You might want to familiarize yourself with the term before bandying it about.
I’m not misusing the term. Let’s look at what you said:
I never claimed that focusing on objects more than people makes one a misogynist. I said that people with that sort of disposition could be led to misogyny by their lack of people skills.
I have no idea where you got this from.
I never claimed that being good or bad at any particularly thing is a form of hating anything.
Um. What?
All four paragraphs attribute ideas to me that are not my own. So yeah, I’m deploying the notion of a straw man pretty well, don’t you think?
Ah, now I understand. That’s not hostility, it’s condescension towards the idea that a “Top X” list is some form of nerdy misogyny. As I said before, alert People magazine, because Hugh Jackman must be treated in misandrist ways by their editors.
:rolleyes:
That’s an interesting hypothesis. Why should I believe it’s true? You keep saying it, but I don’t see you providing us with any evidence, or even a convincing theory.
That’s a tautological argument. Nerds lack certain people skills, by definition. That’s why they’re nerds. So you’re saying that people who are low on people skills are low on people skills, which is not an argument of staggering insight.
Where you make the jump is “…and this results in misogyny.” Here’s where you need to show your work. In fact, you need to show it’s true.
I didn’t write my OP to lay forth a knock-down argument in favor of this view; I created it to ask whether others have had personal experiences that go along with my own.
It’s not tautological, because a lack of people skills is one element of what we call “nerdiness”. The most important element is an abiding interest in technical subjects (ie Math, Science, Computers).
While you’re there in the outlet, say “hello” to the light switch for me.
How does football LARPing work? Do you play a football game? Maybe you wear a foam helmet instead of a real one…
Well, your manner of expressing your condescension is a little over the top and innappropriate. However it does provide a great example of “nerd rage” for our discussion.
Also, it shows a lack of reading comprehension. I did not say Top X lists are a form of misogyny. I said that the nerdly overindulgence in adolescent sexual fantasizing about women as Heavy Metal leather-clad amazons, sexy robots, cyborgs, aliens and childlike anime characters can become a form of misogyny if they are unable to connect with regular women on a normal intimate level.
Here’s a rough guideline. If you are talking about the object of your crush at work, a typical woman overhears you and she’s like “oh that’s cute” or “I can see that, she is very attractive”, it’s just normal fantasizing. If she’s like “you guys are disgusting” it’s probably misogyny.
I would consider that a more general misanthropy towards people in general.
Nerds tend to gravitate towards math, computers, gadgets and other such subjects because they have rigid rules and procedures. They are either on or they are off. They either calculate properly or they don’t. People, OTOH, do not work that way. They are illogical and irrational. Nerds tend to become extremely frustrated or disdainful of people who do not view the world the way they do.
I just want to state for the record that I do not find being called "hot"objectionable in any way, and I enjoy being an object of sexual fulfillment.
Are you trying to be the only bee in her bonnet?
Anyway, I know exactly what the OP is talking about. It’s really hard to put into words, but if you’re a reasonably attractive and not especially nerdy seeming woman and you’ve ever waded into a pack of nerds and encountered them going “huh huh huh, a female human!” well, you’d know where he’s coming from.
Exactly.
So, if I think that a man that a woman finds attractive is “disgusting”, does that make her a misandrist? Or is it only males that are not allowed to have preferences or fantasies that are just a matter of taste?
Lack of reading comprehension? Do you even realize what you’ve written? You’ve said that any man who finds the wrong kind of woman attractive is misogynist. That is just completely baffling in… well, everything. It makes no sense on any level.
And then you further stack the deck by implying that finding a woman that appears in a sci-fi show as to be insulting and misogynistic because they’re not “regular” women. As opposed to what? None of the Sex and the City characters are real either.
Your responses to this thread confuse me more than any woman ever has.
Justin_Bailey, happily married nerd.
Is this “reading comprehension” bit some kind of board in-joke? I’ve never seen a Great Debate thread or any other contentious topic that didn’t devolve into two parties claiming the other couldn’t or wouldn’t read.
Anyway, if there is a misogyny specific to nerdom, I think it’s one derived from a romantasization of women, and that mabe women are trapped in the clutches of a materialistic, misogynstic society. It would explain why women aren’t crazy for nerds.
Ask Green Bean. She seems to get it so maybe she can explain it to you it some way that I appear to be unable to.
I mean do I really have to spell it out for you?
If you are and your friends are sitting around your cubicle gawking at a Maxim spread of the girls from Battlestar Galactica in bikinis going on and on about how you would like to “tap that ass” and so on and annoying your female coworkers (and probably your mature male coworkers as well), that is considered sexist and misogynyst behavior.
Or, for that matter, if the women in your office are going on about Huge Jackman’s ass in the same way.
If somebody repeatedy ascribes statements to a poster that they did not write or continues to willfully misinterpret those statements even after having it explained several times, it is usually an indication that the person cannot or chooses not to comprehend what they are reading.
If you were in a job interview for an IT position and the managers kept focusing on how “hot” you were to the exclusion of everything else, would you still feel the same way?
Sexist? Sure. Probably even grounds for harrassment lawsuits if the men are loud enough or crude enough. But misogynyst? To abuse a well worn quote just a little more, I don’t think that word means what you think it does.
Can you define for me exactly why a group of guys discussing a cheesecake spread is proof that these are engaging in some kind of nerd hate about women?
Now we’re getting somewhere. Having worked in majority female offices my entire life, it would be helpful for you to know that women do this all the time. Popular targets seem to be Hugh Jackman, George Clooney and Sawyer from Lost. I’ve heard enough about Sawyer from Lost to last me a lifetime.
Pretending this is more prevelant in men, or even nerdy men, is just simple high school bullying by the “cool” kids.
I can sort of see what you might be getting at, if only because the internet is the most sexist place I have ever seen. Most of the websites I like (Cracked & SomethingAwful) are dominated by male geeks and sometimes irritatingly sexist. Both sites also have a highly pseudo-macho culture, defining badassery in terms of violence and how often one gets laid. Oh, and there are a fuckton of titty pictures. I’ve seen the same pair of titties in about 10 different articles over the last few months.
On the other hand, Cracked and SomethingAwful make me laugh even when the writers are being douchebags. I’m married to a nerd who respects women, and I’m a nerd woman who is strongly attracted to other nerds. So you won’t hear me complaining too loudly.
See, I’d never classify those people as geeks. They’re just idiots who happen to be on the internet.
That is unprofessional, but neither sexist nor misogynistic. Male heterosexuality is not a synonym for sexism or misogyny. If there’s any sexism here, it’s yours; you are essentially claiming that about 90% of men are born sexist and misogynistic, since that’s about how many men are straight.
I certainly didn’t get the impression that msmith thinks that heterosexuality is sexist.
I’ve worked with upwards of 300+ developers at one point in my career and my experience is similar. There was a small number of people with poor social skills, but for the vast majority of developers, they had fine people skills. The same holds true where I work now, though there is a smaller number of developers.
It is neither sexist nor misogynistic. It IS, however, unprofessional and likely a violation of a company’s sexual harrassment policies.
The people who had poor social skills had poor skills regardless of who they were dealing with, male or female.
I know the kind of dismissive attitudes toward women in tech fields exists, but my own experience is that it isn’t very prevalent.
Note: I’m 48, male and have been in the computer industry for 28 years.
Finding pictures of scantily clad women sexy is a normal trait for heterosexual males; she thinks that is sexist.