>I
like a few of the ideas, such as geeky nerds may become more misogynist than
non-geeky non-nerdy men because of the bullying >they underwent as
schoolkids. I would say that fits with studies of perpetrators who end up in
prison. That could also be the reason >for >the weirdly harsh language
used in some of the Gamergate battlegrounds.
Sorry
for the sarcasm, but as this insight has been percolating around the feminist
Internet lately I’ve been surprised it took this long (I suppose it’s an example
that shows that women can be just as oblivious to a male perspective as the
other way around). It was obvious to me that was part of what was in play during
Gamergate.
In
fact, having been at one time (not my whole teenage years) part of that
geek/nerd culture, I could have predicted Gamergate years ago. When I was 14 or
so, about 1982, I recall reading an article in Dragon magazine by a
male (of course) writer calling on fellow gamers to be more accommodating to the
women involved in D&D and RPG more (ahem) broadly at the time. He pointed
specifically to a woman he knew who, in a major tournament at a convention, more
or less singlehandedly saved her entire party, only to passed over for the “best
female player” award or something like that in favor of what he described as a
“silent, dumb-blond type woman.” But what has really stuck in my mind over the
years was his account of a fellow DM showing him a list of NPCs that populated a
city he’d created for one of his campaigns. The guy noted that he’d given all
the women high charisma and low strength, “so they’ll be easier to rape when
their city gets conquered.” The writer anticipated the likely response (which
I’m sure he’d heard in real life) that that was “realistic” by asking “Does your
fantasy world also have high unemployment, runaway inflation and pollution just
like our world does? I didn’t think so.”
Perhaps
I was so aware of this that I thought, during Gamergate, that everyone else
opposed to it was, too, and that their remarks were taking this into account. I
began to suspect after a while that they weren’t, and now I know, unfortunately,
that I was right.
To
bring this back to the Wikipedia gender gap issue, it is useful to remember that
rhetoric treating the nerds as one and the same as the frat guys (so to speak)
is likely to backfire in constructively resolving issues where that is possible
(IOW, males who don’t feel they’ve been allowed to share a great deal, if at
all, in this male-privilege thing are likely to deeply resent being accused of
doing so).
I
would write more, but I have to get ready to go out and see “Star Wars: The
Force Awakens.”
(currently
wearing a black T-shirt I bought at Wal-Mart depicting an exasperated
stormtrooper at the Mos Eisley cantina bar framed by the meme-style words “Those
were the droids / I was looking for!”