Nerds leave Fortress of Solitude for Playboy Mansion

My recent lack of posting is due to going to Latitude Festival over the weekend. Which was terribly lovely. But I got back to an emailed link to this story from Double X on the biography of Facebook founders Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin.

Apparently, their lack of ability in the getting-laid department inspired the origins of Facebook and their (unofficial) biography seems to chart their success through the anonymous women they shagged.

I've blogged before about nerd sexism (here and here), but I do have sympathy with the article's assertion that "sexism 2.0 is uglier than its early versions". Call it pop-psychology, but the misogyny within the geek-tech community seems to be driven by former rejection. Girls wouldn't kiss the geeks at school and now that they're billionaires they will wreak their revenge on women by objectifying them and spending their time developing rape-simulation games (great article on rape in games here).

This isn't a new form of sexism however, its the same-old same-old reaction by some to women not being constantly sexually available to men. As one male friend suggested to me; "Well, if those teenage girls would just snog the geeky boys at school..." Forgetting that a) teenage boys are repulsive and b) girls really shouldn't have to put out just so that boys don't go on to 'rape' female characters in Second Life.

Rather than male techies having a long hard look at themselves and seeing how they may be contributing to oppressive practices, they bemoan the fact that the banning of Rapelay has led to a decline of "erotic games".

Although this might all stem from the same sexism that pervades our society, what makes it worse is that the men involved are often anti-authority, leftish, progressives (I have a link for this, bear with me). As I've said before - we expect more from you, don't let the abused become the abuser. Plus the undermining of women in tech, whether web company founders or a faceless Victoria Secret model, seems to come at a confluence of a sustained backlash to the feminist analysis of objectification and a desensitisation to sexual violence against women (in society at large as well as in games).

Nerdy men need to be aspiring to more than the Playboy Mansion. You're not going to find a Starbuck there.

Thanks to Liz. And sorry I've been a bit too techie recently. Will get back to health and medicine.

OW! F***, B*****ks, C***y, M*****F*****! I stubbed my toe.

This post was inspired by a Twitter conversation with @EvidenceMatters about pain and swearing. Apparently, swearing can increase pain tolerance, increase heart rate and decrease perceived pain (when subjects put their hand in icy water) compared with not swearing. I guess it is the linguistic equivalent of rubbing the elbow you just banged. But the study did say specifically that this was only true for men. What about women?

I went on the hunt for a study into female responses to pain and swearing. None. And yet I came across a whole plethora of linguistic, gender studies, organisational psychology, even politeness research (?) studies into gender differences in swearing.

Now, you may have noticed, I’m a big fan of swearing. I think it’s an important linguistic tactic. Plus, it is both big and clever. I love the fact that Armando Iannucci sends the scripts of The Thick of It to a ‘swear man’ who put more swearing into it.



However, if readers of this blog are true to form, you should be rather alarmed by my swearing and indeed think that this signifies my lack of morality. Of course, if you think that you can get tae fuck.

Culture and expectations tend to mitigate against women's use of obscenity. Swearing is seen as an aggressive and masculine thing to do and therefore sweary women are seen as transgressing gender norms. Indeed, studies show that women are judged more harshly for swearing than men (de Klerk 1992, 1997).

Swearing is also associated with lower socioeconomic groupings and/or working-class culture. A study by Elizabeth Gordon, found that in addition to the expected judgments of lower social status, female ‘non-standard speakers’ were additionally perceived to be of lower moral standing, on the basis of their vernacular usage (slang as well as swearing). So not only am I a gobshite, I’m a filthy, loose gobshite.

I admit to using swearing in a consciously gendered way. Just for shits and giggles. Calling men bitches, women wankers and requesting people suck my dick is part of my one-woman crusade to break down the gendered distribution of swear words. This isn’t unrealistic as apparently “terms like bitch and sow, were first used of males (or of both sexes) and only later applied exclusively to women”.

So could it be that the cultural norms that restrict women’s potty mouths could be doing them out of pain-relief? If you’re a woman and frequently find yourself frustrated, banging your legs on corners of tables or burning yourself with your cigarette – let out a screaming ‘fuck’. It’ll do you good on so many levels.

And on a positive note, girls swear as much as boys on MySpace - progress of sorts!

Next 'I'm a Celebrity' to be set in Whitehall

[Then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith with the necessary celebrities launch a consultation]

It is a bad sign of the health of evidence-based policy making when the Government employs an academic on the basis of their IMDB profile. Almost as embarrassing as Gordon Brown phoning Simon Cowell to find out how Susan Boyle is doing, back in March the Home Office employed Dr Linda Papadopoulos to carry out a study into the sexualisation of girls in British society.

Now I’m not saying Dr Linda (as she likes to be known) is a bad person, I just don’t think she is the right person to be advising the government on this aspect of social policy. The research into violence against women in the UK is extensive leading to an understanding of the ‘continuum of violence against women and girls’ and policy outcomes such as the integrated strategy on violence against women (which exists in Scotland and is currently being consulted on in England).

This isn’t Dr Linda’s specialism. She seems in fact, far more comfortable as the resident psychologist on Big Brother, a regular on The Wright Stuff and Celebrity Fit Club and a general rent-a-quote ‘Celebrity Psychiatrist’ (sic) on CNN, Sky News, Channel 5 news, ITN news and BBC breakfast. She has also written such weighty tomes as 'The Man Manual' and 'What Men Say, What Women Hear'.

Dr Linda also has a range of skincare products which include ‘smart nutrients’ which can “boost memory, reduce stress and even help cognitive ability”. These are moisturisers. But the range is called ΨDerma [Psy-Derma]. Geddit? She’s a PSY-chologist who’s peddling moisturiser which makes them like, er, psychological moisturisers.

The range includes:

• Cleansing Thoughts Foaming Cleanser – ‘Foaming cleanser & detoxifier to wash away the stress of the day’
• Intensive Therapy Facial Serum – ‘Profound stress relief serum for unhappy skin’ (£30 for 15ml)

Now as I said, I don’t think Dr Linda is a bad person and a lot of her advice about women needing to boost their self esteem and not be body-obsessed is all well and good. What I do have a problem with is the Government’s use of pop-psychologists to advise on social policy and Dr Linda’s use of women’s self-esteem issues to sell over-priced moisturiser to them on the basis that it will in itself help deal with stress and anxiety.

Dr Linda is getting dangerously close to misusing her ‘Dr’ title. And its not good clinical practice to speculate on the psychology of anyone on TV. As the fabulous Dr Petra Boynton said at a recent talk: “I wouldn’t comment on a celebrity’s mental state if they were my patient as that would be unethical and I wouldn’t comment if they weren’t my patient as I would have no idea what I was talking about.”

Wise words. I would also add: psychologists should think deeply about giving academic legitimacy to the exploitation of or intrusion into any individual's mental health issues for TV.

Thanks to Heather for drawing this to my attention.

Let's all laugh at working class women

[Diana Mitford Mosley, mother of Max Mosley. And not a working class woman]

This has really torn me. Yes I hate fascists. Yes I think they are ignorant and want to laugh at their stupidity. But Vice Magazine - which is a pile of shite - taking a dig at female members of the BNP filled me with rage.

I was uncomfortable about the article but what affirmed my position was the comments which were invariably from men referring to the women as "stupid cunts" and "ugly chavs".

But why do they need to objectify women to get their point across? The BNP are ignorant, bigoted, anti-intellectual propagandists that feed on poverty and marginalisation. So why focus on the women and highlight how ugly, working class and stupid they are? Ah yes, its an easy target.

But for fuck's sake, its the BNP! Its like beating a disabled, piss-covered gerbil to death. Momentarily rewarding but does it really achieve anything? Other than laughing at how stupid women can be, women who are not in the hieracrhy of the party and who did not just get elected to the European Parliament...

I Twitter. I Twat. I Will Tweet.

Interesting article from Double X, an American women's Web magazine, on studies into male and female use of social networking. Apparently men on Twitter have 15% more followers than women and both women and men are more likely to follow men.

The original study from Harvard Business School had some other interesting findings. Such as:

• More women than men use Twitter
• Men have more reciprocated relationships (i.e. follow backs)
• Both men and women tweet at the same rate
• Men are more likely to follow a man than a woman, and so are women but not by as much
• The top 10% of users account for 90% of tweets

These results are quite different from other forms of social networking media where activity tends to be more women-focused and men are more likely to follow the content of women they do and do not know. The Study hypothesises that this is because of the different way that Twitter is used and that it lacks photo-sharing (interesting...).

The finding that Twitter is used in very different ways to other social networking sites certainly seems to ring true. I use Facebook and Twitter very differently; Twitter more like a web-log such as MetaFilter and I have a much stricter criteria for who I'm 'friends' with on Facebook and have a private profile there but not on Twitter.

The article suggests people do a gender audit of who they follow. Meh, I follow about 500 'people' but after taking a quick sample, I do indeed follow more men than women but nearly as many gender-neutral as men (News sites, green and human rights orgs, etc). This is *probably* because I follow a lot of nerds, techies, politicians and comedians all of which have a male over-representation. Right, I'm off to have a following cull and find more women to follow!

Oh, and if you want to follow me on Twitter: @naomimc