Fluffyumpkins wrote:God forbid a man or woman have a positive self image?
I don't get this remark. What does any of this have to do with self-image?
Fluffyumpkins wrote:Or rather it's more interesting why you'd be so offended by his comments. Would it really be so bad if she were attractive, nerdy, and 'normal' (not the word I'd use) at the same time?
I'd like to think not, but if his remarks are indicative, yes it would. To elaborate, it wasn't the "attractive, nerdy and normal" remark that bothered me, per se, it was that the entirety of his remarks seemed to be oriented around how to make her a great catch, not how to make her a happy individual capable of indulging her interests. If that's still as representative of the standard mindset as it was when I was growing up, she would probably experience the same thing I experienced as a young teen (which frustrated me to no end).
If that happens, it will go something like this: all the people she shares her interests with (though not all her friends) will be male, and when she and they hit puberty, they will no longer be interested in doing cool things with her, playing video games or talking about computers. As she progresses through her teen years, new people will begin to befriend her not because they care about her or want to share time with her but because they want to "have" an attractive, nerdy female in their orbit. No guy will want to be "just friends" - almost every guy who befriends her will make a push (either open or deceitful) to become her boyfriend.
There will be plenty of guys queued up to do things for her and tell her not to worry her pretty head about it, but there will be a mysterious shortage of fellows interested in teaching her how to do these things on her own (which would make her happy, but them obsolete). In short, she will cease to be a person in anyone's eyes but her own and perhaps her family's, and will become a status item or a piece of meat, depending on the surroundings. This will be exacerbated by the unpleasantness that all (?) attractive women have to deal with: the threat of rape, being hit on by random passerby, etc.
If she has the same response I did at the time, she will eventually decide that one of these things has to go, put on ~50 pounds, tape her breasts and never go outside showing more than 10% of her body surface. (Well, first she'll try acting like a dangerous nutcase and discover that the average male nerd really cares much more about your breasts and waistline than about your mental health, anyway.) This isn't really an ideal option for anyone involved in the situation, particularly given the amount of energy it sucks away from the things you'd rather be doing. Not to mention the extent to which people try to tell you that if you're not flaunting it, something's wrong with you as a woman. Maybe this is the self-image issue you referenced in the beginning?
If she has the same response most people do, OTOH, she will conclude that nerds suck, divorce herself from that culture and cease pursuit of her former hobbies. IMO, this is one of the main reasons that the mainstream stereotype of nerds is so negative in some respects.
This attitude towards attractive, balanced female nerds is the
reason there are so few attractive, balanced female nerds. How many guys want to sit down and argue about which microprocessor has the best instruction set with such a person? How will she respond if none of them do - how many nerds want to go their entire lives in that sort of isolation? I didn't (still don't, actually), and I was/am the most asocial person I've ever known. So that's the answer to your question: the attitude typified by his remarks puts such people in a very bad position.
Fluffyumpkins wrote:That being said, can I get a second on "most smart women (self included) take great pains not to fall into all three of these categories at the same time."? I'd like to hear some other self-proclaimed smart women's views on the matter. I think IndyDDR is a fair sample of smart schladies.
We have many smart women here, but do we have any other female nerds? I can't think of any off the top of my head, but that means nothing - I'm notoriously good at forgetting people in such listings. I would be interested in hearing from them as well. My comment about "most smart women" is extrapolated from my conversations with other women who attended my university and later from female colleagues that I met in the workforce. It's probably an oversimplification, though - certainly some women handle the problem in other ways, such as wearing wedding rings (though they're not married) to try to signal unavailability or just accepting the new terms of their interactions with men and relying on exclusively female friends and avowedly gay men for support. But most of the ones I've talked to either deemphasize their femininity/attractiveness or just leave the field.
<*sigh*> Great. Now the thread's going to degenerate into an argument about how badly guys do or don't act when confronted with a beautiful nerd girl, and I know I'm not helping. Can we do topic splits on this forum, and if so, could we get one for this thread should the tangent go on a bit longer? I really would like to discuss the original question, too.
...
