There's been a lot of discussion recently about what constitutes a "real" geek - in particular, a real geek girl. Namely, how do you tell the actual geeks from the ones who are just faking it to get attention now that "geek" is cool. Well, not cool - popular. Being cool is the antithesis of geek. But while that's a valid question, it's weird that it's only being applied to women; why is it only geek girls who get accused of being fake, not geek boys? It's not at all hard to tell the poseurs from the pillars in any community, whether they've got a penis or a pussy; so why waste your time trying to tear someone down?
For those wondering, that image is Welsh model Seren Gibson, from the June 2012 issue of Loaded magazine. You can see more of her (and we mean that literally) in the photoshoot if you look around, but this was the best shot of the toys. (Yes, we chose the one with the most toys. Why? Because we're geeks. Not that we've ever had to be subject to questions about our cred.) She also recently appeared in the video for Hadoken's "Bad Signal":
It may very well be that geekery, particularly toy geekery is a very male-oriented pursuit. I don't think it's so much the fact that she is a fake geek, but that the image and photoshoot in general seem to be pandering to a male audience in a very obvious way, a trend that's seemed to surface quite a bit since "geeks" in general are stereotyped as being reclusive and having bad luck with women. When a lot of imagery like this seems to be oversaturating a lot of geek-centric things, people want to go on the defensive. "This is our hobby, we've been doing it our whole lives, and the model and the photo studio are exploiting it for a quick buck, and they're not even doing it correctly, etc."
On a side note, I totally own all those characters. Methinks I should put on some black heels and re-enact the shoot myself. (You can show penis on Oafe, right?)
For the record, we did create this macro ourselves: somebody found the picture and wanted to share it, but it may have been a little "NSFW-y" for us to just post by itself. So here we are, posting it simply as a way to objectify her, but also using that as an opportunity to question the recent trend of keezy femmes being called "fake" for whatever dumb reason. Put on a black border and a lampshade, and what would have just been "lol bewbs" becomes something we can actually post for you to enjoy.
This made me laugh like crazy:
I think the distaff counterpart to "penis" is "vagina;" you answered your own question by treating the male organ scientifically and the female disparagingly. Or is the term "pussy" suddenly SFW?
Well no, it isn't, but only because you said "suddenly." There's no sudden change: "pussy" is not any less safe-for-work than "dick" is. Would you consider dick disparaging?
Scientific nomenclature has nothing to do with anything. We began the pattern of alliteration with "poseurs" and "pillars," and try as we might, spellcheck just refused to accept the word "pagina." Nor could we remember any dick slang that began with V. Perhaps "pudendum," but (1) that refers to any external genitalia, not specifically a woman's, and (2) that's a far more disparaging term, meaning as it does "thing to be ashamed of" in Latin.
Heh. "dick slang"...
I would consider dick disparaging when compared with vagina in the context of a sociological question. Unless the question was rhetorical?
As I said, the answer is found in the language. It's not weird at all that geek girls are the only ones accused of being inauthentic when you consider the language of their culture (in this case English but in the one you describe geek-speak) prioritizes aesthetics over equivalency, though I hadn't even considered the alliteration. (Which would make that 2 missed points...) Once I do, however, I feel as if pudendum would have accomplished the same alliterative affect whilst illustrating the unity of male/female anatomy. The shameful term would also have underscored the fact that the behavior of divisive fandom is something to be disparaged.
If you say that the entire purpose of fiction/nerd culture is that exact thing, aesthetics over equivalency, then it's still not unexpected/weird that women are more prone than men of being accused of not "really" liking properties that specifically neglect catering to them.