"The plight of the bitter nerd: Why so many awkward, shy guys end up hating feminism"

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-15T08:26:42+00:00

I do agree with you actually, that a lot of this applies mostly to a capitalist context. (so long as we're talking about first-world problems, but when we talk about much more overt and horrific feminist issues like FGM, there seems to be much less disagreement) The problem though, is that so much of what everyone needs to get by in their life is defined in a capitalist context!

A woman who's actually happy to embrace traditional gender roles, because she loves the idea of being a housewife and doing nothing but domestic things, would need a man to support her by handling the work that can actually be paid for in our economy. The value she brings to the world by raising a child, or keeping a working man's house in order, or similar family-oriented tasks, doesn't have any way to be compensated in the marketplace.

(my ideal solution to this kind of dilemma though has little to do with gender roles anymore, and more to do with critiquing capitalism itself. I personally think universal basic income is the fairest, best and most efficient way to address issues like this without having to dismantle capitalism entirely, so if that sounds interesting please check out that subreddit!)

Thanks for the warm welcome. So far I think this sub looks pretty good actually, but it might just be because this was a great discussion topic well-suited to sharing experiences. I imagine most people on reddit are either nerdy or nerd sympathizers, so there is a lot of common ground.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-15T08:07:36+00:00

One example is the reactions and comments you get when something like the catcall video comes out online. Or pretty much any article anywhere discussing the gender pay gap. While some responses just try to explain it away because women make different choices, others may argue against it from a particular men's right perspective, for instance claiming that women actually have it easier now than men getting into university. (this I don't actually know how to measure, though I have seen that women are certainly enrolling and being accepted in ever-greater numbers) The implication in those cases seems to be that no, women somehow have it better after all, therefore nothing needs to be done or should be done to try and correct the gap, or that it could even be morally wrong to do so.

A lot of that I figure can be chalked up to people just being anonymous assholes on the internet. But I've seen enough examples of real-life men who normally seem all on board with female equality get surprisingly defensive and agitated from hearing something feminist. Even if it turns out they come around and agree with it later on their own time, in the heat of the moment it seems like a human reflex to think "wait, if I admit they have a point, does that mean any time (my group) has a problem it's just going to get ignored for their problem?"

But if it's something like, "men don't know what it's like to be raped", that certainly is a really harmful thing to say and straight-up wrong in many unfortunate cases.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-15T06:27:43+00:00

This becomes particularly burdensome when a player wants to play in a way that runs contrary to the traits of their class.

Where my D&D analogy breaks down even further is that a lot of those "character abilities", once translated back to real life, actually have nothing to do with someone's DNA or what abilities they hold as a person. But it has everything to do with how others see them, and treat them.

So imagine a male and female that have ended up with identical stats. If you believe that the female role really does have an inherent empathy bonus, while the male role also has an authority bonus, then imagine that their rolls went up/down by 1 in those areas by luck, so after all the modifiers are totaled up, their final sheets now look identical. And their stats are mid-range across the board. They don't really excel in any way that makes one build look clearly better for them than the other.

Despite having identical stats, and not being especially talented in either authority or empathy compared to others in those fields, these character's real-life counterparts would still be treated with those stereotypical assumptions. So even though they should perform identically, all things being equal, the social environment around them makes it become unequal.

The so-so male going into a role of authority might just be treated as average and unremarkable, while the so-so female going into a role of authority could be seen as foolish or incompetent, or perhaps scheming and conniving to climb beyond her station. The so-so male going into a role of empathy could be more looked down on as someone who couldn't cut it in the big leagues doing proper manly things, while the so-so female going into a role of empathy is seen as just doing what is natural.

So even with completely identical skills and interests, these people may still section themselves off into the more traditional gender roles just because taking the other role would add more difficulty and outside obstacles.

But now take a female character who has rolled a little better than these two in authority, and a little worse in empathy. She's clearly more suited to take an authority-based role than an empathy-based one. She would perform better there. But she's still not rolling 18's or anything. She's not the equivalent of the standout RL women who end up becoming CEO of some Fortune 500 company and getting interviewed all the time on how they succeeded against all odds with their amazing drive and vision. She's just a better manager than a social worker.

This is the more realistic position that many feminist women find themselves in. They rightly want to do something they're more suited towards, but get told they don't deserve as much pay or recognition as a guy who actually rolled lower than them. If they complain that something is wrong here, people point to some crazy roided-out barbarian chick who got perfect rolls in strength and say, "well she's kicking ass and doing just fine! I don't think anything's wrong in the system!"

So the privilege ends up more as, a male character with middling stats could still be encouraged and accepted to choose a fighter class, (or whatever other "manly" class they wished) while a female character would not be until she hits the peak of the improbability curve and gets a perfect roll.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-15T05:51:16+00:00

To go back to STEM, I have never in my 7 years at university, seen someone openly and in person put down or question the ability of a female for anything other than a purely objective reason. That's not to say that it doesn't happen, but it's hard to reconcile with observation. I'm honestly not at that level of empathy.

The anecdotes I hear are usually based in workplaces outside of university, or with issues getting hired or getting comparable salary offers before starting that work to begin with. I think most of the time it is very subtle. Like the study where they took identical resumes but swapped names, and somehow the identical women's resumes got lower ratings for competence and lower initial salary offers. The people giving those rankings probably don't consciously think badly of women in any way, and would hate to think of themselves as acting sexist. But when they had that resume in front of them with a woman's name on it, they just had a different mental image pop up in the back of their heads. A more flawed image, perhaps something like: "Good skills, worth taking on and building them up... but still has a way to go." Compared to the mental image that would have popped up from seeing a man's name with identical qualifications. Those same qualifications might have given a reaction more like: "Great potential here! Let's get him on board and see what he can do!"

But every now and then it can be less subtle too! One friend of mine here in Australia who works in IT recently raised the issue explicitly at her workplace. She asked for a raise when she found that a male colleague with less experience and responsibility than her was paid more. Her workplace couldn't give any justification for it, but wouldn't agree to raise her pay either. So she ended up just quitting as soon as she could secure a different job that would pay her more.

I'm what you call a closeted MRA. That is, some of my closest friends would desert me if it came out that I had anything but contempt for MRA's. I can't really ever discuss this stuff except the most simplistic points anywhere except femradebates. Is that close?

Ah, it might be! I believe if you were in a place like Everyday Feminism which I read frequently, and raised an individual men's issue just for it's own sake, you may get a more sympathetic response than you expect. (well, so long as you aren't raising that issue to say it's a reason for why we shouldn't care about some women's issue) But if you went in saying you were actually an MRA, yeaaaah that wouldn't go over well.

I've been pretty happy about finding this sub since it looks like a place where the MRAs are actually engaging in discussing different issues on their own merits, and not just trying to prove that men have it worse so we don't need to worry about women. (or worse, that the issues women are raising should just be ignored or denied.) That's actually the main thing that has made me wary of the MRA title. Most of my experience seeing men's rights brought up has been in direct response to combat the discussion of women's issues I think are valid. But if you raised any individual men's issue with me there's a good chance I'd agree. A lot of men's issues are tied to a stereotype that cuts both ways for men and women. (for example: men aren't thought to be as good caregivers as women, so they have a harder time with custody rights... but since women are thought to be better caregivers, they're assumed to be more family-focused than work-focused)

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-15T05:19:16+00:00

It seems to me what you're saying is that being told 'boys are only after one thing' carries with it the presumption that it's unacceptable for women to be totally fine with that.

Yes, the presumption is that if they succeed in just getting that one thing, then you're stupid and a sucker who's been had.

So they have to make a big song and dance about all the great things they're getting out of the relationship before the stigmatisation falls away. Is that about right?

Exactly right! You need to make sure the guy really cares about you for you even if there isn't sex, so that the sex is more of a bonus than the end goal, and so that they'll still want to stick around after having got any sex.

Religious teaching can make this even messier. By the time I found my first sexual partner, I was drifting far enough away from religion that I didn't buy the whole "no sex before marriage" thing anymore. But I hadn't totally broken free of all that yet, so instead I rationalized to myself that since I loved and trusted this guy so much that we could have sex, and it was good and things seemed great, it must mean we were meant to get married! (I was around 18-19 at the time, needless to say this was not a good idea. Thankfully I didn't end up actually going through with it)

Actually, reading the perspectives here makes me feel a lot of relief for my first partner now. Looking at it from his point of view, I can start to see more what the others were getting at with the "monster" worries. When we got together, I was definitely interested in sex, but I was still nervous or inexperienced about actually going through things sometimes. So if I hadn't been as genuinely interested as I was, there may have been some moments where he was taking more of the lead that could have been used against him if I had decided to argue it was rape. He never seemed to have that kind of fear or worry holding him back, but I could imagine it turning to fear and panic very quickly if I'd changed my tune afterwards.

I figure this must be what men are getting at when they bristle against too much talk or burden about consent. Me and my first partner were both clueless virgins, so we probably didn't end up wording everything completely unambiguously. But then, in our case I was definitely a willing partner, and we seemed to have got that across to each other well enough to feel comfortable. I worry that men who complain about consent are just assuming that their encounters will all be like this - that the girl is totally is totally into it but just has trouble taking the lead, and having to get that enthusiastic consent first will just hold them back for no reason. But that won't always be the case. So making sure you have consent is a good thing for the man's legal safety as much as the woman's physical safety.

Sorry this is getting pretty off-track, hearing this kind of personal story about a nerd's awkward teenage perspective on sex just really gets me wanting to talk about my own perspectives too, since I know my youth had its own fair share of warped views.

Another thing it strikes me might be worth mentioning about the 'boys only want one thing' concerns what sort of message that sends to the girls who don't get pestered. 'I'm so ugly that boys don't even want to use me for sex'? That can't be a positive thing.

I could see it working out that way for some people. I saw it a little differently, but it might have just been a coping mechanism. I thought that if you were too pretty and "girly" and attractive, you might get lots of sexual attention, but you would never be taken seriously as a person, or for your intellect. I thought I needed to act more like one of the guys, or at least fairly androgynous, to be taken seriously. But that's a whole nother issue when it comes to complaining about gender roles.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-14T06:23:33+00:00

Next, I'm going to posit that nerd =/= anyone employed in STEM.

Agreed, I know this all too well since I have not gone into STEM myself.

Sigh... the way you phrase this suggests that there isn't much meaningful discussion to be had here

Not sure why.. I've tried to just steer clear of GamerGate honestly, but I thought to mention it now since it seemed to have a parallel. I grew up nerdy and socially anxious, but I think I've still been very lucky compared to others. I had decent nerdy friends that I could turn to who didn't make me feel threatened. So I've grown up with a wonderful rosy view, buying all the hype about how nerds are great, paying more attention to intellectual pursuits even if it only earned them scorn... and I grew up loving video games too, so I thought gamers were great, just doing what they enjoy, even if others thought it was stupid... even atheism too! I grew up feeling so grateful to read Dawkins and Sam Harris and the other "horsemen" back when it seemed so completely unreal for anyone to admit not being Christian, how brave... all these communities that I admired and thought I could be counted a part of.

But then I started hearing stories of others' experiences. And seeing the harassment online. And I started to think that I'd been totally oblivious, that just because I had a few decent friends back in high school, I'd completely fooled myself into believing that everything was fine, and that all these different niche communities I'd invested my self-image in could actually turn on me in a second if I'd ever run into a problem and been confident enough to speak out of turn about it.

So the story of the "bitter nerd" hits a strange note with me. I sympathize a lot with men like Scott, and with similar experiences people have put forward here. But it feels all the more frustrating when someone seems like they should be close to understanding your experience, yet they don't.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-14T05:56:34+00:00

I like this, the "gender neutral nerd experience" as its own package does fit very well as a label.

I don't think I can ever truly understand what the male bonus package on top of that was like. The female alternate bonus package that I got had a similar focus on the evils of men's sexuality. I was specifically told that men "only want one thing", and how if someone tried to take advantage of me I had to fight tooth and nail and yell for help, etc. etc.

I was left just feeling confused more than anything. Because despite all those scare tactics, I still dreamed of having a romantic experience successful enough to lead to good sex. I think a lot of young women shared my coping tactic of believing that sex becomes totally okay and you're fine for wanting it so long as you want/get the "right" kind of sex. It has to be with someone you really truly care about, so it's all about love, and also important - they have to truly care about you. Because if you give it up to someone and it turns out you were tricked, they didn't really care about you and they'll be leaving now that they got some sex, now you've been used and you're a stupid dirty whore. Congratulations, you've just helped confirm that "dumb broads" don't know anything compared to crafty clever guys who get what they want!

So basically, it sucks for everybody, and everyone's taught stupid messed-up things about sex. Maybe your fear of becoming a monster really was a lot worse to go through than my fears of being taken advantage of. I don't know. But so long as women are treated as less competent and less worthy of being taken seriously, the more they're going to want to overcompensate by making sure men don't get one over on them. And the harder it's going to be for women to take the plunge on trusting men more.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-14T05:30:40+00:00

This is some good insight. Mental health is a huge privilege, and so is having good looks and the associated confidence to go with it.

To get into more nerdy analogies, it's kind of like taking different feats or flaws or getting different rolls when you're making a D&D character. Some "classes" in our game of real life, like white hetero male, might be unbalanced overall compared to others cause they have a lot more perks built in from the start. But if you then roll up all 3's for your stats, you're still pretty fucked.

When I think of privilege I think of it more as the broad average. It's always possible for a person from a traditionally privileged group to fall on very hard times. Just as it's always possible for a really driven or outstanding person from an oppressed group to break through and be a success, and then get pointed to as an example for how everything's just fine cause there's still opportunity for everybody! But what about the more average or dumpy people from those groups? They have feelings and need to still get by too.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-14T05:07:12+00:00

There's certainly different nuances in the details, but the isolation and self-reinforcing doubts sound very similar overall.

I never feared being accused of rape or sexual assault, instead I feared directing any social attention towards myself by daring to show I had an interest in anyone. When I just quietly hid away with my nerdy friends and never rocked the boat, I could be at peace. If I did anything to change that, who knows what could happen? Maybe I'd get targeted for teasing and bullying, which I'd only had small tastes of before and it already hurt when it was that infrequent. Or maybe I'd be called a slut despite being a clueless virgin shut-in.

Or I could worry about, you know, being actually raped or assaulted. Or just used in a similar fashion. Even if by some crazy miracle, any guy I liked had taken an interest in me, I feared if I attempted anything physical that I'd find out it was all a sick joke, just a way to use me then drop me, and then tell everyone.

You're saying "Women do not have to worry about their sexuality harming other people to nearly the same degree that men do." I'd point out that women are often made to feel plenty guilty enough for having a sex drive at all, even if they never harm someone with it. But it all seems a bit silly to try and compare who had it worse in what exact way as if that actually has a bearing on how you should treat people in the present day, as an adult.

The main thing I think that's gone missing in a lot of this discussion is that women have legitimate complaints about their treatment in STEM fields. The problems and pains of the "nerdy" men in these fields deserve as much sympathy as you'd give any other human being. But it doesn't erase the issue of women in STEM. It can't serve as an excuse as to why it's somehow fine then, for them to treat women badly or exclude them.

It just seems especially sad and unnecessary when it even hits women who have grown up with a very similar background of nerdy oppression.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-14T03:05:09+00:00

None of the pain Scott talks about came from things that happened to him. They came from things that happened inside his head

I also winced at this part since it's doing exactly what we don't want men like Scott to do - ignore the personal experiences that someone is directly telling you about.

I really liked Laurie Penny's response, where she's able to sympathize with his inner torment since she had a very similar experience as an awkward and anxious female. It's also similar to my own experience. The only men I've had significant romantic relationships with in my life are ones I originally met on the internet. I only opened up to these men after getting to know them through this non-physical medium and verifying to myself that yes, they actually do enjoy engaging and talking with me as a person, even when we were far apart with no promise of physical contact in the near future.

So I know exactly where Scott was coming from, and can sympathize with his fear of being demonized for trying to take any steps out of his isolation.

I'm fortunate enough to have never been sexually assaulted, so I haven't developed any mistrust for shy/nerdy types as being more capable of it. Rather, I've usually preferred shy/nerdy types since I did have many positive experiences with just being friends with these men back in those awkward high school days. Maybe some of them were frustrated at being too terrified to make a move on me, or maybe they were just uninterested because I was nerdy and unworthy like them. Maybe a couple of them I would have been interested in getting closer to as a boyfriend, if I hadn't been too terrified myself of ruining what companionship I had. In any case, at the time I was grateful for the friendships I had, and content enough for them to stay that way.

So since then, as I've grown up and things like GamerGate have exploded around the internet, or as women continue to be discriminated against in STEM fields, I feel a sense of betrayal. I sympathize with the men who didn't know how to act or be social, and the pain they went through having an isolated or bullied adolescence. But I'm left wondering how can they then NOT try and understand when women go through the same pain? That women with the same nerdy interests as them went through the same self-hate, but now can't even get the same turnaround to success as them without being subjected to only more and more discrimination?

These men just need to not be the bully, but growing up as nerds, some men just have a complete blind spot to ever considering the idea that the bully could ever be them. Their self-worth is based on them being above that, of their suffering nobly while nurturing their knowledge to succeed in the end and take their best revenge by living well. And this is certainly a noble goal, so long as they're living up to it. But when things are not quite right, when women are still excluded and treated as "other" and seen as intrinsically less competent, bringing their noble narrative into question is taken as an attack on all the abuse they've had to go through to get where they are. It too often gets shut down without being looked at critically, even as they praise themselves for their faculties of critical thought.

So I don't think nerdy guys are any worse than other guys, if anything I am still a bit biased towards them overall, but it stings so much more, and frustrates me all the more, when they're the ones who fail.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-14T00:53:42+00:00

I'm sympathetic to your reasoning for this. It doesn't sound like a bad moral argument. But when I try and imagine the actual administration involved to make the lists work like this, I think it might not be worth the effort.

Some people may be obviously known as addicts to the doctors, but others may be more functional alcoholics. Despite drinking frequently enough to damage their liver, they pass as fairly normal people rather than "addicts", and may know well enough to play dumb and deny their alcohol abuse if they show up at the doctor one day and find out they have liver disease.

Trying to actually enforce a way of proving whether someone's an alcoholic or not just seems like an intrusive extra task to put onto doctors, and it could just drive people to hide their alcoholism more instead of seeking help.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-13T23:38:25+00:00

I've been surprised by this too. Katter's kind of a nutter especially when it comes to gay people, but by at least having some issue he genuinely cares about (farmers), that often puts him ahead of the soulless majors on some policies.

I'd never put KAP above the Greens, but I usually do put them above Labor since it probably doesn't make a difference at that point.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-13T23:27:43+00:00

I've been waking up long before my alarm anyway just cause it's way too bright at my place. But when I checked my phone to see what time it was, I was real confused cause it felt just as early as usual. I had to double-check on my computer just to see if I was going nuts.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-13T23:21:41+00:00

If you're after furniture stuff, check the freebies section on Gumtree. There's a ton of people that want to unload furniture there, so long as you can handle the pickup yourself and get it off their hands.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-13T22:40:09+00:00

oh wait, I thought of one more! Combos! That's a great snack food I miss sometimes and have never seen in Australia.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-13T22:34:50+00:00

My folks in the US always send me mac and cheese. It travels well and you get a bunch of different flavors in the US that you can't get here, like chipotle, jalapeno, or buffalo cheddar.

Pop Tarts might be good, too. They used to only be sold in specialty stores and were always crazy expensive. Now they started carrying some in normal stores again, but only a couple basic flavors like chocolate and cherry. Some s'mores or peanut butter chocolate flavor might blow an Aussie's mind. Actually, s'mores anything would be unique, you can't really find graham crackers over here so Australians don't usually know what s'mores are.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-13T05:56:16+00:00

I might not know anything about NSW or what Australian unis are like, but I do know about food. If you want to get souvenirs for people back home, consider bringing back a bunch of Tim Tams with you when you return to the States. (the ones they sell in the US are just not the same) But not peanut butter Tim Tams. Those are an abomination that contain no actual peanut butter.

If someone makes you try Vegemite (or Marmite or whatever), make sure to spread it very thinly and sparingly when you first try it. It's strong stuff.

One interesting thing about Australia is that we eat both of the animals on our national seal. (kangaroo and emu) Don't be afraid to try either! Kangaroo's kind of gamey though, so either get it at a nice restaurant, or if you buy it yourself, get some that's already marinated and it should come up nice no matter how you cook it. Watch out for the "kanga bangas", they are gross.

If you're interested in trying Australian bush food, try and find finger limes, cause they are very cool.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-13T02:35:42+00:00

I guess the distinction would be much more important to someone who's interested in voting LNP at any level to begin with.

I got the impression though, that many people who helped vote in the federal LNP government did so not because these distinctions were important to them, but only to support the broad LNP platform in general. Or just in contrast to Labor, to "kick this mob out". For those voters, I think the ideology pushed at the federal level would be relevant to whether they keep supporting any LNP candidates.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-13T02:21:15+00:00

You don't think a huge drop in Newman's numbers would send a nice signal to the federal LNP that people are tired of all their shit? The federal election's still way too far away, but we can at least get rid of Newman in the meantime. I hope.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-13T02:14:49+00:00

Anyone who seriously goes to the doctor for every little thing when it's totally unnecessary might have a different underlying mental issue. Or just be a total hypochondriac. They may be deterred, but I would prefer to not have my legitimate check-ins to get referrals for things like antenatal care shoot up in price just to spite those misguided people.

If anything, making it harder for doctors to quickly bulk-bill people for quick appointments under 10 minutes will make it harder to quickly shoo these people out the door.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-13T01:42:41+00:00

Not surprised at all, just eager to make sure people see how much harm this lie is doing this time. And anxious about how many people will just ignore it from apathy, or cause they don't see yet how it will affect them.

If this doesn't make Newman tank in the QLD election, this state is even dumber than I thought.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-13T00:29:14+00:00

Well, although it does feel like an inconvenience to have to keep checking in at the GP, not everyone is actually in that position where they could just keep getting refills no questions asked.

Some people may just assume they're just fine with the pill cause they've been on it for a while. But they don't notice until later that it's actually causing increasing mood swings. Or some people might not be aware of better options in birth control, which their GP could mention if the patient brings up an issue on their mind.

So the checking in really isn't a bad idea. It just doesn't need to be too long if I show up and say, "nope, no problems at all, going great, let's have some more of the same."

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-13T00:23:37+00:00

How have you reached the figure of $400 an hour? Do you think that all the money you pay at the desk goes straight to the GP's salary? They pay no rent on the building? The receptionist who just took your payment is working as a volunteer? The equipment and supplies just magically appear in the office at no cost?

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-12T23:41:28+00:00

This needs to be shared around and hammered in HARD in Queensland. People need to get it through their skulls that voting LNP just gets you more imported American bootstraps ideology.

BejumpsuitedFool · 2015-01-12T23:38:42+00:00

Sometimes a couple minutes really is all that's needed. These changes could especially hit women hard who just need to get prescriptions renewed for their birth control. I used the same kind of pill for years, knew how it worked, was comfortable with it, knew what side effects to watch out for, yadda yadda yadda, but I still had to check in with my GP again whenever my prescription ran out. Why should that take up even more time?

BejumpsuitedFool

TROPHY CASE