Lector Caveat – This post was written ahead of time(!). While you read this, I am no doubt mired in panic over April Fool’s on ThinkGeek. You should check it out. Fireworks guaranteed.
Our Middle Daughter approached me on Saturday with a gleeful look in her eye. “Do you know what day tomorrow is?” she asked.
“Easter.”
“Do you know what else it is?”
“Sunday?”
“The first episode of the new Doctor Who’s*! What should I wear?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I have the Dalek socks, but should I wear the T.A.R.D.I.S. shirt or the Weeping Angels?”
(In the end, it was neither, because Youngest Child ended up in the Emergency Room, leaving me and the other two awake at 5:30 in the morning, which seemed like a perfectly reasonable time not to get dressed up but to go ahead and watch that new episode.)
Folks, I damned near cried when she said that. Because my daughters, they don’t know about how Geekdom has for so long been stereotyped as male centric. They don’t know whether it’s cool or not to be a princess who fights off an invading army of Cybermen with a trusty sonic screwdriver and their wits. It’s not about being popular, or fitting in. Chances are good if you called them geeks, one of them would smile with pride while the other would shrink away, embarrassed, ready to run off and play a video game instead.
I get the feeling sometimes that folks out there just don’t get it, that these labels they apply – and how they apply them – shape us. I’m not talking Science Fiction fandom here, but in generalities. In the last week and a half, my girls and I have looked at buying a telescope (some day, when we have the money, because we want to do it right), and we’ve played a game of Memoir ’44 (AWESOME). In both cases, though, the manufacturers assumed, blatantly, that their consumer base was entirely male. The telescope makers weren’t so bad – slightly geared more towards enchanting boys and men with their wares than being gender neutral, but not expressly so. But the makers of Memoir ’44 are unfortunately far too typical of game manufacturers in my experience. From their documentation to their helpful videos, the assumption is that if your child is going to play, it’s your male child. Not that sweet girl sitting across from you who’s just positioned infantry in such a way that she will take that bridge, one way or the other, in the next move or two.
I’m proud of my girls because they don’t know what society thinks they should be doing or not: they just know how to have fun. My wife and I didn’t raise them to be geeks, or to drive them to only enjoy certain things. We let them fly their flag however they want, and they choose which direction they want to head off in. Sometimes, it doesn’t involve makeup or tea. Sometimes it involves ion cannons and gastronomical chemistry.
Usually not together.
* We don’t get BBC America, so for the past few seasons I’ve been subscribing to the next day episodes on Amazon. Fairly handy, that is, and we can watch them on all of our TV’s thanks to Amazon streaming being on both the XBox and Roku
Related articles
- You’re With Me: 5 Team Board Games You Should Play (kotaku.com)
- Urban Dictionary for “Geek Girl”: (airamadru.wordpress.com)
- Tomorrow is it. Finally. So get your fool on. (datanode.net)
Exterminate!!
Bling-Bling!!
so d best choice should b Tardis..yup..thats my opinion..
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