The Female Nerd
From Wikistar
When I was 13, my brother—11 years my elder—gave me a copy of "Vampire: the Masquerade", one of the hottest-selling role playing games at the time, and a set of 12mm 10 sided dice. He didn't know it at the time, but he was opening a winding, fascinating, sometimes frustrating road to me, one that I would never willingly leave or regret. To this day, I am actively involved in various role playing games and niche card games.
But let's back up a bit. I am a female nerd, once considered a rare and elusive creature, both feared and revered by our male counterparts. Now we are—somewhat reluctantly—accepted by our peers, a powerful buying force in various nerd-centric markets, and recognized prominently by many role playing companies, the most notable being White Wolf Game Studio, Eden Studios, Arthaus Studios, and Two Wolves Publishing. Card games are being made to draw in the young female nerd population.
There are two reactions to the female geek by their male counterparts. If a girl gamer walks into a store that sells mostly role playing games, card games, board games, and other such paraphernalia, it's been noted by many of us that we are either studiously ignored or fawned over until we leave. It's very rare that there is a happy medium. The stereotype of male nerds not knowing how to act around women seems to be sadly true—I've met very few outside of the electronic medium of the Internet who can strike up a conversation with a female peer without at least a touch of nervousness. Hence, their reaction to women in comic and gaming stores—they just don't know what to do, or understand why women would be interested in such mediums.
There seem to be three flavors of the female geek: the Sparkly Attention Whore, the Girl Next Door, and the Separationalists.. The Sparkly Attention Whore demands attention as soon as she walks into a room, or logs onto IM, or otherwise interacts with other nerds (usually, a predominately male population by default). She is desired by many because she sleeps around in the group and/or makes a lot of sexually based jokes. She may not be attractive, but she has breasts and pouty lips, and she knows how to use them to get what she wants. Say Phil is running a game of "Dungeons and Dragons", and he doesn't want any halflings in his game. He is adamant on this point. However, Mary really loves halflings, plays only halflings, and refuses to try and play, say, a half-elf. She flirts with Phil, whines just a bit, and pouts at him, possibly even sleeping with him if she is not dating anyone else in the group (or even if she is, depending on her morals), until she gets to play one of her beloved Frodo-esque creatures.
The Girl Next Door essentially just wants to be treated like one of the guys. She's friendly, she's sweet, and she's lusted after by the majority of the group, but she doesn't understand why. She tosses out all of the same penis and bodily function jokes, farts around them, and is just essentially herself. They've seen her in her pajamas, after not showering for three days, and while she's at her worst PMSing. These guys are her best friends. She perhaps has one or two female acquaintances, but she'd rather hang out in the basement watching old Battlestar Galactica reruns and complaining about how the new series sucks. The guys all feel comfortable around her, and that's why they love her—she's seen them at their worst, and she still keeps coming over to do those math problems.
The third, and usually smallest, group, is the Separationalists. These girls are usually so frustrated by their male brethren's immaturity that they hold girl-only gaming weekends, video game tournaments, and Jeopardy/trivia marathons. Something about how the male part of the geek subsection of the species frustrates them beyond belief, and they just need to get away from “those boys” for a weekend, a week, or a month, depending on how bad they perceive things to get. Ironically, the things that go on at these quickly-put together “girl conventions” are essentially the same things that go on at the usual games, meet ups, LANs, etc. The only reason why they hang out with the male group at all is because, ofttimes, the female part of the group isn't large enough to do much, or isn't complete in some way or another.
Indeed, we female geeks are strange and fascinating creatures. We are both feminine and obsessed with the traditionally geeky. Now that “geek” is becoming “chic”, a lot of us can even look normal to the untrained eye. Thanks to games like World of Warcraft, shows such as Heroes and remakes such as The Bionic Woman, geekdom is becoming more and more mainstream.
And it works both ways. With reality TV such as America's Most Smartest Model, even we female geeks become entranced once a week with watching the drama and laughing at how simple some of the challenges are—and yet we're fascinated with how little we know about the fashion world, and what fashion could tell us about periods in history. With the geek icon Ben Stein hosting, the show is somewhat of a draw to many of us.
That road I mentioned earlier, and the journey I alluded to, has introduced me to a lot of interesting people and taught me a lot of interesting things about various subjects, including life. A few stereotypes are unfortunately true, but we, as female nerds, are as varied as any other subculture in society. Look around. There might even be one in the next seat over.
