaces as “for women,” even while inviting men, female geeks mark themselves as physical bodies just as conclusively as the homophobic and misogynistic discourse of Quake players marks their bodies as male. And by doing so, women respond to and challenge both the hypermasculine discourse prevalent in online geek spaces and the myth of the neutral, disembodied cyber subject.

Geek Culture & Its Discontents

Matthew S. S. Johnson writes in “Public Writing in Gaming Spaces” that

Gamers who participate in writing activities, including blogs, strategy guides, walkthroughs, fanfic, and forums, “foster their own sense of agency through active participation in and frequent contribution to gaming communities in the form of written texts. Collectively, they not only gain influence over other gamers participating in games or game-related community projects, but also over the production companies who produce the software that originally inspired them” (271).

Johnson argues that these online gaming writing projects are an example of civic participation and public writing. I would like to expand his argument to include similar writing projects in all geek fandoms. One of the most common reasons that fans cite for joining writing projects like blogs and forums is that they wish to join a like-minded community. When women join geek communities and find gendered hostility, joining or forming a female-oriented alternative spaces is not only a reaction to male-dominated communities, but a civic response to them. Forming a Livejournal group for geek women is, I would argue, a move to challenge and change the mainstream geek communities.

We can see this desire to gain civic agency through discursive acts in many minority geek writings. Garland Grey, for example, writes in 'Cause I'm Nerdcore Like That: Toward a Subversive Geek Identity,

Writing our own comics, and blogs and forming our own communities gives us strength. When confronted with the cultural purity police, the ones who swoop in to Geeksplain to us, we can answer from a position of solidarity. We can create safe spaces of our own. Spaces where we can debate and discuss the ways Science Fiction comments on society’s treatment of The Other, spaces where our voices aren’t drowned out by simplistic fanaticism. A place where, for instance, a group of people can watch one of the X-Men movies and someone can, during one of the many scenes where Cyclops and Wolverine are having tense arguments about who is better for Jean Gray [...] simply scream out GAWWWWD JUST KISS ALREADY! BROKEBACK THAT SHIT! and not have people get all middle school about it.

Garland argues that by creating separate discursive spaces, like queer-oriented or female-oriented forums, subversive geeks can create their own authority, one strong enough to stand up to the mainstream, white, male, cisgendered geek authority. His example, in which fans can “scream out” a reference to queer subtext, indicates that what non-mainstream geeks need is a space to speak without worrying about hegemonic gender and sexuality standards. Unlike the highly-policed Quake server, then, geek women (and geeks of color, disabled geeks, queer geeks, trans geeks) need a space of free discourse, in order to change the larger geek culture.

So, what does the labeling of these communities do for this potentially subversive discursive project? Let's move on to my data collection and results.

Methodology

My data came from Livejournal, which I chose because it is an online community with a reputation for being more female-friendly than other places online, and thus attracts more women-oriented communities and female geeks to join them.

I used a series of search words intended to bring up mainstream groups that self-identify as geeky or nerdy. This series was as follows: geek, nerd, science fiction/sci fi,Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, comic book/graphic novel, fantasy, Lord of the Rings, gaming/gamer, World of Warcraft. To collect my data, I went systematically through each the search results for each search term and identified the groups meant for women. Each group then needed to fulfill a number of criteria to be included.

Criteria

I only included groups whose titles indicated that they are intended for women. I excluded groups that hinted toward a female focus (like Squee Corner) without explicitly stating that focus. This was mostly to avoid ambiguity. The point of this project is to see how women label themselves when they create geek communities for themselves. Thus I can only count groups that explicitly label themselves “for women.”

To avoid groups that do not attract members or activity, each group must have at least 3 posts. However, the activity does not have to be recent.

If the group is intended to sell something, it will only be counted if the description indicates that the creator/seller herself is a geek.I only included one result that was intended to sell a product, because the creator clearly intended to create a community of geek women, while also selling her geek-inspired jewelry.

Method

Once I collected the groups that fit the criteria, I counted the gendered words (e.g. girl(s), women, female, heroine(s), ladies) in the titles and subtitles of all the communities for women. If the title and subtitle repeat a gendered word (like Geek Girls Anon: Because Geek Girls Need Love Too), the word is only counted once for that title. If the title and subtitle contain multiple gendered words, I counted each word once for that title (for example, Warhammer Online Ladies: Female Gamers counts as 1 example of ladies and 1 example of female).

Results

I found 52 Livejournal communities that fit the criteria, with the following breakdown: 18 general geek and nerd, 4 general science fiction, 5 Star Wars, 2 science fiction/fantasy, 1 fantasy, 2 Lord of the Rings, 16 gaming, 4 World of Warcraft.

The 52 Livejournal groups had 55 labels. Girl makes up almost 40% of these labels, significantly more than any other label. Considering the great variety of gendered terms used by geek women, the popularity of girl is surprising. So why do geek women choose to label themselves girls so often? None of the groups' profiles indicated that these groups were for anything other than adult women, yet they consistently describe themselves as geek girls.

If the creation of separatist spaces is a radical and civic act, why do women choose the label girl so often? I think that the label of girl can be harmful to the project of challenging geek culture, and that it is often chosen specifically for that property.

Feminism & Female Aggression

In an article on the BBC News site covering the worldwide phenomenon of Girl Geek Dinners, a networking organization for women with careers or personal interest in technology, the author reports that Girl Geek Dinners rejects the label of feminism. Said one of the organizers:

In a sense [Geek Girl Dinners] is a feminist movement as it aspires to a lot of the same ideals but I don't want it to be seen as something that is feminist as this can be seen as something marginal or negative.

We're not trying to be radical or disruptive, but to show that women have a place in technology. [emphasis mine]

While Geek Girl Dinners is not active on Livejournal, the attitude shown here seems commonplace in communities intended for geek women. Geek women often don't want to rock the boat, and see the political element of making an all-female geek community to be “radical” and “disruptive.” We can see this pattern in some of the profiles of the Livejournal communities labeled with girl, which we'll look at next.

From Girl Gamers:

I created this community so that girl gamers could find each other and talk about gaming with people who take them seriously- not because of some imaginary hatred for the male gender. Some of my favorite people are boys; but any girl gamer will tell you that it's difficult to talk games (I mean *really* talk games) with a guy. It's just a fact of life. We love you, for honest. Try not to feel so threatened, aye? ;)

This entire paragraph is meant to display non-aggression—the reference to “some imaginary hatred for the male gender,” “some of my favorite people are boys,” “we love you, for honest,” and “try not to feel so threatened, aye?” Even the winking smiley face at the end is intended to communicate that this group is not meant to intimidate geek men.

From Geek Girl Chic:

This is a rating community for Geeks with Chic. It's open to Females and Males alike, despite the name of the community. I thought I better open it up to both sexes, can't have me being sexist now can we?

This one is slightly sarcastic, but since the groups actually allows both men and women to join, it still communicates that the group is not threatening to the male-domination of geek culture. Out of the 52 groups on Livejournal, a full quarter of them explicitly invite men to join, indicating that these groups' desire to appear non-threatening to male geeks. The use of the label girl is, I believe, related to this desire. Girl indicates immaturity, non-threatening femininity, and a lack of aggression. Because of the powerful statement that all-female geek communities make in their mere existence, geek women who don't want to be “radical” or “disruptive” use tactics such as labeling themselves girls or chicks or fangirls, as well as describing themselves in non-threatening ways and inviting men to join their communities.

I don't want to shut out the possibility that geek women can reclaim the label girl and use it in a way that does not connote non-threatening, or challenges and plays with the damaging stereotypes imposed by male geeks, in much the same way that geek women use the terms estrogen brigade and fangirl. However, while it is possible for women to effectively claim the label girl, when this labeling is coupled with other tactics of non-aggression, it counteracts the subversive potential of geek communities oriented toward women.

Refusing Heteronormativity?

There's another, less depressing answer to the question, “Why do geek women call themselves girls?” That answer is that some geek women are refusing to participate in the heterosexual matrix. In a study of nerd girls in a California high school, Mary Bucholtz notes that

Refusal to participate in the heterosexual matrix is also linked to the flouting of conventional displays of femininity and masculinity. […] Nerd girls do not wear revealing clothing, and although sometimes they may wear items decorated with Sesame Street characters or other emblems of childhood, these do not exhibit the combination of infantilization and sexualization evoked by the clothing of the cool white girls. […] (123).

Bucholtz notes that nerd girls in high school reject conventional femininity in their clothing choices, and while they embrace “childish” fashion, their doing so does not correspond with a sexualization. It is possible that some of the Livejournal groups that use girl to describe themselves are doing so in the same vein; by using girl, they are rejecting the conventional femininity connoted with the words ladies or women, but also rejecting the sexualized connotation of girl, one that links girl with submissiveness and non-aggression. Considering the widespread objectification and sexualization of women in male-dominated geek culture, calling oneself a girl can be a radical act in itself, refusing to be considered a female body ready for sexual appropriation by one's subculture.

The ways in which geek women label themselves is complex and multi-layered, and deserves further study. Looking at the ways in which geek women self-label could throw light on how women in more mainstream culture react to the negative connotations of female gender labels, and on the coping mechanisms of women who exist in male-dominated subcultures.

See also: Angie's Girl vs. Woman: The Great Debate

Works Cited

Bucholtz, Mary. “Geek the Girl: Language, Femininity, and Female Nerds.” Gender and Belief Systems: Proceedings of the 4th Berkeley Women and Language Conference. Ed. Natasha Warner, Jocelyn Ahlers, Leela Bilmes, Monica Oliver, Suzanne Wertheim, and Melinda Chen. Berkeley: Berkeley Women and Language Group, 1998. Print. 119-131.

Christensen, Natasha Chen. “Geek at Play: Doing Masculinity in an Online Gaming Site.” Reconstruction 6.1 (2006): n.p. Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture. Reconstruction, 2006. Web. 5 August 2010.

“Geek Girl Chic.” Community profile for geekgirlchic. Livejournal. geekgirlchic, 10 September 2006. Web. 8 August 2010. http://community.livejournal.com/geekgirlchic/profile

“Girlgamer’s Journal.” Community profile for girlgamers. Livejournal. girlgamers, 1 August 2010. Web. 8 August 2010. http://community.livejournal.com/girlgamers/profile

Grey, Garland. “‘Cause I’m Nerdcore Like That: Toward a Subversive Geek Identity.” Tiger Beatdown. Tiger Beatdown, 28 July 2010. Web. 3 August 2010.

Johnson, Matthew S. S. “Public Writing in Gaming Spaces.” Computers and Composition 25 (2008): 270-283. ScienceDirect. Web. 6 August 2010.

Knowles, Jamillah. “Girl Geek Appeal: Women’s Movement Online.” BBC News. BBC, 7 May 2010. Web. 8 August 2010.

Cosplay: The sincerest form of flattery

2010-08-18T11:29:00.002-05:00

LOOK, I'M IN THE GUARDIAN! Part of agreeing to write there, however, is agreeing to reply to comments. And they're sort of ugly. Like, oh! I remember why I moderate ugly. So please go write smart things! I'll be eternally grateful.

And let me know what you think!

Also, since the word limit for this article was, like, crippling, I'll be writing a longer version on the blog soon, and include some of the great stuff I got from my interviews with cosplayers. (Real, live ones! Who aren't my friends!)

Weekend Update

2010-08-14T12:04:00.001-05:00

Hey readers! I just wanted to let you know we're still alive. I took an unexpected road trip and Adrienne had her crazy birthday party, but we'll be posting again soon next week.

I was asked by the Guardian (yes, that Guardian) to write an article about cosplay for their Comment Is Free section. (They're paying me in pounds! I don't know how that works, but it feels so exotic.) I'll link it here on Monday when it goes live, so watch out for that!

Cheers!

Your Tuesday funny

2010-08-03T09:00:00.003-05:00

And no, it's not the xkcd that I've seen linked fucking everywhere. Though it was pretty funny.

From the ever-wonderful Scenes from a Multiverse:

Mrs., Miss, and Ms.; or, being a woman is linguistically annoying

2010-08-02T19:53:00.015-05:00

(Our first co-blogged post! Courtney brings the swearing and Adrienne the cute swear euphemisms!)

I didn't even know that the Queen's English Society was a thing. Did you? Apparently, English needs to be pontificated about by self-nominated pompous people. Not too long ago, this QES decided that Ms. (pronounced miz) is "bad English." For a number of stupid reasons, outlined well by Motivated Grammar:

The QES’s complaints are petty, insane, or both. Case in point: they’d like to see Ms. abolished. Why?

It’s an abbreviation, but it has no long form.
It’s “unpronounceable” since it lacks a vowel.
It was created by “certain” women who “suddenly became sensitive about revealing their marital status.”
Regarding point 1, this is matter of being beholden to word labels. It reminds me of an objection I once received to preposition stranding; “preposition” suggests “in a position before”, and therefore a preposition at the end of a sentence, where it doesn’t precede anything, must be incorrect.

So it goes with abbreviations; if you want to be literal, an abbreviation is an abbreviated form of something. But Ms. doesn’t need to be a literal abbreviation to exist. It does exist, as anyone can plainly see. If it’s not an abbreviation, that doesn’t stop it existing any more than a mannequin not being human stops it existing.

Ms. isn’t an abbreviation, but rather a blend. It’s a combination of the two words Miss and Mrs., and it happens to inherit the closing period of the abbreviation Mrs., making it superficially resemble an abbreviation. That’s all.

And if we’re doing an abbreviation witch-hunt, what is Mrs. short for? Missus, one might say, but that isn’t really a word of its own as much as a spelling of the pronunciation of Mrs. Etymologically, Mrs. is an abbreviation of mistress, but the meaning of that word has changed sufficiently that you’d be stirring up a good deal of trouble if you called someone’s wife a “mistress”. I would argue that in modern English Mrs. itself is no longer an abbreviation, but a fully independent lexical item, much like Ms.

Regarding point 2, well, we all manage to pronounce Ms. pretty well for the lack of a vowel supposedly rendering it unpronounceable. How do we do it? Technically speaking, the standard pronunciation of Ms. doesn’t have a vowel. We were told in school that all words need to have vowels, since each syllable has to have a vowel, but that’s not quite right. Some consonants can function as the nucleus of a syllable, just like a vowel. This is more apparent in some non-English languages, such as Berber or Slavic languages. For instance, in Czech or Slovak, you can apparently tell someone to stick their finger through their throat by saying Strč prst skrz krk (audio), a sentence where every word has a nucleic r in lieu of a vowel.

English does this, too, albeit more rarely. We often reduce and down to a syllabic [n] or [ŋ] between words (as in the restaurants Eat ‘n Park or In-N-Out), and word-final [l] and [r] are sometimes syllabic as well (as in bottle [boɾl] or pepper [pepr]). As you might have guessed, [z] is another syllabic consonant, which explains how we are able to pronounce [mz] as a stand-alone word.

Again, I don’t mean to demonize Mrs., but if we’re getting rid of vowel-less words, wouldn’t we have to get rid of it, too? Mrs. lacks a vowel orthographically, and has to trade its r for two [ɪ]s and an extra [z] just to get pronounced (as [mɪzɪz])! Now that’s unpronounceable!

On the first two points, Gabe is right on. Neither of these excuses to abolish Ms. make any damn sense linguistically, and frankly, if you are in a society dedicated to a particular language, you should know better. But that's kind of the point, and one Gabe seems to miss a little bit. He goes on to argue that Ms. "isn’t some recent feminist invention," but merely a convenient solution to etiquette. As if it being a recent feminist invention would mean that the QES was right. Because feminists never have any good ideas, and the older something is the better.

But pretty much all linguistic criticisms, especially ones that want so much to argue that some linguistic device isn't logical or doesn't make sense, are political. A good example of this is something I hear an awful lot, which is the "logical" argument against double negatives. Double negatives, according to this argument, don't make sense, because they cancel each other out. This argument makes zero sense, because when a person says, that don't/doesn't make no sense, everyone knows that they don't mean that sentence positively. Most understand that it's actually a way to emphasize the negative quality of the sentence. That doesn't make sense is less emphatic than that don't/doesn't make no sense. There is no "canceling out" effect. Double negatives used to be a part of mainstream English dialects (Shakespeare used them!), and the only reason they are denigrated so much now is because they are only used in marginalized dialects, like African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Chicano English. Which means that arguments against double negatives are arguments saying that racially-based marginalized dialects are linguistically inferior. This shit is always, always political.

Which means that the whole point of the QES's argument is to force women to use Mrs. and Miss, and thus place them in a system in which a woman is judged by whether a man has found her worthy enough to grace her with his name. Even when one wants to use Ms. to step outside of this system, some people either won't accept it or habitually "forget." The QES has a quaint notion that creating a title for the unmarried single male makes sense and would answer the confusion and issue surrounding Ms. Gabe is very polite calling this an "inferior solution," but let's take a slightly stronger (oh yes, some of you will read this as bitchier) position. This is straight up a pile of crappola. Men are not judged like women are judged on the status of their romantic entanglements. In an interview, Mrs. matters. A woman's title can impact how she is treated, respected, and hired. Currently, one of the only ways out of this conundrum is for a woman to receive a title that replaces Ms., Miss, or Mrs., like Dr. And how shitty is it that only the privileged get this option. We're lucky. And yet, there is still pressure with the use of Ms. and Dr. to box women back into those societal labels of single or married (worthless or worthy).

I (Adrienne) have had a couple of uncomfortable experiences with titles as a teacher at a university. Frequently students call me Dr., and I explain that I am not a doctor yet and would prefer to be called Ms. I accept Professor because... well I profess, and students sometimes feel more comfortable with this designation. I don't go by my first name because as a fairly informal teacher and a young woman, I am already walking a fine line trying to be comfortable, fun, and me in the classroom while still having authority and respect. More frequently, students call me Mrs. Yes, this is a pet peeve of mine. I'm not married, nor do I want to be married. And my marital status isn't important or any of their business. After picking up quizzes one day in a class a few years ago, I realized that more than half of the students had married me off on their papers. After picking up the papers, I announce that I'm not Mrs. and should be addressed as Ms. In response, a male student leered at me and asked "Does that mean you're single?"... Speechless, my face must have portrayed enough of the anger and disgust I was feeling because he immediately started apologizing. Thank you very much for trying to fit me tightly back into the category as clearly either available to men or not available to men. (And him specifically. Gross.) And thank you for refusing to give me respect or authority because I'm a sexual object.

This is personal. And it is political. And QES and Gabe should recognize that. It impacts our lives. Forcing women to wear Miss and Mrs. is always an attempt to undermine their authority. Female professors, especially young ones without doctorates, feel this acutely. I'm sure lots of other women in many different positions feel this too. Pretending we are living in a non-sexist culture that only has problems with confusion about language and status is damaging.

Feel free to share your Ms./Mrs./Miss/Doctor stories in the comments!

Verbal abuse and "toughening up"

2010-07-29T11:45:00.003-05:00

(Trigger warning for descriptions of verbal and physical abuse and douchiness about those things.)

s. e. smith's wonderful "Dear Imprudence" series at FWD/Forward is one of my favorite things in my (ridiculously extensive) blog reading habit. Part of it is just that I find hiring incompetent and uncompassionate advice columnists fucking reprehensible. For example, the "Love Connection" column in the Maroon Weekly is a train wreck. (My inside information tells me that this author doesn't work for MW anymore. Let's hope they don't scrape the bottom of the barrel and finally get someone better.) And smith is great about calling all the shitty, shitty advice columnists out. Which is hugely important, I think, because no matter how bad the advice author is (see: Maroon Weekly), people will continue to write in to them. So we need to hold these authors to a high standard, because their bad advice will continue to affect people's lives.

Anyway, one of smith's posts really resonated with me recently: Dear Imprudence: Just Toughen Up Already! In it, smith criticizes the Ask Amy column for refusing to take verbal abuse seriously. The letter to Ask Amy is from a lady in high school who wants advice on how to deal with her verbally abusive brother. Amy's response is to tell this lady that what she is experiencing is not abuse, and basically that she shouldn't let it bother her. From smith:

Let’s be clear here. Hurt Sister is saying that what her brother is doing is actively hurting her. She cites that it’s a blow to her self esteem, and it makes her feel bad. She’s writing to ask for help. It’s worth noting that all over the world, every single day, people experiencing verbal abuse cry out for help, and they often get responses exactly like Amy’s.

[...]

You know what is verbal abuse? Something that someone identifies as abuse because that person is experiencing it. There are definitely degrees of verbal abuse, but they are all abusive. This is a short letter. We don’t know all the details. But it seems to me, reading between the lines, that her brother is constantly hounding her, is constantly making her feel small and worthless, is constantly saying that he is better than her, is constantly reminding her that she is ‘not doing things right’ and, you know what? That can become highly abusive when you are hearing it over and over.

Especially if you are aware of how it is impacting the way you feel about yourself. Hurt Sister is not writing in to say ‘this is annoying and it bugs me,’ she is writing to say this hurts me and I want it to stop.

Amy’s response is the equivalent of the old ‘sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me’ adage, with a side of ‘you shouldn’t let the things that other people say about you affect you.’ Well, guess what. Words hurt people. The things that people say about (and to) you affect you, whether you like it or not. It’s not always possible to make a ‘healthy choice’ to ignore verbal abuse, especially when you are a high school student, in your own home, a place that should be safe, and your family member is subjecting you to it.

THIS. This all over the place. Had I read this Ask Amy column without smith's commentary, it would have been triggering. Growing up, I experienced verbal abuse from my father. It took a long time for me to take it seriously, because I actually got the least of it in my family, because it never slipped into physical violence like it did for my other family members, and because when I talked about it, my friends pretty much gave me the same advice Amy gave this young lady. smith again:

There’s a prevailing and extremely dangerous attitude that verbal abuse isn’t ‘real’ abuse, despite ample evidence to the contrary. That attitude manifests in the way that people at all levels deal with abuse, from teachers handling bullying to human resource directors in offices with hostile work environments. If an abuser uses words alone to harm people, that abuser is far more likely to get away with it, and the responsibility for dealing with it will be placed solely on the victim. It’s the victim’s fault for being ‘too sensitive’ and not ‘toughening up.’

So, personal story time. This is not actually something I talk about much, because I've gotten the "you're being too sensitive" reaction a number of times. While most friends I've told about my abusive home growing up did not come right out and say "toughen up," most of them did act like I was overreacting to what they saw as normal parent/teenager conflict. It's taken me a number of years to get comfortable calling it abuse because of this. When I was a teenager, my father was abusive. Verbally to all our family members (my mother and my brother). That became more physical with my brother as he got older. I have reason to believe that his abuse of my mother was well beyond verbal, but we haven't really ever talked about it. We had a code of silence when I was growing up, which I think is fairly common in abusive homes. While we all hated Dad, there was an understanding that it was not okay to talk about it outside of the family. And even within the family, it had to be framed a certain way. Calling it abuse was not okay, because that word indicated a seriousness that would force us to tell someone else. If Dad shoved my brother, it was a "fight." If he yelled at us until he was red in the face for mostly imagined crimes, or told us that we were to blame for him and Mom constantly fighting (and, eventually, for their divorce), or when he basically told us we were (and made me feel) worthless, he was an asshole. But it was still not abuse. And my mother, because she was getting the worst of it, and didn't really want us to know (but of course we knew some, and suspected more), didn't talk about it at all. So breaking that code of silence after their separation when I was 16 was a huge breakthrough for me. But when I talked to my friends about it, I was silenced again. (I was the only member of our family that didn't go to therapy at this time, because we were broke and Mom and my brother clearly needed it more.) According to my friends, what I experienced wasn't "real abuse," and my talking about it downplayed the real abuse suffered by my mother and brother. I was just being too sensitive and exaggerating what really happened because I didn't like my father. For years, I thought those friends were right.

It's still rare for me to talk about this with friends, despite the fact that I'm a fairly well-adjusted adult now. But even as an adult, it's still rare for my friends to take me seriously. The other day, I was telling Adrienne about how my father would remove my and Justin's bedroom doors for days at a time when we were pre-teens and teenagers as punishment, usually for not ratting each other out. She was horrified, and sadly, I was actually surprised by her reaction, despite the fact that it's mine as well. But the taking-off-the-doors punishment usually elicits nothing more than, "Wow, your dad was an asshole." Well, yes. But he was also horrific and abusive. And sometimes I need to hear that from my friends. (Thanks, Adrienne, for being awesome!)

I still have certain family members that think I'm overreacting, or that don't understand exactly why I won't speak to him. It's hard to talk about with them, so they don't know everything. In fact, they know very little, and most of what they do know actually comes from him. They're his family, and he's supposedly turned a corner, so there's been a lot of reconciliation on their end with him. Which means they think a number of things, namely that his chief crimes to his children were being sort of absent and cheating on my mother. He's manipulative, and their distrust of me, when they are good people and when they know me to be a perfectly reasonable and very smart lady, is plenty of evidence for me that he hasn't changed a bit. Whatever he's told them, it's probably mostly bullshit, and it sure hasn't been admission of abuse. I wish that I could tell them all this, but I can't. They're too sympathetic to him, and I can't talk to people about this when they've been trying to get me to reconcile with him for years now. But, honestly, I think they should at least suspect. As I noted, I'm clever and driven and reasonable, not a whiny child. They know this, and they also know I haven't said more than pleasantries to him in over 3 years. That should indicate that this is not just a temper tantrum, but a defense mechanism, one I only need because something really fucking bad happened.

But I'm also afraid to tell them, because they might react the way that so many have: by telling me that it's not "real abuse," by thinking I'm overreacting, by thinking that I'm too sensitive. And, frankly, I can't handle being told all that again.

(Fun story: I was forced to invite my father to my undergrad graduation because of a guilt trip from this side of the family. Before this, when discussing it with them, I burst into tears and couldn't talk about it anymore. A side effect of this whole damn mess is that when older men make me feel threatened or patronized, I verbally shut down and can't stop crying. Can't do it. The male family member then said, "I'm kind of glad you're crying. It means you still care about him." I've never wanted to punch someone so much as I did at that moment.)

My father scarred me with words. He's made it nearly impossible for me to control myself when male authority figures patronize me (that was not the first or last time I've cried uncontrollably in front of older men, and the other times were much more embarassing, since they were university-related). He's made my relationships with the rest of my family strained and difficult. And he made me feel useless and unworthy of love for years. And the advice of Ask Amy, the advice of most adults when something like this happens, enabled him to scar me.

Help! I'm... a feminist romance reader?

2010-07-24T20:44:00.012-05:00

So so sorry for the long delay. I'm done with the move and have my life back!

Like many other women, I grew up reading romance novels. My family are all very heavy readers, and amidst all types of books, my mother read romances. One of my few fairly useless super powers is the ability to read way too quickly for my own good (my ability to resist mosquitoes is far far more useful). I never could check out enough books from the library, and so I started picking up my parent's books. Eventually my mother discovered and tried to stop my romance nabbing ways.

Now, I'm fairly sure that the reason my mother got upset that I was reading them was because of the *gasp* sexual content. And years later, I regret reading the novels and would never recommend most romances to young girls, but not for the same reason as my mother. These novels gave me a completely unrealistic and unhealthy outlook on sex, myself, and relationships. I do think that readers of romance have a far more complex relationship with the subject matter than previously imagined.¹ Subject matter and ideology is not consumed uncritically. Women frequently twist and turn content to create a more realistic or more personal fantasy. I do not want to suggest that my experience was the same as all young girl's when reading romances, or that my experience was wholly naive, shallow, or one-leveled, and yet it was and probably still is a damaging experience. The romance novels reflect and create (in a nice circle as most literature does) cultural norms and expectations about love, relationships, and sex.

Let me summarize the romance: once upon a time, there was a very special woman who was going through some difficult problems, and she met a very special man who had something missing from his life. They met, gave each other what the other was lacking (for the woman- usually some type of fix to her problem, for the man- usually teaching him to love), they had sublime awesome sex, and lived happily ever after for the rest of their lives.

I'm being both mean and nice in my description, I think. I'm purposefully leaving out many of the most problematic and sexist aspects in order to describe as many types of romances as possible and in some delusional attempt to be fair. I'm also very aware that I'm leaving out many of the ways romance subvert or attempt to subvert gender roles, patriarchy, and traditional relationships.

The lessons that I learned from the hundreds of romances I read? 1) that an individual is incomplete, 2) I'm only important because I'm super special (a princess, a sad orphan abandoned by everyone and now chased by someone powerful and evil, a slave with super brain powers and the heart of gold, etc), 3) that sex is perfect and completely mind blowing (and man was I excited about this), 4) that love is only real if it's forever, and 5) that my future partner has to continually sweep me off my feet. If I wanted to be really and truly honest with myself, I would say that I still struggle with each and every one of these concepts even though my head understands that all of them are complete and utter bullshit. On the upside, I think contemporary romance novels (specifically certain types like chick lit and paranormal) are trying (keyword: trying) to combat a few of these: specifically 1, 2, and 4.

I'm going to use Sandra Booth's sub-genre summaries to explore movements from the 70s onward. The traditional romance prominent in the 1970s and frequently returned to through the decades has an amoral stock hero and a virginal and virtuous heroine.² This reinforces gender stereotypes and promotes a culture in which un-angelic women (adventurous, sexual, etc) are bad women and therefore undeserving of protection from rape (frequently "asking for it").³

Romance frequently makes force, coercion, or men's lack of sexual control sexy and romantic. And that's so dangerous. Obvious, right? Apparently not. Yes, it is a fantasy. And as many critics have said- it's important to think of this as a fantasy and to accept that women don't uncritically consume this. But these are published and consumed in a rape culture. We don't usually fantasize about things completely related OR completely unrelated to us.

Romance in the 80s began to more frequently lessen gender stereotypes and weaken these rape myths. The hero moved from being amoral to "following the heroine's moral 'norm'" (96). Paranormal romance and humorous feminist romance began to emerge in large numbers during the 90s. Originally (as Sandra Booth contends) the paranormal was a regressive return to angel/monster dichotomy⁴ and humorous romance was the successful feminist and anti-patriarchal romance sub-genre.

I'm happy to say, that I think paranormal is slowly becoming a sub-genre in which some of the most exciting queer or feminist romances can currently be found. One of the reasons that paranormal is such a hopeful and interesting place for progressive work is the desire (and semi-ability) to create a social structure outside of normal (aka heteronormative patriarchal) structure. Society can have totally different rules- e.g. it can be matriarchal or androgynous.

Although Lynn Coddington wants us to believe that romances aren't "formulaic" and are wrongly assumed to be "universally badly written," I only partially agree with her (62). As with most popular culture, there is an erroneous assumption that romance isn't art and therefore isn't well written. That's utter crap. And crap a lot of us believe. Our dear blog mistress (and my dear friend) Courtney recently told me how surprised she was to enjoy Gail Carriger's parasol series because she assumed most of "that type" of fiction was badly written. There are many romance authors that are beautiful writers. But not formulaic? I just don't buy it. I've read thousands. And while yes... there are some surprises, some diversity... publishers still pay very close attention to what is in demand and what formula is currently popular. There are formulas. And when we read that formula over and over again, surely we start to believe and internalize the formula. For Coddington, "Romances are not all the same. They do not construct gender relations in uniform way, and they do not tell trivial stories. They represent a range of possible gender constructions," and I call bullshit (66). That range of possibilities only cover a few feet on a mile long continuum of gender constructions. And the idea that we've created some possibilities for women so we can stop is a very damaging and complacent place.

But there are some romance novels that I applaud. Because this is long already, I'm going to pick three from paranormal detective/romance that I'm excited about. I'd love readers to respond with other genres, sub-genres, and/or specific authors which respond to the issues I've raised in this post.

Laurell K.Hamilton. I found Guilty Pleasures in the young adult section of my library when I was in jr. high . I've been a fan ever since. Although problematic in many ways (writing, editing, etc), I applaud her for creating a powerful female who has frequently focused on her job. They're decidedly non-monogamous, they definitely challenge concepts about the monster/angel dichotomy, and they're sexy. Packed full of all different sorts of sex. I actually wish reader response wouldn't jump so frequently on the "OMG she's a slut" bandwagon. I wish the books were more glbtia friendly (although there seems to be a nice move that way). And I hold my breath because the baby discussion has come up a few times now. Child free by choice... please don't leave me now.

One of my favorites is Charlaine Harris's works- all of them not just the Sookie Stackhouse series. The trend to not have one relationship, not be happily ever after, is one of the most successful and prevalent in recent work. In the Sookie series, she dates, it doesn't work, they break up. She's single sometimes, and she's in different relationships other times. It's a nice pattern, a realistic pattern. The Grave series deals with issues of incest, questions social stigmas in relationships, and plays with the concept of female community and female victimhood. The Shakespeare series very purposefully focuses on abuse.

Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan series. This series deals with questions of class, race, gender, sexual orientation galore. Talk about novels that question authority, structural patriarchy, and male power. They also have interesting sexual dynamics, and create not just a strong heroine but a strong community of characters. There is continuously more of a focus on peer and friend relationships over romantic relationships.

These definitely fight misconceptions about love and relationships that I raised earlier including that love is forever and that an individual is incomplete without a partner. Paranormal romances are definitely not good at addressing the "special" problem (paranormal heroines are usually the only vampire/werewolf hybrid or the long lost fairie or the alien queen), but other types of romances have more successfully addressed this. I would also like to see more novels that portrays sex as realistic - less "holy crap mindblowing can't think of anything during sex but that sex is awesome." We all know that sometimes in the middle of sex we think "Oh shit, is the oven on?", and that's okay.

As I've been thinking about and reading up on romance, I've discovered that romances also helped me learn that 1) I can be an empowered woman, 2) I can be sex-positive, 3) women can be subjects and women-focused, and 4) women's bodies are beautiful. I'm excited and hopeful for a positive progression that leans towards these lessons with less of the negativity that for so long has accompanied the romance.

I also applaud romance for being a genre written by women for women. And romance is a wonderfully give and take process.⁵ Indeed, the few blogs of romance authors that I check out occasionally, have a far more interactive author/fan base than the general literature/fiction author has.

I want more out of the romance genre. And I want other fans and authors to understand and want more as well. We deserve it.

Further reading on being a feminist romance reader:

There are a number of resources about being a feminist and a romance reader like Kay Mussell's interview: Are Feminism & Romance Novels Incompatible , Catherine Asaro's response to the same question, College Candy's Defense of Romance Novels, and of course Smart Bitches Trashy Books has taken up this issue a number of times including Feminism is a Dirty Word and their book Beyond Heaving Bosoms.

Notes

¹ This has been suggested in work on the romance genre by scholars such as Lynn Coddington, Janice Radway, and Laura Kinsale.
² Sandra Booth explains that the traditional romance "acts as a vehicle to display the heroine's virtue... The hero [amoral and unstoppable] acts as a foil to the heroine who is presented as the moral 'norm.' Because she must assert and protect her virtue, the heroine in the traditional romance is often presented as passive, self-sacrificing, and virginal" (94-95).
³ Also Tania Modelski points out that "The myth that men are unable to control their sexual drive beyond a point and that women lead men on- and so deserve what they get- by accepting romantic or sexual overtures from them is a myth that has all too often proved lethal to women" (17).
⁴ The construct where the heroine is angelic and perfect, and the hero is monstrous and violent. Very Beauty and the Beast esque. Only we know that the Beast really is a monster and doesn't have this shining heart of gold.
⁵ Lee Tabin-McClain points out that "Romance formulae differ from earlier generic patterns in that they change based on intensive publisher research into reader preference... other aspects of romance fiction give it a sense of a collective authorship" (296).

References

Booth, Sandra. "Paradox in Popular Romances of the 1990s: The Paranormal Versus Feminist Humor." Paradoxa 3 (1997): 94-106.

Coddington, Lynn. "Wavering Between Worlds: Feminist Influences in the Romance Genre." Paradoxa 3 (1997): 58-77.

Modleski, Tania. "My Life as a Romance Reader." Paradoxa 3 (1997): 15-28.

Modleski, Tania. "My Life as a Romance Writer." Paradoxa 4 (1998): 134-147.

Tobin-McClain, Lee. "Paranormal Romance: Secrets of the Female Fantastic." Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 11 (2000): 294-306.

Counter protest at Comic Con; or, God hates Jedi

2010-07-24T12:37:00.002-05:00

So, the Westboro Church is protesting Comic Con this year, for "worshipping false idols." You can't make this shit up; apparently God hates geeks. So, geeks, being awesome, held a hilarious counter-protest. From Comics Alliance:

Unbeknownst to the dastardly fanatics of the Westboro Baptist Church, the good folks of San Diego's Comic-Con were prepared for their arrival with their own special brand of superhuman counter protesting chanting "WHAT DO WE WANT" "GAY SEX" "WHEN DO WE WANT IT" "NOW!" while brandishing ironic (and some sincere) signs. Simply stated: The eclectic assembly of nerdom's finest stood and delivered.

Which is the best thing ever. More pictures below the jump.

Quote of the day

2010-07-23T17:21:00.000-05:00

GOD COURTNEY LOOK WHAT YOU'VE REDUCED ME TO

-My friend Kaitlyn, who hadn't seen a single episode of Doctor Who a few months ago, after deciding to go to a coffee shop to research Doctor Who cosplay stuff for the Gally convention

ForeverGeek does it again!

2010-07-23T11:51:00.001-05:00

Okay, so, ForeverGeek. I've written about them before. I'm not sure why I keep talking about them, except that maybe they seem representative. Like your dudely geek friend who doesn't have a problem with geek ladies, but doesn't understand why it's a problem that he only celebrates them by suggesting that his girlfriend buy Star Wars lingerie. And insists that his actions have no political consequences, like, all the time. The geek dude who, though not an ally, seems fairly harmless, and doesn't seem to warrant the label "anti-feminist," even though that's pretty much what he is. The harmless vibe of ForeverGeek is really what gets to me, I think, so when their single lady-blogger wrote some nonsense about geek feminism, I about cried.

ForeverGeek has five bloggers, only one which is a woman (Dora on that link, but she posts as Noemi). Now, there was an influx of meta things being written about geek feminism the week my interview went up at The Sexist. The one that Noemi read was the great "Geek feminism as opposed to mainstream feminism" over at Geek Feminism Blog (highly recommend it, that blog). And apparently it fell to Noemi, as token lady of ForeverGeek, to blog about it. I'm sure the men there couldn't be bothered.

Anyway, Noemi's post was full of fail, and made me actually cringe:

The blogger, Mary, wrote down some experiences that geek feminists encounter. Here is one thing that stopped me in my tracks and got me thinking: Geek feminists live in a male-dominated world.

I suppose this can be true of “mainstream feminists” as well. However, if you limit the definition of geek to IT-related fields, then the chances are that there are more males in the work place. What made me think more were some specific experiences mentioned:

Hearing how some men talk disparaging about women (especially about women as sexual and romantic partners) when they’re in a space where they feel like they have enough allies.

I suppose that there will always be guy talk – just like there is girl talk (I told you I don’t think I am a feminist). Still, I totally get irritated when guys talk this way. Then again, they can be real idiots sometimes, so who ends up having the last laugh? You tell me!

How has this adult geek woman never considered, when she writes for a blog where she is a token lady, that she is in a male-dominated culture? Seriously. And that last bit, that last bit, friends. In what fucking universe is it inevitable that disparaging talk about women (especially as sexual and romantic partners) becomes "guy talk"? Oh wait, none of them. Because "guy talk" is just talk among guys, which means they could be talking about fucking anything. And I seriously doubt that Noemi thinks "girl talk" is disparaging talk about men as sexual and romantic partners. Probably she's thinking shoes, or something.

So, I guess we better pack up our feminist bags, readers, because Noemi has discovered that, misogyny: totes inevitable! But it's stupid, right, so we get to laugh and feel superior to men, even though they make more money and have more institutional power. Oh well!

Then Noemi decides that because she's had positive work experiences, that's all that's really worth her time in this post:

Being used to being thought of as a woman first, and everything else a distant second.

I think I was lucky enough to have worked in my previous company as women are considered smarter and more responsible than their male counterparts. I understand this is may not be the norm, and there are places wherein geek females may be seen as women first, professional credentials notwithstanding. Does anyone have a similar experience?

May not be the norm? As the sole comment on this post points out, Noemi is brushing aside literally countless stories by women in IT fields (easily found on the internet) with her ignorance here:

Your response, though, sheds your ignorance on the matter: “I understand this is may not be the norm…” May not? There’s no question how women are treated in the variety of professional nerd fields. Read anything, really anything!, where a woman talks about her experience in the video game industry, in music, in science or math related fields, etc. There’s more than enough evidence that it’s just not happening.

This whole post feels like an attempt to not actually engage with why geek feminists are geek feminists. Noemi, instead of talking about the fact that women in geek communitites and jobs are facing the sort of sexism most men abandoned a couple decades ago for something more subtle, just states her (fortunately) positive experience at work as evidence of...what? Why she's not feminist herself? Why geek feminism isn't applicable to her? Neither is really okay here. Not all feminists face My Fault, I'm Female levels of sexism every day (although certainly some do). That doesn't make feminism not applicable to their lives. Just because I'm a privileged, abled, cis woman doesn't mean feminism wouldn't make my life better, although that shouldn't be and isn't the only reason I'm feminist. Just because my partner's a white, abled, cis man doesn't mean it wouldn't make his life better, although that shouldn't be and isn't the only reason he's feminist. And just because you personally are not facing oppression (or aren't facing enough for you to recognize it as such) doesn't mean you just decide feminism isn't worth the effort and leave it to the oppressed people to worry about. When you do that, you're complicit. You're part of a system of oppression. Which may sound like too-weighty a claim for a nerd blog, but I'm tired of the harmless-vibe we allow these sorts of spaces, which send the message to countless geek women that they are only welcomed in the community as long as they embrace objectification and don't get too feministy. Fuck that.

Shameless promotion of Ryan's new blog

2010-07-22T11:39:00.002-05:00

Hey all! If you enjoyed Ryan's first guest post, or are interested in anarcha-feminism, Ryan started a new blog on that very subject! A teaser:

Since governments have a monopoly on violence, throwing rocks would be like setting up a lemonade stand to try to put Capital One out of business. Education, aid, nurturing, blogging, all those unseemly, non-manly things will change the world more surely than additional violence. Someone may force us into a corner one day, but at this point, violence is our enemy just as much as those that would use it to own us.

And from his second post:

So many places paint anarchy as the first step to being a fugitive. And these aren't place that hate anarchists. They are websites like Crimethinc., where "the fight" comes dangerously close to being institutionalized, where the literature reads more like rules than guidelines, where being an anarchist means something rigidly spiritual. They are still accepting and nurturing of nonviolent thinkers, but violence is still very much an accepted part of the family.

For this reason, I was disillusioned. I didn't want to hurl bombs, break windows (much), or start riots. I also didn't want to just throw everything down and set off like some sort of pilgrim. I just wanted to learn, to educate, and create in a crazy, spontaneous way that speaks to me.

I'm very excited about this new project of his, so I hope you'll get over there and read his stuff!

Moving, life, and blah.

2010-07-19T10:03:00.000-05:00

Adrienne and I have both been busy bees lately. She moved into her new apartment (yay!) last week, and it was like a four-day ordeal. But it is over now, so we'll get back to the blogging this week.

Thanks everyone for their blog/forum suggestions, and I'll keep you updated about that project. I think you guys will all like it!

Geek forums and gender

2010-07-16T13:25:00.002-05:00

So, I need a favor, dear readers! I have this project in my sociolinguistics class, and I've decided to study gender and geek spaces on the internet. What I need from you are suggestions for forums, because I avoid them at all costs and thus am not familiar with them. These are the categories in which I'm interested:

General science fiction
Joss Whedon
Star Trek
Star Wars
Doctor Who
Comic books/graphic novels
Gaming forums (WoW, etc.)

Please refrain from forums that focus on foreign geek things (like anime), because it would require some extra analysis that I don't have time for in this project.

So, what I'm looking for are large, mainstream forums or blogs that are still active, even if their object of fandom (say, Buffy, for example) is not. They need to be Euro-American centered.

Also of interest would be any non-mainstream blogs or forums that focus on gender in these communities. Are there clever, smart analyses of gender and feminism from the perspective of these communities that you can point me to? Are there smaller lady-centered, -run, -moderated, -friendly forums out there?

I'd appreciate any suggestions and direction here. Thanks folks!

NOTE: There are a couple of commenters who seem apologetic about offering me forums and blogs that aren't feminist or lady-friendly. That's okay! I'm studying the mainstream culture of geek communities, which I already know is usually not either of those things. I'm not looking for forums to participate in, just study.

UPDATE: I think I'm shifting my focus a bit now. I've got a number of mainstream dude-dominated geek blogs under my belt, but I'm really interested in how lady-centered geek blogs figure themselves in geek culture. So if you have suggestions similar to WoW Ladies, sites that specifically identify themselves as lady-centered or -authored, that would be fabulous! Thanks!

Linkspam for the ages: Miscellaneous feminism edition

2010-07-11T21:40:00.005-05:00

Last linkspam!

First, a wonderful post from Fugitivus about what happens when you become a feminist and realize all your friends and acquaintances are sort of assholes. How does one deal with douchey friends, coworkers, etc. as a feminist?

For example, at my last job, my boss was sexist. He was sexist in a very chauvinistic sort of way – the kind of guy who makes the word “lady” sound like a blessed infirmity – and that was generally tolerable. It was tolerable because he didn’t make rape apologies, he didn’t actively bar women in the office from certain activities, and he didn’t bring it up every day. It was also tolerable because I was in a workplace that brooked little to no dissension, and I was at the target age for Doom Unemployment during a recession. I adjusted my expectations. I did not expect a workplace free of sexism. I did not expect to not be patted on the head, or treated as dumb sometimes. I did not expect fairness or an AfterSchool Special Moment. I did not expect that I had the strength or courage or conviction to make myself unemployed during a recession. I did not expect these things, and I stopped being a seething, boiling volcano of disappointment and rage every day. I found my current circumstances tolerable. Now I am in a new job. The culture here is very different. I can complain without retaliation. So I find myself saying things, to my higher-ups, like “I don’t think that’s fair; somebody could apply the same standard to you,” when one of them starts talking about what one celebrity wife or another deserves from her plainly abusive husband. I find keeping my mouth shut intolerable, because I expect to be given the freedom to open it. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have to change my expectations to be able to tolerate some degree of abusiveness in my day-to-day life. But we don’t live in that perfect world – that’s why feminism exists as a concept, and why I identify as one – so in the meantime, I change my expectations when I need to survive.

A commenter pointed out that part of this post really resonates with my open letter to ForeverGeek:

This, to me, is comparable to people making personal decisions by “not choosing sides.” What is perceived to be a third option is, in effect, only one of the two options; it’s just masked in a way that feels ethically, morally, or vindictively better. If I have told you that one of your friends raped me, and you tell me you are not taking sides, you have taken a side. Your decision was to support me or not support me. There was no third option. “Not taking sides” is “I don’t support you,” dressed up like morality and the higher ground.

The moral of the post: look out for yourself. It's long, but worth it, though, so read it!

Next, AP Style Book fails big time.

From Feministing:

This explains why most of the mainstream media still uses the term "illegal immigrant." I find the term offensive and disrespectful, as do most immigration activists. People are not illegal, actions are. The advocate community uses the term "undocumented immigrant" which the Stylebook clearly disagrees with.

The worst is that AP clearly thinks it's being sensitive by ruling out "an illegal." Ugh.

Then, Amanda Hess at The Sexist talks about the (sigh) case of Olivia Mann in the context of expecting women to be the gatekeepers of sex and sexism.

Sure, we want high-profile women to be allies to other women—and it stings extra hard when sexism is perpetuated through their public personas, instead of exclusively by dudes. But behind one Olivia Munn is a producer instructing Munn to “take it off reeeeeeally slow,” and a network president “standing on a speaker in the back, leaning over to get pictures,” and a team of photographers vying to catch an unauthorized glimpse of Munn’s nipple, and a male co-host who insists that he “violate [her] from behind” despite her protestations, and a whole audience full of fanboys screaming at Munn to put her mouth on something. Behind her is an entire industry making sure this happens.

[...]

Another expectation making girls’ lives hard? The equally sexist demand that women take full responsibility for these sexist expectations by always refusing to fulfill them. By faulting Munn for “flaunting it”—instead of taking a look at the demand side of the Hot Girl equation—we’re not only accusing Munn of being a bad feminist, but also a poor gatekeeper of sexism. An entertainment industry that’s built on arousing men by wearing women down until they acquiesce? That, we take for granted. Women, who have little power in this structure, are nevertheless expected to keep the industry’s libido under control—just as they’re expected to hold off sex, keep a sufficient amount of clothes on so as not to tempt men, and never “put themselves in situations” where sexual assailants may strike.

Finally, Ampersand at Alas, A Blog! talks about the sexiness of consent and its relevance to sex education:

Okay, now let’s imagine that Alas University offers two sex-ed classes for first-year students. Class “A” teaches how to have sex based on Cathy’s principle — checking for consent during sex kills the moment. Class “B” teaches based on Clarisse’s principle — checking for consent helps keep sex hot. Randomly assign 50% of students to class “A,” and 50% to class “B.” Check back in a year and survey the students and their sexual partners.

I’d bet a lot of money that the folks in class “B” — and their partners — wind up having hotter, better sex lives.

There’s a myth that communicating about sex ruins sex; and that by emphasizing consent, feminists are in effect opposed to hot sex. I don’t think either myth is true.

I love the example she gives in the post. Sexy sexy.

[TRIGGER WARNING: The comments include some content that may be triggering for survivors of rape or assault. Please proceed with caution.]

Linkspam for the ages: The politics and ownership of bodies edition

2010-07-11T21:10:00.002-05:00

My favorite from this week, Jessica Valenti writes about how people treat pregnant bodies like they're public:

•Stop touching my stomach without my permission. It’s presumptuous and it creeps me out. You wouldn’t touch a non-pregnant person’s belly without asking, so what makes you think it’s okay to just lay hands on mine? I know you probably mean well and are excited about the baby and all, but please just ask first. (Especially because there’s no socially acceptable way for me to tell you to stop without sounding like a killjoy.)

•Please don’t comment on how small or big I’m carrying for how far along I am. It’s weird enough having your body change in such dramatic ways without having strangers tell you that you’re not normal. (I’m talking to you, bra-store lady! Your skeptical frown after I told you I was 6 months and comment that I’m way too small was not helpful nor welcome. I’m nervous enough about shit as it is.)

Sing it, sister!

In the It's About Damn Time Category, South African runner Caster Semenya has finally been cleared to compete again after the debacle in which she was subject to a battery of gender tests. From Feministing:

I'm glad Caster will be allowed to compete once again, but this ruling by no means clears up the underlying issues at hand with gender based sports.

I've argued before that the gender binary is not as black and white as our society would make it seem. This point, in my opinion, is further elucidated when someone tries to "prove" gender. There are wide variations that exist, which poke holes at our attempts to simplify everyone into an either or category.

Lastly, Amanda at Pandagon discusses the archives of Larry Rivers, an artist who died in 2002. After his death, Rivers's work was acquired by NYU, but his daughter is asking the archive to turn over some pieces to be destroyed, because they depict the sexual abuse of her and her sister. From Tracy Clark-Flory via Pandagon:

Rivers [...] filmed his daughters, starting at the age of 11, every six months for five years, asking them “about their breasts and whether boys have started noticing them.” There are “close-up shots of one daughter’s genitals and detailed commentary by Mr. Rivers on the girls’ changing bodies.” In some scenes, his wife, Clarice Rivers, “appears with her daughters, displaying her own breasts and talking about them.” The clips were edited into a 45-minute-long film. He titled it “Growing.”

And instead of just handing the damn thing over, everyone is discussing whether the pieces are or are not Art. Which is fucking stupid, because child abuse is child abuse. From Pandagon:

NYU is wanting to hang on to these films in order to release them after the subjects pass away. That’s not enough. Rivers abused his children, and NYU shouldn’t cooperate in the abuse, even in the name of art. They should let Tamburlini destroy the videos if she wants. After all, she was part of the making of them; they belong to her as much as they do her dead father.

Have a good week!

Linkspam for the ages: Geek edition

2010-07-11T21:07:00.002-05:00

I have a ton of things for you to read! So I'm dividing them into topic-centered posts. Ignore the ones you don't care about, or all of them! It is your decision.

So, this week in geekdom! It was exciting! And infuriating!

While writing my open letter to ForeverGeek about the politics of objectifying women, I completely forgot about this obnoxious post that I bookmarked from them, in which one of their male writers gushes over a youtube video called "I Kissed a Nerd" (in the style of Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl"). What genius commentary does he offer about it?

What do you think? The singer isn’t quite as hot as Katy Perry, but she’s definitely catering to a whole new crowd who I’m sure would be more than willing to have her.

GROSS. Seriously, seriously gross. THIS is why women think geeks are disgusting, assholes. Because you think the only important thing about them is that they're hot enough for you to fuck, and because you openly talk about them like they're not people. This video is full of references to geek things, meaning this singer is probably a geek herself. Instead of celebrating the fact that geek men might be able to connect with this talented young lady because of their shared interests, ForeverGeek instead remarks, OMG HOT GIRL WILL HAVE SEX WITH ME. Ugh. Fuck you, ForeverGeek.

This was also a week of multiple ruminations at Geek Feminism on geek feminism and geek masculinity, my favorite topics! On geek masculinity, Restructure! argues that when male geeks reclaim masculinity, they do so at the expense of their fellow female geeks:

Most male geeks believe that they are subverting traditional masculinity by reclaiming and self-identifying with the term “geek”. For most male geeks, geek identity is defined partly as a rejection of the “jock” identity. According to the traditional high school male social hierarchy, jocks are high-status males and male geeks are low-status males; jocks are alpha males and male geeks are beta males; jocks are masculine and male geeks are “effeminate”. Thus, when a man proudly self-identifies as a “geek” in response, what he is doing is redefining what it is to be a man, redefining geek identity as masculine.

Typical male geeks argue that to be a geek is to be masculine by interpreting the scientific, mathematical, and technological achievements of overwhelmingly male persons as definitive proof that science, math, and technology are inherently male and define maleness. Such male geeks typically argue that there are innate differences between male and female brains that make success in science, math, and technology exclusive to men. Thus, arguments and studies that suggest otherwise are perceived as a direct attack on the masculinity and male identity of male geeks. According this male geek worldview, if women are equally capable in science, math, and technology, then male geeks lose their claim on masculinity and become low-status, beta, and “effeminate” males once again, because there would be nothing left to separate male geeks from women. Thus, male geeks—much more than non-geek men—tend to be emotionally and socially invested in maintaining the idea women’s brains are hardwired against understanding science, math, and technology to the same extent as men. [emphasis in original]

In this endeavor, male geeks who try to reclaim masculinity are, in part, trying to shore up their male privilege. Masculinity carries with it a certain amount of power and privilege, and that can only be accessed by male geeks if women aren't allowed to have it. In this equation, instead of physical power and sexual prowess (the hypermasculinity characteristic of the "jock"), male geeks try to claim intelligence as a masculine trait (insert all the jokes you've ever heard about jocks growing up to pump gas and nerds growing up to rule the world). But male geeks can only access male privilege by arguing that intelligence is a masculine trait. Instead of overturning the hierarchy that causes male geeks to suffer growing up (for not being hypermasculine), this strategy buttresses that power structure, and fucks women over big time. The solution, fellow geeks, is not to try and reclaim masculine power. It's to smash the system altogether.

Later, Mary at Geek Feminism ruminates on the reasons why one would practice geek feminism as opposed to mainstream feminism. As someone who does both, and who didn't grow up a geek, I found some of the reasons rather fascinating. For example:

Geeks believe themselves highly rational and independent of social influence.

Perhaps the FLOSSPOLS D16 report put this best (it was a report into gender in FLOSS, hence that specific terminology):
F/LOSS participants, as in most scientific cultures, view technology as an autonomous field, separate from people. This means that anything they interpret as ‘social’ is easily dismissed as ‘artificial’ social conditioning. Because this ‘conditioning’ is considered more or less arbitrary, in their view it is supposed to be easily cast aside by individuals choosing to ignore it… As a result participants largely do not believe that gender has anything to do with their own individual actions.
So it’s common for geeks, although hardly unique to them, to analyse sexism in terms of “I’m too smart for that” or “I was victimised [as a geek], and am therefore intimately acquainted with how bad it is and now incapable of perpetrating or benefiting from oppression of others.” But it’s part of the systemic geek feminist experience, to believe ourselves and others or at least other geeks as rational actors. Geeks then divide into believing themselves not sexist, or as rational sexists (“studies show that…” or “but it’s to my reproductive advantage to indiscriminately sexually approach women, the end.”).

This applies to geek women’s view of the world too, and means that many geek women come to feminism with some distrust of any analysis that gives social conditioning real power, and that if and when we do decide that it has it, we have to talk to a lot of people who don’t believe it.

Or:

Geek ciswomen may have struggled with aspects of their womanhood in light of their geekhood.

I’m making this point about cis experiences because all of the self-reporting I know of on this subject is by ciswomen, and I don’t want to imply that cis people’s experence of, essentially, being annoyed with their gender identity can be equated with the experiences or oppression of trans or genderqueer people. Trans and genderqueer people, if you’d like to discuss whether identifying as a geek influenced your relationship with your gender identity in comments, please do, or if you’d like a new thread opened up, I’ll get on it. (Special note to cismen: I realise that geek cismen have also often been victimised as less masculine and conforming men, but this thread isn’t about your experiences. See Restructure!’s recent post for why.)

Geek ciswomen often have a slightly complicated relationship with what it means to be a woman. It’s not an uncommon experience for us to have felt more comfortable socially with geek men than with non-geek women, and to have largely been friends with geek men at times. This is particularly true for many geek ciswomen when we are teenagers. It’s fairly common for geek ciswomen to remember a period of being actively misogynist, along the lines of: “I can see why men find women so bad, 99% of women are indeed trivial and annoying” or “I get treated in a sexist way, and it’s the fault of other women, for inviting sexist behaviour.” Ellen Spertus talked about this in an interview (note, I can’t tell how she is using the term “male-identified” for sure, but it seems to mean something like “sympathised with men and their complaints about women” rather than “was a man”):
… I was pretty male-identified and was somewhat misogynistic. Specifically, I thought that technical fields required more intelligence and effort than non-technical fields and that women’s underrepresentation meant that they were stupid and/or lazy. I no longer feel this way.
Geek ciswomen may also have been taught misogyny, along these lines: these are my people, my clever geek friends who welcome me! If they hate women, there’s must be a reason for it, something the women did!

It’s also common for geek women to have bought into geek hierarchies: we’ve talked about that several times on this blog in fact (Girl stuff in Free Software, Metagaming: Casual vs Hardcore, Women and geek prestige) and avoided things they thought were for women and therefore easy, boring, or at least likely full of female modes of socialising which geek ciswomen feel victimised by.

So geek ciswomen may come to feminism late and reluctantly. It’s an identity that very clearly sets a geek feminist apart from most geeks, and sometimes one’s current or former dear friends.

This is the big one for me, though, as someone who has not identified as a geek for as long as I've identified as a feminist:

Geek feminists are invested in geekdom

This is important. Geek feminists see ourselves (I think) as either wanting to improve existing geekdoms by acknowledging how oppression is perpetrated inside geekdom and trying to teaspoon it out, or to build new improved ones, or both. Geek communities and geek interests simply don’t appear “that important” to many people, feminists included. (See also Moff’s Law.) It is important by definition to geek feminists.

Of course the Internet and social justice activism are big places, and not everyone has to be active on the subject of geek feminism. But we are.

Seriously, though, just go read them all.

Next, did you hear about this Blizzard debacle? Probably! Because you are reading the geek edition! If not, here's the skinny: Blizzard, of World of Warcraft, thinks internet harassment is solved by forcing its users to post their real names on its forum. Genius, right? Here's the forum announcement:

Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature – http://www.battle.net/realid/ , a new way to stay connected with your friends on the new Battle.net. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about our plans for Real ID on our official forums, discuss the design philosophy behind the changes we’re making, and give you a first look at some of the new features we’re adding to the forums to help improve the quality of conversations and make the forums an even more enjoyable place for players to visit.

The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it… the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before.

(If you want to read some blog posts on this issue, Just a Girl Lost in Azeroth has a great link list on the subject.) Then, after three days of being told they are douchey assholes, Blizzard partially retreated:

I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as the ability to rate posts up or down, post highlighting based on rating, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.

In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.

Let's hope Blizzard never again sways to the idea that internet harassment is going to go away if they just make real names freely available. Fingers crossed.

Next, Wonder Woman! She recently underwent a costume change and back story reboot, which could have been good, but actually wasn't. From Jezebel:

This is modernity? Where are her red boots? What about modernization requires her trademark "W" emblem to fade into the background? How is covering her once rippling, now wimpy, muscles a nod to evolved images of womanhood?

I know what you're thinking: Shouldn't feminists be happy that Wonder Woman now looks more like a young woman freshly off a college campus, at once ready to go fight some bad guys in an alley or in a pay discrimination lawsuit? Haven't we been fighting for women role models with more clothing as well as more substance? She couldn't really fight evil in a bustier-is this not a feminist win?

No, not by a long shot. In fact, it feels like the sad loss of America's first truly feminist comic book heroine.

Ross at Laist points out that Wonder Woman's rebranding comes from a bunch of middle-aged white dudes:

Maybe I'm drunker than is normal for a weekday, and as a Babylon 5 fan this hurts me to say, but fuck you Straczynski. Just... fuck you. But before you saunter off to the bedroom to give yourself a well deserved fisting, why not stop to consider something: Would you ever refer to Batman's utility belt as "it can be accessorized... it's a Bruce Wayne look for the 21st century."? Yeah, I thought not. But great job shrinking it and pinking it, idiot. Meanwhile, and I know this is going to sound crazy, but I'm pretty sure there's a ton of women creating comics right now who might, and I'm just speculating here, have a hell of a lot more to add to a Greco-Roman myth-inspired Female Character with serious Feminist overtones than a couple of middle aged dudes. Right?

Bah!

Last, but certainly not least, Doctor Who! So, Moffat isn't as queer-friendly as Davies. (Shocker!) On that subject, stirring_still writes up a comparison of heterosexual vs. queer moments in the 5th season. Meanwhile, svollga points out the fail in the comments of that discussion:

#It is a family show. Queers aren't allowed in a family show because they are enemies of family. Also, naughty queers.

# It's for children, not for teenagers as RTD's era was. Again, children should never see queers. They can get queer cooties. Right through the screen.

# Moffat isn't gay so he doesn't think about gay agenda when writing his stories. Minority stories are for the minorities to tell (to each other, probably) while privileged people enjoy their privilege to forget about the existence of said minorities.

# The story isn't about relationships, romance and/or love. So we can have blatantly heterosexual people all around flirting/in love/married/having families (not to mention heterosexual couple as the main characters and a wedding as a major plot point), and the story isn't about romance, but having any kind of queer representation makes it about romance.

# I watch for the story, not for romace/sexual situations. And queers can't be action characters, they are all about queer sexuality.

# Most foregrounded relationships in the series are between parents and children. And queers can't be parents. Never.

# Heterosexual relashionship aren't really in your face. But they are in background all the time, and did I mention heterosexual couple as main characters and a wedding?

# It is close to the ratio of straight/queer in real life. No, it's not, even if we take only quantity not quality (i.e. one short remark vs wedding storyline).

# I assume that River is bisexual/Eleven is asexual/character N is queer, so add it to your list. Can we please stop talking about subtext while discussing text? Subtext is in the eyes of the beholder. Those who want see it, those who don't - don't. Text is a slogan, a speech, a statement of existence. Queers were in the closet of subtext for too long. Thank you, but no.

# And my personal peeve: I'm bisexual, and I don't care whether there are queer storilines or not, because I make no difference between genders/don't look specifically for queer references. So you are okay with dating any gender but seeing only straight couples on screen? Well, I'm bi, and I'm not okay with it. Because I'm tired of feeling that one half of my sexual identity is forbidden while the other is supported by society, and that I have to choose sides. I want not to care about the gender of people kissing on my screen, but because nobody cares, not because I'm blind to the unequality and queer invisibility.

Grrr *shakes fist*

Grr, indeed.

An open letter to ForeverGeek

2010-07-09T09:53:00.000-05:00

(Warning: NSFW pictures below the jump. Possibly triggering, because it's naked ladies with their identites removed.)

Dear ForeverGeek,

I'm concerned that you don't know what the word "political" means. First, I pointed out to you on Twitter that it was weird that this post didn't include any of the (many) explicitly American-, Christian-, or capitalist-centric images of violence from this artist. You told me that "we aren't too political at ForeverGeek." And "Not always do you have to look for a reason behind everything." Whatever. I let it go.

Later, I use your blog as an example of the objectification of female fans (and women in general) in geek communities, and you insist! Again! Nothing political at ForeverGeek! Hilariously, you use this opportunity to invite me to blog there:

Courtney, why don’t you join the geek subculture at ForeverGeek and be part of the team. Then you will notice how little agenda there is and that everyone just posts about their favourite geek discoveries, AKA what they find cool at that time.

Any geek topic one is passionate about or finds just utterly cool is welcome, also writing about being a woman who tries to participate and does not want to be considered as an object. And yes, you can even write with an attitude trying to play with the audience.

(Aw! Folks, did you know that feminism is just "an attitude" designed to "play with the audience?" Because I'm never serious about sexism. I'm just riling you up.)

Look, dudes, just because you don't have a coherent "agenda" at ForeverGeek doesn't mean that your blogging choices don't have political consequences. When you publish (over and over again) posts in which you gush over objectified hot ladies in the contexts of your geek obsessions, you don't get to call those decisions "not political." Especially in the geek context, where female fans already get the near-constant message of Tits or GTFO, you cannot pretend that this is an innocent choice, devoid of any sexist consequences. I don't really care that you don't mean it that way, or that you just like hot chicks and Star Wars. Seriously, don't care. The message you send when you wax poetic about naked models with Storm Trooper helmets on skateboards is that you like to objectify women. (These women don't even get to have individual faces, so the viewer doesn't have to do something icky, like remember that these models are real, invidivual people, with, you know, desires and needs or their own. Nope! They exist solely for your geeky sexual pleasure as airbrushed, interchangeable bodies.)

Telling me that praise of this art project is not political is in fact a political statement. By arguing that there's no agenda in posting about how this is so! awesome!, you normalize the objectification of women. You side with the geek men who think that women just need to stfu and get naked already, because they're really only good for sex. And if geek women don't want to just be interchangeable bodies that exist solely for your sexual pleasure? Then they're just being political. With their opinions and not-airbrushed bodies. Gross.

If I sound pissed, it's not because I think your intent was malicious (though it's possible it is). It's because you perpetuate misogyny in the geek community when you keep insisting that treating ladies like anonymous sex objects is a normal, apolitical activity. And that affects me personally, both as a geek and a lady.

So, I won't be joining you at ForeverGeek, particularly since your invitation was not framed as "we care about what you have to say," but as an attempt to prove to me what is patently untrue: that ForeverGeek is devoid of political decisions. I made this blog in part to get away from having to engage too much in the toxic environment that is (parts of) the geek community, and I know how ugly geek men can get if you challenge their privilege. I don't intend to do that in a space I don't control.

Cheers,

Courtney

Call for papers regarding race and ethnicity and fandom

2010-07-05T12:53:00.001-05:00

Received this from a commenter and colleague at A&M, and thought my readers may be interested in submitting something! (Let me know if the PDF viewer isn't working.)

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Patriotism generally has a chip on its shoulder.

2010-07-04T11:36:00.000-05:00

Patriotism, red hot, is compatible with the existence of a neglect of national interests, a dishonesty, a cold indifference to the suffering of millions. Patriotism is largely pride; and very largely combativeness. Patriotism generally has a chip on its shoulder.

-Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (1915)

I have a very complicated relationship with the Fourth of July (independence day here in the U.S.), because I think patriotism is usually just an excuse to be a bully and a horse's ass. Patriotism is an excuse to act unjustly in the name of one's country. And that we celebrate this holiday as the beginning of liberty and freedom in this country is an insult to every former slave in the United States. And every former or current undocumented immigrant.

But, as Ryan pointed out, for most people, this holiday is about family, friends, and food. And that is something I can get behind. So have a great Fourth of July, U.S. readers! I hope it's filled with the important things.

Feminism and Anarchy

2010-07-01T17:10:00.009-05:00

My name is Ryan, and I'm guest blogging for Courtney. I'm an anarchist with a keen interest in women activists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, I'm talking about a few connections between feminism and anarchy.

***

Following the Russian Revolution, Lenin and Stalin marginalized and eliminated the amazing women and anarchists that had made their liberation possible. If those figures - Vera Figner, Vera Zasulich, Maria Spiridonova, Katerina Breshkovskaya, Sofia Perovskaya, and all the other Narodniki women - had won out over the Bolsheviks in the eleventh hour, the world would have seen its first truly collectivist anarchy. If the CNT and Mujeres Libres had persisted en forma through the 1930s, Spain could have gone the same way. ML, the amazing 30,000 woman strong group that splintered from the anarchist CNT, sought to build its new world using methods it hoped would reflect the image of their desired society: a gentle, nonviolent community that was as accepting and empowering of women as it was of the poor. In both cases, these were women disillusioned with certain aspects of the revolutionary fight, if not with the entire fight itself.

They understood that a revolution that seeks to truly disseminate power, yet still treats women as anything but equal human beings, is doomed. If it seeks to liberate the poor, it is because it understands what power structures create poverty. If it seeks to liberate the religiously oppressed, it is because it understands the lies and promises that are built on the idea of Eternity. If it seeks to liberate women, it is because it understands the fundamental nature of force and conquest. The latter is, for anarchist men, the hardest to understand and the most difficult to grasp.

To understand that, we must see anarchy as the world does. The general view of anarchy is black bloc, riots, smashed windows, and fantastic terrorism. The media eats up sensation, so these images are the only ones broadcast. This is how the world gets a violent and masculine view of revolution. It's how anarchists get a violent and forceful view of themselves. It's all guns and bombs because that's what's entertaining. What's less entertaining is the women cooking for the squatters, cleaning and scrubbing pots and pans and ski masks, and the same molotov-hurling machisimos sitting at a bar hours later trying to pick up some ladies with their tales of smashing up a Wells Fargo. It's much less entertaining to envision anarchy as a simple blog post or something as banal as not having to ask someone every time you want to go to the bathroom. It's not forceful or heroic to say that we're all anarchists - like saying that we're all winners. But if you are reading this without asking permission, out of your own curiosity and interest, without coercion or the promise of a dollar, you are engaging in anarchy. Your time spent reading this is not productive. Nor should it be. That would defeat the point. We aren't producing here. This isn't a factory. This is where we gently destroy. If anarchy and feminism mix to create the sublime anarcha-feminist, I would imagine her as a woman that picks apart the building until it crumbles, piece-by-piece, methodically, pleasurably, and voluntarily.

The difference between the anarcha-feminist and the manarchist would be that, once she has all these friends and this pile of resources, she doesn't build a throne, doesn't usurp the state and make her own, doesn't become Queen, doesn't take with the promise of giving and then simply proceed on another road of taking.

At this point, there would be contention amongst certain figures. Voltairine de Cleyre, the quintessential American anarchist, was a strong proponent of property. Though a feminist, freedom for her meant the freedom to have. Emma Goldman, who is famous for her statement, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution," counterpointed de Cleyre aptly: "The only demand that property recognizes is its own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth because wealth means power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade." That is where anarchy and feminism not only buddy up, but show themselves to be logically inseparable. Power makes property out of its object, and, in our society, women are still claimed every day without irony. As much as the poor are demonized and brushed aside, women are just as keenly judged, sought out, or pushed aside as either necessary, desirable, or neither. The laborer seeks out an equal contract with an employer with just as much disillusionment as a woman that seeks out an equal understanding with a potential partner. Regardless of each entity's mien, once behind closed doors, gentle social manipulation turns into emotional and physical coercion. Companies and employers are no more gentle with their workers than are men and women that have "won their prize" and then seek to use it for their lifelong benefit without equal consideration.

In short, we are all to be made willing tools of those that would use us as their property. Both anarchist and feminists walk hand-in-hand against that particular outrage. It is outrageous to think that any person in this day and age can be owned, but, in this society, hundreds of millions of us are. Or we are brushed aside because we refuse to be.

Thanks for reading.

Have I hugged a Christian today?

2010-07-01T11:42:00.008-05:00

I Hugged a Man in His Underwear. And I am Proud.

Are people reading this story? And if so, did they read it (like I did) because a friend posted it or brought it up while talking about how wonderful and truly powerful it is? And am I the only one that is still really upset and horrified by the message implicit in these events?

I like leading questions, don't you?

I get why people like this. I understand that the message people like in this story is that Christianity should love everyone and be inclusive and not judge. And that Christians can apologize and be humble and take responsibility. I can see how people would want to be drawn in and believe in this. The message at the parade was probably more powerful and less upsetting than this article. Or I'm willing to give the original message the benefit of the doubt.

But what I can't ignore when I read the article is that it is saying "I'll hug you even though you're sinful." Nathan writes, "Sadly, most Christians want to run from such a sight rather than engage it" and further "I think Jesus would have hugged him too. It’s exactly what I read throughout scripture: Jesus hanging out with people that religious people would flee from. Correlation between then and now? I think so." Unless we're taking this completely out of context (and even probably then), wasn't the reason that Jesus hung with those people was to help those most in need? Yes, he treated them well and maybe would have even if he wasn't trying to help or save them. But it was always connected to the message of helping or saving. This still sits firmly in the "Love the homosexual and hate homosexuality" area for me. This doesn't support gay rights, and supporting individual gays isn't enough. Yes, everyone should treat everyone else as a human being. It is important to know that the man dancing in his underwear is named Tristan. But unlike the article, we shouldn't know this in spite of the fact that the man is dancing in his underwear. Just stop at the "this is a man." Or he's awesome and great because he's dancing in his underwear. And stop being so proud that you hugged the controversial and icky. Nathan takes great pains to remind us that the man he hugged (that he wants to focus on) was in his UNDERWEAR. Nathan hugged a gay man that was being "flagrantly gay!" Like Jesus washed a leper, this author hugged sweaty abs, nudity, and a penis that was only barely covered. Gay is clearly already gross to the author and the reader. But they love gross anyway. I can't really love you unless I love who you are. I don't support you until I support who you are. To really support glbtia people then support glbtia rights and activism.

And even though he mentions the word a number of time- I don't see any real engagement with what reconciliation is going on here. Seems to me like if reconciliation is necessary then full acceptance isn't possible. Even from a loving Christianity mentality, Christianity is about hierarchy, behavior, and judgment.

I do not see this as a step in the right direction. It's a step "forward" that is still on the completely wrong path. I'm glad he apologized, openly and publicly. I'm really not glad he wrote this article about it.

Amanda Hess and being a feminist geek

2010-06-30T01:35:00.006-05:00

So, I have an interview up at The Sexist! It's here. And it was also linked on Border House! (If you are feminist geek and don't follow Border House, get on it. Yesterday.) I talk about being a feminist/lady geek, subversive cosplay and how male geeks sometimes just want you to be their sex objects. It's exciting!

There's also a rather fabulous bit about the complicatedness of "sexy" cosplay at Sexy Geekery:

The issue is something that Courtney mentions–can any of this be reclaiming of female sexuality and femininity, which is pretty much not allowed to exist on its own terms in scifi? I feel like the opportunity is there. Women can be sexual, and even in a “mainstream sexy” kind of way, on their own terms. It’s so hard to define so much of this, though–where are we are genuinely enjoying this, and where are we enjoying the attention? (Because yes, attention can be fun.) I find this relevant because it’s an issue I have when dating–I have often considered punching a boy in the jaw for pushing too hard for me to buy “sexy” undergarments, even though it so happens that black lacy skivvies delight me. Just, like, let me buy them on my own terms, dude. Do I feel hypocritical? Sure. Does it change the fact that one motivation (and often different shopping location) makes me feel skeezy, while the other doesn’t. Likewise, can one girl wear the same costume and feel both of those feelings? Of course. Can two girls wear the exact same costume and one be motivated by feminism and the other by self-objectification? I don’t see why not. Does this become a tangled mess of how do we define and how do we express? Oh fuck yes.

Yes! It is possible, I think, to be progressive, to be feminist, and dressed "sexy" in cosplay. Because dressing sexy is also being a sexual agent (not all costumes are, obviously, but some certainly), which is a radical thing as a geek lady. The reason I find the less "sexy" femme Doctor cosplays more encouraging is that dressing sexy in geek culture is always within the context of the fact that for many male geeks, the only way women being in their communities is okay is if they are objectified, sexy versions of their geek obsessions. That is slightly less true in mainstream culture, where the ability to be objectified second and sexual first is easier (though not easy) and more fruitful. But! It is a conversation feminist geeks need to have, because while I find certain femme Doctor cosplays happier than others, I also don't want to claim categorically that only certain cosplays are feminist and others simply not. That's just incorrect.

Post your comments about cosplay or the interview or just being a lady geek below!
(For those that commented elsewhere because I was slow as shit getting this up, thank you! I appreciate all your insight and sister/brotherhood. Seriously.)

UPDATE: Part Duex; or, Make Your Dude-Dominated Subculture More Accessible to Women

Quote of the Day (For The Days We Remember)

2010-06-29T17:38:00.002-05:00

Adrienne: "Never call an ex-girlfriend (or ex-boyfriend) eight months after the break up with a chip on your shoulder to rehash the break up."

Courtney: "Agreed."

In other news, I will be soon be posting my very own first blog about romance novels, damaging relationship models, and new trends in the genre.

Linkspam, the graphic edition

2010-06-26T21:12:00.002-05:00

Picture time!

First, via Forever Geek, I discovered the artwork of Peter Callesen. I especially enjoyed his paper work, and I thought I'd share it with you!

Big Paper Castle

Erected Ruin

Erected Ruin, detail

On the Other Side

On the Other Side, detail

Birds trying to escape their drawing

Birds trying to escape their drawing, detail

Next, via The Sexist, I found an online archive of the Punch cartoons drawn by John Leech. The "feminism" tag is by far the most entertaining. As Amanda says, "dude hated bloomers." Because they'll lead to women acting like men. Working outside the home! Leaving those poor, incapable men to struggle with the housework. Proposing for marriage! Asking men to dance! Condescending to their husbands (which is perfectly okay, apparently, if men do it to their wives)! A sample (click for larger):

From Pandagon: Thwarted sperm finally have an advocate. Amanda discovered anti-choice ecards for "men who’ve been violated by women just up and aborting without permission." Behold.

Unconvinced that these cards express the full range of the Fatherhood Forever Foundation's sentiment, Amanda made a few more appropriate cards of her own:

Finally, Geek Feminism points us to an experiment in which seventh graders were asked to draw and describe scientists before and after a visit to Fermilab:

Among girls (14 in total), 36% portrayed a female scientist in the “before” drawing, and 57% portrayed a female scientist in the “after” drawing.

Among boys (17 in total), 100% portrayed a male scientist in the “before” drawing, and 100% portrayed a male scientist in the “after” drawing.

It looks like a visit to Fermilab has no impact on boys’ gender stereotypes about scientists, but it has a strong impact on challenging girls’ gender stereotypes about scientists. For girls, there was a 58% increase in female scientist representation in their drawings; for boys, there was a 0% increase in female scientist representation in their drawings.

If boys grow up to be men, and empirical evidence has no effect on males’ gender stereotypes about scientists, how do we challenge males’ association of science with maleness?

See the drawings here.

Have a good weekend, folks!

Flakiness.

2010-06-23T08:13:00.000-05:00

I hate excuse posts! But perhaps that's because I'm writing them all the time. I'm in the home stretch of my French class right now, and it's getting really hard, so my posting is going to be rather sporadic for the next two weeks. I'm working slowly but surely on a couple of posts right now, but I have no idea when I'll be done. But if you're patient, I will regale you with how scientists sometimes piss me off and American exceptionalism! It will be epic. Stay tuned.

Adrienne and I talk blogging.

2010-06-21T16:13:00.010-05:00

We have a new guest blogger, Adrienne! To break her into the blogging rhythm, we decided to do a conversation post, á la Sexist Beatdown. Adrienne is my smart, lovely lady friend in the graduate department with me at A&M, and she is also recently moved from Austin (but for reals, not like me). I'm very excited to have her on board and hope I can convince her to stay for a long time. Today we're going to talk about blogging, because we both like being meta straight out of the gate.

Courtney: Welcome Adrienne!

Adrienne: Thanks Courtney, I'm happy and excited to be joining you. I've had fun posting comments and look forward to how much trouble I can get into in the main blogs. Unlike you, I have significantly less experience with blogs. I don't read nearly as many as you, and this will be my first time actively contributing. So we'll see what happens. Chaos!

Courtney: Chaos is, I think, what the internet was mainly built for.

Adrienne: Woot. And is my middle name? Okay, no. But they start with the same letter.

Courtney: So, blogging! And whyfore! Which is not, I think, how you spell that.

Adrienne: Yes, blogging. And whyfore, which is I think how you spell it. Tell me first about the project you did for gender theory. I read it by the way, and I thought it was excellent.

Courtney: Thanks! This post was originally going to be modeled after a presentation I gave in gender theory class. (Yes, I gave a presentation about my blog in class, because I am a narcissist and love to talk about myself.) For that presentation, I decided to talk about why I blog, which was not a question I had previously answered with a real answer. Something, besides, you know, "Because I'm awesome." Which is true, but not actually an answer.

Adrienne: You are awesome and that, in my opinion, is answer enough. The internet clearly needs more awesome. And I mean that fairly seriously.

Courtney: Reason I love Adrienne #1,556: She tells me I'm great.

So in making that presentation, I figured out that I blog mainly about three things: Doctor Who (and other sci fi things), Texas A&M, and atheism (not so much, but I actually start lots of posts on atheism that I don't end up finishing).

And so I figured that one of the reasons I blog is to orient myself as a lady and a feminist within these three communities, which don't always accept the lady feminists with smiley faces.

Adrienne: They like lady feminists with frowny faces?

Courtney: No, they HAVE the frowny faces.

Adrienne: Ain't that the truth.

Courtney: So my blog acts as the space that is safe for me to complain, critique, and also squee about these communities, where I can determine who I do and don't listen to when I do so, and where I can feel like my opinion is heard. Because it's my space.

Adrienne: And part of this all came about also because certain commenters even in your space were trying to take that away from you...

Courtney: YES. Those well-meaning Doctor Who fans who are all, “if you delete commenters, you are not taking RESPONSIBILITY for your positions.” Which is nonsense, of course, particularly when it comes to anti-feminist trolls.

Adrienne: I find this kind of commentary all the time. Not just on the internet but here too. In having a conversation with a friend recently—he tried really hard to make the argument that I should respect and be polite to those people I actively disagree with—not just actively disagree with but whose opinions are wrong—racist, awful, hurtful, and wrong. And there are times when I do think we should put our foot down and say no—you don't have a voice here.

Courtney: Absolutely. We seem to have, as a culture, this very strange idea of what “fair and balanced” means, since we seem to think that means we should give equal time in debate to total assholes, like the KKK or something. And this idea that “fair and balanced” should be the goal of EVERY SPACE EVER.

Adrienne: Because the whole world has already started off fair and balanced. Because that is the place we start from.

Courtney: YES.

Adrienne: A friend last night at a dinner party made some joke about how there should be penis monologues since there are vagina monologues and I had to walk him through how no, no, that isn't the same thing. I told my friend that the whole world was pretty much already a penis monologue.

Courtney: I have had this exact conversation with acquaintances who joke about how there should be a WET (White Entertainment Television) channel. And I usually say, “Oh, you mean every other channel on TV?"

And talking about the internet is even worse, because people like to act like identity is not an issue on the internet! As a lady who frequents the internet, I call bullshit.

Adrienne: Ha, that is a good point. And it's really strange because the internet and a lot of these places are so male dominated. Just in numbers. I frequent Something Awful—because a) I have a terrible sense of humor and b) just like you, I'm a masochist.

Courtney: True story.

Adrienne: And it is more than clear there that mainstream voices on the internet are heavily male, heavily anti-feminine, and believe, despite this obviousness, that they can hide behind some kind of anonymous mask.

Courtney: Agreed. I think what people mean, when they say that identity is unimportant on the internet, is that, unless I say otherwise, everyone on the internet assumes I am a straight, abled, cis gendered, heterosexual white male. Which is not, you know, actually a good thing, and doesn't erase the serious discomfort I feel in many online spaces. Especially since I go running my mouth off about my feminism everywhere I go.

Adrienne: And then when we point out these privileged attitudes and bring up uncomfortable issues—they have the attitude that we're the ones that are continuing racism, sexism, etc., because we're the ones talking and "harping" on it. If only we'd not talk about it because then it would all go away. Stick your head in a hole. And the whole world will magically change. Because by saying "that's racist!" I'm clearly being racist.

Courtney: That is the most annoying thing ever. I am so glad I wasn't leveled with THAT nonsense when talking about Doctor Who.

Adrienne: Do you think that means the Doctor Who crowd (or those engaged in this discussion) were beyond that argument?

Courtney: Not at all. It's just hard for hard-core fans of DW to claim that I'm taking something too seriously or reading too much into things (which goes hand-in-hand with the argument you're talking about) when they're, like, just as utterly OBSESSED about the show as I am. Or more so.

I want to go back to the anonymity thing, though, because I think it's really important to recognize that that anonymity is always already raced, sexed, etc. It's always already normative, and that's why people look at the internet and say, “See there! A level playing field!”

Adrienne: Yep. Same with "neutral" or "honest" etc.

Courtney: When really, it's just a place where your marginality is unacknowledged and hidden.

Adrienne: “I'm just telling the honest truth”...no no. You mean, you're telling the white middle class straight male truth. That's your truth and it's a huge problem that you think it is everyone's truth.

It's in some ways scarier than people who are willing to say they're racist or they feel women should stay in the homes.

Courtney: Which is not to be all relativist, but internet douchebags often think they can extrapolate from their personal experiences to a frightening degree.

Adrienne: It's insidious and they can't even see how other people would have a problem with it. But then what happens if you extrapolate from your personal experience? “Keep your emotions in check, Courtney. Be logical about the situation. Step back.”

Courtney: YES. White straight dudes get to assume that their experience is the rational one, but if I start talking about my experiences, I'm just being overemotional and too-personal. Harumph.

Adrienne: That connects so much to the American Exceptionalism blog that you'll eventually post.

Courtney: YES. America is not the world, and straight white dude experience is not the rational human experience. THERE. FEMINISM DONE. Let's go eat some cake now.

Adrienne: Hahahahaha excellent. And so much better than what a friend of a friend told me: "Feminism would be done if women would figure out that men can take care of themselves."

Courtney: WUT.

Adrienne: And she looked at me like I should agree. I almost exploded. I think I just excused myself. I honestly had no idea how to even respond in anger to that comment. Where to... so many... oh ohh.... boom.

Courtney: That, friends. That is why we blog.

Adrienne: And why I'm here now. To share awesome stories like that one and to respond.

Courtney: That is so stupid and incorrect, I probably would have laughed at her. I am a ruder lady than you, though.

Adrienne: It was not politeness that made me not laugh... just shock. Although I am sometimes a more polite lady than you. But that isn't saying much.

Courtney: That is true. I make up for my social awkwardness by cussing like a sailor and saying pretty much whatever is running around in my brain.

Adrienne: Ha!!! I pretty much have a heart attack every time you say "fuck" or something in front of authority figures, particularly at school.

Courtney: I know. It's cute how paranoid you are about the people in charge of us.

Adrienne: Their jobs are to judge us! Which they do. I bet they keep written records. Umm, we're totally and hilariously off topic now.

Courtney: I just laughed out loud. For reals. Okay, okay. We haven't talked about you, Adrienne! Why do you want to blog?

Adrienne: Because I think I'm the center of the universe. Because I laugh at my own jokes and need other people to so I don't feel so sad and lonely.

In all seriousness (more seriousness), a big part of why I'm joining the blog is because even though you are doing an excellent job... I think it is important to see strong awesome female community as well. So these kinds of conversations are positive for me. To read and to be a part of. Also, because I need a safe space to rant where I can get on my soapbox and not have to worry about my friends thinking "Geeeez, I wish she'd just shut up."

Courtney: That last one is one of mine too! I'm so glad we're rant buddies.

Adrienne: And by get on my soapbox, I mean, have really necessary and important things to say that are not said enough. They are probably only uncomfortable and soapbox-ish because I'm not willing to shove it all down and smile just because it makes more people happy and comfortable.

Screw happy and comfortable. Screw enjoyable and entertaining. Let's rally for thoughtful, difficult, and intense. Although now that I think about it, I find these things happy, enjoyable, and entertaining. Now if only more people did, instead of something like Avatar.

Courtney: Me, too. Nothing makes me grin more than taking down a Battalion article, for example.

Adrienne: Ooohhh that makes me happy too.

Courtney: So I know you have things to do. Any last thoughts?

Adrienne: Always... look before you cross the street. Never... eat jello. Seriously. Never eat jello. And remember that your words are powerful. Not only how you use them but how they have created you. I hope to use my words here as best as I can, and I look forward to seeing what it'll teach me.

Quote of the day

2010-06-18T17:59:00.000-05:00

Being a feminist is about fighting complacency within yourself and others. It is waking up every morning and knowing that something you do will be shitty and full of privilege. For guys, it is about repeating “If it’s not about you, don’t make it about you” a million times until you understand that it isn’t. That is the process that we all go through to be allies to one another.

-Sady fucking Doyle, from Tiger Beatdown

Linkspam for June 18, the Geek Edition

2010-06-18T14:27:00.002-05:00

I'm a bit behind on most of these, so sorry about that.

First up today is this fabulous post by Alisa Krasnostein talking about the invisibility of women in science fiction:

This discussion has never been about overt sexism or deliberate exclusion of women from publishing in science fiction. Ok, it has been in the distant past. But these days, when the supposed obstacles to women getting published and recognized in science fiction have been lifted, we remain often invisible and forgotten. These obstacles may once have included ideas like women couldn’t write “real science fiction” or that women didn’t write as well as men. These days, we argue that the lack of gender balance is a result of far more subtle and subconscious factors. And for me, those factors were at play and well evident in both the Mind Melds and in the lack of reflection by Sutter on his collection of SF “Giants”.

[...]

For me, the struggle is always how to explain that the issue at hand is not a deliberate act of sexism, but that a subconscious, unmeaning, unthinking act can be just as harmful. This is especially true when the product is one meant to make criticism and build canon – to say who is worth remembering, and therefore by exclusion, who is not. This may not have been the deliberate intent, yet it remains the final result. And without criticism pointing this out, especially to those who might never see it otherwise, we are destined to repetition.

As she points out in the comments, we need a new way to build canon that doesn't allow us to ignore important (which doesn't just mean famous!) female sci fi authors.

Next, Lore Sjöberg's hilarious The Nice Guy’s Guide to Realizing You’re Not That Nice:

There are any number of geek guys running around out there without the love and companionship that many people and all golden retrievers deserve. Sometimes these guys sit down and try to figure out why they’re living a life devoid of love, romance, sex and discussions about whose hair it is in the shower drain.

They undertake a deep self-assessment, questioning all their long-cherished beliefs about themselves, and this is what they conclude: They’re too nice. And that’s hilarious!

Guys, you’re not “too nice.” That’s like saying you can’t get seated at an L.A. restaurant because you’re too famous.

Avoid the comments, unless you're feeling particularly thick-skinned today.

Geek Studies has this to say about the (heartening) results of the PAX survey on its ban of booth babes:

What’s more, it’s worth noting again that the overwhelming majority of respondents on this survey happen to be men. I’d be curious to see the correlation between the gender of respondents and their answers, but that’s just the researcher in me talking. Even so, if every female respondent liked/loved the ban, and every respondent who disliked/hated the ban were male (which I highly doubt was the case, even before factoring in LGBT respondents), that would still mean that there are twice as many men who don’t want “booth babes” as there are men who do.

Think about that for a moment. Think back, for instance, to that article I linked the other day from Cracked, about 5 reasons it’s still not cool to admit you’re a gamer. Think about how much that piece focused on how the gaming industry tries to market to gamers as if we’re all sex-starved adolescent males.

This is not a safe assumption anymore, if it ever was. This is not just about appealing to a male audience vs. a female audience. This is about how people want to be marketed to, men and women alike.

Next, Border House calls out some advertising for assuming that the default "nerd" is male.

You know, I usually don’t feel the need to append my gender to any identities or titles I might claim. I’m a geek, a nerd, a writer, a gamer, a Witch. Not a lady-geek, a lady-nerd, a lady-writer, a lady-gamer, and a lady-Witch. So any ad that starts out by reminding me that I can’t just be a nerd, but must instead be a lady-nerd, distinct and different from “regular” nerds…yeah, if that’s how you’re going to approach me, I’m just really not. interested.

But I think we can have fun with this. Let’s play opposite day with it! We can talk about the “man-gamer” as if he is the rarest of endangered species, and giggle dismissively at the thought of the positively mythical “male programmer”. See? Default gender assumptions can be fun, when you’re on the privileged side of it! /snark

This isn't, of course, a particular geek/nerd problem, but a problem with the way that our culture sees men as people and women as women. Sociological Images has a number of posts up about this troubling phenomenon.

Speaking of sexism, Forever Geeks pisses me off fairly regularly by suggesting that the way that women can be geeks is by being sexy! (For geek men, of course.) Recently they highlighted Star Wars corsets. The writer of the post then gleefully quotes from the designer's website:

For aspiring Galactic oppressors we offer our Galactic Empire Corset Collection.

Keeping your empire in check is always a little easier if you’ve got everyone’s attention!

FEMINIST RAGE.

Lastly, via Pandagon, this lovely video about what the male fantasy of the fembot says about male attitudes towards women:

While thinking about this video this morning, I realized that Joss Whedon seems to be professionally fascinated by the feminist implications of the fembot. There's the Buffybot from Buffy, the Mr. Universe's "love-bot" in Serenity, and, one could argue, Dollhouse is premised on the commercial demand for fembots.

Anyway, new and exciting post coming up soon! Cheers!


A&M students holding a sign reading "We are all part of the Aggie family" at the "Hands Across Aggieland" Unity March on April 15. (From the Texas A&M GLBT Resource Center Facebook page)

From Austin to A&M

New website is serious business.

Steampunk, Tech, and TARDISes: A Cosplay Tale

Text size change

Well, goddamnit.

Texas A&M does not offer protection to LGBT employees

A&M administration silent as anti-GLBT rhetoric flies

A&M student holding a sign reading "Hate is not an Aggie value" at the "Hands Across Aggieland" Unity March on April 15. (From Dallas Voice)

Volunteers needed for a study on Doctor Who cosplay

Frankly, I'm relieved.

Checking in.

Shitty things that happen to me.

Teaching composition: How do we make students conceptualize themselves as writers?

A quick post about The Walking Dead

Sometimes the Batt is hilariously infuriating...

Privileged college students and "hobos": Exactly alike?

Connecting with female characters in geek television

Learning Curve...

Quote of the Day

Quote of the day

An unscheduled personal break

Some links for you.

Cuties

Guest post at The Rejectionist

A break

She Geek: Women and Self-Labeling in Online Geek Communities

Cosplay: The sincerest form of flattery

Weekend Update

Your Tuesday funny

Mrs., Miss, and Ms.; or, being a woman is linguistically annoying

Verbal abuse and "toughening up"

Help! I'm... a feminist romance reader?

Counter protest at Comic Con; or, God hates Jedi

Quote of the day

ForeverGeek does it again!

Shameless promotion of Ryan's new blog

Moving, life, and blah.

Geek forums and gender

Linkspam for the ages: Miscellaneous feminism edition

Linkspam for the ages: The politics and ownership of bodies edition

Linkspam for the ages: Geek edition

An open letter to ForeverGeek

Call for papers regarding race and ethnicity and fandom

Patriotism generally has a chip on its shoulder.

Recommended reading for July 1st

Feminism and Anarchy

Have I hugged a Christian today?

Amanda Hess and being a feminist geek

Quote of the Day (For The Days We Remember)

Linkspam, the graphic edition

Flakiness.

Adrienne and I talk blogging.

Quote of the day

Linkspam for June 18, the Geek Edition