[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner]
I think a lot of the stereotypes about geeks are simply wrong. First, science fiction conventions aren’t overwhelmingly male. They are perhaps 50% to 60% male. They may have been overwhelmingly male in the mid-1960’s, but that started to turn around about the time Star Trek started showing. Perhaps it was Star Trek that caused the beginning of the change. (Incidentally, not very many people at cons wear costumes. Perhaps 10% of all regular congoers have ever worn a costume at one.)
While it may be true that somewhat more congoers are less physically attractive than average, it’s not by a large amount. Furthermore, the notion that such less physically attractive people who go to cons date (or hook up or however you want to put it) less than they otherwise would is also wrong. If anything, going to cons improves their chances. Fandom tends to be less prejudiced about looks than general society. Indeed, it may not even be true that fans tend to be less physically attractive than average. Twenty years ago I heard someone express the opinion at a con that, for instance, it’s not true that fannish women are heavier than average. This person said that there are proportionately just as many fat women who don’t go to cons than ones who go to cons. It’s just that the tendency of fans to be less prejudiced about looks means that fat fannish women socialize more than fat non-fannish ones do. Being fat is so taboo in general society that fat women don’t go to most social events because they fear being shunned. At cons they are accepted more.
The idea that technically trained people are less likely to be female is increasingly wrong. Again, forty years ago it might have been true, but it’s less and less so. 25% of all math Ph.D.'s are awarded to women, and about 45% of all math bachelor degrees. The idea that women geeks tend not to be pretty is wrong too. Most younger female mathematicians I know are average or better in looks.
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The main difference between a freshman at Georgia Tech and a senior is not what you have learned, what you have failed, how many classes you passed even if you failed every test, or how awesome you did at some LAN party. Mostly, it’s the difference between sitting in Brittan after a month your freshman year and counting 10 girls to the 50 guys and remarking to the people you’ve met (all guys) how weird it is. Not only that, but you witness, several tables away, another group of guys doing the same thing: counting, laughing, looking distressed. However, when you have a month left to graduate, maybe, maybe you’ll stop and go - man, in my 50 + class on analytical aerocivil wizardry, there were no females. Most, however, don’t realize - they become institutionalized.
(Oh, I’ve also known people who pick their majors on it being one fifth females! WOO HOO!)
Similarly, I now work at a college radio station. I know the indie world extremely well, have seen dozens of shows, whatever. I think out of our 120 DJ’s, probably 12 are females. There is one chick on the executive board along with the rest of us dudes. All touring bands are all male, all the time. Probably less than 10% are female, probably less than 20% in attendance are the same. I don’t know why, but them’s the breaks. I will also mention that most DJ’s tend towards the eccentric side, especially us on the exec board. We are total geeks about the music world, or sports or whatever.
How are looks a skill? (I know they might take trouble and effort, but that’s true of many things that are not skills.)