Given the community, I thought this might be of interest

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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

[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.