Given the community, I thought this might be of interest

[icon_uk]

An interesting article about male privilege in nerd-dom on Kotaku.com

I want to tell you a story.

A few years ago, I was dating a girl who was decidedly not nerd curious. She tolerated my geeky interests with a certain bemused air but definitely didn't participate in ‘em… not even setting foot inside a comic store on new comic day. She'd wait outside until I was done… which could be a while, since I was friends with several of the staff.

She came in the store exactly once, after I'd explained that no, it's a pretty friendly place… well lit, spacious, organized and with helpful – and clearly identified – staff members who were willing to bend over backwards to make sure their customers were satisfied.

She was in there for less than 4 minutes before one mouth-breathing troglodyte began alternately staring at her boobs – evidently hoping that x-ray vision could develop spontaneously – and berating her for daring to comment on the skimpy nature of the costumes – in this case, Lady Death and Witchblade. She fled the premises, never to return.

When both the manager and I explained to him in no uncertain terms as to what he did wrong he shrugged his shoulders. "Hey, I was just trying to help you guys! She couldn't understand that chicks can be tough and sexy! Not my fault she's a chauvinist," he said.

And that was when I shot him, your honor.

There's a deal of analysis after that, but I suspect the above might well ring a few bells of experiential recognition.

And for legality, a little objectifying of the sort I enjoy

Comments

[suzine]

Oh yeah, that takes me back...all that's missing is the idiot asking if I shouldn't go to the manga section 'cause girls can't really like comics, they just read them for their boyfriends.

[katya]

My friends and I were just discussing this the other day. One of the reasons I go to the specific LCS that I do is because none of the owners has ever been anything but nice and genuine with me, and so far I haven't encountered any terrible customers either. But of course that qualification for a store is unique to female fans. My male friends can walk confidently into any comic or game store they want, and I have to worry about people asking me if I'm shopping for my boyfriend, not to mention more problematic behaviors.

All of my female friends love comics. All of them. But other than myself, only two regularly go to a comic book store and buy anything. A couple more buy the occasional trade from regular book stores. And part of that is trouble figuring out where to start with a series when it has 50 years of previous canon, but part of it is also hesitance to expose themselves to male-dominated fandom.

I can't think of a single woman in my group of friends who isn't a fan of at least one character to an extent that she'd want to read more, if it weren't for the misogyny in the writing, the art, the stores, etc.

[toby_wan_kenobi]

This court finds that shooting was too good for him.

[icon_uk]

On the plus side, we don't know WHERE they shot him.

[cainofdreaming]

There's a deal of analysis after that, but I suspect the above might well ring a few bells of experiential recognition.

Not to mention existential horror.

Chaos! Comics still exists? Or has someone actually gone and bought the rights to Lady Death?

[darkknightjrk]

I think Avatar has the rights now.

[darkknightjrk]

Times like this makes me so happy that my LCS is pretty damn awesome. I mean, I'm (pretty obviously) not a girl, but from what I've noticed, while the girl customers are usually there with boyfriends (or just hanging out with another guy in general), I don't think I've seen any harassment like that.

As for the guy...you know, I do sometimes think that it is more of a shade of grey subject than either side wants to admit, but...yeah, that guy's there about the epitome of why we can't have nice things.

[auggie18]

My LCS is pretty cool place. The guy who runs it only hires girls, so it tends to be a pretty friendly place. Only issue I've ever had is getting stuck in discussions with the women behind the counter.


Actually, I've never really been in a female-unfriendly comic book store. My three regular places were all pretty even-handed and not gross towards women. Just lucky, I guess.

[crabby_lioness]

Painful flashback time here!

After reading the article and the comments, it's amazing/amusing/appalling how many commenters provided shining examples of exactly the problem he was posting about. Is there so little self-awareness out there?

[biod]

Rule 1:
NEVER READ THE COMMENTS

[mrosa]

The article doesn't say anything new about this topic that I haven't seen covered before elsewhere. But it's sad that it must be constantly reiterated because people won't learn! Just look at all the shitty comments that followed. It's like someone open the gates of hell and the the bile spilled out.

[aeka]

I guess I've pretty lucky to not have been subjected to any of the harassment that's been mentioned in the article whenever I visited my LCS. I don't know if it's because I tend to enter my LCS with other female friends, or when I do go solo I'm only in there long enough to buy the books I want and leave. It does, however, make me reconsider walking into my LCS in my gym attire where tits and ass tend to be more noticeable.

More often than not I've experienced this sort of bullshit in my own relationships with either my own geek male friends or ex-boyfriends. I had one male friend try to rebound/solicit sex to me because I shared his geeky interests and wanted to "recover" from an ex who didn't, and at worst my last ex treated me like a trophy rather than an actual person. After three months of that I dumped his ass.

[harpers_child]

you've been a trophy girlfriend too? one of my ex's mother described me as a playboy bunny with an einstien brain. he seemed to be a normal human being but turned into a Nice Guy after a couple years of dating. i came out of the relationship with a couple of signed comics and some nice action figures.

[janegray]

I have a love-hate relationship with Kotaku.

On the one hand, the actual writers are very cool. They have been posting a bunch of articles and opinion pieces discussing sexism and homophobia, and explaining in no uncertain terms why they are wrong and harmful.

On the other hand, a lot of commenters are asshats. Last time I checked an article about a obnoxious sexist joke (it was something like "if you don't know the name of this extremely popular videogame, you must be a woman!"), a couple of women had spent approximatively 30 seconds to post a few short comments where they dared to admit that the "women don't play videogames" stereotypes annoyed them, and a guy spent hours writing twenty or so longass comments mansplaining how GAWD IT'S JUST A JOKE WHY CAN'T YOU BE RELAZED LIKE ME I TOTALLY DON'T CARE THAT'S WHY I KEEP POSTING AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN TO SHOW HOW MUCH I DON'T CARE STUPID WOMEN WHO WHINE OVER A HARMLESS JOKE TOTALLY UNLIKE ME WHO CAN LET GO WHY CAN'T YOU BE RELAXED LIKE ME???!!!1111111

[whitesycamore]

Omg men are JUST as sexualised! I mean, look at the weirdly proportioned over-muscular apelike Batman model in Arkham City - clearly he was designed with the sexual fantasies of fangirls first and foremost in the developers minds'!

...That's the kind of thing I've come to expect from the Kotaku comments.

[whitesycamore]

I've actually never encountered any bad treatment in any of the comic stores I've been in, and my two local stores both have several female employees.

Online culture and comic books themselves though? Yeah, I've definitely felt alienated there. To tell the truth, there are very few (or no?) big-two titles that I can pick any random issue of and not feel vaguely insulted by on some level.

And at comic book sales, I've encountered some weird treatment - although to be honest most of it was of the "slightly too nice and eager to help" variety.

[darkknightjrk]

Online, a lot of that probably has a lot to do with the anonymous nature of the beast--there are folk in the community who's social skills might not be all up to par, but I would hope that most of them wouldn't say to somebody's face the things they do say to them online.

[junipepper]

And.... this is my personal experience, right there. My LCS (which is not all that "L", anyway; you'd have to be pretty motivated to go) is male geek heaven. Or maybe haven. They don't know how to react when women walk in.

I've been there twice. The first time, a random male customer followed me around the store giving helpful explanations ("See that guy there? That's Superman, he comes from another planet and he has all these powers...."), and wouldn't go away. The second time, the owner/manager greeted my breasts in a friendly manner, asking if this was their first visit and if he could help them with anything in particular. It was really irritating, so we (the three of us) took off. And have not been back. In nearly twenty years.

[junipepper]

To be fair, attitudes may have changed in twenty years. But I'm not going to be the one to find out.

[thefiretonight]

Same here with the never really had a problem being a girl in the LCS. Well, other than being hit on. I guess if I ever got weird looks, it was when I was 12 and shopping for comics on my own while my mom was grocery shopping next to the LCS but it was probably because I was tiny and in a store on my own. [But my mom knew the owner of the store and he watched out for me so it's not like she was leaving her kid behind.]

[thefiretonight]

I should probably also note that there are many more comic stores around me than the average area. But there's really only been one comic store that I've ever felt weird in but that was more that the owner was really rude and short with all his customers, not just me or any other female.

[lissa_quon]

I'm so thankful my local comic store has been a decent place. I've been going to it for years without the proverbial boy friend to tag along and no ones ever bothered me.

I've also been to conventions for business and typically don't have too many problems except for guys asking for my phone number and trying to make it sound like something they need to do business with me.

[lucean]

Holy Hell the commentary section, I also kind of loved the comment on how if you remove the sexist portrayal of female characters from Batman, it will end with Batman being unrecognizable. Which seriously made me take a spit-take and a double-take after that. I generally can not understand how someone can be a fan of that great character and still claim that.

I also have to admit, that while I do think it as one of the best games I've ever played, his point about the gender representations in ARKHAM CITY was unfortunately accurate. My only complaint about the example would be that there was a female character much more crucial to the plot than Poison Ivy, but her clothing options, while slightly better, were still nothing to boast about.

[manicferret]

I have two LCSs; in one I was even during my first visit treated nicely by both customers (male) and staff (male), even bonded over sharing my ethnicity with the owner and talked about "home". I went home with

In my second LCS I was ogled, stared at and condescended the first time, the storekeeper kept on explaining to me who Daredevil was since I had glanced at an issue and asking if I was looking for stuff for my BF. I was so close to hitting him over the head but instead I went into a long discussion on the different writers/artists of DD and the film noir allusions and how I preferred the villains better in certain runs due psychological correctness. The second time I turned up there he was polite.

[manicferret]

Arrgh, damnit, ate my comment.

*I went home with a pile of comics.

In the second store I didn't buy anything and justed ended up dissing his taste in DD.

[turtlefu]

I've heard this argument a lot.
Many male nerds seem to think that being a nerd is that same thing, privilege-wise, as being a woman. Except, no, it's not even vaguely comparable.

Usually it beings with "I'm a feminist!" and then comes something incredibly sexist and male chauvinistic.

[bradygirl_12]

Twenty years ago my LCS was not a comfortable place for me and I eventually gave up buying comics. Now my LCS is very welcoming, has female staff, and I don't feel alienated when I walk in.

[junipepper]

I'm really glad to hear that. Word from my teenage daughters is similar, so hopefully that's a real change.

[arise]

I only go into my LCS with my boyfriend nowadays - it's the only way to actually get served by the staff there. :/ I've had pretty consistent experiences with asking them whether things are in stock/waiting to pay for things/etc. and getting brushed off or ignored, only to then ask bf to go do exactly what I did and to get immediate results.

[red_cyclone]

I used to work in a comic shop, and the gender split there was nearly 50/50, which was amazing, especially good were the couple of times a customer had a question about Vertigo and were referred to me by a male colleague because I knew the answer. Only a few times did I get people not wanting to ask me a question, I can only assume because I'm a girl.
I only tend to shop in that store, because I know it's friendly, and therefore 'safe', and one other where I know one of the girl's who works there, so same thing. I'd be hesitant about going into new shops because I wouldn't know what to expect, I totally self-censor to find the nice ones, but that does mean I haven'thad too many bad receptions.

[kksimone]

I haven't read it because I can't get past the anecdote. He thinks the problem is the other guys in the LCS, not the fact that his girlfriend waited outside because the OP needed to buy his comics right then and there? If you want to get the stuff the day it comes out, that's fine, but maybe take that into consideration when you're planning time with a significant other who has no interest in it?

[icon_uk]

It's hardly uncommon for one of a couple to wait outside while the other goes into a shop to do something that the other has no interest in, and it's usually a two way street.

[liara_shadowsong]

Wow, what an ass! (This comment intended to cover both the rude person in the story, and the legality scan, with obviously two very different connotations. ;P)

[eyz]

Man...why must comic book readers act that way in the US.... :/
*slaps own face*

That's why, with such stereotypes ACTUALLY existing that you can't get enough people actively reading comics like in Japan or Belgium...