You don’t belong: How nerd communities struggle to accept women

Sci-fi and fantasy works have fans of all kinds, but wider fan communities sometimes struggle to accept women. We look at the how and the why.

In 1975, a short story called “A Momentary Taste of Being” was published in The New Atlantis and Other Novellas of Science Fiction. Written by James Tiptree, Jr., “Taste of Being” centered around the experiences of Dr. Aaron Kaye, part of a starship crew on a mission to find a habitable world where members of the human race could settle anew, the Earth having become dangerously overpopulated. The story was nominated for a prestigious Nebula Award and was published two more times, both in collections of Triptee’s stories.

Then, in 1976, it came out that James Triptee was a pseudonym for Alice Sheldon, who had been publishing under the pen name since 1967. “A male name seemed like good camouflage,” Sheldon said in a 1983 issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. “I had the feeling that a man would slip by less observed. I’ve had too many experiences in my life of being the first woman in some damned occupation.” (Before getting serious about writing, Sheldon had worked in the CIA, been a major in the United States Army Air Forces, and earned a doctorate in experimental psychology from George Washington University.)

The world of science fiction and fantasy has changed since the ’70s. Most obviously, a lot more people are into it. Disney has plans to release a new Star Wars movie every year from now until eternity, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead are the biggest things on TV, superheroes dominate the box office, interest in fan conventions is at dizzying highs, and the comics industry is on the grow. Once a niche pursuit, sci-fi, fantasy, and by extension all things nerdy are big business.

But some things remain the same. In 1967, Alice Sheldon decided it would be easier to break into the world of science fiction by pretending to be man. Today, as more and more women openly enjoy nerdy pursuits of all stripes, there remains a strain of resistance to accepting them, sometimes expressed loudly, sometimes quietly, but intractably there.

First of all, it should be noted that women have been integral parts of sci-fi/fantasy fan communities for as long as those communities have existed. For example, female fans were heavily involved in Star Trek fandom in the 1960s, organizing the conventions and editing the fanzines that later transformed into today’s massive gatherings and fan websites. Yet words like “geek” and “nerd” still have a gendered quality to them. When any given person pictures the prototypical nerd, they probably still picture a man.

Also, there’s no one kind of nerd. From movies and TV to video games to tabletop roleplaying and beyond, there are plenty of subcultures out there, and there’s a lot of crossover between them. When surveying over 2600 people who bought tickets to various fandom events throughout 2013 and 2014, Eventbrite found that attendees identified themselves as “superfans” of 3.2 nerd subcultures on average. (Other choices on the survey included Horror, Manga and Graphic Novels, and more.) That means that if you like the new Star Trek movies, you might also have read A Song of Ice and Fire and logged a lot of time in Skyrim, and that’s okay.

But there’s also a persistent instinct to police the boundaries of these subcultures. It bubbled up uncomfortably in 2012 and 2013, when a number of articles debated the idea of the “Fake Geek Girl,” ostensibly a female nerd who attends conventions dressed in cosplay not because she loves nerd culture but because she wants attention. The concept picked up steam when Joe Peacock wrote an article for CNN’s discontinued Geek Out! blog, entitled Booth Babes Need Not Apply.

“They decide to put on a “hot” costume, parade around a group of boys notorious for being outcasts that don’t get attention from girls, and feel like a celebrity,” Peacock wrote of these Fake Geek Girls. “They’re a “6” in the “real world”, but when they put on a Batman shirt and head to the local fandom convention du jour, they instantly become a “9”.”

"They’re poachers. They’re a pox on our culture. As a guy, I find it repugnant that, due to my interests in comic books, sci-fi, fantasy and role playing games, video games and toys, I am supposed to feel honored that a pretty girl is in my presence. It’s insulting."

The conversation continued from there, with impassioned takes from both sides. Genevieve Dempre, also writing on the Geek Out! blog, posted a direct response to Peacock’s article, talking about a double-standard wherein “[t]hese same women who are being derided and dismissed as attention whores and poachers would be all but invisible if they distanced themselves from their sexuality.” Comic book artist Tony Effing Harris wrote a heavily trafficed Facebook post where he accused Fake Geek Girls, en masse, of having “this really awful need for attention” and stated that if any of the men they attract at cons tried to talk to them in another circumstance, “[y]ou wouldn’t give them the fucking time of day. Shut up you damned liar, no you would not.” In response to that, YouTuber albinwonderland uploaded a widely-watched video where she accused Harris and people who shared his opinions as being “the reason that women everywhere feel too intimidated to get into comics, because if we enjoy them and express ourselves in a way that you don’t personally approve of, you try to nerd-cred shame us out of your little boys’ club.”

We could go much further down that rabbit hole if we wanted to, but it suffices to say that the Fake Geek Girl episode exposed some fissures in geek communities, and raised questions about who was allowed to be geek, and who got to decide.

In 2014, another controversy flared up: the Gamergate phenomenon, which was so widely covered that even Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau addressed it. (He’s against it, for the record.) To make a very long story short, it started in 2013 when independent game developer Zoë Quinn released Depression Quest, an interactive fiction game for web browsers. In August of 2014, Quinn’s ex-boyfriend Eron Gjoni wrote a lengthy blog post accusing Quinn of, among other things, having an affair with gaming journalist Nathan Grayson. Soon after, Quinn started received rape and death threats, had her phone number and address published online, and eventually moved out of her house.

As time went on, the Gamergate movement widened in scope and became more organized. Supporters claimed that it wasn’t about harassing developers like Quinn, but rather holding gaming journalists to ethical standards that precluded sexual affairs with developers, since those relationships could lead to biased coverage. (Grayson never wrote a review of Depression Quest, also for the record.) But critics pointed out that, rather than going after the gaming journalists who were violating these standards, most of the movement’s vitriol was reserved for people like Quinn, fellow indie developer Brianna Wu, and feminist video game critic Anita Sarkeesian.

If the movement was truly about journalistic ethics, you’d figure that an allegedly misbehaving journalist like Greyson would get the lion’s share of outrage. And yet, according to a Newsweek analysis of the GamerGate hashtag on Twitter, Quinn received 14 times as many tweets from GamerGate supporters as Greyson. Wu and Sarkeesian received far more.

The Fake Geek Girl and Gamergate controversies were extreme examples. Most women who attend a comic convention don’t have to deal with direct threats on their lives, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t resisted. Generally speaking, that resistance is more banal, and therefore harder to address.

When writing about the Fake Geek Girl movement, clinical psychologist Dr. Andrea Letamendi explored a more subtle kind of pushback, a parade of “seemingly harmless comments…sarcastic jokes, [and]…subtle non-physical exchanges” that can add up to something much bigger than the sum of their parts. She’s talking about microaggressions.

Psychologist Derald Wing Sue, PhD has explored the effects of microaggressions as they relate to race. Let’s look at an example to get the general idea. If a person of color — say someone of African or Hispanic descent — enters a convenience store and is watched especially closely by the proprietor, they might chalk it up to him or her being paranoid…if it happened just the once. But if it happens on a regular basis, they get the impression that they’re being singled out and sent a message, one based on their race rather than who they are as individual: ‘You are poor. You are not trustworthy. You are going to steal.’

Microaggressions can be more innocuous than that, and can even take the form of compliments. Imagine a third-generation person of Asian descent being told, “You speak English very well.” A compliment, but one with a hidden message: ‘You are a foreigner.’ Or a black person being told, “You are so articulate.” Another compliment, but when that person hears it over and over, an undertone seeps in: ‘It is unusual for someone of your race to be intelligent.’

These sorts of exchanges can be tricky to deal with, since while the person on the receiving may feel insulted or threatened, the person on the other end is unaware that they might have given offense. If the person of color expresses their unhappiness, they risk being labeled as oversensitive by someone who genuinely had no ill intent. And if they don’t say anything, they swallow their offense and let it stew. According to Dr. Sue’s research, the pressures of constant microaggressions can drain people of energy, contribute to chronic fatigue, and inspire frustration and anger.

It’s not hard to make the jump to female fans in nerd communities here. We talked to several fans about their experiences.

• Katie and her friend visited a comic book store in Indiana. There was a Magic: The Gathering tournament on. “And as soon as we opened the door, automatically it was all eyes on us…Suddenly everyone’s staring at us confused, like they thought we were there to ask for directions somewhere else.”
• Dorothy described playing Pokémon cards in tournaments with her brother when she was younger. “I was never taken seriously and when I won (which was almost always) they would be very surprised. Frequently, I would hear “Oh! You just got beat by a girl!” and I always was proud of that, but now I see it as discrimination.”
• Kirstin: “I haven’t gotten any outright rude comments personally. Guys definitely always express shock that I could like these things.”

We’re not saying that any of these experiences, taken alone, are life-changing, or even that they can’t be laughed off later. But as part of a bigger pattern, one that women deal with in these communities all the time, they’re sending a message, intended or not: ‘You don’t belong.’

Because microaggressions are rooted in unconscious bias, they can be very difficult to curb. Dr. Letamendi, who talked with us via email, recommends self-examination on the part of men in these communities. “Obviously, questioning, quizzing and second-guessing a woman’s fandom are often received as insulting and exclusionary,” she writes. “Jumping to conclusions about female fans–e.g., assumptions that female fans always prefer female heroes over male heroes in the medium, a love story over a war story, in short, gender stereotyping — can also be an unwelcoming approach. Seeking a secondary or “real” explanation for any person’s fandom, whether male or female, can be particularly distancing and off-putting. Any kind of cognitive “short-cut” based on a person’s gender, orientation or other facet of their identity should be avoided.”

Self-examination is difficult, particularly when the people doing it may not see the need — remember, people behind microaggressions aren’t being purposefully malicious. But it’s one way forward to a more inclusive future.

Another way forward is representation. Whether women are always welcome in nerd communities, they’re there. According to that Eventbrite survey, attendees at fan conventions in 2012 and 2013 were about 55% male, 45% female. At the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con, the biggest event of its kind, the split was closer to 50-50, per The Washington Post. Vitally, research also shows that men and women were equally willing to spend money at these events. If women want studio execs, video game developers and comic book creators to make content for them, few things will speak louder than their dollars.

When it comes to all things nerdy, stories about the closing gap between men and women are everywhere, both for fans and those producing material for fans. For example, after a steady climb, about as many women now “Like” comics on Facebook as men. In 2014, Nicole Perlman became the first woman to write a superhero movie for Marvel (Guardians of the Galaxy), and a generation of female authors raised on Harry Potter are ready to enter the world of sci-fi/fantasy publishing.

Heidi MacDonald, editor at comics website The Beat, is excited about the move towards gender parity. “Obviously, social media made it possible for women to express themselves without gatekeepers telling them what is or isn’t appropriate,” she told The Post, “and there was also a sea change among young women that it’s okay to be interested in this stuff.”

Katie, the women who received those curious looks in the Indiana comic shop, agrees that the internet, for all its traps, can provide a place where likeminded women can connect over their shared nerdy passions. “[Y]ou start sharing interests with scores of people across the world and you start realizing, ‘Oh, I’m not the only one who’s interested in these things.’ So it starts to kind of expand, and we can talk about it more now.”

"So I think as long as we address the hate, to continue to educate and make other girls feel like it’s okay for them to like what we like, things will work out…I think as long as we keep doing that, then eventually this isn’t going to be a big deal. Eventually it’s going to be the norm and people aren’t even going to think twice about it. But I think that it’s gonna take a long time, like with any social reconstruction. It’s gonna be a while, but we just gotta keep at it."

How long is a while? Well, Alice Sheldon was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2012, 45 years after she published her first story under the name James Triptee, Jr. Hopefully the reconstruction won’t take quite that long, but it it won’t go anywhere if we don’t work on it.

Note: An earlier version of this story included a quote from Devin Faraci, who stepped down from his position as editor of Birth.Movies.Death after being accused of sexual assault. His quote has since been removed.