[Air-L] nerd culture and new media

[Tuszynski, Stephanie]

Sue - absolutely. Of course, the very act of labeling someone a "nerd" or a "geek" carries connotations that are heavily identified with gender or the performance of it (calling a guy a "nerd" implies he's physically weak, wears glasses and a pocket protector, etc.) to begin with. But articles like that one just reinforce the underlying problems. 

There's a reason I dropped my Newsweek subscription a while ago. *sigh*




Message: 5
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:41:55 +0000
From: "Suely Fragoso " <suely at unisinos.br>
Subject: Re: [Air-L] nerd culture and new media
To: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
Message-ID: <s85902a3.024 at minerva.unisinos.br>
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As far as we (all) don't oblige the men to "perform (or overperform)
their gender role" to validate whatever tendencies either... 

Sue

>>> stuszyn at UTNet.UToledo.Edu 18/06/08 11:38 >>>
I had a feeling that godawful Newsweek article was going to come up.
Because it's only okay for women to be geeks/nerds/"fill in intellectual
stereotype here" as long as they "sex it up" enough? grr.

Broadsheet wrote about that article last week as well:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2008/06/12/nerd_girls/index.html

There's a big difference between being able to be yourself without
suffering the repercussions and *having* to perform (or overperform)
your gender role in order to validate or offset your non-conformist
tendencies.

Rar.