According to blamer Metamanda, somebody commenting on a recent thread, perhaps swept up in the frenzy of the moment, typed this:
“Is there anything about being a geek that makes a person more attractive?â€
There were apparently other unfortunate statements, such as “no social skills†and “can’t get dates.â€
“Those are low blows,” responds self-identified geek Metamanda, “of exactly the same sort that reactionary men use against feminists.” [Read her entire post here.]
[Because the spinster aunt’s eyesight ain’t what it used to be, I am unable to locate the comment in which is nestled the anti-geek remarks quoted by Metamanda, but I will proceed on the assumption that it exists.]
This is not really a personal blog, but in the interest of subsequently enbiggening a broader point, I might as well reveal unto you a little something about myself: I am a geek/nerd/spazz. Or, more accurately, I can be said to possess traits in common with other persons so categorized by the cold, cruel world.
For one thing, I am, when observed through the encrapulated lens of patriarchy, funny-looking; I walk with a limp, and sport a pair of 8-inch scars where my tits used to be. I have stringy, greasy hair, zits, glasses, and a Frinkian overbite. I am said to be “bird-like,” probably because of my emaciated physique and prominent honker.
For another thing, I am uncool. I own a visor and a fanny pack. Just the other day I said “nee” several times. I then translated it into Latin and said it again. I possess the DVD boxed set of Star Trek TOS (actually, the one I have is more ‘encapsulated in plastic space-pods’ than ‘boxed’). I look at bugs through microscopes. I have a fascination for a species of amphibian called cricket frogs. I watch those corny “British Comedies” on PBS every Saturday night (I fall asleep before “Monty Python” comes on, but that’s OK; I’ve got that boxed set, too). I would read science fiction all the time if it weren’t, alas, so incompetently written. While still a child, a freak accident with a subset of negative integers left me almost entirely differentiated by derivatives, and thereafter I lost all mathematical ability. I was in denial at first, but if those math teachers told me (n) times, they told me {(n) + 1} times: I was doomed to infinite regress.
The other nerds cast me out. I was a geek without a gang.
Thus, my own “social skills” developed such that I have been variously diagnosed as afflicted with Tourette’s, with extreme eccentricity, with some sort of as-yet-undiscovered high-functioning autism, with charismatic narcissism, and/or with a low-ish high IQ. I have not matured emotionally or intellectually beyond the age of 17 (some experts disagree, and put the figure closer to 14). On an average of twice a week, fair weather or foul, I am compelled to run across the lawn waving my arms as though I intend to take flight, or to take a stroll on tiptoe with my ass sticking way out. I am physically awkward and have been known to tip over without cause, straining the plausibility of Newton’s Third Law. Sometimes I involuntarily utter strings of meaningless syllables ending in “P”: bup bup bup bup pip pip pip pip. I stutter on telephones. Quite often I am incapable of communicating to people behind counters at coffee bars or pharmacies in anything but preverbal grunts or twitters. Sometimes, when I hear myself make a particularly funny noise, I involuntarily collapse into a state of violent merriment or lunacy, perhaps best described as hysterics, that can span half an hour. If this happens while I am driving, look out, Austin!
Thus am I considered odd by most and rude by many. Often I am taken for an imbecile.
Unlike most of the Brotherhood of Man, however, I find many of my aforementioned deviations from the norm to be pretty agreeable, or at least comical. Like, until you’ve tried it, you have no idea how liberating it is to do the butt-walk in the $700 Extra Virgin Olive Oil aisle at Whole Foods. And that episodic convulsive laughter, from which accrues all the benefits of the conventional orgasm without all the inconvenient effluents, stickiness, appliances, legal restrictions and political issues, is fucking awesome.
It is an asset, not to mention a joy and a relief, to be unencumbered by social skills. What are they, after all, but a set of arbitrarily-conceived customs meant to sort people into classes, the more conveniently to be dominated by those whose mastery of the arbitrary customs is superior? I’m sure I need not point out to you, O my fellow blamers, that the stability of patriarchy as a system of social control relies on the mass assimilation of these customs. Customs are the currency of culture; the more you absorb, the greater your rewards. But closer examination reveals them to be nothing but taboos and commandments designed to restrict human conduct to a finite set of ritualized mannerisms constrained by foul ideals of deference, appeasement, and conformity.
“Attractiveness” is one of those mannerisms. You know what? Fuck attractiveness and the establishmentarian horse it rode in on.
So, back to the question posed by Person X, “is there anything about being a geek that makes a person more attractive?”
I am happy to say, no there isn’t, and isn’t that nice.
By the way, using my highly advanced scientific method, I have determined that 73.4% of the readers of this blog are geek/nerd/spazzes. The sci-fi thread of last week has broken all attendance records.
Wow. When and where can we meet, you lovely thing?
I have a sibling and a child who share a lot of those traits in their own individual and bizarre ways. Gawd, are they ever fun. Me, I’m just a nerd but oh, how I aspire to weirdness.
Now that everybody is skilled in outcast taxonomy, can somebody tell me what I was? If it’s any help, I think the year was 1987.
Okay, now I *really* love you.
Norbizness, you were a cute little nerdlet. That picture reminds me of Mark Ruffalo’s child-substitute in “13 Going On 30.”
Also, I think baseball stat nerdlets probably should have their own name in outcast taxonomy, since they have something in common with sports dudes. Is there such a thing as a sports nerd?
Hott!
I
I heart Twisty so much!!!
Twisty, I think you are wrong. Lots of those traits make people more attractive - especially to other people who share the same traits. And even when they don’t! Although I have never done the olive-oil-butt-walk, I admire like hell the people who have. I know we shouldn’t reduce people to this, but nonconformity is, as you say, sexay.
amen, sister
And this is why I fail to understand why nobody has forged a Nerd-Feminist alliance. That is, a Nerd-Feminist alliance outside of my own home. Or wardrobe.
Is there such a thing as a sports nerd?
You bet there is. They tend to end up producing or anchoring the sports segment on your nightly local newscast. I used to work with some and they are, indeed, a breed apart.
As a fellow nerd, I send to you a hearty “Oyven-Glaven!” (all the Simpson watching nerds* know what I mean)
*99.99% of Western nerds, and quite a few non Western ones.
Is there such a thing as a sports nerd?
Sniper. Yes, you’re a biathlete?
“Fuck attractiveness and the establishmentarian horse it rode in on.”
THANK YOU for saying this.
People aren’t magnets. This whole concept of attractiveness is just another euphemism for “let me objectify and fetishize something superficial about you so I don’t actually have to interact with you as the person you are.”
Ugh. For some reason I lost the rest of my comment, which was:
1. Keith Olbermann - sports nerd
2. I’ve never loved Twisty more.
Going back a step on subject a little, is there any chance we can salvage the name geek back please? I kind of like the phrase better than nerd for me and mine, and don’t want to be associated with the guys described previously. Here, I’ll even supply a possible new word:
Leek (from Loser-geek)
includes not only geek wanna-be’s who are idiots as previously described, but can be used to include other assholes like the leet-speakers and such.
I’m a pretty open minded, usually intelligent (every one makes dumb mistakes now and again) geek male who genuinely likes women, and uses this website to review my own thoughts and opinions and see where I may have allowed mistakes to enter into how I think.
Well, I’ll be damned. We share enough personality traits / social skills to probably be related somewhere along the line. I’m also quite fond of the pretending-to-fly, the funny-noise-making, the collapsing into hysterics over something minor (marriedtothesea.com, nataliedee.com or Mimi Smartypants will usually do the trick), you name it. Brava, super-Twisty! Hurray for geekdom!
p.s. it helps to have a SirMixALot-ian butt if you’re going to do the butt walk in the grocery aisle, but hey, you work with what you’ve got.
your figure there reminds me of this bittersweet funny (by a brilliant she-geek, or at best a lady nerd):
http://indexed.blogspot.com/2007/01/classless.html
i’d always thought of geeks as hit and miss like everyone else and nerds as universally good until today, when i sadly recalled that right-wing “think” tanks are manned by nerds.
ah well, back to evaluating people on a case-by-case basis.
I love this thread!
I’m a nerd for a living; I edit books. Not just any books either——I work in non-fiction, so I get to correct other nerds’ work. Oh, and I do a lot of work on sports books too, so I know the sports nerds very, very well. There are women sports nerds too. One of my favorite authors to work with is a fabulous woman who adores racecars (particularly NASCAR) and poker.
To add to my nerd cred, I used to own a store that sold roleplaying games (D&D and the like) and tabletop war games. I own polyhedral dice. Fortunately, I do not live in my parents’ basement (and I don’t compulsively put things in mylar bags, either).
Personally, “nerd” is pretty much at the top of the list of things I want in a partner.
I do have a question about the word attractive though. Physical attractiveness might not be important, but there has to be some reason to want to be with someone. I’m _______ to intelligent people with a sense of humour. If I don’t use attracted, what word do I put here?
I think the problem with being attractive, or feeling compelled to be attractive, is the whole idea that people can be attractive in the first place. I think that point was made, but I also see an extension of it into what Nietzsche called action and re-action. Those who subscribe to ideas, practice behaviors, that amount to a belief in attractiveness are re-active. They do not believe in themselves, but in the power and efficacy of attractivness. They re-act to the ideological mandates of attractiveness, rather than act themselves.
In this way, I think there is room for people to be (found) attractive without re-acting to the injunction to be attractive. Anyone could, in theory, find Twisty attractive; they could be attracted to her. The difference here is that no one else can really identify what is attractive about her in quite the same way, because if they do, they are reducing what’s attractive about her to some idea(l) of attractiveness. I even think many people understand this, but for more insidious, you might even say unconscious ideological reasons they fail to act according to how they feel.
But some things are worthy of worship maybe even fetishizing. Breathtaking use of language, words. The writer.
I palpitate. I’m flushed. I’m gone.
No shit. ;)
J: So subjective attraction is okay, but objectification or idealization of a given aspect is not? Just clarifying so I’m clear.
So, for example, I find my partner’s laugh lines attractive (a subjective evaluation of how they appear to me, largely because they tell me he’s a person who likes to smile/laugh). But defining all men by the aesthetics of their laugh lines, making their appeal a general measure by which all men and all laugh lines must be measured and their attractiveness rated, is the harmful concept.
If so, I’m completely on board with that definition. I just like to be sure I’m seeing the same connotative meaning in a discussion——as I said above, language is my particular nerd-thing.
I grew up socially outcast as well, and I wouldn’t trade anything for it, because those experiences have made me the strong, confident woman I am today. I grew to enjoy “nerd” as a term of endearment in my high school days.
I look a lot different than I did when I was a young nerd, though. I keep my 7th grade photo around, because even though it’s awful, it’s who I still am on the inside. The story behind it is that I had forgotten the day was the makeup day for the yearbook picture (I had worn my glasses in the first picture, and the reflection of the silver umbrella showed up on my lenses, so I had to get another photo). I hadn’t showered in a couple days, so my hair was messy and a little clumpy, and I had worn an old t-shirt, which I had to turn around backwards (there was a silly picture of a duck playing volleyball on the front, and I didn’t want that in the picture, because that apparently would have made me look ridiculous), and I forgot to take off my glasses, so I got the reflection of the flash on my lenses even worse. Plus, I’m totally not photogenic, and the camera got me right as I was saying “cheese,” so I have a weird expression on my face.
Nowadays, I don’t look like a stereotypical nerd, so I mostly just get labeled as “weird”.
(I was going to post in the other thread that I am a nerd/geek/dweeb/whatever, and that my boyfriend is too, as well as a beginning blamer. But my day job always gets in the way of time spent lazily surfing the internet.)
“I was in denial at first, but if those math teachers told me (n) times, they told me {(n) 1} times: I was doomed to infinite regress.”
Marry me! I’ll make you tacos every day.
“I do have a question about the word attractive though. Physical attractiveness might not be important, but there has to be some reason to want to be with someone. I’m _______ to intelligent people with a sense of humour. If I don’t use attracted, what word do I put here?”
You like being around intelligent people with a sense of humor? You take great joy in the company of intelligent people with a sense of humour? You appreciate the intelligence of people and you also appreciate their senses of humor? These statements indicate some reasons you might want to be with someone. They also better indicate why people actually do want to be with others.
However, if you are using the concept of ‘attraction’ you’re talking about something different. Attraction implies something innate, something we don’t entirely have control over that, something that quite literally exerts a force upon you that you are compelled to obey. So if you say, “I am attracted to intelligent people,” what are you ACTUALLY saying? Are you saying that when you come into proximity with an intelligent person are you physically drawn closer once you’re in their gravitational field? Are you compelled to follow them around? Do you want to be in contact with them as much as possible? That’s what attraction implies, that you are drawn to this element of a person almost regardless of your will, NOT that this element of a person is simply something that determines whether or not you enjoy their company at times when you are around them.
That’s why I find the concept so problematic. People are not innately attracted to other people the way magnets are attracted to poles. To think so simplifies the potential reciprocity of human interaction and keeps us from ever relating to one another as equals.
I was a geek-nerd AND a pompom girl, which I suppose is proof that some things never change. People were so weirded out by me that I had no caste. I was a high school Untouchable!
After a short stint with the stoners and the theater geeks I dropped out of school, but all worked out OK in the end because the minute I left home I found the neopagans: Dorkitude CUBED!
I want a YouTube video of Twisty doing the buttwalk.
One thought: Laughter is hardly apolitical coming from women. Women laughing amongst themselves is considered as alarming to patriarchs as women orgasming amongst themselves.
Giant Twisty Brain Cloud DID Keep James Tiberius Kirk as a pet, congested anal pore and all. Pinko Brain Cloud is HAPPY.
Puffin: Thanks, I’d never really thought of it that way. I now have a picture of me walking around stuck in a large clump with all my friends like a mass of pins on one of those magnetic pincushions.
Got it. I’ll endeavour to use something less passive-sounding in the future.
Statement revised to “I like intelligent people who have a good sense of humour.” Or to convey the idea of romantic interest, “When seeking a partner, I look for a person who is intelligent and has a good sense of humour.”
Or I could just say I prefer a nerdy man who appreciates clever satire but rolls on the floor giggling when I pretend a banana is a telephone and talk in a silly voice.
Bird I think 97 per cent of the Blamers ™ are editors.
Twisty, your quirks are endearing. Most of the posters here, myself included, are quirky nerds who appreciate these qualities.
These comments were directed to these particular sexist geek posters. I personally didn’t intend to rag on female geeks, whom I consider my sisters in blame.
Norbizness, you cute nerdlet, I’m in love. Don’t tell Mr. Lawbitch.
I checked the Wikipedia entry on Tourette to make sure I knew what Twisty was talking about, and after the definition I jumped to “famous people with Tourette syndrome”. I realised that all the names were male, so I instantly thought “oh, so then this is a condition that affects primarily men, how interesting”. I had to read ten lines or so to remember that “famous people” means “famous men” unless you’re talking about, I don’t know, supermodels or Hollywood stars.
The moments like that short lapsus, when I forget that there is a patriarchy, are wonderful and liberating, but I hate the crash afterwards.
“I am a geek/nerd/spazz”
“I am a nerd/geek/dweeb/whatever”
I made up this little system to reclaim the labels that once hurt ohnoez! so much:
A GEEK really gets into DOING or producing something, and a NERD likes THINKING about or consuming something. Like: I am a science fiction nerd, because I read a lot of it, but not a science fiction geek, because I don’t write any.
(Also a sewing and farming and traveling and language geek, a sociology and photography and fiddle music nerd, a feminism nerd AND geek-but-Doing-Feminism-is-a-whole-nother-discussion, and for now more of a blog nerd than a blog geek. And so on.)
I reserve dork/spazz/general contempt for those who don’t admit to enthusiasm.
I’m definitely a geek-spazz hybrid.
Geek/Blame on.
I’ve never been able to figure out whether I’m a geek, a nerd, a dweeb, or a spazz. Or a dork. I dunno about Butter’s system; weren’t the original sideshow geeks supposed to be consumers of live chickens’ heads?
I have committed editing in my time, and will edit for food. Wait, I forget: Does that make me a geek or a nerd? I read science fiction. I write nonfiction. I criticize bad pruning. Is a tree geek a treek? Is a critical geek a creek?
And wouldn’t a leek be a Welsh geek?
I want that YouTube of the buttwalk too. One thing I like about getting old is not having to look cool anymore. As for attraction: It’s all done with pheromones. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
My Bunny just glanced at Twisty’s pythagorean whatchamacallit and screamed FIVE! I’ve spawned another geek.
Also, I think personalities can definitely be attractive. I am attracted to/drawn to/interested in people who I get along with, which happen to be other geek-spazz hybrids.
Sexual attraction and social attraction are different. Although sometimes the sexytime happens later, but I’m only interested in women and men with ENORMOUS… minds.
I have been a lifetime self-confessed nerd. I’ve always seen geeks as not nearly as smart, and much more arrogant, than us nerds.
I don’t think spontaneously doing the butt-dance qualifies as spazziness–more like a poorly-controlled nerdy enthusiasm.
“Fuck attractiveness and the establishmentarian horse it rode in on.”
Preach, Sister, preach!
Oh Twisty, you are my hero!
“On an average of twice a week, fair weather or foul, I am compelled to run across the lawn waving my arms as though I intend to take flight,”
That sounds like fun! I think I might try it.
It’s not orginal at this point to tell you that my already-huge crush on you just assumed mammoth proportions, but it did, so I’m telling you.
Male geeks and nerds get picked on by “manlier” males. Female geeks and nerds (or, at least, /this/ female nerd/geek) try to become honourary men and then say feminism is unnecessary. We need Morpheus/Twisty to come along and show us what we’re really trapped in. Once we figure it out, we become not just the natural allies of feminists, but feminists ourselves.
I passed through my grammar school years with a hand covered in warts and a head covered in long, dark, easily tangled hair. I got called a ‘hag’ on a regular basis. What I wouldn’t have given for the nerd/geek/spaz moniker instead.
I do agree with ChapstickAddict though, in that it made me a stronger person (those tangles are now beautiful, product-free dreads. Eat that, Pantene Pro-V/Salon Selectives/ad nauseum!).
Or rather, it brought me to that same point that leaving one’s terrible 20’s brings to the smart girls, namely the wordless gratitude to be (relatively) off the sexAy radar of Ultimate SexAyness. If you’re already fucked, socially speaking, you learn to be your own chief support system quickly and to find your own happiness, independent of the outside universe.
good god, Twisty, and here I thought I couldn’t love you more!
Ah, Twisty, back in high school my friends, of which I had maybe a couple, used to make me drink and derive. Or drink and integrate, if we were feeling really dangerous. But I can’t write like you can.
lawbitch, it’s cool. I understand all the irritation with misogynistic geeks, cuz they do exist, and they do exist in a particular geekly form, and all the complaints on that thread were totally applicable to that particular brand of geek, and yeah I deal with people like that sometimes. Comiccon is full of them (and yeah, I know because I’ve been there). But I do think that social rejection during certain critical periods growing up does makes more geeks/nerds/spazzes reflective about what society at large says about gender and attractiveness, at least at higher rates than many other segments of the population, even as I admit that significant chunks of geekdom never did clue in to how they were being indoctrinated. So I was just really wishing we could all acknowledge that, and I was also irked that “geek” in that thread was often being used to mean “male geek” which is a gender bias that annoys me for obvious reasons. And I’d had a coupla beers on an empty stomach while making dinner.
At this point, I’d kinda rather not point out the individual comments that set me off, because I don’t want to blame/start a fight with any individual posters that I was really just quoting because they gave me a concrete handle to what I felt was a general tone reiterating through parts of that thread.
Also, when I brought up attractiveness, I was talking about the subjective experience of attraction to someone (pony’s insightful comment notwithstanding), not “conventional attractiveness”. So I can totally jump on board with “Fuck attractiveness and the establishmentarian horse it rode in on.†The best geeks I know see it for the con job it is and are happier for it.
(sorry. too long again.)
Excellent, excellent post.
“J: So subjective attraction is okay, but objectification or idealization of a given aspect is not? Just clarifying so I’m clear.”
More or less. The problem I see is that so-called quirkiness is anything but that, and after becoming a pattern among people fuctions effectively along the same lines as more “main=stream” beauty-ideals. If people make, for example, the judgement (actiosn count as much or more than words) that attractiveness is a function of how much you reject (or say you reject) the beauty ideals of the dominant culture, they miss the point.
The problem with the beauty ideal is not in what it idealizes, which you might also think of in terms of who constructs it, but that it exists period.
I consider my geekiness to be directly related to my development as a feminist. Has anyone else experienced this?
When I was growing up I was never interested in most of the traditional girly things and I didn’t have well-developed social skills, but I wasn’t a tomboy, either. I hated sports, and was (and still am) totally uncoordinated. Instead, I was another thing altogether. I was a geek. A brain. A nerd.
On the one hand, my geekiness helped me realize the stupidity of established gender roles. After all, it was clear that I wasn’t going to fit in them, and yet, here I was, a girl. I think I knew it was hopeless to even try to be like that. Or maybe I was so clueless socially that I didn’t even really realize how I was supposed to be acting.
But on the other hand, it was a barrier that kept me from identifying with other young women. I didn’t really consider myself “one of them”. Overcoming that distance, realizing that yes, the rest of the world sees me as just another female (and worse, a geeky one), has been a challenge at times.
“Drink and derive!” ROTFLOL! As a former math teacher, I thank you for thathumor. NERDARAMA!!!
I was so uncool in high school. Now that I have teenagers, I am so uncool once again. Just ask my kids! ;-)
http://unsanesafe.blogspot.com/2007/03/this-post-is-about-opposing-yourself.html
The Star Trek TOS dvds’ encapsulating pod is pretty nifty. Is the streamlined design meant to jive with Enterprise decor? Or is the lack of corners just a safety precaution so that the nerdly owner doesn’t poke her eye out while having an involuntary spasm?
I consider my geekiness to be directly related to my development as a feminist. Has anyone else experienced this?
I’m right there with you, sister. My feminism blossomed because since I was such a social outcast, I had the freedom to move to my own drum beat. Of course, it made middle school hell, but I can’t imagine what I’d be like without all those prized years of teenage suffering.
I don’t really have any business blaming the patriarchy, so I thought I’d just observe it, if no one minds.
This evening after work it was nice out so I sat outside a little coffee joint in Ohio and read a book. Eventually a young woman showed up with a small child, who took a chair away from my table, and then two more young women (28, maybe) came over and spoke to her for a while.
Then the first woman left, and all hell broke loose. The two others hung around long enough for a couple of nearby, forty-something men to strike up a conversation with them. As was inevitable, one of the men told one of the women that she should be a stripper. Of course, he didn’t really say that exactly. He said he used to DJ at a strip club and casually mentioned that the women working there would take home “Like, a couple hundred dollars a night,” and then suggested in a way that was meant to be sly but wasn’t that she should be a stripper. She, who turned out to be named Annie, just sort of brushed it off politely, as I have seen happen four billion times in response to the same remarks.
Annie finally turned and asked me, “Hey, what are you writing? Are you writing about our conversation?” Which, oddly enough, I was not. We shook hands and had a splendid exchange for a little while about art history and the drums, her drums specifically, meaning the drums she plays in her apartment.
I am in no position to blame the patriarchy, but although I didn’t do it at the time I suggest that if you find myself in a situation like mine or Annie’s, look the man with nothing but bad suggestions in the eyes and repeat as many times as it takes, “Klaatu Varata Nikto.”
Then again, he’ll probably assault you or something. Never mind.
“Klaatu Varata Nikto.”
Just make sure you say it right.
Damn that Octagalore dude gets around.
“Klaatu Varata Nikto.â€
wow. i’m with pony here.
been lurking for sometime now. this post brings me to your door and to my knees.
language is desire.
swooning.
I’m here strictly for the graphic, myself. Best ever.
I hate to break in with my penultimate nerdlinesss, but it is “Klaatu Barata Nikto”
(oh the shame I feel)
Thank you, KMTberry! I would’ve if you hadn’t.
mmm the butt walk. I always considered it to be a close relation to the toddler run in which you pitch yourself forward and run on your toes with your arms flapping limply at your sides. For the more coordinated there is the inimitable playing of raptor in which you stalk around, index and middle fingers poised to strike, whilst stalking whatever prey happens to be sitting unawares in the nearest armchair. I have to say though, that the one thing GAR-UN-TEED to still produce the helpless crying laughter that seems to have been the one perk bequethed on my outcast teenage self so long ago is http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html On the one hand the commentary is spot on, and on the other one can marvel in wonder at the state of feminity 30-odd years ago and what drove women to consider these un-edible abominations better than being a size 10.
No wonder you ‘blame the patriarchy’…eheheh
You couldn’t get laid in high school.
Pobresita…..
Nerds, computers, whatever. Can we go back to talking about shoes?
Someone posted this link on the Aspies For Freedom website:
http://isnt.autistics.org/
It is an asset, not to mention a joy and a relief, to be unencumbered by social skills.
You can tell a lot about an individual (or a society) based on how it treats its outcasts and the mentally-unique:
The Value Of Psychotic Experience
Not about geeks per se, but fascinating article about how other societies look at people unconstrained by social norms.
P.S.-
Women laughing amongst themselves is considered as alarming to patriarchs as women orgasming amongst themselves.
Great viusals. ;-)
Do a search on “otaku” and “cool” and watch the fun at recent attempts in Japan to get people to change their (highly negative) attitudes toward otaku! (This is partly inspired by people outside Japan rearticulating the term, you know as people in the past did for insults like “Yankee” and “queer.”)
Women laughing amongst themselves is considered as alarming to patriarchs as women orgasming amongst themselves.
When I first read that line, reading through the comments, I read it as women organising amongst themselves. So my reaction was Yay, way to go! organising and laughing ! This leads to change !
But, ruefully I realised I’d read it wrong, and instead the comment, to me, illustrates a (generational ? cultural ?) gap.
Where the scaring of men is not laughing and organising but laughing and orgasming.
Oh yeah and while I’m at it spazz ia a horrible word. It’s like calling someone a ree-tard or crip. Fine for those who actually are, to use the word if they want, everyone else should can it.
“The other nerds cast me out. I was a geek without a gang.”
Me too. To some extent, I feel I still am, and I wish I could meet like-minded geeky women. There are plenty of geeky men around, but I don’t want to be friends with most of them, as I can’t stand the misogyny and homophobia that comprises most of their ‘humour’, and honestly I just don’t think rape jokes are funny, and am not afraid to say to. And so they don’t tend to want to be friends with the ‘humourless feminist’ either. Being a feminist geek/nerd is lonely…
My current blog post has exactly the same comic at the top . . . but I like the elephant one better (I’m saving it for a different post). They were sent to me by a friend who decided that yes, she DID want to be a doctor (which was a challenge to say out loud, for her, thanks to the patriarchy)–and she’s about to graduate.
I think most people with an IQ over 100 have one form of geek/nerd/spazz or another lurking in their closet. Being comfortable in your own skin consists of setting him/her free, and loneliness be damned. Me, I’m a weather geek. (I like to sing really old songs at inappropriate times and frequently laugh for no apparent reason, but my quirk catalogue pales in comparison with most of yours, which are truly impressive. And I come from a long, long line of oddballs and misfits.)
But what about us dorks? Is there no place we can go to find acceptance? Who loves us?
I don’t really have any business blaming the patriarchy, so I thought I’d just observe it, if no one minds.
Oh, there’s something new. Men watching women like they’re bugs under a microscope and reporting on it from their zippers. And being women = sex to men, it doesn’t come as any surprise that the only thing that seems to have caught your attention and interest Rob, was how women react sexually to men and their propositions. And of course how you’re oh so special and different from the rest of men and how these could-be strippers were attracted to you!
So you’re right. You don’t have any business blaming the patriarchy. As for observing it, you are the patriarchy. So pray tell, how does one objectively observe oneself? As you prove, you can’t. Your dick keeps getting in the way.
Sorry, Rob, but you’re no different than any of those other guys. You, too, objectify and view women from your zipper. What you were observing were the techniques men use to proposition women and watching women’s reaction to these techniques so you could take notes and polish up your own act and have a better success rate with women. And of course you’re here to brag that your technique worked better than all those other guys. But I’m here to tell you, Rob, that guys like you come a dime a dozen. All legends in their own mind and all thinking they’re so much more clever and slicker than the other guy.
Now tell the truth and shame the devil. You’re not here to observe the patriarchy. You’re here to pick up tips on how to boost your success rate with women, you old dog, you. Because the patriarchs are men, silly. So why would you observe women to learn the nuts and bolts about men and their patriarchy?
Sorry, Rob, nice try, but no cigar.
miz-geek, yes. I love being a nerd (er, now I do anyway) and I know that it has a lot to do with my acceptance/understanding of feminism, because I am an outsider.
If you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em, right? Because sooner or later you figure out that you’re not missing anything.
But I’m here to tell you, Rob, that guys like you come a dime a dozen.
No kidding, although, these days it seems more like a dime a score (pun intended). Where are they all coming from? As of late, it seems all the feminist blogs I read are being overrun with men (of that stripe or other). I used to seek these spaces out as a refuge from the constant barrage of entitled male opinion, but they’re like weeds, entitled male opinions are; you cut one down only to realize you’re standing in a rapidly expanding and encroaching field of them.
A zipper with a view. Heh. Perfect. She’s baaaaack.
“Where the scaring of men is not laughing and organising but laughing and orgasming.”
Where is the gap? I fail to see one. I think Twisty’s point is that when women show that they can produce happiness and/or pleasure that is not contingent upon men, it is a blow to their awesometacity. In this sense, men across the world and through-out time have, at least some of the time, lashed out at women for being happy for themselves.
The way you could think about it is that to most men, when a woman or women find happiness in a way that at least seems divorced from the affirmation of patriarchy, it is a sign that they (women) have their own way to bliss. Men are jealous, angry, confused, and frightened by this apparent alternative path women have found (or always had) themselves.
New word for the Blameopedia: AWESOMETACITY!
J. is on to something: Men are painfully aware of just how much they need women. PAINFULLY. We hold up their mirrors so that they may see themselves. We bear their children. We do their scut work. We are their receptacles for, well, everything. And women need men for what, exactly?
*
*
(crickets)
*
*
EXACTLY. They need us more than we need them. Men are absolutely terrified that we may someday figure out that we don’t need them at ALL and will expend enormous amounts of energy on psychological, economic and physical warfare to prevent this from happening. Then who will supply the cheap pussy and the free housekeeping? Who will be left to reassure him of his awesometacity?
Lukynkl, I think any earnest thinking man who takes the time to read the FAQ and the SCUM manifesto, and contribute to the discussion in an earnest (albeit sometimes deluded, poor thing) way should be allowed to use his newfound understanding of the Twistyverse to at least TRY to score smart geek chicks. After all, it’s not as if we can stop ‘em in any case.
Besides, it’s only fair! To me, I mean: Sometimes I wonder if an earnest thinking man who reads IBTP is the very best a smart, straight feminist could ever hope for, even if he’s a bumbling fool sometimes.
Oooh, I feel the need to BLAME again. Click!
This guy has been in the archives reading Helen Gurley Brown. He’s looking for a woman who gets an education so she can get a higher earning mate. Go you, thinking man. Whenever and wherever you find her, you deserve each other.
The blog needs password access. Not only we who are too old for this have had enough, the young ‘uns have reached tilt too Twisty.
“Men are painfully aware of just how much they need women.”
Right, and I don’t really disagree with the rest of what you said. I think that you, in the eyes of the patriarchy, give women much too much credit.
Lacan said that “Woman does not exist,” and this is surprisingly a very positive observation, considering what he means is that in the very thinkability of Woman for her own sake is lost to the phallic culture that dominates practically all humanity. In this way, it isn’t that men need women for jouissance (Lacan’s term for supreme enjoyment qua absolute domination and exploitation of reality), but that when women appear to have their own way to it, it feels like they are actually stealing it from the men.
You say parts of this, but I think that what men need from women (for their jouissance) is not their house-work or their pussy, but the very fact that they bow down. This is not an apres coup or after the fact kind of observation. Rather, for men, woman is the body given to his (though ultimately all of our) fundamental lack (think castration complex). In otherwords, in phallic culture, men come to know women precisely because they don’t know they exist, except as the phallic signifier itself.
In a household where the woman does not do the scut work, but hires a Latina or Filipina (or…) to do it, the lady of the house, can pretend they’ve reached some epoc. Because while she’s out excercising her liberation, say, honing her law degree, he, the other partner in the law firm, is in the basement fingering the hired help.
Arora- thanks for that link, it may just get me through some of the neurotypical, patriarchal crap going on at my son’s school right now.
Attraction happens but it does not eliminate the hard work that makes up a good relationship. I know because I am going on to 27 years in a relationship based on my turning a particular corner in a particular hallway on (depending on my mood at the moment) just the right time.
And borrowing from the ‘autistics should define autism’ movement, I am neuroatypical and proud and thankful that I am. Define me as you will it doesn’t change a thing about me.
Finally anything that can get a man to think is a good thing ;)
I’d like to reiterate justtesting’s comment. I’m not sure how many people know this but:
Spazz = spastic = cerebral palsy
I’m assuming that people are using it because they don’t know any better (unless of course all commenters who have so far used it do indeed have CP and are in the business of reclaiming the word, but I’m thinking that’s rather unlikely).
Tourettes, ADHD, Autism and the like are all supposed to be far more prevalent in males than females. But this may be just a matter of patriarchal diagnosis: as in heart attacks, visible symptoms may vary from males to females. For example, if male teen with ADHD smashes up classroom due to inattentiveness and impulsiveness then OMG must do something!; if female teen’s grades drop with the inattentiveness then this is ignored (or indeed if impulsiveness plus lack of forward planning = pregnancy then she’s a sinful whore). A (male) researcher has suggested screening all women with anorexia as a high proportion may have undiagnosed autism. I could go on, but am sure that everyone here is well aware that medicine = patriarchy with needles and drips and stuff.
MoBridges, your question may have already been answered, but I believe that the Star Trek TOS DVDs are encased in what is supposed to represent a tricorder. A large, plastic, garish tricorder. That’s the belief in our house, anyway. Sometimes we pretend it’s a *real* tricorder, and wave it over the dog, the car, our dinner, and so forth. The case doesn’t emit any sounds of its own, so we have to make the little noises ourselves. (”dee dee dee dee deet!”)
Wow. You are very cool.
Admittedly, sometimes I disagree with you. Even then, I still admire your skill at making your point (and would not want to engage in actual debate lest I find myself seriously injured in some way).
When I agree with you, you’re bone-chillingly awesome.
The geek thing just adds to the awesomeness. (I’m in the 73.4% category.)
It’s incredible how hard it is to get people to understand when you tell them you’re a woman with ADD, or even more shockingly, that you’re a woman with ADD and you function just fine without meds, thank you very much. And don’t even try to claim that it’s not a disability, it’s just different.
My dad and both my brothers are Aspies, so we’re all a little odd in my family. My baby brother and I like to do the zombie walk in shopping malls as a sort of nerdy commentary on the whole consumer experience (plus it gives us the giggles).
Well, assuming that this is true, what’s the answer to these questions, anyway?
Klaatu varada nikto - the magic words originally spoken by Patricia Neal’s character in “The Day The Earth Stood Still” to make the giant death-robot stop killing people for the purpose of world peace.
Hey, Pony, easy with the lawbitch bashing! Oh, never mind. I’m not practicing at the moment, and there’s no hired help to finger. You’ve summed up nicely why I’m at home with my kids right now. I’m going to make my triumphant return some day…
Just stopping by to make the obvious point that “attraction” is not the same as “attractiveness.”
Apologies lawbitch. I’ve uh…done some laundry in my time.
“It’s incredible how hard it is to get people to understand when you tell them you’re a woman with ADD, or even more shockingly, that you’re a woman with ADD and you function just fine without meds, thank you very much. And don’t even try to claim that it’s not a disability, it’s just different.”
The last sentence there? I’m not quite understanding you. Are you saying ADD is *not* a disability, or is.
I think it’s a creation of pharmaceutical companies. Not the actual way you (and half my family including me) are, just that it’s not a disability. It’s an asset. I tell you I strut it.
No offense taken. I needed to be with my kids.
You aren’t far off. I think that I was 1 of 2 attorneys *not* having an affair at my first law firm. Wives would call routinely to check up on their husbands, knowing that they might be having extracurricular sex.
I think that my hubby and I are the most well-adjusted lawyer couple that I know. Not the most wealthy, but happier than most. And the kids aren’t in rehab. LOL!
Very true, Twisty, I know that I have an attraction to my now-husband and after 27 years I still have no clue as to why, just some vague ideas. I do know that it is not something that can be bought at a store or involves surgery or is found in magazine cover art. I’m glad that he and I based our relationship on attraction instead of attractiveness, but then we are both geeks.
“Attractiveness” is less easily defined than “attraction”, which is, after all, a trick of chemistry. I agree with the person who said it’s all done with pheromones.
“Attractiveness” can be achieved in a bazillion different ways. Wit, humor, and a certain facility with words are attractive, no matter how awkward or unpretty a person feels. Lack of pretension is attractive, and I can think of few things less pretentious than doing the butt-walk down the $700 olive oil aisle.
What’s deemed attractive varies insanely from person to person. Everyone cultivates their qualities according to who/what they wish to attract. And hey, the superficial shit’s going to wear off (or the world’s going to knock it off) in a hurry anyway.
The last sentence there? I’m not quite understanding you. Are you saying ADD is *not* a disability, or is.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I firmly believe that it is *not* a disability. I was trying to say that it’s hard to get a lot of people to understand that. I personally think that my ADD is a gift—one that brings its own particular set of challenges when it comes to relating to the “normal” folks out there, but a gift nonetheless.
I also find I have to explain that I’m ADD, not ADHD (no hyperactive component for me), and that there is a difference.
I think it’s a creation of pharmaceutical companies. Not the actual way you (and half my family including me) are, just that it’s not a disability. It’s an asset. I tell you I strut it.
Thankfully, my mother told the school system that they were putting her daughter on ritalin over her dead body. Later, I was tested for the gifted and talented program and put into an accelerated program.
Funny, most of the behavioural problems disappeared once I was in an environment that provided sufficient challenges and was flexible enough to accommodate my particular learning style.
5cm.
Are you KIDDING? I am now totally in love with you.
Kelda:
“am sure that everyone here is well aware that medicine = patriarchy with needles and drips and stuff.”
No. I’m not aware of that. I understand that many doctors and medical organizations have overabundances of patriarchal horsecrap in their beings, but I find many, many times:
medicine = ‘life worth living’.
I suspect Twisty might agree that, in her case,
medicine = ‘life’
When I was growing up I was never interested in most of the traditional girly things and I didn’t have well-developed social skills, but I wasn’t a tomboy, either. I hated sports, and was (and still am) totally uncoordinated. Instead, I was another thing altogether. I was a geek. A brain. A nerd.
funny. I was all those things, but actually also socially ept (at least, functionally so, and really so where adults were concerned), which elicited a different kind of impatience — like, I should know enough to be able to conform to expectations, since I was smart and ept. (the idea that I might have rationally rejected the arbitrariness of the conventions being beamed at me was significantly more than most were willing to concede. or know what to do with.)
so many ways of not fitting into the box. why do so many care about the damned box??
So many care about the box because they believe that that is all that they have.
Twisty - you are so funny! How I wish I’d had the presence of mind to respond to at least one geometry puzzle, in 1963-64, with your solution to finding x! Who would I have become?
You can write, though, and not just programme code …
Yeah, I think that I’m losing the ability to be embarrassed, I am of course overjoyed by this, I sort of realized that people who laugh at you or mock you for enjoying yourself aren’t worth your time, or to be more specific that that’s what social conventions are about like so much of the patriarchy, limiting people’s enjoyment to what ever pseudo-enjoyment can be gained from parroting whatever they’ve decided is the norm, so you actually gain a sense of worth(supposedly, more like a sense of worthlessness) from fitting in with them and their crap. I’m glad I’ve realized this at 17 (18 now) and not much later (though one second of free existence is preferable to none) I am going to seriously think about what I want to do and what I’ve been stopped from doing by social convention. Enjoying my life and ending violations of the rights of born homosapiens everywhere (and other mammals, birds, other animals) are my two goals so I am going to start doing whatever I want at college and everywhere else too (while still paying attention to lessons). I’m an aspie too, BTW, and a big Monty Python fan, I also love A Bit of Fry and Laurie and I am the other anime watcher and manga reader of this board (hi Silence :), I actually want to become an animator, because
A) I love drawing
B) I want to make radical feminist anime influenced stuff to combat the misogyny that I see and because it’s how everything should be
I think that’s a good enough starting explanation of my habits (I don’t really like labels like geek) so I’m going to change topic slightly: The word spazz is offensive, much like the word retarded, please do not use it.
I do have ADHD also, I’ve actually found ritalin very helpful, it really works and doesn’t change my personality, it’s very over-diagnosed in America though.
“Observe, that 3 year old cannot sit through Seven Samurai, they are jumping about.”
“Observe, that child has a bad diet and religious nuts for parents, they are badly behaved and inattentive in the infantilizing and authoritarian school system.”
“This child must have ADD/ADHD, give them pills and ignore the actual problem(s).”
Sorry, my dialogues are rather less than astounding.
“The problem with the beauty ideal is not in what it idealizes, which you might also think of in terms of who constructs it, but that it exists period.”
Precisely, there should be no beauty ideal, why should people’s looks matter at all, I like/want to sleep with consenting age peers who share my ideals, looks mean nothing.
Also I love the stickiness :)
(sorry I’ve only bothered to learn one smiley, you’ll be seeing a lot of colons and end brackets).
RadFemHedonist:
“they are badly behaved and inattentive in the infantilizing and authoritarian school system.â€
“This child must have ADD/ADHD, give them pills and ignore the actual problem(s).â€
As a parent whose son endured the process described above, allow me to precisionize the dialog:
‘The child doesn’t pay attention as desired.’ (Unspoken: I lack the time/interest/patience/brains to do anything about it.)
‘Dose him or he’s out.’
I dutifully did so. The next year’s teacher, cognizant of the situation and having had a child with the same issues, asked that he be taken off the ritalin. He did fine.
So, yes, school are enmeshed not only in patriarchy but (with a few exceptions) bad teachers. This is news?
Some of us are still learning to not fit in the box and be okay with that. Hanging around feminist blogs and such has done a lot to open my eyes to just how many definitions and limits are imposed on us and what bullshit they really are.
I’m trying really hard to not worry so much about other people’s opinions and remember that the only people who need to like me are my circle of friends, family and family-of-choice both.
Finding out that there’s life outside the box is pretty damn cool, I have to say.
Not only is there life outside the box but there is legroom.
Hawise that’s superb.
For me, the most wonderful thing about Twisty’s litany of all the things that make her her Twisty self is that those things (and taking a stand to claim those things) haven’t been crushed out of her by all the forces in life that do the pulverization of who we are: school, workplaces, family, hidebound institutions of all kinds, ennui, heartbreak, cynicism, betrayal, fear, all and sundry kicks to the teeth (courtesy of the patriarchy) while we were busy being ourselves.
Standing with myself, claiming and reclaiming my right to be whomever I am – it’s a lifetime of work. Might as well have fun doing it, eh?
I find it necessary to clarify: I have not ever been officially diagnosed with Asperger’s or any of the other “disorders” I mentioned in the thread. I mention those things to you because they have been mentioned to me over the years as a means of explaining my otherwise inexplicable behavior.
I just did the butt-walk at Neiman-Marcus. Why? Who knows?
Fannypacks are great (even terrific), looking at bugs under a microscope is charming, if not extraordinarily commendable. But let’s not forget, since the topic is near at hand: science is worse than religion–more patriarchal, more powerful, less forgiving.
RadFemHedonsit, I’m an animator.
Hi.
Science isn’t more patriarchal; the Science Industrial Complex is.
You need a “why” to butt-walk at Neiman-Marcus? I’ve never been there—my travels in the US having never led me to shopping at such places, but it seems like the sort of place that just screams for some good, disruptive silliness.
My friends and I once got kicked out of a high-end downtown shopping mall for playing Mission: Impossible and hiding behind the planters. We have also been known to do the walk from the opening sequence of the Monkees while singing the Imperial March from Star Wars.
Hawise: I like that line. Makes me want to stick it to my filing cabinet.
We have a Neiman-Marcus? Is it on Pedernales by 7th Street?
I agree with Kenny. Look at how they gave the Nobel Prize to two boys who broke into a woman’s lab to steal her data. Entitlement?
I never meant to suggest that I’m better than other men, or unique, or anything. I’m not. I only wrote what I wrote because I worry that if I tell that story anywhere else I’ll get the response, “Wait, so what’s wrong with a girl making some money?”
I am sorry to have trespassed here, especially with something that’s pretty lame anyway.