Sexism in geekdom - Part 2: John Scalzi and friends
Part 1 can be found here.
On the whole, I think that John Scalzi had an excellent response to Joe Peacock's op-ed. Would I have liked to see him address the sexism in the original piece or throughout geek spaces in general? Sure. But I don't think that anyone is required to address a topic they don't fee like addressing, regardless of the size of their readership. I do think that Scalzi does his readers a disservice, however, by not addressing - even in passing - the difference between non-geeks entering geek spaces and respectfully enjoying those spaces, and the appropriation of geek culture. The fact is, Peacock alluded to the appropriation of geek culture in his piece, even if he failed spectacularly at making his point. Geek culture, like any culture, has a unique history. How geeks want to address the issue of non-geeks appropriating pieces of the culture without acknowledging the history, particularly when it happens in geek spaces, is a legitimate debate and deserves at least a nod of recognition. Peacock's failure to coherently address his true point doesn't excuse Scalzi's failure to address it at all.
Much like Peacock's editorial, there are a number of things which come up in the comments which are worth addressing. Unlike Peacock's article, there are some comments which I'll respond to individually.
1. Theme #1: John Scalzi is, indeed, the speaker of the geeks. No. No no no no no. John Scalzi has a brilliant mind and a way with words, but he is no more entitled to define geeks and geek spaces than I am. We create our culture. It's not the people who create the content that make geekdom great, it's the people who consume the content that make it great, how we consume it together, and analyze it, and transform it, and do new and exciting things with it and then analyze it some more. Some of the content creators are also content consumers, but it's what we all do, together, with the content that makes geekdom great and powerful, and no one person can claim ownership, control, or direction over all of that greatness. Not Wil Wheaton, not Felica Day, and not John Scalzi. Trying to give someone the power of "geek nobility" or "speaker of geeks" is missing the point.
2. Theme #2: "Women in geek spaces are ..." There are two different groups to be addressed here. The first group is far and away the most common: people who identify themselves as male, or use names which are stereotypically male-gendered. It doesn't matter whether these men are anti- women in geek spaces or pro- women in geek spaces, unless these men are recounting their own experiences with geek women, or passing along the words of geek women, they need to stop. Men cannot speak to women's motives or to how women experience situations. This may be frustrating, particularly to allies, but it's true. There are a wealth of social and cultural expectations directed at people because of gender, and unless you have had those cultural and social expectations directed at you, you don't have the right to be taken seriously when making statements about how people react to, rebel against, or are otherwise affected by those expectations.
Stop trying to tell me why women come to cons. Stop trying to tell me why women don't feel welcome in geek spaces. Stop and listen to the women. There are plenty of women who are willing to tell you about their motivations and experiences, let them speak for themselves.
The second, smaller, group is women. Do not claim to speak for all women. Don't even try to define all of those "other" women. Our experiences of social spaces are more similar to each other than they are to the experiences of men, but they are not uniform. As a disabled white woman, I am going to have a vastly different experience than an able-bodied woman of color. Just as there is no Speaker of the Geeks, there is no Speaker of the Women, and you do other women a disservice by overgeneralizing.
3. Theme #3: When I was little, geeks got beat up. Now, it's easy to be a geek. People should have to pay a social price to be accepted into geek spaces. This makes me sad and angry in equal parts. Yes, it was hard being a geek 25 years ago. We got picked on, bullied, and ostracized. I'd guess that it was even harder 25 years before that. But do you remember how much we hated it? Do you remember how much we just wanted to be left alone to love what we love? Do you remember the pain, and the fear, that were a part of going to school? Do you remember how utterly, horrifyingly humiliating that was? Take a moment; remember.
Why are you wishing that on someone else? These kids, they just want to love what they love and celebrate it with other people who love the same thing. Why are you telling them that unless they're bullied, hurt, and humiliated, they're not worth celebrating with?
Do you realize what you're saying when you declare that the new generation of geeks should have to take their hard knocks? You're telling the bullies that they were right. You're saying that geeks deserve to be bullied, and the bullies are being socially responsible when they torment us. That guy you were remembering a minute ago? The one who's slow, gruesome death you imagined over and over again? Don't be mad at him - by your own admission, he was only doing what he was supposed to so that you could get what you deserved and become a real geek.
Are you starting to see how unfair that attitude is, toward the new generation of geeks and toward yourself? There is no justification for the bullying you endured, and there is no way to justify bullying the geeks who are just starting to come into their geekhood.
For decades, we've been proudly declaring our geekiness, and insisting that we have something important to contribute. Those kids showing up at cons who have it so easy are evidence that we're winning. They are the reason we didn't give up and hide. These kids represent the best of us. They're a little more open and a lot more exuberant; a little less socially awkward and a lot less bitter. It's okay to mourn what we could have been, what our bullies took from us, but we also need to celebrate these kids who have a better chance than we ever did to reach their full geeky potential.
4. Comment #1: (Note: I'm using comments as a jumping off point, not as something which I am directly responding to.)
There are two crowds who show up in San Diego; the ones for whom Comic-Con is a spectator event and the ones for whom it is a homecoming. I admit I get annoyed at the people who come to look at movie stars, and walk around bemused by the goings-on. They fit comfortably into “normal” life, and Comic-Con represents exotic entertainment. “My Comic-Con” is the place where I’m among my tribe, where those of us who don’t fit comfortably into the mundane world can crack a geeky joke or make an obscure reference and know that people get it.
There are people who have more of a knack for social conformity than others. Some people come in eager to jump right in and share their love, and other people hang back waiting. There is no good way to distinguish between the people who are there as scornful spectators and the people who are too afraid of rejection to step forward and join in. Geeks can be awed by movie stars and overwhelmed (bemused) by all of the variety and activity. There are geeks who have learned their lesson well that they need to be able to pass for "normal." There are geeks who don't know the geeky lingo and the in-crowd jokes yet.
We need to be very careful to default to accepting and welcoming people. The risk that we run, if we don't, is alienating new geeks and potentially leaving them feeling broken. The feeling of homecoming and finally finding your tribe can be overwhelmingly powerful. It's heady and wonderful and makes you fall in love with yourself and the world a little bit. Imagine the other side, where it feels like coming home, like you've finally found your tribe . . . and they reject you. It's possible to get past that, eventually, but there are no words to fully describe the horror when you realize that you have finally found the one place where you belong, for the first time ever you're sharing space with people who you recognize as being like you, and those people don't want you there, they don't think you're good enough to be with them.
It's possible that the person you dismiss is only there to stare and boggle. It's also possible that you just shattered the hopes of someone who's just looking for their tribe.
5. Theme #4: I agree with Joe Peacock. I saw this woman at a con, and when I talked to her, she was just there for the attention and didn't know geek. These people may agree with Mr. Peacock's intended point, but so far as I can tell there is a very critical difference between this perspective and the perspective Peacock put forth. That difference is exemplified in the statement, repeated over and over: and then I talked to her. . . . You can determine someone's intent by talking to them in a way that just isn't possible by merely looking at them. There are, without a doubt, critics and lookey-loos who come into geek spaces, and these people can represent a legitimate problem. These people aren't uncovered through assumptions, though, they're unmasked via conversation.
This entry was originally posted at http://archane.dreamwidth.org/610157.html. You can view
comments there, or add your own using an Open ID login.
On the whole, I think that John Scalzi had an excellent response to Joe Peacock's op-ed. Would I have liked to see him address the sexism in the original piece or throughout geek spaces in general? Sure. But I don't think that anyone is required to address a topic they don't fee like addressing, regardless of the size of their readership. I do think that Scalzi does his readers a disservice, however, by not addressing - even in passing - the difference between non-geeks entering geek spaces and respectfully enjoying those spaces, and the appropriation of geek culture. The fact is, Peacock alluded to the appropriation of geek culture in his piece, even if he failed spectacularly at making his point. Geek culture, like any culture, has a unique history. How geeks want to address the issue of non-geeks appropriating pieces of the culture without acknowledging the history, particularly when it happens in geek spaces, is a legitimate debate and deserves at least a nod of recognition. Peacock's failure to coherently address his true point doesn't excuse Scalzi's failure to address it at all.
Much like Peacock's editorial, there are a number of things which come up in the comments which are worth addressing. Unlike Peacock's article, there are some comments which I'll respond to individually.
1. Theme #1: John Scalzi is, indeed, the speaker of the geeks. No. No no no no no. John Scalzi has a brilliant mind and a way with words, but he is no more entitled to define geeks and geek spaces than I am. We create our culture. It's not the people who create the content that make geekdom great, it's the people who consume the content that make it great, how we consume it together, and analyze it, and transform it, and do new and exciting things with it and then analyze it some more. Some of the content creators are also content consumers, but it's what we all do, together, with the content that makes geekdom great and powerful, and no one person can claim ownership, control, or direction over all of that greatness. Not Wil Wheaton, not Felica Day, and not John Scalzi. Trying to give someone the power of "geek nobility" or "speaker of geeks" is missing the point.
2. Theme #2: "Women in geek spaces are ..." There are two different groups to be addressed here. The first group is far and away the most common: people who identify themselves as male, or use names which are stereotypically male-gendered. It doesn't matter whether these men are anti- women in geek spaces or pro- women in geek spaces, unless these men are recounting their own experiences with geek women, or passing along the words of geek women, they need to stop. Men cannot speak to women's motives or to how women experience situations. This may be frustrating, particularly to allies, but it's true. There are a wealth of social and cultural expectations directed at people because of gender, and unless you have had those cultural and social expectations directed at you, you don't have the right to be taken seriously when making statements about how people react to, rebel against, or are otherwise affected by those expectations.
Stop trying to tell me why women come to cons. Stop trying to tell me why women don't feel welcome in geek spaces. Stop and listen to the women. There are plenty of women who are willing to tell you about their motivations and experiences, let them speak for themselves.
The second, smaller, group is women. Do not claim to speak for all women. Don't even try to define all of those "other" women. Our experiences of social spaces are more similar to each other than they are to the experiences of men, but they are not uniform. As a disabled white woman, I am going to have a vastly different experience than an able-bodied woman of color. Just as there is no Speaker of the Geeks, there is no Speaker of the Women, and you do other women a disservice by overgeneralizing.
3. Theme #3: When I was little, geeks got beat up. Now, it's easy to be a geek. People should have to pay a social price to be accepted into geek spaces. This makes me sad and angry in equal parts. Yes, it was hard being a geek 25 years ago. We got picked on, bullied, and ostracized. I'd guess that it was even harder 25 years before that. But do you remember how much we hated it? Do you remember how much we just wanted to be left alone to love what we love? Do you remember the pain, and the fear, that were a part of going to school? Do you remember how utterly, horrifyingly humiliating that was? Take a moment; remember.
Why are you wishing that on someone else? These kids, they just want to love what they love and celebrate it with other people who love the same thing. Why are you telling them that unless they're bullied, hurt, and humiliated, they're not worth celebrating with?
Do you realize what you're saying when you declare that the new generation of geeks should have to take their hard knocks? You're telling the bullies that they were right. You're saying that geeks deserve to be bullied, and the bullies are being socially responsible when they torment us. That guy you were remembering a minute ago? The one who's slow, gruesome death you imagined over and over again? Don't be mad at him - by your own admission, he was only doing what he was supposed to so that you could get what you deserved and become a real geek.
Are you starting to see how unfair that attitude is, toward the new generation of geeks and toward yourself? There is no justification for the bullying you endured, and there is no way to justify bullying the geeks who are just starting to come into their geekhood.
For decades, we've been proudly declaring our geekiness, and insisting that we have something important to contribute. Those kids showing up at cons who have it so easy are evidence that we're winning. They are the reason we didn't give up and hide. These kids represent the best of us. They're a little more open and a lot more exuberant; a little less socially awkward and a lot less bitter. It's okay to mourn what we could have been, what our bullies took from us, but we also need to celebrate these kids who have a better chance than we ever did to reach their full geeky potential.
4. Comment #1: (Note: I'm using comments as a jumping off point, not as something which I am directly responding to.)
There are two crowds who show up in San Diego; the ones for whom Comic-Con is a spectator event and the ones for whom it is a homecoming. I admit I get annoyed at the people who come to look at movie stars, and walk around bemused by the goings-on. They fit comfortably into “normal” life, and Comic-Con represents exotic entertainment. “My Comic-Con” is the place where I’m among my tribe, where those of us who don’t fit comfortably into the mundane world can crack a geeky joke or make an obscure reference and know that people get it.
There are people who have more of a knack for social conformity than others. Some people come in eager to jump right in and share their love, and other people hang back waiting. There is no good way to distinguish between the people who are there as scornful spectators and the people who are too afraid of rejection to step forward and join in. Geeks can be awed by movie stars and overwhelmed (bemused) by all of the variety and activity. There are geeks who have learned their lesson well that they need to be able to pass for "normal." There are geeks who don't know the geeky lingo and the in-crowd jokes yet.
We need to be very careful to default to accepting and welcoming people. The risk that we run, if we don't, is alienating new geeks and potentially leaving them feeling broken. The feeling of homecoming and finally finding your tribe can be overwhelmingly powerful. It's heady and wonderful and makes you fall in love with yourself and the world a little bit. Imagine the other side, where it feels like coming home, like you've finally found your tribe . . . and they reject you. It's possible to get past that, eventually, but there are no words to fully describe the horror when you realize that you have finally found the one place where you belong, for the first time ever you're sharing space with people who you recognize as being like you, and those people don't want you there, they don't think you're good enough to be with them.
It's possible that the person you dismiss is only there to stare and boggle. It's also possible that you just shattered the hopes of someone who's just looking for their tribe.
5. Theme #4: I agree with Joe Peacock. I saw this woman at a con, and when I talked to her, she was just there for the attention and didn't know geek. These people may agree with Mr. Peacock's intended point, but so far as I can tell there is a very critical difference between this perspective and the perspective Peacock put forth. That difference is exemplified in the statement, repeated over and over: and then I talked to her. . . . You can determine someone's intent by talking to them in a way that just isn't possible by merely looking at them. There are, without a doubt, critics and lookey-loos who come into geek spaces, and these people can represent a legitimate problem. These people aren't uncovered through assumptions, though, they're unmasked via conversation.
This entry was originally posted at http://archane.dreamwidth.org/610157.html. You can view
comments there, or add your own using an Open ID login.