Credit: flickr / nataliej
On the one hand, I’m delighted that Geeks are now pretty cool, and that all kinds of people who wouldn’t have before used it as a descriptor for themselves proudly own it.
On the other, my friends and I were discussing this “WAG” culture that has come as a result, and something we were terming “the girlfriend”.
Usage: “Oh X? She’s not a techie, she’s a girlfriend“.
Meaning: A woman near tech, by virtue of the fact she’s dating a techie.
Here’s what bothers me. A woman being celebrated as a “techie” when the actual “techie” work is being done by someone else (note, this does not necessarily have to be her boyfriend, we’ve just observed that to often be the case). If her boyfriend was into football, there’d be a similar role for her – coming up with “strategy”, promoting the team, whatever, but here’s the difference – no-one would be calling her a “female footballer”.
It’s frustrating to me and my friends, because we need more women in technology as role models. But we want those role models to promote being a geek not dating a geek! Geek culture is transmissible, but ML is not, it turns out, an STD.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of dating geeks, and glad that geeks are having an easier time finding dates. But we want to inspire women to stay up late at night learning how to code their own idea, not just to ride on the talent of someone else. Can we not describe someone who’s little more than a lead user as a “developer”? Can we be clear about the distinction between commenting on technology, and actually building things?
There’s a role for the girlfriend, for the lead user, for the commenter, but I think it’s a supporting one. I think we need to be clear who does what. People organizing talks and panels don’t always understand the difference, or that a woman who can’t actually write a line of code has little credibility presenting on that topic to a crowd of people who do.
Anyway, next time you see a girlfriend being lauded rather than a genuine tech woman, call it out. Suggest a better role model, or be that yourself. Explain the difference.
I know it’s hard. Every awesome technical woman I know is completely overcommitted. Maybe we’re not standing in the spotlight because we’re actually getting shit done. However the alternative is we have the story of what it means to be a tech woman told by the girlfriend, or another woman near tech, instead.
Sorry girlfriend, you’re not a geek. You can totally be one of us though, we’d love you to join us; but it does take some work to earn it.
Nice post.
Last Friday, we were walking to the video store (yes, they still exist), and we past a school yard. A group of boys were planning tag football and being cheered on by a group of girl cheerleaders.
I said to my husband that I will struggle when my daughter grows up and tells me she wants to be a cheerleader – I want her to play the sport, not sit on the sidelines encouraging others to do so.
And my husband, the great guy that he is, pointed out that there was one girl playing tag football. We stood and watched for a bit, and she was playing well. But I couldn’t help but notice that she was dressed as unnoticeable as possible, her hair pulled back, the same clothes as the guys, and she wasn’t cheering and getting all ego the same way the guys did when they made a good play.
Meanwhile, the girls in the cheerleading uniforms were all made-up and being as loud and visibly present as they possible could.
My husband bent down to my daughter and said to her that we will cheer for her on the sidelines as she plays on the pitch. And I leaned down to her and said if you really want to be a cheerleader, you can, but you also have to be on the pitch sometimes too – we will have to work together to find a balance.
That interaction very much reminds me of your post.
Thanks Meggin, this post got a lot of flak when it was on Geek Feminism – mostly the result of my poor word choices (for that context) I hope but there was some beyond that and it was really depressing to me – was I alone in being bothered by this? Was I just articulating it really badly? But your story – that’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s fine to be a cheerleader (don’t we all need them?), but it’s important to see that it’s a choice. I hope it’s possible to be both