Escher Girls: Anonymous asked you
Escher Girls: Anonymous asked you: You’re right on the mark with Feminist Frequency,...
Anonymous asked you:You’re right on the mark with Feminist Frequency, but I think there’s some problems with Felicia Day that Perez’s meltdown accidentally brings up. As a guy, Felicia Day feels like she’s “nerd bait”. She’s cute enough that a nerd won’t have a meltdown over her looks, and…
The reblogging is truncating this stuff, the whole posts are great.
Another thought about the nerdbait thing: We can look at that more closely. The whole reason the concept of “nerdbait” exists is because of the way guys in the gaming community view women. I think it’s being falsely portrayed as something that women do to men. As the anonymous that eschergirls is responding to here points out (though I assume unintentionally), it’s still about how the guy views the girl as being attainable, and accessible, because she’s into, or won’t be turned off by “nerdy” interests, and most of all, still considered fuckable.
Many characters created for a male audience often get criticized as being “nerdbait” characters. Tali’Zorah from Mass Effect, here’s looking at you. But these are characters created for men, by men, to satisfy that “I want to fuck her and she might actually let me” mindset. And there’s a huge difference between a character created to appeal to a certain demographic, to satisfy a certain desire, and a human being whose interests and motives and career choices are way more varied and more important than simply existing for the pleasure of the nerd audience.
Beyond that, so what? Gamer dudes tend to get upset when they identify someone as attention seeking; it’s a negative thing. But why is that? They seem to feel on some level that they’re being used. That they’re offering their resources “kindness, attention, gifts, etc.” on someone. They expect an exchange: I’m being nice to you, so you’ll have sex with me. Or show me your boobs. Or cyber with me. Whatever it is, they see their kindness and attention as a currency.
Sexual politics are complicated beasts, but often the only power male-centric cultures and societies afford women at all is sex, while tightly controlling it. Women are supposed to remain appealing, and sexually available to the one particular viewer, but if they are sexually available to others, that’s bad. That becomes attention whoring. If Felicia Day was being an awesome attractive nerd girl just for them, it’d be fine. Their special nerd girlfriend. But if she’s doing it for a wide audience, or because that’s what she wants to do, that’s bad, that’s nerdbait, that’s attention whoring.
Even if a woman is intentionally playing into a “nerdbait” role, it, despite still being derided by nerds in the culture, is one of a few acceptable roles women are allowed to play in nerd and gamer culture, and one of the few visible examples of women in the culture, so it’s not surprising that some might intentionally seek it.
If you have a problem with that, then it’s up to you to help change the culture that drives the forces that put women into that role, whether they want to be, or not.
Bolded for emphasis. This is very true. Their annoyance and fear that women are “trying” to get their attention is that they feel “used”, which is problematic because it assumes that their niceness is only because they expect something back. If you’re doing nice things to only girl gamers you find attractive, and you DON’T LIKE IT, then treat everybody nice (or nobody nice, it’s your choice), it’s not the person’s fault for being attractive to you.
And also yes, about how we’re supposed to be attractive to them, but not to others. If it appears we might be getting attention (intentional or not) from other men, suddenly we’re bad “attention whores” or “sluts” or what not.
And like it says above, if you think Felicia Day is somehow “unfairly” earning her attention from more deserving female geeks, then change the culture, starting with yourself. (And like I said, there is something to be examined about the culture, and who gets “attention” and how that has to do with thinness, whiteness, fitting gender expectations of how women should behave, etc…)