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I hadn't been getting out to do interesting things about town for a while, so I was a little bit giddy about actually leaving home after dark, skipping the family meal, and going to a reading.

I went to this event with my friend Justine, who is a neurobiologist. (I'm just saying that to establish our geek cred. It doesn't have much to do with anything, really.) I was surprised when I got to the venue to discover that the Center for New Words was holding the reading in a tiny room of the YWCA in Central Square. The room was way too small. I had to sit on the floor under the podium, which I actually didn't mind at all. I really was just plain surprised. I hope that they manage to make some kind of arrangements with some of the local book stores around town for the future.



Charlie's essay was great. It was all about discovering herself as a geeky policy wonk at the same time as she discovered herself as a woman (Charlie is transexual). It was funny and very well written. She seemed nervous, but who wouldn't be. She had on some adorable sequined Mary Janes. I thought I had gotten a picture of them, but I guess not.



Nina Simone Dudnick read her essay "Sex and the Single (Woman) Biologist." She was a good reader. The essay was part about sexism in the Harvard Medical School and part about how men won't go out with scientists, which is ironically quite sexist.



Justine and I spent some time over a plate of nachos after the show talking about this. Being smart has never prevented me from getting laid. Granted, I'm not a scientist. But Justine is, and she has had no shortage of male admirers, and even three marriage proposals. Justine was sort of bristling about this essay after the reading. The sexist idea that men don't want to be with smart women really irked her, mostly because she has never found it to be true. I have to say that I concur. There are some irredeamable, emotionally retarded, insecure, sexist douche bags out there, but who wants to go out with them anyway? These are the guys who moulder in cranky bachelorhood and are generally more to be pitied than to be reviled. For the most part, the boys are all right. About the power structure in Harvard Medical School being sexist I don't doubt it, and the part of her essay which dealt with that was very interesting.


Diana Husmann, an undergraduate student at MIT read her essay, "The Dress," all about being a girly-outdoorsy geeky girl.



Annalee Newitz read last, excerpts from her essay, "When Diana Prince Takes off her Glasses." I'm a fan of Newitz, which is the reason I dragged myself out of the house to go to the reading. I'm looking forward to reading the whole essay. It's about role models and mentoring for young women and the insidious ways in which sexism can make you paranoid, among other things.



Annalee ended her reading with the words "we rule," which caused a sort of comic quiproquo during the qa. The first question came from a woman who was not a native English speaker and she asked, "If you rule, what are you fighting about?"

While the question came partly from a misunderstanding of American idioms, it is true that there are a lot of women I know who think that the fight against sexism is over, and that we won. It's important to appreciate what our mothers and grandmothers did to get where we are today, but it's also a mistake to think that sexism is a thing of the past. Sexism also is not a male-only problem. It's incredibly complicated.

Another thing Justine and I talked about was the way a sexist attitude becomes so ingrained in young women that they adopt the kinds of postures toward other women that they'll eventually be be fighting themselves. She and I were both tomboys growing up. Sort of honorary males, until puberty (and a little beyond). I always had a couple really wonderful female friends, but for the most part, I thought women were stupid. If there were men and women having a serious conversation, I would tend to tune out the women. Some time in my early 20s, I was cured of this misogyny but I feel a bit of shame about it still.

This kind of internalized, subconcious sexism against ourselves is maybe the most wretched form I know. After the reading I thought a bit about my own female role models. Mother, older friends, relatives, fictional heroes, teachers. Some of my first female role models were three heavy metal girls who took me under their wing when I started high school. They may not seem like likely role models for me or even good role models, but that's not really true. These girls, who were 17 and 18 years old, were strong. They were powerful. They were rebellious, sexual, outspoken, funny, and confident. They were never ignored and they didn't take any shit.





******

Date: January 11, 2007 @ 7 PM
What: Reading for She's Such A Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology & Other Nerdy Stuff, edited by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders (Seal Press 2007)
Location: The Center for New Words, 7 Temple St., Cambridge, MA
Admission: Free

Co-editors Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders will read from their new anthology, She's Such A Geek, and discuss the growing role of women in the sciences, fandom, gaming and other areas. Also reading will be contributors Nina Simone Dudnik and Diana Husmann. They'll have a question and answer session about the book.

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comic books , book , geek , fun , reading , feminism , i am so there , geekiness , essays , dungeons and dragons