Epilogue One: Women In Geek-Culture And The Men Who Actively Despise Them
Until my superiors find someone new to fill this slot and take away my access privileges, I’m going to be using this space to talk about things that are interesting – and more realistically, to point at other people doing interesting things.
And sometimes doing interesting things means linking to other interesting things. Don’t worry, on-topic-post-lovers – today those links are mostly gaming related! Or related to the fact that people involved in gaming are embarrassing at best and grotesquely sleazy and skeevy at worst, anyway. Broken Toys breaks it down nicely.
There’s a strong misogynist streak in geek-culture that seems to be in resurgence at the moment – it’s very noticeable if you read When Fangirls Attack regularly that there are more scuzzy posts from creepy fat men who think that all those stinky gurls should get back in the kitchen instantly before they get their cooties on the man-toys. I don’t know if WFA are just shining a light on these raging freaks, or if this is a backlash against the recent criticisms leveled at comics and gaming by people who want to get all the way through a comic or a game – or a comic or game review – without sighing heavily in despair and wondering why they bother. Or both.
Personally, I’m just sick of comics and games being the cultural equivalent of the dirty old uncle in the tattered raincoat who hangs around the girls’ school and sniffs the bike seats. I only hope that in the future we’ll look back on today’s grimly adolescent comics with the same slack-jawed, disbelieving, ‘that’s just wrong’-shouting irony with which we currently look back on this:
It’s an oldie but a goodie.
While I’m here, the mention of the magic word ‘irony’ brings me to the whole “(insert horrible worldview) is fine if it’s just for yuks, what are you, POLITICALLY CORRECT or something” argument, which I’ve met before on many occasions and which crops up in relation to the aforementioned gaming-related ugliness. C.S. Lewis said it best:
‘Cruelty is shameful—unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke. A thousand bawdy, or even blasphemous, jokes do not help towards a man’s damnation so much as his discovery that almost anything he wants to do can be done, not only without the disapproval but with the admiration of his fellows, if only it can get itself treated as a Joke.’
Anyway, enjoy When Fangirls Attack because it’s good and worth your time. And enjoy Broken Toys too.
I tend to agree with the sentiments of the post, and that Batman image is classic.
Another quote that sums up the cowardice of ‘PC’ allegations:
“We have now reached the point where every goon with a grievance, every bitter bigot, merely has to place the prefix, ‘I know this is not politically correct, but…’ in front of the usual string of insults in order to be not just safe from criticism, but actually a card, a lad, even a hero. Conversely, to talk about poverty and inequality, to draw attention to the reality that discrimination and injustice are still facts of life, is to commit the sin of political correctness. Anti-PC has become the latest cover for creeps. It is a godsend for every curmudgeon and crank, from fascists to the merely smug.”
Finian O’Toole, The Irish Times, 5 May 1994
Someone once said, “The good thing about fandom is that it’s so tolerant. The bad thing about fandom is that there’s so much to tolerate.”
If some subculture or fan group proves intolerant or just plain unpleasant, you have basically three options:
A) You change it from within(if possible);
B) You make the intolerant/unpleasant members leave (if feasible), or
B) You leave and start your own group.
The dirty secret about all fan communities is that anyone can leave anytime they want, and are usually terrified that others will leave first and leave them stranded…