Not a pretty geek.

It’s never really a secret that I’m a nerd. I’ve always been one of those people who’s a bit stuck when people ask what my hobbies are, or what I like to do in my free time, because it’s always been....homework? Or at least, procrastinating from doing my homework? Video games never seem like a very socially acceptable answer – nor does reading fantasy literature aimed for children. For these reasons, over the course of my life it’s also become clearer and clearer to me that I’m a geek. Maybe some super geeks wouldn’t consider me a geek, but I think most non-geeky people would – so I guess I’m not enough of a geek to know exactly where I fall on the geek  continuum but I’m enough of one to know I’m on there somewhere. I still consider the night Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out as one of the greatest nights of my life (the book obviously). My biggest regret about high school is that my parents did let us have video game consoles (can something you have no control over be a regret?).  I guess my Mum made up for it by making amazing costumes for my siblings and I to attend the Lord of the Rings premieres in – also highlights of my youth. Anyway – fantasy, sci-fi, books, video games, dragons, cosplay – I love it all. But something I really don’t like is this new fad in “hot geeks”. Sorry, not “hot geeks” but “hot geeks” who are, as far as I can tell, assumed to be girls. 

I’ve read a few blogs on this (because what else would I do with my time?) but most of them have focused on the need to specify that that a geek is a girl (the identity of “girl geek” rather than “hot geek” ) and on the fact that even just being a girl who participates in “male activities” is seen as something which has to be identified and which is something of a novelty (hence the need to call her a “girl geek” rather than a “geek”).  I also think though that this emerging (well, emerged I guess) focus on the hotness of the girl plays a huge role in making this whole being a girl who likes boy things  ok because, while it’s supposed to be an even bigger novelty, it also makes it alright because this girl isn’t really transgressing boundary roles -she’s retaining her femininity by being “hot” and hence, sexually available to men. I do (mostly) agree that it shouldn’t matter if a geek is a boy or a girl, although I do think that, due to the centrality of gender to identities, and the lack of “feminine” subject positions in geek culture (male protagonists in many novels, films, games etc), there does need to be an opening up of this space for a variety of gendered subject positions – because right now “geek” does tend to imply “man” and that’s problematic. BUT instead of getting into all that nitty gritty stuff, in this particular entry, I’m going to focus on the “hot” part – because that’s the part that gets my back up these days, and I’ll just warn you now, this is less critical feminist analysis and more ranty, personal bitterness at being distinguished as “hot” or “not hot” in yet another aspect of my life. 

So, it’s not that I think being hot and also a geek is a bad thing, or impossible, or makes you less of a geek or not authentic or anything. I mean, there is a (I tell myself small) part of me that is jealous that some girls get to be both, but ultimately, I think being a geek should just be about being a geek. It is tricky though, because I did spend a lot of my younger years telling myself that it’s ok I’m not pretty because I’m smart and if I had to chose one, I would chose to be smart...but then came the realization that some girls are both, which is TOTALLY FINE! (says the feminist in me. The 12 year old girl in me still doesn’t think it’s fair). And it is fine, obviously – jokes and insecurities aside I am NOT about beauty-shaming. It is a horrible, and hopefully outdated stereotype to think that a girl can only be one or the other, or that you have to chose, or that being pretty makes you less of a nerd, or stupider or even not a feminist or anything at all. But when, as a pre-teen, I had this revolutionary “girls can be both” epiphany, it wasn’t really about realizing that a girl could be both pretty and smart, but that she should be both pretty and smart – that being smart wasn’t an excuse to let yourself go, and that being smart wasn’t nearly enough (enough for what? Still not sure).  I mean, why else would I somehow find myself years later arguing with an otherwise rational human being that it didn’t fucking matter if Margaret Atwood looked ugly in the author photo on the back of her latest award winning, mind blowing, piece of feminist eco-criticism  - she’s Margaret Fucking Atwood for Christ’s sake! I mean, if anyone’s immune to this kind of evaluation from teenage boys, shouldn’t it be her? (and yes, I’m pretty sure that IS her middle name). Anyway, it wasn’t exactly thrilling to have to come to terms with the sad fact that how I look will always be central to the way people perceive/accept/act towards me, especially as a homely, nerdy, awkward girl at a new school. And I say especially, but I mean, I’m sure it’s hard for everyone (though I do think it’s more of an issue for women – feel free to take me to town on that). That’s not to say it’s impossible to go through life as a not-pretty girl  - but it can be tough knowing your looks will always be up for judgement, commentary, and ridicule and it’s something I sometimes don’t care about, but often do care about. 

Anyway, the thing I hate the most about this “hot geek” thing is that instead of just making the point that geeky girls CAN be attractive, it’s seems to be establishing yet another area in my life (and other women’s lives) in which the way I look (or don’t look) is central to my identity. It’s not that I want a continuation of the belief that geeky girls (or boys) are overweight, glasses wearing, pimply, socially awkward pariahs in sweatpants who will never get laid, (despite my ability to relate to that particular version) it’s that I don’t want it to fucking matter. Being a geek is supposed to be about not caring that you like stupid shit that everyone else thinks is super lame  - and for a youngish girl who doesn’t really fit in (aka me in high school and early undergrad) it can also be one of those wonderful ways of saying “fuck you” to society – like my sad attempt at a hipster phase, or how I might have become emo if I’d been born juuuuust a little later. I’ve always seen it as one of those identities that’s available to people who are struggling, but who know that they don’t want to be (omg I can’t believe I’m saying this) mainstream (GASP!).  And yes, for me at least (and I suspect for others) part of that is telling the mainstream (???) “You don’t want me? Well who gives a shit, because I never wanted to be part of you anyway”.  And part of that, for me, was saying, I don’t care if I’m not “pretty” – I’m a nerd; I’m a geek, and I don’t want to conform to your stupid ideals anyway. Now, I realize this may not be what society hears, but I always found saying it made me feel better about the ways I wasn’t succeeding at being pretty, or popular, or sexy or whatever. And I think that starts to fall apart when being a “geeky girl” gets tied to being hot – like in this very outdated article (the first thing to come up on google when you search “hot geek”.

http://www.manolith.com/2009/10/12/12-hottest-geek-girls/

 If you don’t want to read it, or are distracted by the eye candy, it sets out three qualifiers for girls to claim the identity “geek girl”:

                

 “There are criteria that must be met to make a proper geek girl; she must be geeky, she must be a techie, and she must be hot” 

Bolding, btw, is from the original. Now, leaving apart the fact that I think (hope) I can still be a geek without being a techie, is the question of whether or not I can be a “geek girl” if I’m not hot. They haven’t even bothered to specify that this criteria for a “hot geek girl” just a “proper” one. Does this mean that if I’m not hot I’m not a geek? Or just not a “geek girl”?  Can I still be a boy geek? Or a gender neutral geek? If the presumed gender of the identity “geek” is male,  what special label do I claim if I’m a geek who identifies as a woman, but who also doesn’t consider myself “hot”?

Anyway, I’m not an angsty teenager anymore (I think), and while I no longer wear dark emo lipstick or skirts over jeans (just the HEIGHT of alternative fashion), I do still claim the geek identity, because as much as part of that identity was a rejection of the mainstream, it’s also just because I love geeky things. I don’t really know that I had a choice in this, given that I was brought up by self confessed trekkies, and my sister used to make me watch the 1970s animated version of the Hobbit or Star Wars when we were little, even though the former gave me nightmares and I just wanted to watch Anne of Green Gables (incidentally a movie about a girl who is smart, but not pretty). One of my favourite memories of my Dad is when he dressed up as a mage for my medieval themed 9^th birthday party during some convoluted fantasy treasure hunt game through the house (my childhood was so fucking awesome).  And despite the no video games thing (more for the violence I think, and maybe because it would keep us away from homework) we still played a ton fantasy computer games – every single Kings Quest ever made and – my all time favourite - Inherit the Earth (I still get the ferret village song stuck in my head from time to time. Shit – there it is). And, I mean, there were times I wanted to be cool – where I wanted to fit in; but I never wanted to give up my geeky ways to do it. There was this time when my Mum told me maybe if I made real friends, I wouldn’t have to spend so much time in “fantasy worlds” (she meant Middle Earth – fantasy world of the moment). At the time I cried and yelled at her for making me move again because THAT was the reason I didn’t have friends, but in retrospect...part of the reason I didn’t have friends is because I would rather have been in Middle Earth. Or at Hogwarts. Hell, I’d still rather be there – why the hell does anyone think I moved to England? (btw, not as many wizards as I thought, but there are a lot of short people...).  Huge life regret for me is the night I let my high school friends convince me to go see a shitty movie (wedding crashers possibly? *Shudder*) instead of going to the midnight release of Half Blood Prince at Chapters. It’s one of the few moments I gave in because I wanted to have friends, and be cool...but then I left the theatre and saw this guy walking down Princess Street holding his copy of HBP and my heart just sank and I realised that I didn’t actually want friends that badly – at least not friends who would rather watch shitty movies than read awesome books. I would way rather have dressed up and gone to a fucking bookstore at midnight, with my family, wearing a cape, and spend the early hours of the morning reading a book. I just wish I’d known that at the time, but I guess at least I know it now.

This has gone from feminist rant to reliving of my childhood, but I guess that’s why it’s a blog no one but my sister will read as opposed to an essay I’ll get marked on. Anyway, my point is that I love fantasy, and dressing up, and living alternate lives through costumes and RPG because I just do – the rejection of the mainstream that came with it was wonderful, but I guess I’m also trying to argue that I am a legitimate geek – always that darn question of authenticity.  And while it was and is an escape from real life, and from not fitting it – for me at least – it IS real life. I guess I can see why people think geeks are sad lonely people – but it’s not that I engage in these kinds of things because I CAN’T have other things – it because I WANT them more than I want the other things. And I have never, ever, regretted wearing a Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings costume and letting it be known that I fucking love this shit – at least not in the long term. And the only time I really regretted spending hours on a video game is when 12 hours of staring at a screen fucked my eyes and made it look like I was high for the next two days – actually, I don’t regret that at all. I love the costumes, and I love the games, and I love the books more than I love anything– but I also love that they did give me a means by which to tell society, and to tell myself I guess, that I reject the role it’s laid out for me as a woman, and that it helped me find/discover/create an alternative to that role – one that I could relate to, and occupy whole-heartedly, and love. 

I’m not making a fuss about it because I think being a geek is a radically feminist move that I’ve so amazingly discovered and that THAT’s the only legitimate claim to a female geek identity – it’s just because I think that a lot of girls and women turn to geek culture as a place where they can be themselves without constantly having to perform the role of “pretty girl” and because I hate that it seems that that’s something that’s being chipped away.  This whole big deal that’s been made about “hot geeks” feels like it’s tainting the feeling of liberation that I felt when I embraced that identity. Not that there have never been problems – video games have, until recently, almost always had male protagonists, and female superheros are usually presented as sexual fantasies rather than complex characters (I had well rounded in there, but changed it) and many, many other things. But I wish that I could feel that when I talk to other people about this stuff it’s because we both like it, and not because I’m participating in some new strategy of getting a man –which is something that  a lot of the other blogs/commentaries have talked about.  Making being a girl geek about being ‘hot’ implicitly makes it about being attractive to men.  And I mean, it’s not like I’ve never hit on guys by surprising them with video game knowledge or anything like that. But I did it because they came to the store I worked in with an EB games bag, so I’d bring it up because it’s something I already liked and isn’t that the kind of thing people are supposed to start conversations over? Mutual interests? But by hypersexualizing geeky girls, I feel like it positions me not as a “geek”- not as part of a subculture along with people that share my interests - but as something else which is available for the “real geeks” – the boy geeks – to enjoy.  And suddenly, cosplay is less about playing dress up and pretending to be your favourite character, and more about showing off your body and basically becoming the sexualized, comic book, sex fantasies that, in many ways have historically alienated women from geek culture in the first place.  And the geeky costume is really just something that makes a hot girl EVEN HOTTER as opposed...I dunno...more interesting? And I shouldn’t care, and if it was just about introducing an additional identity for women to partake in, I guess maybe I wouldn’t – but (again, blog, not essay) I can’t help but take it as a personal blow that geekiness is one more area of my life in which I’m now expected to be hot, and to be a sexual object for men instead of someone who is partaking in this culture for her own reasons. And that of course relates to my own experience of feeling like I’ve lived most of my life unable to live up to however many beauty ideals, and of thinking that I found a subculture, community, and identity where those ideals didn’t apply, and suddenly realising that it apparently does matter if you look like this:

Instead of this:

So, yeah, maybe that’s just me and my bitterness and insecurity. But like I said, the more formal feminist analyses are out there, and I this blog is more about me bitching about things that piss me off, so whatever

A while ago I read this really great blog about sexy cosplay costumes, with specific reference to the “Slave Leia costume”; I can’t find it anymore (because I’m not one of those geeks whose good at the internet I guess?) but I can sum it up: Basically  argues against the notion that the huge trend in cosplay participants wearing the “slave Leia” costume is “empowering” women, and specifically empowering women geeks; it does NOT argue that these costumes are inherently “bad” in and of themselves, but just that if people want to wear them, they should do it for other reasons because the empowering thing doesn’t fly – and I really agree with that. I mean, I like Princess Leia, problematic as her character is (especially the fact that such a ‘strong’ female character gets put with the dominating, uber-masculine Han Solo instead the whiny, less macho Luke Skywalker (who, whatever Lucas said, I don’t think was originally going to be her brother – I’m sorry, but they friggin make out – if he knew all along then...well....hm) because, unfeminine as she may be, at least if she’s with someone even more ‘masculine’ than her gender roles are maintained. Sorry, side note ).  Ok, as much as a like Princess Leia, if I wanted to dress up like her and pretend to be her, I’d dress up in one of her outfits where she’s...I dunno...sending secret messages or yelling at soldiers, or doing pretty much anything besides being a sexual slave to a giant slug – that’s just not exactly the moment when I want to be her. And I mean, if that is the moment you want to be her, then great, I guess, but is that really what so many hot, young women want? Just to be a sex slave to a slug? Trying not to sound judgemental here...I mean, I’m all for exploring your sexuality through geeky role play. My problem isn’t that it happens, it’s because it happens with so much hype, and with so much defense that this is such a wonderful radical move for empowering women and for giving them a place to take part in cosplay,  even though they are empowering themselves by dressing as a supposedly strong, female “politician” (well, Princess) at the moment when she is being intentionally degraded by Jabba the Hut (as well as by George Lucas). Again, it makes me question the way geeky girls are positioned within geek culture as objects rather than participants. I don’t want for that to be what being a girl geek necessarily means. I don’t want that to be the assumption, or the expectation, for me or for other girls. I want to be able to talk about Elder Scrolls, or Assasins Creed with boys without them picturing this:

Geek and Gamer Girls 

(if you watched that..well..sorry. Also, it's described as a "parody"..of what? am I missing something? is this ironic?)

Or I guess, if I’m giving boys SOME credit, I want to talk about it without me thinking that that’s what they’re picturing? 

I just wish claiming a space for female geeks, or opening up gendered positions within geek culture could involve more clothes? Playing video games for me, incidentally, does usually involve clothes because a) I’m usually in my mother’s basement and it’s cold down there, and b) Playing video games for me is about...playing video games. Not holding a controller strategically over my crotch or breasts. If I’m not in pyjamas or my everyday clothes, it’s because my friend and I have put on our Harry Potter costumes to play the duelling club on Half Blood Prince for Wii (not a great game, but the duelling option is pretty awesome) (also, Harry Potter costumes in picture a, not b!).  This isn’t to say that playing video games naked isn’t a legitimate pastime or being a hyper-sexual geek isn’t a valid subject position. I just worry that it’s the only one, or the dominant one, being made available to geeky girls and that sucks.

If you think I’m reading too much into this, well...maybe you’re right. I know that there is still a place for a non-hot geek girl in this world -especially when so much geek culture involves not going out into society. And there are some really great women geek bloggers who are proving that (that there's a space for us, not the whole not going into society thing). And I guess I’m happy that the stereotype about geekiness being a guy thing is being broken down – I just wish it wasn’t being done through the justification that we can still be hot while being geeks; I wish that hotness  and sexual availability wasn’t yet again being used to prove that geeky girls can retain their femininity; I wish that retaining that femininity wasn’t so important; and I guess I just wish that this part of my own identity- this thing that is so sacred to me, and which brings me so much joy, could be more easily kept separate from my anxieties around my looks – anxieties which I do take responsibility for, and which I continue to struggle with as a “feminist”, but which I think our culture makes genuinely difficult for women to ever really overcome; and I wish there were more spaces/identities for young (and old!) women that were free from the pressures of being attractive, and I wish that this particular subculture hadn’t made one’s level of sexual attractiveness central; that one’s identity as a geek didn’t need to be qualified by words like “hot” or “girl”. 

Anyway. Rant of the moment.   Off to do some real work.