Jen Ouellette takes lethal aim at the myth of the sexless girl-geek in this post, which made me want to pump my fist and cheer and go out dancing in a sexy dress and look in a microscope and write a blog post all at the same time:
The mistake many people make, however, is to over-compensate too far in the other direction, wherein anything remotely "girly" is somehow exerting undue pressure on young girls, with no thought to the possibility that maybe some girls genuinely like this stuff. Maybe this is part of who they are. Maybe they also like science and math. Ergo, we are putting a whole different kind of peer pressure on them that also squelches their individuality, by insisting they simply can't be both interested in science and in clothes and makeup. ("Accessorizing is evil and will turn you into a bubblehead! Put down that Coach handbag and back away slowly! Do it for science!") . . .
But you know, I grew up hearing I was smart quite a bit, and while I'm grateful for that, it didn't save me from struggling with self-image and self-worth. That's just part of growing up. Since hardly anyone (other than my mom, and who can believe their mom?) ever bothered to tell me I was pretty as well, I concluded I was ugly. Ergo, I just didn't bother with anything involving my physical appearance, figuring it was hopeless. In so doing, I ignored an important part of my identity.
In my own experience, that last bit is excruciatingly true.
Too many women are somehow convinced during adolescence that being smart and being feminine are mutually exclusive. I have a passel of smart, sassy, chic female friends to prove that principle wrong, but it took me many years to find those friends - years of feeling guilty and weird if I so much as plucked my eyebrows or wore lip gloss. Was I betraying my nerdy sisterhood by doing so? It's so unfair to young girls to make them believe they have to choose one part of themselves over another.
To lighten up a serious subject. . . here's an illustration of how sexy young things and nerds occupy mutually exclusive regions of our cultural Venn diagram, such that bringing them together sparks absurdity:
Of course, the biggest joke is that the "nerds" in this parody really aren't all that impressive. How is name-dropping random philosophers intelligent? Why doesn't one of them break out some multidimensional equations or build a supercomputer out of paperclips and buckyballs? Oh yeah - because if these were science geeks, the line "At Heidegger high school, the only sport is seduction. . . " wouldn't be merely amusingly absurd, it would be utterly unbelievable. Sigh.
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I am curious about what you think of Nerd Pr0n.
On the youtube video: Since when is being a cryptozoologist a nerdy thing? Unless I'm missing a dramatic change in how we approach science, cryptozoologists are still usually pseudo-scientists and usually not very nerdy. The video also makes it sound like the characters are being rather ... not sure what word to use ... arrogant and fake?
Also, the problem of trying to separate nerdy from sexy works in the other direction as well. While I was an ugly geeky stereotype when I was a teenager and young adult (much as you have described was your experience and Ms. Ouellette's), as an adult I've been involved with studying various aspects of sexology and the sex industry and have now become a representative of the beauty-oriented crowds simply because that is a part of my work (Currently working as a cam girl and phone actress). When clients from work learn that I have hobby interests in physics and math and that I spend my free time reading on a vast array of subjects and speak (rather poorly) two other languages and/or many of my other nerdy activities, they are often intimidated, dislike the defiance of the stereotype and some even express an aversion to me being a 'nerd.' The latter has even brought about some amusing moments like the day I was in my camgirl chat room discussing something (I don't remember what, but I think it might have been my Debian configuration) and a client who had been visiting with me every day for the last week suddenly types into my chat, "UR A NURDE!" and promptly left, as if he was offended (and as if that was some sort of insult to me ... the best insult ever, since the spelling seemed to highlight the reasons why I'm glad I'm a nerd). There are guys who have a nerd girl fetish, but they don't seem to want real nerds - they want girls dressed up as nerds. I still get decent clients, I just find that with some clients I have to be careful how I approach any given subject.
I also face the problem of people who are well educated and intelligent disliking the merging of the nerdy girl with the sex industry and objecting to all that I do as a result. I do hope that people can begin to reach some more rational conclusions regarding sexuality and intelligence, especially in regards to women (though, I've learned this is a problem for some men as well - the sporty guy is not stereotyped as intelligent, nor is the attractive guy. I recently watched the movie, "10 Things I Hate About You" and it seemed to reinforce these stereotypes quite readily. Apparently I need to work on my female-oriented bias).
All I can say is hallelujah that the drama geeks and physics geeks were one and the same in my school. I don't know that any of us ever thought we were attractive, but we all got that we had tools to build the facade(s) we wanted. We had preps, rockers, vintage junkies, flower children, even a sweater girl.
Now to keep my niece from feeling as though she has to choose...so far, so good.
Katherine, I bet that she probably makes quite a bit of money catering to a certain taste. I'm sure some men find women who code their own porn sites uber-sexy!
Sophie - the crypto reference was odd. I'm not sure what to make of it either. It was about the only reference I found intriguing in the whole clip, for precisely that reason!
Stephanie - you were massively lucky to have geek overlap in your school! I should have been a Goth Geek, but never had the chance (we didn't have Goths).
In some ways, I'm ridiculously happy that as a science/math/theater tech geek I didn't have any pressure to be sexy in high school. I'm just as happy that in college I was able to explore that side of myself while in no way invalidating my nerd credentials.
So if people think smart and sexy are mutually exclusive, how do they explain Doctor Sexy?
I was about to say I didn't hit goth until I got to college, but then I remembered my senior picture. All black and gold, with pale skin and dyed red hair. Punky goth it was.
But if you're feeling bad that you didn't get to grow up goth, you can always raise your own. :)
http://www.studiohunty.com/tamagothi/
It took me until after PhD and tenure till I started taking interest in looks and such without too much guilt.
I will try to encourage my daughter to start earlier...
While I certainly agree that being intelligent, educated, and into science or other technical subjects shouldn't preclude being attractive and sexual, I think the unthinking equivocation between "buying and using certain types of overpriced and/or constraining clothing and personal accessories," and feminine sexuality or femininity in general, could stand some critical analysis. (That is to say, I think it deserves some; I don't believe for a moment that it'll 'stand' it).