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Nerds and Male Privilege

kotaku.com

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Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#11

Post by drivebyacct2 »

cyrus_ wrote: post #8

We should stop conflating the term 'geek' with the term 'nerd'. I think most people familiar with the cultures in question would agree that there is an increasingly clear difference between the two (although membership in the two is certainly correlated.)

Do they have importantly distinct definitions? A quick check via Google implies they're both about "unfashionable or socially inept person" or "foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious" but that's not necessarily how I view either term.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#13

Post by cyrus_ »

LeafStorm wrote: post #10
cyrus_ wrote: post #8

We should stop conflating the term 'geek' with the term 'nerd'. I think most people familiar with the cultures in question would agree that there is an increasingly clear difference between the two (although membership in the two is certainly correlated.)

I don't think there's a concrete, universally accepted difference. Pretty much everyone has their own definition of "geek" and "nerd," and how much they overlap, and most of those definitions are mutually incompatible. Also, http://xkcd.com/747/

People can have different, mutually incompatible definitions of the two, that's fine. All I'm saying is that very few people who have any opinion on the subject think the two refer to the same set of values and behaviors.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#14

Post by burgerbrain »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #9
burgerbrain wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be the entire focus of the article. A modified headline would have saved me my time. An article about male privilege in the tech industry, which is what I expected seeing as this is HNs, I would have appreciated. This however meant nothing to me.

I guess I took it as more of a general intro to privilege for the lay-person or 'lay-nerd'. I mean, take the basic concepts of privilege and extend them to almost ANY females-in-tech-industry topic and you'll see it fits. It's just like the thread a few weeks ago about women asking for raises or more competitive pay with a shocking number of HN users saying "it's their own fault for not asking for more", ignoring the…

As an outside observer, I'd say that speaking about male privilege from the context of comic book stores is like speaking about racism from the context of 19th century Alabama. It's just so blatant to anybody disconnected from it that it is very hard to make comparisons to other contexts.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#15

Post by burgerbrain »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #11
cyrus_ wrote: post #8

We should stop conflating the term 'geek' with the term 'nerd'. I think most people familiar with the cultures in question would agree that there is an increasingly clear difference between the two (although membership in the two is certainly correlated.)

Do they have importantly distinct definitions? A quick check via Google implies they're both about "unfashionable or socially inept person" or "foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious" but that's not necessarily how I view either term.

I always figured that "nerd" implied some sort of technical knowledge or scientific mindedness. Hence slashdot being "news for nerds, stuff that matters". Geek then I suppose, would be your standard comic book store customer.

Enough people use them interchangeably that it seems there is no longer any meaning. We should probably just jettison both words.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#20

Post by zdw »

I don't think this is limited just to video games, comics, and such - a lot of TV and sporting events are full of "beautiful people" often wearing less/tighter things than they ought to be wearing.

How is this different/worse than having cheerleaders on the side of a football field? Or Baywatch?

Not that I'm defending poor or sexist behavior, but singling out "nerds" as being the worst troglodytes out there seems a bit much.

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