Future of the geeks

[raino]

I've been worried about this for some while, and visiting Forbidden Planet at Dublin made me worry some more. Where are all the boys in traditionally-male geek hobbies? At FB, there were me, Cousin, sis, three other geeky girls and one couple, where they boy looked utterly bored and the girl was comparing plastic collector characters of Dr Who or something. Only the salespeople were male (and real old school nerds too, at least one of them). My sis has been complaining it's hard to find enough male LARP players. Comic cons are full of loud 14-year girls in cat ears, and also artsy comic scene seems to be dominated by women. Scifi-fandom is about half-and-half, but younger ones seem to be XX mostly. So computer sciences are still quite boycentric or at least computer nerd girl is not the norm, but other than that - what hobbies do boys have nowadays? They can't all be playing ice hockey!

Comments

[veilchenblau.livejournal.com]

I've been noticing that too. Like there have been a lot more girls following mecha shows in recent years, so much so that there have been a lot of recent shows that are geared to guys in terms of storyline, but geared to girls in terms of design (I know that's a terribly sexist thing to say, but considering two of the most recent popular mecha programs at the moment have character designers that made their name in girls manga...).

Maybe guys are getting more and more wary of the "virgin basement-dwelling neckbeard" stereotype while geeky girls traditionally get a more positive reaction. And I think ~fandom~ plays a major part these days in keeping people active in geeky hobbies and that's always seemed more girl oriented to me.

And who knows, maybe they are all playing ice hockey. :o

[cavefelem.livejournal.com]

Good point about fandom.

I don't know how to put this and avoid sounding terribly sexist, but generally - and I know I'm painting with a very wide brush here - guys in fandom focus more on collecting and trivia, whereas girls get creative and make art, fics, LJ icons, you name it. A stereotypical male Star Trek fan, for example, would be someone who can name every single name in the end credits of any given Star Trek episode, whereas a stereotypical female Trekker would be someone who sews her own Starfleet uniforms and writes Kirk/Spock slash. The more fandom as a whole tilts to the latter direction, the more the trivia geeks fade into the background.

[raino.livejournal.com]

The wide brush is given to you by the original poster, and you need not feel embarassed about using it here. Sweeping generalisations need a extra-wide brush!

Anyway. The fandom point was something I had not thought of properly, it gives a reasonable explanation for the situation- also I think it can't be just a coincidence that internet and girl-attack on nerdy hobbies happened simultaneously. The ease of forming personal bonds fueled by common obsession multiplied by million or something when discussion boards etc were invented.

[raino.livejournal.com]

Oh No! Is there anything we can do to save potential geeky boys from ice hockey?