Is it less socially acceptable for women to be geeky?

There were 50+ men on my computing course and three women.

One of them was out to "collect the whole set" of girls on the course

He failed.

I've found that since having DCs, I think don't have time for MMOs, RPGs etc. I can't stay up until five in the morning playing Arkham Horror when I've got to look after the childebeest all day.
I do feel that I've lost a bit of myself though. I've just started an OU course just to make me feel like I'm not just a mother.

:) NormanTebbit

Mumwithdice, I'm a sahm too at the moment, but I'm still doing a bit of consultancy work on the side. I'm a sap assessor, which means I produce those energy certificates with the coloured stripes on that you might have seen in public buildings. I also advise developers on green power and insulation. I quite enjoy it and being able to work from home is a godsend!

I have a dice collection too but no chance to use them, I can't believe I used to have time to role-play one afternoon a week going into the evening, now half an hours peace and quiet feels like a luxury!

I agree with Goldenbrown. Until quite recently I was a chartered engineer and have always been accepted as one of the boys and other women don't like it. I've not worked with other women in this country but I have in Europe and Scandinavia where there seems to be more women engineers and it isn't such a huge issue.

I don't think being a geek at all is "socially acceptable" although it is getting more so. I agree with those who have already said, being a female geek is made harder by the fact that ale geeks are generally less welcoming to female geeks, often seeing the as a target rather than one of the crowd and you need to fight against this. A woman walking into a shop like forbidden planet or similar is often greeted with the "OMG It's a GIRL" glances, unless you are a regular.

However, I believe a large part of the problem here is other woman geeks who don't like other woman invading their turf, you see it all the time in the RP world (Waves at her mate from RP who she knows will be reading this thread at some point and has almost certainly worked out who she is by now) girls with gangs of boys who they see as their property and get very protective if another woman lurks too closely, we are our own worst enemies.

Once you are accepted into the geek world, you suddenly become just "one of the lads" which is a title I'm not sure i want either.

i like straight lines too. i was on a busy station recently & i stood on an odd bit of the platform & noticed and extremely long straight line & thought it is a privilege to see such a thing! it went on & on & if you did not stand at the right point, you would be oblivious to it.

a privilege! tonight i am going to try to find it again....

.....good looking men bulging in their tight fitting outfits.....

they sound lovely! I'm lucky I have a mathmo SIL, so she has lots of dice too and can indulge in dice appreciation. DP also built himself a dice tower. We are a sad geeky lot, but we're happy :)

I think of myself as nerdy/geeky, in the sense that I do programming for a living, I like patterns in data and straight lines in my house, am into grammar and the structure of language, love Bach, etc. I hate shopping, don't wear makeup, don't like much pop music other than 70s funk, and like doing codeword puzzles. At home I am the one who does the flatpack furniture and the electronics. When I was a teen I looked pretty weird (sort of punky but not a punk - I didn't want to belong to a tribe). I am definitely not into computer games because I use a computer for work, and I hate Star Wars. I think I still qualify as a geek though.

Most of the mums I know probably consider me a bit ... different, for those reasons. But I am still friends with them - I just don't do shopping trips with them. It does also make it easier to speak to some of the dads - I think they appreciate me more than some of the more 'homey' women.

So to answer the op: as far as I'm concerned, it's perfectly socially acceptable to be a geek - as long as you don't have a chip on your shoulder about it, and as long as you are yourself.

Those dice are beautiful though - I have a glittery magenta one and a solid copper 12-sider.

I'll have to look out for Formula De - my dice have become somewhat obsolete since I stopped playing Cthulu!

bedathogwarts we also have a lot of multisided dice. Some bought at the Stuttgart Spielmesse, and a load came with Formula De (which is a great game to play with children and to get them thinking about probability)

SGM i like superhero movies too. simple plots plus action & special powers.

It shouldn't be. But board gamers who go to board game clubs seem to be male (and often look like comic book guy from the Simpsons ). I like beating a load of lads at board games though.

I'm not a proper geek though. I have a logical mind, but not a proper mathematical one. I find I can only go so far, IYSWIM. I'm jealous of you proper physicist/IT/mathmo gals

Can I join please?

I'm a specialist in a fairly obscure bit of construction regulations and I must confess to finding social interaction with other mums a bit of a strain. I've learnt not to tell people what I do unless they tell me they do something similar first; I've literally had people back away when telling the truth!
I've got lots of friends but none of them local but I don't feel young enough to go and get introductions at the local comic shop like I used to so just end up keeping myself to myself.

I love being a geek but it's quite a lonely path, online life is either a godsend or a way of avoiding life depending on how you look at it.

I tend to threadkill on here so please don't leave me hanging, I'm nice really honest!

mumwithdice yes....resistance is futile.....

i like maths as well. DP & i play number games on long train journeys. counting up in prime numbers etc.

if you are a male, geek, there are more fellow male geeks. if you are a female geek, you are more isolated.

my female friends are not geeky at all but they are individuals (journalist for a national paper, soon to be professor of psychology, SAHP) so we are common in our differences.

left to my own devices my clothes can be a bit of a shambles. for smart work/social events i use a personal shopper. know what you are good at & know what you arent!

my geekiness is : IT, maths, DIY (it is engineering really.... i have built walls!), pop sci fi (BSG etc.)

I think it's more socially acceptable for women to be geeky, partly because they seem to be able to achieve a better balance between the 'geeky' and 'normal' parts of their lives, partly because they are in a minority so their 'geeky' pastimes give them ample opportunity to mingle with the opposite sex, and partly because womens clothing and style is much more varied, so they don't obviously look geeky, unlike male clothing which is much more polarised and tribal.

I know plenty of women, including some mothers, who would be classed as geeky by the points above - owning collections of multi-sided dice (ok, that's me), playing Cthulu Mythos, running a steampunk jewellery business, attending Buffy cons, writing slashfic (or whatever it's called), but unlike most of their male counterparts, they have some concept of personal hygiene, are capable of conversing about subjects other than obscure 1980s horror movies, and are no longer virgins.

I think there's definitely a 'geeky men' subculture which is not usually very welcoming to women (and can sometimes be really quite misogynistic). So as a female geek you can end up in the rather lonely position of not fitting in either there or in more 'mainstream' culture. Not sure if that's the same thing as it being 'less socially acceptable' though.

I was interested to read this morning someone on another thread saying in India IT is not particularly considered a male thing and there are lots of female graduates.

I'm a geek - a physicist by training, career and inclination who spends far too much time with programmers, engineers and other physicists. I don't roleplay, but DH does, and yesterday I built a PC from scratch.

I guess that in 'mum' situations there is a lot of subtle pressure to be the same as the others (just as the dads onlt talk about cars, football and rugby), and certainly at school thats about fashion, and the children. Discussing the merits of GPUs is not suitable apparently . In fact, beyond how many seats a car has, you can't talk about those either.