> I was talking with some of my FTM geek friends about ID'ing with
> women-born-women geeks. He and I both shared stories of having to
> fight the "boys" for time on the machines at school (during the
> mid eighties, when small schools were lucky to have 4 apple ]['s),
> and of having not been allowed to do all sorts of young-geek things
> with other young-geeks /because/ of female socialization.
When I was 9-12 years old (late 70's, early 80's), I used to love comic
books, especially Batman. I got teased mercilessly about it by my parents
and their friends. Finally, I stopped reading them. I still liked them, but
people had made it clear that it was an inappropriate thing for a teenaged
girl to do. (Luckily, I didn't stop reading science fiction. I started
sneaking around with it.) When I got to college, I found all these other
people who liked computers, science fiction, and comic books - even a few
other women. A lot of cool things had happened with comic books since I'd
stopped reading them. I felt really stupid for buckling under pressure.
Must have been a female socialization thing :-)
Actually, with the computers, there was a group of geeks (including a
geek-queen) in my high school who dominated the programming contests and
hogged the teachers' attention. I was a good programmer, but never got in
with that group because I wasn't geeky enough. I had other interests. I
looked fairly normal and preppy. I didn't think it was worth it to alienate
everyone else to impress the geeks with my non-conformity. I was kind of a
closeted geek. Nobody knew I ripped through 4 or 5 science fiction novels a
week and played D&D on my free time.
Maybe the social consequences for being a geek are worse for women than for
men. The male geeks were pretty marginalized in high school, but beyond
that they found this whole male-centered geek culture waiting for them...
The women kind of STAY on the fringes.
Deidre Calarco
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
************
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
