Girls and Geeks: They're not as different as you seem to think
[image error]It's Comic Con weekend in San Diego right now, as I'm sure most of you know, the biggest pop culture expo of its kind. I wasn't able to attend this year, so as you can imagine, I've been sitting at home reading con reports, quietly choking on my jealousy between incoherent squealing and pawing at my monitor. But as ever, as I wade through blog posts and live coverage, I find myself a little irritated by the prevailing myth people keep beating me over the head with, year after year: Girl geeks are the minority. Girl geeks just don't get that into this stuff. Girl geeks are a mystical species, not unlike the unicorn, whose existence has never been proven by science. Girl geeks just get into fandom because their nerdy boyfriends got them into anime and video games and comic books and cosplay. Girl geeks solely exist to hold their boyfriends' figurative purses while they have all the fun.
Um, excuse me?
See, I don't know where you've been, but I've been on the internet since 1999. At the tender age of thirteen, I was already writing fanfiction, participating in mailing lists and weekly chats, and running my own websites. From Cowboy Bebop to Evangelion, Star Trek to Supernatural, X-Men to Heroes, Metal Gear Solid to Silent Hill, I've participated in over thirty online fandoms, written hundreds of fanfics, and run the gamut from Newb to Big Name Fan. Granted, historically, the late '90s/early '00s were relatively recent periods in the evolution of fandom, but this was the ground floor of the tightly-knit online fandom as we know it today. Since 1999, from one fandom to the next, there has been one single constant in my fannish life: By and large women run fandom, and they run a tight ship.
Yes, men cosplay. Men write fanfiction. Men participate in meta and discussion groups. Men go to cons. In fact, some of my favorite people I've encountered from fandom have been guys. It's cool. They're very prominent in the public's understanding of nerd culture. Even for it, the majority of the fan groups I have encountered have always been run by women. (The now closed C-FAN was a comic book nerd mecca back in the day. I used to know the woman who ran it, before it fell to the wayside. I believe she even posted some of my very stupid fanart at the time…) The fanfiction archives have been run by women. (I used to know the web masters of the pan-fandom Fonts of Wisdom and Metal Gear Slash. Until, inevitably, lines of communication dissolved in wank and trolling. But that, of course, was a long time ago…) The majority of the fans I talk to everyday online are women. Women make graphics. Women make costumes. Women write stories. Women participate in meta. Women start petitions to save shows from cancellation. Women, in general, are a huge organizational force behind every online fandom I've been a part of. Because of that, whenever people tell me girl geeks don't exist, or are just a tiny minority in the wide sea of fannish ilk, I can't help but wonder what planet you're from.
If I was just splashing around in tiny fandoms for no-name franchises, I could concede that maybe my experiences are rare. But these shows and games and comic books are household names, huge properties with massive fanbases all over the planet. You may not participate in the fandom, but I bet you know who Batman or Spock or Optimus Prime is whether you like it or not. So when you try to tell me that my own fellow nerd girls, women I've waited in lines with, women I chat with, women I've gone to midnight showings with, don't exist, I'm kind of going to laugh in your face. You're going to have to just used to us, narrowly defined media portrayal of fans and fandom. We're not going anywhere anytime soon.
Thank you for your time. Here's is a picture of me in my Nurse Chapel outfit for Star Trek XI. Take your male dominated fandom and shove it.
