Geek Feminism | unfridged

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“Even Mothra, Queen of the Kaiju, has to lean in sometimes.” [Harlot]
The Mary Sue has a great list of nine women who didn’t let the fact that they were on otherwise all-male teams stop them.
Lisa Hanawalt’s Hot Dog Taste Test is out now, and Bitch has a great interview about her art, Bojack Horseman, and giving anxiety a name.
Also from Bitch: “Reading The X-Men as a queer text.”
OnlyLeigh’s new video is called “Belle & Tina are Time Travellers,” it’s great, and hopefully it’ll be the start of a longer series.
New Feminist Frequency video! I can’t believe this needs saying, but lingerie isn’t armour.
The gender breakdown for E3 was pretty disappointing. The Mary Sue talks about the six trailers with playable female characters, and Feminist Frequency has a breakdown by gender of all the games more generally.
And here’s an interview with Kameron Hurley, author of the new The Geek Feminist Revolution. [Geek Feminism]

Image from Belle & Tina are Time Travellers

Tagged Belle & Tina are Time Travellers, Bitch, Bitch Media, Brojack Horseman, E3, Feminist Frequency, Geek Feminism, Godzilla, Harlot, Hot Dog Taste Test, Kameron Hurley, Lisa Hanawalt, Mothra, OnlyLeigh, The Geek Feminist Revolution, The Mary Sue, X-Men

Jun 08 2014

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Weekend Reading List

Weekend Reading List: Gwendoline Christie and geek therapy

First, let’s get the really good news out of the way: Star Wars Episode VII cast Lupita Nyongo and Gwendoline Christie, and OH MY GOD WHO WILL THEY PLAY WHAT WILL THEY DO THIS IS SO EXCITING. [Entertainment Weekly]
The Mary Sue has a great piece on masculinity and video game violence.
“The publishing industry looks a lot like these best-selling teenage dystopias: white and full of people destroying each other to survive.” So says author Daniel José Older, who tackles the risks associated with an all-white publishing industry. [Buzzfeed]
In a similar vein, novelist N.K. Jemisin was a recent a guest speaker at WisCon and has a transcript of her speech available on her blog. It’s a great piece of writing about the growing presence of people of colour in genre literature, and the setbacks and dangers they can face.
Jezebel looks at HBO, its history of being a pioneer, and where the network has gone wrong, particularly with Game of Thrones and its irresponsible use of female bodies for shock value.
Anyone who’s watched the Russel T. Davies and Steven Moffat runs of Doctor Who knows that the latter has a much worse track record when it comes to female characters (both in their number and in their prominence). This infographic, via the Daily Dot, shows very clearly exactly how much both show runners cared about having a variety of women, the amount of time those women spent speaking, and whether they talked to other women at all.
Acknowledging the difficulty of being a geek in therapy, and having to bring your therapist up to speed on the community’s issues before even starting to discuss them, the people behind Geek Feminism have put together a wiki-full of resources for therapists.
Remember that time Hayao Miyazaki created a music video for Chage and Aska? The Mary Sue does.

Tagged Buzzfeed, Chage and Aska, Daniel José Older, Doctor Who, Entertainment Weekly, Game of Thrones, Geek Feminism, Gwendoline Christie, Hayao Miyazaki, HBO, Jezebel, Lupita Nyongo, N.K. Jemisin, Russel T. Davies, Star Wars Episode, Steven Moffat, Studio Ghibli, The Daily Dot, The Mary Sue, therapy, WisCon

Feb 14 2014

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Weekend Reading List

Weekend Reading List: Genderbent captains and gaming couples

Becky Chambers talks about her favourite video game romances, just in time for Valentine’s Day (or as I like to call it: Meh, Whatever Day). Obvious spoiler warning (and one I did not remember in time to leave Guild Wars 2 unspoilt, whoops). [The Mary Sue]
Actually, let’s talk more about video game romance. Way back when, Geek & Sundry had a romance in games-themed show called Metadating, and I highly recommend it.
Back when I was an intern at Drawn & Quarterly, I had the chance to read Jolies ténèbres (Beautiful Darkness) in its original French while scanning the artwork. They’ve since put out a translation, and you can read the first ten pages over at Buzzfeed. It’s so creepy and beautiful and great.
Facebook has changed its gender settings to include more options than just male and female, in a great step toward inclusivity. [The Huffington Post]
Racialicious discusses potentially reading the cast of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as an interracial family, a point of view that hadn’t previously occurred to me.
Read up about ten badass black women in comics! [Clutch Magazine]
Over at Quirk Books, I wrote about the scariest computers in science fiction, and, in honour of Darwin’s birthday, six fictional explorers worth their salt.
There used to be a neon, woodland-themed, pay-what-you-can cafeteria in 1930s Brooklyn. It was dedicated to providing a hot meal to those who couldn’t afford it, and it was, apparently, marvellous. [Collectors Weekly]
Here’s a review of IDW’s recent Star Trek #29 comic, that featured a genderbent crew of the Enterprise. [Geek Feminism]

Tagged Beautiful Darkness, Becky Chambers, Buzzfeed, Charles Darwin, Clutch magazine, Collectors Weekly, Drawn & Quarterly, Enterprise, Facebook, Geek & Sundry, Geek Feminism, Guild Wars 2, IDW, Jolies Ténèbres, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Metadating, Quirk Books, Racialicious, Star Trek, The Huffington Post, The Mary Sue

Jan 31 2014

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Weekend Reading List

Weekend Reading List: Trans* representation and troubles with tribbles

Let’s start things off with a wonderful Medium piece about the history of ambiguously gendered characters in anime and manga, and how the North American versions of these stories are slowly catching up.
The Mary Sue interviews Teal Sherer, whose My Gimpy Life webseries was successfully funded and is getting a second season in February. She talks about the upcoming episodes, Hollywood, and being an actress with a disability. You can watch season one here.
This piece on Racialicious makes a solid case for an overrepresentation of people of colour in film, that we shouldn’t just be striving for better representation, but should be actively humanizing people of colour by seeing them in a variety of roles, everywhere and all the time.
Whether or not you’re generally a fan of the gchat interview, The Hairpin talking to game designer/trans* woman/badass Porpentine is worth the read.
Being trans*, genderqueer or an otherwise non-binary person can offer some interesting insights, as this piece, “It is Easier Now That I Look Like a Guy,” about the tech industry, shows. [Geek Feminism]
A developer was approached via Facebook by a games reporter, and the conversation very quickly became both harassment and deeply unprofessional. A screenshot of the exchange made the rounds a little while ago, and now Kotaku has interviewed her. She stays anonymous, but does explain the shock you feel when these things happen, and the sense of powerlessness they can leave you with.
“So here I was, at the ripe age of twenty-four, actually considering whether the vibrating insides of a tribble would be enough to get me off.” When you try to MacGyver a sex toy from childhood possessions, fun things happen. [The Toast]
Lana del Rey’s cover of “Once Upon a Dream” is beautiful, haunting, actually making me excited for the upcoming Maleficent.

Tagged anime, Geek Feminism, Kotaku, Lana del Rey, MacGyver, Maleficent, Medium, My Gimpy Life, Once Upon a Dream, Porpentine, Racialicious, Sleeping Beauty, Star Trek, Teal Shere, The Hairpin, The Mary Sue, The Toast, tribble

Dec 27 2013

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Weekend Reading List

Weekend Reading List: Sylvan elves and sisterly love

GimmeaB

MariNaomi got harassed by a fellow panel member at a convention, and wrote about the experience over at XOJane. It’s pretty horrifying. The perpetrator has since identified himself and apologized but, as The Mary Sue puts it, your mileage may vary. (Pro tip: If you harass a woman, don’t apologize to her husband.)
I’ve been totally in love with Ginger Haze since she started her Broship of the Rings illustrations, but here she writes about how weird and wonderful Tolkien elves are, and somehow I love her more.
Want to know if your designing a sexist tech product? ArsTechnica has a handy flowchart.
Anjin Anhut talks about the reasoning behind gendered video game marketing, and why conservative advertising might not work much longer. [How to Not Suck at Video Game Design]
The Border House’s Samantha Allen talks about transphobic humour at Spike TV’s VGX award show, and what it feels like to be triggered by it.
SFFWorthy combines Upworthy-style headlines with great genre moments, makes me smile.
A helpful reminder about the importance of pronoun use in male-dominated spaces, this time the programming industry. [Geek Feminism]
What does Buffy (the movie, not the show) have to teach us about media representations of women? According to Anna Leventhal, Buffy’s desire to “be like other girls,” to not be Special, flips an established narrative of female competition on its head and supports some really great solidarity. [The Eagle & the Weasel]
One of the most important things to do to encourage diversity in a place like the tech industry is to give space to marginalized peoples to express themselves. Letting people speak is crucial, and there are some very tangible ways in which to do so. [Medium]
Bitch Flicks makes a compelling case for using Frozen‘s Elsa as a metaphor for queer sexuality.
Since we’re apparently not done talking about Frozen, Jezebel discusses subverted love-at-first-sight tropes and princes who are dicks.
And, last of all, here’s a paper linking objectifying media with increased sexual harassment and coercion. [Psychology of Women Quarterly]

Tagged Anjin Anhut, Anna Leventhal, ArsTechnica, Bitch Flicks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Elsa, Frozen, Geek Feminism, Ginger Haze, How to not suck at video game design, Jezebel, MariNaomi, Medium, Psychology of Women Quarterly, Samantha Allen, Sexual harassment, SFFWorthy, Spike TV, The Border House, The Broship of the Rings, The Eagle & the Weasel, The Mary Sue, Tolkien, Upworthy, VGX, XOJane

Sep 06 2013

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Weekend Reading List

Weekend Reading List: Convention policies and slash pairings

I ship them so hard

Have you ever wondered what would happen if Disney villains were on Grindr? Well here’s your answer. (It’s not particularly NSFW unless someone’s reading over your shoulder.) [Everything Gay]
Writing with Michelle raises some excellent points on the lack of lesbian characters in television, and the need to continue pushing for more representation. I really enjoyed her call for more inclusion, and not just because she name drops Warehouse 13‘s Myka and Helena (who should totes be together4ever), Who‘s Vastra and Jenny, and of course Willow and Tara and Xena and Gabrielle. (I’m purposefully leaving out that last comma because how great would that fanfic be?)
Feminist skeptic website Skepchick were told to pack up their booth at Dragon*Con, in what appear to be very shady circumstances.
Talking about conventions more broadly, the Ada Initiative has an excellent and thorough timeline of con harassment in the SF/F, scepticism/atheism, and free and open source software communities. The information is incredibly well presented, and it manages to be chilling and comforting all at the same time.
And while we’re on the subject (I’ve got cons on the brain, #mtlcomiccon next week!), this wonderful (if older) article outlines exactly why “just hit your harasser” is not a valid response. [Geek Feminism]
To leave off on a more lighthearted note, the Hairpin predicts the survival rates of Orange is the New Black characters, should they be suddenly transported to Westeros.
Adam Ellis makes tiny paper crafted hats for cats. Because The Internet.

Tagged A Song of Ice and Fire, Adam Ellis, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Disney, Doctor Who, Dragon Con, Everything Gay, Free and Open Source software, Game of Thrones, Geek Feminism, Grindr, Orange is the New Black, papercraft, Scepticism/Atheism, SF/F, Skepchick, The Ada Initiative, The Hairpin, Warehouse 13, Writing with Michelle, Xena Warrior Princess

unfridged

feminism and fantasy, science fiction and sexism

Tag Archives: Geek Feminism

Weekend Reading List: Trailers and time travellers

Weekend Reading List: Gwendoline Christie and geek therapy

Weekend Reading List: Genderbent captains and gaming couples

Weekend Reading List: Trans* representation and troubles with tribbles

Weekend Reading List: Sylvan elves and sisterly love

Weekend Reading List: Convention policies and slash pairings