On Nerdery and Feminism, Part I

After cycling through the same few conversations about feminism and gender issues with quite a few people – many times! – I’ve realised that it probably wouldn’t hurt to record some of my ideas here. That way, I can lay out my positions really well with no interruptions and a greater chance at ensuring clarity. Interruptions and a lack of clarity are two things that often stymie the effectiveness of quick, rapid-fire discussion that occurs in real life or on the internet, and they become even worse when people have entered a conversation already firmly holding a position and are very, very keen to hang on to that position. I end up talking at cross-purposes with so many perfectly intelligent, well-meaning people, and I’ve realised that this is quite often due to assumptions that they have about things that I believe because I’m a feminist.

It’s pretty fascinating to really listen to and analyse some of the conversations starters I get. Some people like to do an Ask a Feminist type discussion with me, which is fine – I actually do enjoy that and am happy to give a feminist point of view on a given matter. It is, however, always given with the firm caveat that I am but one of very many and that my take on a matter could vary wildly from other feminists’, and I hope this warning is taken on by the people I chat with. This Ask a Feminist conversation is usually initiated by people who have an idea of what A Feminist is, and what A Feminist thinks, so I usually tend to do a little clarification before we get stuck into the question – what does the person think I think? What does the person expect me to say? What preconceptions do I need to knock on the head before we even begin?

I think it is not unreasonable to say that going through this process with people is quite rewarding for us both. I like listening to people, I like understanding their ideas and their mindset, and – most of all – I like engaging with people in a meaningful way, i.e. in such a way that we each come away from the conversation improved in some way, and this can only happen when we’re speaking the same language, using the same points of reference, and doing what we can to understand the other person’s ideas in good faith. Getting the opportunity to make sure we’re on the same page is so important to me when talking about things that are potentially contentious, and are things that can be discussed as abstract things, sure, but that are ultimately about people’s lives and feelings and experiences. There are many gender issues that I can and do discuss in a detached, dispassionate way, but the effort I sometimes need to put into doing so can be huge. I am fairly businesslike in discussing most topics, even those that most deeply stir the fire in me, but it is an odd and unpleasant feeling to be holding a relatively normal, calm conversation while feeling ready to break down on the inside. Some topics strike right in that spot that I picture at the centre of a Venn diagram with a circle titled “rationality” and another circle entitled “passion”. Perhaps more importantly, I sometimes find myself discussing some things in this manner, and then realise how absurd or actually insulting it is to do so – especially about topics that I can easily afford to look at in a dispassionate light.

I’m quite sure that my ideas on various issues will change as I think more and learn more and talk to people about them. I’d be a little disappointed (and worried, really) if my thinking never underwent any meaningful changes from gaining greater knowledge – whether my ideas are strengthened or demolished, or something in between. Even just in the last few months, I’ve become friends with some fantastically interesting people who have done huge things to my worldview, and begun reading more material that’s done likewise. I’ve cleaned quite a few cobwebs out of my brain and it feels pretty wonderful.

There are a few current-ish feminist issue or gender issues that I’d like to tackle, but I don’t want to do a half-arsed job of any. The second part of this post will talk about just one, then – a broad issue that’s been a feature in feminist spheres for a while now, and that has recently been given a kick in the pants by a few bloggers. The recent reinvigoration of this issue started with a post on MIT professor Scott Aaronson’s blog Shtetl-Optimized, or, rather, the comments section of this post. It’s now spawned a range of responses appearing on various blogs, special interest sites, and even in relatively mainstream media. I guess you could describe it, generally, as the tension between the world of feminism and the nerd world largely populated by heterosexual men who are often shy, often socially awkward and unskilled, frequently highly intelligent and studying or working in a STEM field, have typically nerdy interests and hobbies (tabletop gaming, computer games, sci fi, comics, etc), and have little to no experience with dating. I do not presume to speak for either of these groups, of course.

I am, of couse, a feminist, which is label that I am not shy about using. I’m also a pretty big nerd – and no, not in the fashionable way. In the dorky, unsexy way. I’d like to use these two facets of mine to offer a set of ideas about the tension between feminism and the nerd world, and hopefully offer something interesting and thoughtful and maybe insightful. I don’t wish this to be a “finding the middle ground” kind of thing (even though that’s pretty much what it looks like) because – as you’ll see – I actually don’t think it’s always useful to frame these things in terms of people being in different camps and on opposing sides and so forth. What I am trying to do is simply present myself as someone who’s had experiences with and has knowledge of both worlds, and to explain how each has given me something truly valuable in life. I’ve dredged through memories and feelings and lessons from some of the most desperately unhappy and deeply depressed times of my life, and offer my own story as food for thought.

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For those unfamiliar: the blog entry that (perhaps indirectly) spawned the current debate, is about MIT professor Walter Lewin, recently been found to have sexually harassed students online. Part of the university’s actions in response to this has been to remove Lewin’s lectures from OpenCourseWare, an online resource where MIT publishes course materials available to students and the general public. Aaronson is quite firm in denouncing sexual harassment, and also argues that Lewin’s courses ought to not be removed from OpenCourseWare as this would unfairly punish students who are benefiting from material delivered by one of the finest physics lecturers in the world. We’ve seen issues played out in recent times that differ in the details, but have a similar core issue. However, that’s not what the ultimate controversy has become centred on here.

The comments section of this post became quite busy. “Amy” commented with points both about Lewin and about women in STEM fields generally, and Scott responded with the now-famous comment #171. Do go and read this – it’s both integral to my own ideas that will follow, and a heart-wrenching glimpse into Scott’s life that I know has resonated with many for various reasons.

In this comment, Scott responds to some points made by Amy; he recalls feminist books and literature that he’s read, describes his lack of identification with the idea of having male privilege, and then describes spending his younger years terrified of romantic or sexual interaction with women. He describes feeling paranoid and suffering from self-hatred, and of wishing to have been born into some other identity that had no attraction to women (begging his psychiatrist to prescribe him drugs to chemically castrate him), and thoughts of suicide. Academic interests were the only thing that kept him going. He also recalls seeing women responding positively to crude courtship behaviour from men – the kind of behaviour that he was so fearful would produce revulsion and rejection from women. He eventually says that he ended up achieving success in his field of academia, which gave him confidence in other areas of life and allowed him to have what he calls a regular dating life, and end up meeting a women who he’s now married to. This, he says, was done in defiance of feminism – in defiance of the ideas that he’d held so close about the risks of asking a woman out. Scott talks of his struggle to reconcile his life experiences with his desire to maintain ideas of liberalism and feminism, saying that he now feels as though he’s about 97% on board with feminism. He describes shy, nerdy males as some of society’s least privileged individuals, detailing the bullying and derision and feelings of shame that these men suffer. Finally, he ends with the observation that there is no support for young men who suffer in this way – only therapists and activists who deliver and reinforce the message that such men are privileged and entitled and at fault in this situation.

I don’t want to spend much energy dissecting Scott’s comment; he’s posted a few statements and things that clarify his meaning in the parts of the comment that sounded most “off” to me, and besides – I am loathe to pick apart or write dismissively about a person’s heart-wrenching account of their own struggles in life. I feel like the post was made in good faith by a man who has hurt a lot in his time, and I respect the sheer bravery involved in putting that kind of story online – especially by a person who is somewhat in the public eye in his profession.

I read a bunch of responses to this from various quarters – an excellent piece from the ever-brilliant and thought-provoking Scott Alexander, some articles from AVfM and other MRA-ish websites, and, of course, thoughts from the feminist sphere. The two feminist pieces I’ve seen most widely distributed are those by Laurie Penny and Amanda Marcotte, and another one worth mentioning is this one from Arthur Chu.

I’ve had quite a strong reaction to this debate, because it touches me deeply at the core of who I am, I guess. It sounds a little overwrought to put it like that, but it’s not inaccurate. So, thoughts.

I. Feminism

Feeling like you’re not the Right Kind of something is a powerful and disturbing feeling. For a long time I felt that I wasn’t the Right Kind of Woman. I didn’t know how to do make-up but I felt like it was something I should probably care about and be good at, I didn’t like to wear particularly feminine clothes all the time, I struggled to cultivate many of the typical interests and hobbies of girls I knew, I was socially awkward and nervous, I found boys terrifying (in an “oh god cannot let crushfeelings be known!” sort of way; they made for good platonic friends, though), I felt much more comfortable at home watching science fiction and war films than out and about socialising or shopping. However, I did possess some things that I felt helped me fit the Right Kind of Woman mould a little better: having a nice singing voice, a love of jewellery, long hair. During times when I felt especially anxious about not being a girl in the right way, these things were comforting (… so try to imagine the deeply conflicted feelings involved in cutting my hair off a few years ago! Looking back, it’s amazing to realise how exhausting it is to be beholden to gender norms).

Of course, I now know that there isn’t any correct way to be a woman. There are, however, some incredibly powerful norms and tropes and stereotypes that an insecure young lady can easily amalgamate into some conception of the best way to be a girl, and that kind of idea can take root very deeply and may only be detached with much difficulty.

I’ve really always been a feminist, but finding my way into the world of explicitly feminist groups and communities has been hugely significant for me. Feminism has been instrumental in normalising my perception of myself, in helping me to see worth in myself. The overwhelming positivity and affirmation I have found in feminism has helped me to become a much happier and (mentally) healthier person. Reading Scott’s ideas about feminism was pretty fascinating for me, because it barely resembles the feminism that has shaped my life in wonderful ways. (A not-so-brief aside here: I was especially interested to read Scott’s mention of Andrea Dworkin’s work: he says “I like howls of anguish much more than bureaucratic boilerplate, so in some sense, the more radical the feminist, the better I can relate”. I question the wisdom of launching into such polarising work without a solid base knowledge of feminist theory and an understanding of the position that Dworkin’s work holds in the feminist canon. Scott may have had that knowledge, sure, but even so – choosing to absorb the most radical elements of an ideology can be a dangerous business if a person doesn’t truly know what they’re reading. Dworkin’s work is compelling, but it is far from the first thing I’d give to someone looking for feminist literature. Intercourse, the book Scott mentions, was written nearly thirty years ago; it is an important text, of course, but sits awkwardly alongside modern feminist ideas.)

From learning how to tell gender norms to fuck off, to gaining confidence in the academic world, to ceasing my stress over my fluctuating weight and periodically acne-prone skin, I feel like an enormous burden of worry has been slowly lifting ever since I became aware of this ideology that assures me that there is some base level of worth and dignity that each person deserves, and that there is no right or wrong way to “be” a gender. These ideas can obviously be found in many different places, but they’d never pierced my thick shell of insecurity until I came to them through feminism. What might seem like basic ideas were easy for me to accept in the abstract, but not to apply to myself.

So, I owe a lot to feminism. I realise that, and I try to not let my personal sense of gratitude and attachment to the ideology to stop me from viewing it in an objective way and recognising its flaws and failing.

Each criticism of feminism in Aaronson’s Comment #171 stung, regardless of how much I felt it was or wasn’t fair. As a feminist, I am fully aware that the things that feminists say and do can cause people to get upset, or angry, or frustrated, but I mostly think about this in terms of how angry feminism might make the run-of-the-mill sexist person who doesn’t want their beliefs questioned or challenged or proven wrong. In that instance, things are fairly clear-cut. There are few parts of the world (and it is shameful that some still exist) where a truly sexist idea won’t be rebutted and combatted by feminism and liberalism; people who really do think things like “women ought to be paid less for performing the same task as a man” are either rare, or have been sufficiently shamed by societal norms into not saying it out loud. Further, the third wave has notably seen feminists themselves critiquing previously concrete feminist ideas in significant ways and recognising that the feminism of past years has not always been a force for good. It is a troubled movement in many ways, but I know there are many amazing things coming from third wave feminists too.

However, in considering how feminist ideas might frustrate people who are on side, for want of a better phrase, but who are a bit dubious about some aspects of feminism, it is necessary to ask and answer some potentially uncomfortable questions. It is always tough to do this, to truly listen to and accept critiques of ideas one holds very dear. As a baby political scientist I have learned to do this reasonably well with my politics, but applying it to ideas that are so personally connected to me has been a much tougher journey.

Ultimately, without a healthy amount of self-examination and adjustment, any movement or idea or concept will undoubtedly run into trouble. We know very well that feminism is in no way exempt from this, and to use that most hackneyed of phrases: change needs to come from within.

Scott raises some valid and concerning points about modern feminism that I think are very much worth exploring further (Scott Alexander raises similar points about social justice generally in various blog entries, like this one). I accept that some feminist rhetoric and behaviour does not have productive and positive motivations, and is based primarily around making fun of certain groups and only acts to alienate people, while making those people who are doing it feel good (… I think some people call this bullying? … damn I really need a sarcasm punctuation point here). Another problem, one that is perhaps less readily identified, is that some new societal norms that have appeared in recent times, as a result of feminism becoming increasingly mainstream, may not be all that good and probably need to be re-evaluated. Changes of this kind cannot be forced, however, because of their very nature. It’s going to take time to shift currently prevalent norms.

I am quite guilty of making jokes centred on the “fedora/mouthbreather/weeaboo/Nice Guys™/MRA/PUA/etc” stereotypes, as are many of the best most well-meaning feminists I know. Humour is a powerful tool against people who are actually misogynistic, hateful, and cruel, who are virulent and unrelenting in trying to harm feminist movements, and there is an undeniable overlap between many groups of people who might be lumped under the “nerd” banner and those who are actively and destructively anti-feminist. I can appreciate that this sometimes descends into what is best described as bullying, but apportioning blame is a funny business here. Should we cease all behaviour that contributes to an overall bullying force, regardless of intent? As I said, humour is a powerful tool and not one that I think ought to be relinquished entirely. So how bad does the teasing need to be before one of the bullies needs to say “hey we should probably stop this”? In what situations does a group need to just put up with some ribbing and stereotypes, and when should it object? When I make jokes about fedoras and trenchcoats and stereotypical nerds things, it’s coming from someone who is part of that world and enjoys laughing at its most extreme elements. Whether the distinction between my joking and that of a nerd-world outsider is important, I am not sure.

As someone who holds both the “nerd” and “feminist” labels dear, these are interesting questions to grapple with.

II. Nerd things.

My experience of being a nerd and my experiences moving through my teenage years and young adult life are a bit different to Scott’s, and different to the typical nerd as we might think of him or her according to basic stereotypes. Regardless, there are sentences in Scott’s comment that I could easily have written about my life and my experiences. There are, I think, certain combinations of personality traits and interests and proclivities that combine to give a person an overwhelming predisposition to have a “nerd” life experience, and while I don’t quite fit all the same characteristics that Scott mentions, many – especially certain personality traits and mental health issues – are familiar.

Throughout my life, the nerd world has been somewhere to exist without needing to fit into any really specific mould. I mostly prefer to exist in it on my own, caught up in fictional futuristic universes, endlessly researching whatever took my interest, pouring a crazy amount of time into online gaming, devoting hours and hours to reading, spending hours on 4chan, binge-watching films and TV shows. To me, it’s so comfortable and familiar and unpretentious. In its purest form, nerd world is somewhere I can exist in whatever way I want to and there’s no external pressure, real or imagined, to conform to any appearance-based norms. It’s a place where my ideas and imagination are much more important than how I look, providing necessary relief from my usual experience of everyday life.

It’s a place where people are sufficiently weird that my own weirdness blends right in. Knowing that one is amongst one’s tribe is pretty great, especially when the tribe is small and members aren’t always easily identifiable or commonly found. Things like social anxiety melt away when I get into conversations with like-minded people about mutual interests and passions – in this case, things that I’m normally hesitant to share with other people because they’re too niche or specialised or bizarre.

Nerd world is (ideally) a place where people aren’t shit to each other, for want of a better phrase. I oughtn’t need to be worried about people mentioning my gender like it’s some extraordinary thing, or commenting on my appearance, or generally being nasty about women, because the inhabitants of (ideal) nerd world are intelligent and rational. Bigotry and sexism have no place in this world populated by thinking people.

Of course, nerd world does have lots of these undesirable elements. I don’t believe they are inherent parts of this world at all, but to the outsider I would imagine that they do appear that way. To the people who are involved in perpetuating them, I’m sure the sexist elements of nerd world appear to be innate. (Who let girls in our tree house? Icky!)

As I felt that I wasn’t always being a woman in the right way, so too have I felt like I wasn’t the right kind of nerd. Nerd women needing to pass “tests” to prove their nerdery is a thing. Me needing to perform twice as well as a man in online gaming to be accepted as a legitimate player is a thing. There are small but unavoidable reminders that, to many, I’m a bit of an oddity in some nerd circles. Mentioning anything vaguely feminist means I’ve ruined it, that I’m no longer one of the boys, that I’ve lost my ‘totally cool and not like other chicks’ pass.

Despite all this, nerdiness has been an enormously significant part of my life. Whenever the real world is letting me down, in some of my lowest moments, there’s always a book to lose myself in or pages of speculative art to browse or aliens to shoot. Nerd communities are some of the most accepting, non-judgemental, and caring that I’ve encountered and I’m proud to have made many long-term friends there. They are a haven for those of us who fall outside certain societal norms, free of judgement and expectations and pressure. As such, blanket criticisms and attacks on nerd culture tend to raise my hackles more than a little; nerds are traditionally a group with very low social status that are used to being picked on throughout life either directly or indirectly, and it hurts to see outsider groups turn on nerds. Things take on a new, gut-turning dimension when that outsider group is one that I also belong to, and one that I have gained so much wonderful positivity from. My instinct in any case like this is to go in to bat for the lower-ranking team – but how do I know which is which? I bring a huge amount of perception bias to this question, and much as I try to extract myself from it, I don’t know if I completely can.

III. How they interact in strange ways

I’ve always felt alienated to varying degrees from the two groups I’ve most strongly felt affinity with, and I somehow think this might be a permanent feature of life for me. Things have improved with age, through meeting more like-minded people, and through therapy for mental health problems like depression and anxiety that undoubtedly impact heavily on my sense of self-worth and my self-perception. Learning to question thoughts and ideas that tell me that I’m not worthy of respect or friendship or love was pretty revolutionary, and absolutely life-changing. It is desperately sad that Scott and others like him didn’t have the same tools to deal with the similar issues plaguing them, whether these were issues coming from within or brought about by external forces.

I can’t remember a time in my life when I have ever felt how I imagined a normal girl is supposed to feel about things like dating and relationships and sex. Scott’s experiences elicited a painful sort of empathy in me that can perhaps only be brought about by having has such experiences myself, and his story certainly doesn’t fit into any commonly-found examples of women’s typical experiences in the dating world. I’ve forever identified more strongly with pop culture tropes of shy nerdy guys rather than the beautiful, unattainable women they typically lust after (and wow is that a trope I am completely sick of or what); as a nerdy girl, this dynamic takes on another interesting facet when I wonder why these nerdy guys aren’t ever interested in the nerdy girls. Being passed over for women who are less intelligent than me and much less nerdy (or not at all) breeds its own particular and subtle sense of bitterness.

When I say “a normal girl” above, I mean the most common experience that people have of being a heterosexual cis girl who dates men. This is, I have eventually come to realise, a fiction that I’ve put together in my mind and probably not quite a real thing (or perhaps real, but not in the way I’ve conceptualised it), but it’s a powerful fiction indeed. Life doesn’t fit neatly into a series of patterns and stereotypes, except for all those times that it does. Regardless: for a long time, and still now to some degree, I’ve had a strong belief that I don’t experience life in the same way that most other people do and a portion of my worries and anxiety around this is centred on how I interact with men.

Scott vividly describes the terror of asking a girl out, of fearing the worst – a rejection, a humiliating rejection, and the possibility (real or imagined) of suffering even worse retribution for making one’s feelings known. This is extremely familiar. Feeling ashamed to have interest in a guy, feeling absolute horror at the thought of making those feelings known, feeling that I was unworthy for him to date (and definitely unworthy of being someone’s girlfriend) – this is all familiar stuff. Feeling deeply unattractive, or not attractive in the right way; feeling like all my interests and passions are too weird for anyone else to share or connect with; feeling either not smart enough or too smart to be able to connect with a nice normal guy. It feels silly to be writing all this out as a grown woman, by the way. There’s definitely a sense that it’s childish and immature to have these sorts of issues, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

IV. Where to from here

Balancing my typically nerdy set of feelings about dating with the healthy self-confidence that feminism has given me is hard. Adequately recognising the problems in the groups I belong to without destroying my attachment to them is hard. Empathising with a heart-wrenching account of a miserable adolescence while recoiling at its harsh comments on feminism is hard. I feel horrible when I see the hate machine turned on nerds (and especially so when feminists are driving it), yet I want to retain use of humour that I feel entitled to use, and that is hard too.

I currently feel more comfortable than ever co-existing in the nerd world and feminist spaces, taking the best parts of both and holding the rest at arm’s length, yet feelings of alienation persist. When I read articles like “On Nerd Entitlement”, I identify so much more with the nerds than with the women telling them to drop the gross sexist bullshit, but then I recall the terrible behaviour that I have unfortunately encountered from some nerdy men. When I read something like Comment #171, the stabs taken at women and feminism hurt me, but so do the pangs of empathy.

I always find it disturbing to see people so firmly attached to a tribalistic mindset that it has rendered them almost incapable of looking at someone who is not in their tribe and seeing another person living a complex and difficult life, just as they are. Framing this issue as one of “nerds vs feminists” is supremely unhelpful; it pricks at too many sore points, dredges up ill-will in huge amounts, and ignites the most virulent on both sides. Nasty polemics are not the way to go. Empathy and goodwill must be used liberally. I hope to write more on this in the future – I am clearly heavily invested in the ongoing tension between nerdery and feminism, and dearly wish for some kind of satisfactory resolution in time.