Sue - absolutely. Of course, the very act of labeling someone a "nerd" or a "geek" carries connotations that are heavily identified with gender or the performance of it (calling a guy a "nerd" implies he's physically weak, wears glasses and a pocket protector, etc.) to begin with. But articles like that one just reinforce the underlying problems. There's a reason I dropped my Newsweek subscription a while ago. *sigh* Message: 5 Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:41:55 +0000 From: "Suely Fragoso " <suely@unisinos.br> Subject: Re: [Air-L] nerd culture and new media To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Message-ID: <s85902a3.024@minerva.unisinos.br> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII As far as we (all) don't oblige the men to "perform (or overperform) their gender role" to validate whatever tendencies either... Sue

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stuszyn@UTNet.UToledo.Edu 18/06/08 11:38 >>> I had a feeling that godawful Newsweek article was going to come up. Because it's only okay for women to be geeks/nerds/"fill in intellectual stereotype here" as long as they "sex it up" enough? grr.

Broadsheet wrote about that article last week as well: http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2008/06/12/nerd_girls/index.html There's a big difference between being able to be yourself without suffering the repercussions and *having* to perform (or overperform) your gender role in order to validate or offset your non-conformist tendencies. Rar.