GirlyGeekdom

Posted on March 5th, 2008

Written by Dr Mariann Hardey

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Apple Store, Cosmopolitan Magazine, girl geek, girl geek dinner, girl geeks, guy, tech
At Girl Geek Dinners we pride ourselves on our intellect. And so it was with (an amused) disappointment that I read; ‘The best places to meet a guy’ article by Cosmopolitan Magazine that was forwarded to me this week. You might like to know that not all girls are man hungry to the point of manipulating our daily routines to ‘stake out’ places to meet a man. Some of us have brains, open minds and self-assurance.

Allegedly as women we are ‘on the prowl’ to ‘check out hotties’; and the best places for such action?

Cosmopolitan recommends: The Apple Store and A Fortune 500 or tech company. This is sloppy journalism at its worse. And whilst not specific to Girl Geeks per se, the identification of ‘guys as natural gadget lovers’ and association of women within tech companies motivated purely by the man ‘bait’ sets a negative and down right patronising tone. My surprise not least as Cosmopolitan (supposedly) prides itself on being empowering for women, how empowering is the position of ‘desperately seeking’?

I confess now that one of my favourite places to ‘hang out’ is the Apple Store on Regents Street (I’ve even written a review on TrustedPlaces) unlike the supposed reader profile this I can assure you is to bask in all that is geeky and perfect in the world of mac technology. No man agenda is part of this enjoyment.

Most worryingly is the advice to; ‘consider working for either a Fortune 500 company (…) or a tech company (men make up 75 percent of the technology workforce, according to the National Science Foundation). Hint: Once you’re in, join the office Super Bowl pool.’

At Girl Geek dinners we constantly come up against and try to overcome social stereotyping. It is a real cause for concern that bad journalism is allowed to present women as only having one agenda; to ‘get a man’. There are enough barriers to access and intellectual support without being dismissed as ‘man hungry’ guy gatherers.

We hold Girl Geek dinners all round the world, and these are not exclusive and women only events, but recognise the importance of cultivating an engaging environment for both girl and boy geeks alike that for a change are based on networks of savvy women involved with technology. I cannot imagine how the Girl Geeks that participate would feel if this was dismissed as a route to ‘husband finding ‘.

I have written to Cosmopolitan Magazine and invited them to the next Girl Geek Dinner. IF they attend I know that they will be pleasantly surprised at the kinds of inspiring, intelligent and positive women that get together, and not a man hunting ‘Once you’re in, join the office Super Bowl pool’ agenda in sight!

The best places to meet a Girl Geek? A Girl Geek Dinner of course.

If you enjoyed this post you might also enjoy:
Stereotypes & Barriers – Positive Steps
Toys? Only for the boys
Stereotype Bingo: Winner
Stereotype Bingo
About Dr Mariann Hardey
I hold the position of Lecturer in Social Media Marketing at Durham Business School. I also spend too much time enjoying social technologies, media+ stuff. That'll make me a Geek then. And a gal.
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 12:27 pm and is filed under Engineering, Science, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Anonymous

As I said, it was written for the dumbarse section of the population…
Miss Maz Hardey

Anon says: ‘They suggest an Apple Store and a Fortune 500 company because they’re suggesting places where you might meet successful, intelligent, interesting guys’.

Now then are we not going a tad overboard with the social demographic of the typical Apple Store customer?… What’s wrong with the library
Anonymous

Why get so arsey with barryd? He’s right. That is a completely typical article for Cosmo because that’s what their audience want. It’s a women’s magazine, written mainly by women, for the dumbarse section of the female population. And they’re doing good business, in exactly the same way as the lad’s mags that are targeted at the dumbarse end of the male population.

They suggest an Apple Store and a Fortune 500 company because they’re suggesting places where you might meet successful, intelligent, interesting guys. If the lads mags ran an article to find women with the same attributes, they might make the same suggestions. Unfortunately they just print pictures of tits, cars and big explosions. Which is more insulting to their respective audience’s intelligence?
Sarah Blow

OK just done a second poll for tech mags but it’s not a complete list as I didn’t have time to do a full one… it’s got the main bits… I think… Missed MacWorld but did pick a different mac one… but then again only included 1 microsoft specific one too so I think that’s fair…

Anyway back to getting out of the city… must get home!
PC Pro

Could we have another pole please?
PC Pro, MacWorld, Wired and others that are more how shall I say techie – lets say one pole for the ‘ladies’ shelf in Smiths and one for the ‘Tech”
Semblance

I first noticed the vote for the favorite mag for Girl Geeks (was the first to get to vote) and the obvious choice was other… then I read this post… Looks like I am on the right track with reading material. Give me a decent non-fiction book about a topic that matters to me!
Miss Maz Hardey

@ All

My personal fave geek mag = Wired. But then i am rather partial to Vogue Italia and Paris too…
Sarah Blow

@NewWoman,

I’ve just put up a quick question on which magazines really are “girl geek friendly” to see what comes out of it if anything.

It’s in the side bar.

Keep an eye out for the results!

Sarah
New Woman

How about a Girl Geek reader survey of what are the most GG friendly magazines or at least those that are not a) stupid b) retro stuck in around 1972 ?
Mana

Good post. Fortunately no one really takes Cosmo advice seriously except maybe teenage girls.

As for us not being the target audience so we shouldn’t worry about what they say, I disagree. We should be worried about the image the media paints of women in or associated with IT. That image (wrong or right) will shape the way people treat us.

So for me the question is – what is a geek girl? How do we want to be seen?
Anonymous

PJ’s on the next post

Is there a link here?

Hope some posters don’t get too excited
Anonymous

Assume @barry has a Stuff magazine subscription ?
bethgranter

Forgot to say, in response to Barry’s definition of ‘intellectual’ as being “of above average intelligence and knowledge of how to apply it” – this is only one of ten possible interpretations of the term ‘intellectual’ (according to dictionary.com)…

I meant that an intellectual woman, i.e. one who is “possessing or showing intellect or mental capacity, esp. to a high degree”, should not be portrayed as atypical.
Miss Maz Hardey

@ All (except Barry )

the world of technology and the world of cosmo sometimes treat women as an ‘convenient’ presence. There to be consumed and defined in terms of their relationship to men. This is made problematic when 1. there may not be a ‘relationship’ with a man and 2. indpendent thought and action takes over.

To illustrate my point this little ditty may help…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lrJg8NMsFw

But amusing out takes aside, as I try to emphasis on a daily basis central to gendered concerns is the provision of an equal space where ‘geeks’ (of whatever gender, sexual persuasion, height, eye colour etc) can enjoy technology and intellect outside of the instrumental relations of bodily and gendered constructs. Now i’m not calling for anyone to cast away their identity or renouce their feminitiy (not least as i’m sure Barry , Sarah and Nic will inform you i’m as ‘vain’ and feminine led as they come), but to recognise that these are irreducible to particular aspects of ‘being a girl’ that influence the development and abilty of women in general.

Thankfully away from Cosmo (or OhNo as i like to call it) the Girl Geek self allows for development of social action and worthy intellectual knowledge that is taken seriously; so i suggest that we continue to make demands on one another and question the ‘total sexism’ of little enterprises such as Cosmo. With any luck they’ll catch up… next century. Maybe in time for Web 10.0
bethgranter

@barry – just to clarify, when I said “it is only when women who don’t fit the patriarchal stereotype are accepted as TYPICAL that we are able to make steps towards redefining what is a seen as a normal/typical/mainstream woman”, I was talking about the stereotype of ‘women’, not the stereotype of ‘geeks’.

@wollstonecraft – I agree that all this has been said before in other places, but some people won’t have read The Bell Curve, and I think these debates need to be repeated again and again until everyone is aware of and understands the issues. But as you point out, the original concern was that Cosmo is perpetuating the absurd idea that a woman’s main goal in life is to find a man.
Wollstonecraft

Are we about to revisit the ‘The Bell Curve’ debate in relation to the ‘normal’ etc? I’m not sure that would be very useful. This is about ‘meanings’ and the way supposed empirical evidence is (mis)used to imply for example that women can succeed by through a man and that there is something inherently different in terms of sex and abilities. Pop back to the C19 and the issue was that women should not have a University education as their brains were physically too small to cope. They would be unhappy and need to get on with pleasing their man and running his household. Oddly all those women who did hard labour as maids and in the factories were missing from this debate. Since then we have ‘redefined the normal’ in that there are more women for example in medical training in the UK than men – partly because women get better science grades at A level.

So what Cosmo is perpetuating is a C19 middle class view with the twist that women must look for their man not at church or a dance but in these new venues were Darcy is supposed to hang out.

Yes the ‘normal’ whatever that is and in this case it seems to be a stereotype must be challenged and redefined. Not to do so not only wastes human talent and potential but also degrades men as ‘hunter gathers’ and women as ‘nurturers’.

Lets move on
Geek’s Dream Girl

Meh. Cosmo. It’s the same magazine every issue. They just chew up and regurgitate the same articles every month.

The best place to meet a geek guy? The internet! Best to “hunt” them in their natural habitat.
barryd

@beth;

“Describing intellectual geeky women as ‘not the majority of girls’ is offensive though”

Accuracy is offensive? By definition intellectual, of above average intelligence and knowledge of how to apply it is not the majority. That whole “above average” qualification. Adding “geeky” to the mix further narrows the qualifications. It’s not an insult, it’s a simple fact. It’s the same on the other half of the sexual fence, geeks are in the minority no matter how you look at it.

“it is only when women who don’t fit the patriarchal stereotype are accepted as TYPICAL”

This has nothing to do with your misguided view of who sets a geek stereotype; it’s not a sexist issue, and it’s frustrating and somewhat laughable to paint it as such. Being labelled a geek is not down to sex; but down to interests, and frankly more men will get labelled a geek than women will; the sterotype of jocks versus nerds has a firm basis in fact.

“that we are able to make steps towards redefining what is a seen as a normal/typical/mainstream woman.”

Really? So you want to redefine normal so a minority is normal? I’m sorry, but that’s simply political correctness ignoring the facts.

“Geek girls should therefore be treated as ‘the majority’ and definitely not as exceptions.”

Except it is the exception. For both sexes.
Angie Chang

Jane magazine reported in the last year or two that a certain cafe in Mountain View, California, two miles from the Google campus and a short drive from the Apple campus, was the best place to meet your hot geek boys.

Lies! All lies! Glossy women’ magazines are hilariously bad. I like the more self-realized Bitch and Bust, the former which recently had an article about the “The (Girl) Geek Stands Alone” which is the closest anyone will get to the topic. Well, I saw a preview for a Girls Rock movie last night with Carrie Brownstein in it and it looked powerful.

But I digresss.

- Angie

Co-Founder » Women 2.0
Rabble-Rouser » Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner
Beth

This is a shame, but I’m not surprised in the slightest. Cosmopolitan magazine and most mainstream magazines are renowned for portraying sexist stereotypes of women. It’s still worth complaining about though, even though it’s nothing new, and even if we are not their intended audience.

I would be very surprised if Cosmo took you up on your offer to come to a Girl Geek dinner, and even more surprised if they wrote about them from a feminist perspective of any kind, unfortunately.

@barryd – Describing intellectual geeky women as ‘not the majority of girls’ is offensive though – it is only when women who don’t fit the patriarchal stereotype are accepted as TYPICAL, that we are able to make steps towards redefining what is a seen as a normal/typical/mainstream woman. Geek girls should therefore be treated as ‘the majority’ and definitely not as exceptions.
Sarah Blow

Nice point why should we care that the likes of cosmo mis-represent and trivialise technology interest to girls far younger than ourselves?

Well the answer is simple. They are likely to make it seem sad and socially incorrect showing an interest in technology, yet socially acceptable to go looking for a guy in a tech store… I’m sure as a guy you probably don’t see any negatives there… as a female it worries me a little at the skewed perspective they are putting forward to younger generations.

After all remember these are the people who are going to be paying for your retirement
Miss Maz Hardey

@ Barry,

I can assure you (of all people) that Cosmo is not the reading list of choice… Have you seen their over pink over ‘sexed’ homepage YUK!
barryd

Forwarded to you. Yea. Sure

Look lets face it you’re aren’t Cosmo’s target audience. You aren’t the majority of girls. So why complain when they write for their target audience?
Miss Maz Hardey

@ uncomposed and Sarah,

Media 101 for journo’s? I think its a MUST ! non of this ‘can do ‘better” malarky. It’s time to take such disparaging remarks and commentators to task.

‘Man hunters’ indeed. I’m proud of my Girl Geek status and I will not be dismissed as an unworthy candiditure for technological debates because ‘i’m a woman’

:p

Hilary in her red suit would not take on board such rubbish, neither should we.
Anonymous

Mens mags (no not that type) are not really much better I’m afraid; which make girls out to be little cuties that are really a bit dim.

Regards

Some Bloke
Sarah Blow

Oh and in the same week there was also another disappointing item, this time from Rory Cellan-Jones from the BBC!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/02/girls_get_geekier_1.html

So it seems the media are totally out of touch with the realities of what technology is and how it is used these days, let alone what the tech industry is all about.

I’m soooo tempted to do a women in technology 101 for media journalists… :S
Uncomposed

Miss Maz a great post! I’m disgusted with Cosmo; suggest we all write and complain. How completely degrading.

I would write more but I do not trust myself to keep composure.

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