# Why doesn't geekdom get the girls? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 8, 2015, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029 "2015-11-08T17:35:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/1 "2015-11-08T17:35:59Z")
[This Casey and Andy strip](http://www.galactanet.com/comic/view.php?strip=645) makes me think. Jen makes a fair point – so it is – but **why?** Why is geekdom so much more a male thing than a female? Why don’t the women scream and cream for the Casey and Andy types? Why has it been the case since the 1970s that the crowd you’ll see in a videogame arcade or a gaming/hobby shop is almost entirely sausage? What is it about psychological gender differences? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/2 "2015-11-08T17:40:21Z")
Another example – [“Bookshop Memories,”](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part3) by George Orwell (1936): > [@](#): > > Like most second-hand bookshops we had various sidelines. We sold second-hand typewriters, for instance, and also stamps–used stamps, I mean. **Stamp-collectors are a strange, silent, fish-like breed, of all ages, but only of the male sex; women, apparently, fail to see the peculiar charm of gumming bits of coloured paper into albums.** We also sold sixpenny horoscopes compiled by somebody who claimed to have foretold the Japanese earthquake. They were in sealed envelopes and I never opened one of them myself, but the people who bought them often came back and told us how ‘true’ their horoscopes had been. (Doubtless any horoscope seems ‘true’ if it tells you that you are highly attractive to the opposite sex and your worst fault is generosity.) We did a good deal of business in children’s books, chiefly ‘remainders’. Modern books for children are rather horrible things, especially when you see them in the mass. Personally I would sooner give a child a copy of Petronius Arbiter than PETER PAN, but even Barrie seems manly and wholesome compared with some of his later imitators. At Christmas time we spent a feverish ten days struggling with Christmas cards and calendars, which are tiresome things to sell but good business while the season lasts. It used to interest me to see the brutal cynicism with which Christian sentiment is exploited. The touts from the Christmas card firms used to come round with their catalogues as early as June. A phrase from one of their invoices sticks in my memory. It was: ‘2 doz. Infant Jesus with rabbits’. Why is that? ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/3 "2015-11-08T17:42:26Z")
I don’t know that that’s true. I think in the past a lot of women (and other minorities) haven’t really felt super welcome (and even today), but I know many women who are interested and who are starting to feel more comfortable in what was previously a boy’s club. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/4 "2015-11-08T17:46:28Z")
I resent the implications of that strip (and associated mindset)-that, as a man, in order to procure a female significant other, you must edit yourself into this highly narrow and constrictive (and inauthentic) shell, simply because the female of the species is this monolithic block of pulsating lockstep _Femininity_ which all act & feel in the exact same way, and all of which have pretty much identical interests. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/5 "2015-11-08T17:47:17Z")
The things you call geekdom are traditional male oriented activities. Why don’t men like to go clothes shopping as much as women do? Why do women like chick-flicks? We’re different, the old social structure that imposed that difference is fading away, but there will still be clear gender divisions in some activities. Nothing wrong with that either as long as people are free to make their choices. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/6 "2015-11-08T18:08:45Z")
Geeks are total dorks, and many of them are also nerds, dweebs, and/or squares. That’s why. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/7 "2015-11-08T19:24:31Z")
From the same Orwell essay: > [@](#): > > Our shop stood exactly on the frontier between Hampstead and Camden Town, and we were frequented by all types from baronets to bus-conductors. Probably our library subscribers were a fair cross-section of London’s reading public. It is therefore worth noting that of all the authors in our library the one who ‘went out’ the best was–Priestley? Hemingway? Walpole? Wodehouse? No, Ethel M. Dell, with Warwick Deeping a good second and Jeffrey Farnol, I should say, third. Dell’s novels, of course, are read solely by women, but by women of all kinds and ages and not, as one might expect, merely by wistful spinsters and the fat wives of tobacconists. It is not true that men don’t read novels, but it is true that there are whole branches of fiction that they avoid. Roughly speaking, what one might call the AVERAGE novel–the ordinary, good-bad, Galsworthy-and-water stuff which is the norm of the English novel–seems to exist only for women. Men read either the novels it is possible to respect, or detective stories. But their consumption of detective stories is terrific. One of our subscribers to my knowledge read four or five detective stories every week for over a year, besides others which he got from another library. What chiefly surprised me was that he never read the same book twice. Apparently the whole of that frightful torrent of trash (the pages read every year would, I calculated, cover nearly three quarters of an acre) was stored for ever in his memory. He took no notice of titles or author’s names, but he could tell by merely glancing into a book whether be had ‘had it already’. Writing today, he might have replaced “detective” with “SF.” ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/8 "2015-11-08T20:14:06Z")
Among the under 25 crowd, there seem to be quite a few female geeks - at least in Seattle. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/9 "2015-11-08T20:29:56Z")
Geeks won’t rock out with their cock out. That’s it in a nutshell. ---
**Author:** ![Octarine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/22d042/32.png) [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/10 "2015-11-08T20:35:24Z")
Although it’s impossible to say for certain, I’d lean more towards it being an effect of socialization rather than innate gender qualities. You’re a shy teenage girl; you might have an interest in coding and aliens, but all the SciFi geeks in school are equally shy boys terrified of girls who hunker down in the computer lab every afternoon. You’re a teenage boy interested in fashion, shopping, and magazines, but unless you want to get labeled as the “gay best friend”, you better get back to the football field. These early social cues shape adult people’s interests, so everyone except the outliers (who have such a strong tendency to certain opposite-gender activities they’re willing to pay the price of ostracization) more or less fit into gender roles as adults. With the rise of “geek chic” and similar feminine nerdy culture, we’ll probably see more geek girls in the future. That doesn’t mean social roles have disappeared - it just means those particular ones have shifted. > [@astro](#): > > Geeks won’t rock out with their cock out. That’s it in a nutshell. Care to elaborate? It seems like you’re implying the only motivation girls have in pursuing any activity is to get laid. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/11 "2015-11-08T20:37:21Z")
Stealth evolutionary psychology thread? I wonder how much nerdiness and associated social awkwardness is a human universal vs. being a quirk of the modern industrial era. If the stereotypical geeks were around during pre-history it seems pretty obvious why women wouldn’t be drawn to them. But then I wonder, the type of guys who invented things like atlatls or bow and arrows were probably engineer types and you’d think they’d improve the fitness of their tribes. > [@astro](#): > > Geeks won’t rock out with their cock out. That’s it in a nutshell. Oh, they will. They just really shouldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/12 "2015-11-08T20:58:22Z")
Is the question whether girls can be “geeks” and included in groups geek activities, or whether they want to date geeks? Big difference. ---
**Author:** ![ElderSign](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eldersign/32/8263_2.png) [@ElderSign](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElderSign)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/13 "2015-11-08T21:00:07Z")
I know plenty of women obsessed with The Walking Dead, sports, anime, manga, Apple devices, Star Trek, reading fiction, and casual mobile video games. Sorry if they don’t want to make their PS4 a shrine and waste 8 hours a day on some MMORPG. Granted, the ratio is skewed male in certain forums, but women seem to be more apt at socializing and caring what others think of them. They could be seen at sci-fi/comic book conventions en masse. I know highly intelligent young women who would fit the geek profile, but do not need to label themselves as one or create a club or be considered part of “geekdom”, whatever that is. I do not know how one “joins the video game community”. I do not know why someone would strive to be condescending to outsiders. It doesn’t help that many boys want to keep girls out of their clubhouse. But there are activities/hobbies which men and women prefer, and they have different tastes, which is fairly obvious if you have lived with a female family member, which is FINE. Why don’t you take up needle point and join the needle point community? “Why don’t the women scream and cream for the Casey and Andy types?” Why would men scream for them either? If they are anything like the arrogant clowns on The Big Bang Theory, they are repulsive socially, and not worthy of friendship, although granted I have never heard of them until now. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/14 "2015-11-08T21:21:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > From the same Orwell essay: > > > [@](#): > > > > Men read either the novels it is possible to respect, or detective stories. But their consumption of detective stories is terrific. > > Writing today, he might have replaced “detective” with “SF.” …because these days detective novels are _girly_… ---
**Author:** ![bethewave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@bethewave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bethewave)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/15 "2015-11-08T21:26:13Z")
This is a[fairly intense article](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/27/your-princess-is-in-another-castle-misogyny-entitlement-and-nerds.html)- written after that shooting in California a few years ago - but you made me think of it with your use of the phrase “get the girls”. Anyway, as a pretty geeky girl, why don’t I go to as many gaming conventions as I want to, or midnight sci-fi/fantasy movie premieres, or other geeky things? Sometimes it’s exhausting. [This site](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Fake_geek_girls) runs down the points pretty well. Maybe I don’t want to be viewed as a “fake geek girl” looking for attention. Maybe, like other geeky girls I know, the fact that it will be mostly men makes me think twice about showing up and being one of the only girls. Maybe I go, and someone strikes up a conversation with me about something we both have an interest in, and then I mention my SO, and then it turns out I’m a cocktease because I dared to use my feminine black magic to entice him into a five minute conversation with no intent to bang him. Though this often replicates the female experience going to certain sporting events. Maybe being a decent, interesting person who sees women as more than their sex organs is what “gets the girls?” ---
**Author:** ![Not\_a\_Platypus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d26b3c/32.png) [@Not\_a\_Platypus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Not_a_Platypus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/16 "2015-11-08T21:29:51Z")
Geekdom does get the girls, and it’s becoming more and more common as societal expectations relax. All of my friends are geeks and the vast majority are married or in relationships with other geeks. The socially inept loser definitely is a thing, but not nearly as widespread as stereotypes would lead you to believe. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/17 "2015-11-08T21:34:56Z")
Have you ever _been_ a woman and walked into most comic shops? Try it some day. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/18 "2015-11-08T21:55:13Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Stealth evolutionary psychology thread? > > I wonder how much nerdiness and associated social awkwardness is a human universal vs. being a quirk of the modern industrial era. If the stereotypical geeks were around during pre-history it seems pretty obvious why women wouldn’t be drawn to them. But then I wonder, the type of guys who invented things like atlatls or bow and arrows were probably engineer types and you’d think they’d improve the fitness of their tribes. But the athlete, the male best at **using** the atlatl and bow, is the kind women want because he can bring home the most food. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/19 "2015-11-08T22:13:11Z")
In general, nerds are of a lesser stature and lack self-confidence. These are qualities most women don’t find attractive. ---
**Author:** ![Not\_a\_Platypus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d26b3c/32.png) [@Not\_a\_Platypus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Not_a_Platypus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029/20 "2015-11-08T22:25:29Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Have you ever _been_ a woman and walked into most comic shops? Try it some day. Yeah, I have. Some are godawful, some are fantastic and inclusive. The ones I’ve been to that were bad 8-9 years ago are much better now than they were, and they continue to improve as people get used to the idea that women are geeks too and it’s okay. It’s not all that different than any other community where some people are elitist assholes and most aren’t, but the shitty people always get talked about more, to the point where most people assume it’s like that everywhere. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-geekdom-get-the-girls/737029.md?page=2)