Being Geek Chic is a blog about one woman navigating the male-dominated industries of production and tech. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi, Founder, CEO and Director of Mighteor - one of the world's first internet video production companies. Learn more about Mighteor here.
If you’re reading this blog, it should be no surprise that we love a great female protagonist. So when my friend Jeff reached out to tell me about his new book, Spirit in Realtime, which features a badass girl named Max who lives in a world where virtual reality and reality have merged.
“In 2020 San Diego, Max and her friends live in a wired world where information is a commodity, everyone has a price, and safety is an illusion sold to rubes and noobs. But cyberspace is also an equalizer, allowing Max and her tribe to transcend society’s limits and become who they want to be.Until now, Max’s biggest hassle was being a 15-year-old girl gamer in a world where that made you a target for misogynistic trolls – or worse. But when Max’s dad, a computer science professor at UCSD, doesn’t come home from work one day, Max finds herself plunged into a world of hackers, international corporate spies and the secretive government agency known as Cyber Command.”
Here’s the first part of the excerpt:
To get to The Buzz Max had to log into Cyberspace. Cyberspace wasn’t a place exactly. It was more like a collection of places that existed within a sprawling electronic communication network. Once upon a time, when it was smaller, the network was called the Internet. Or the World Wide Web. Now it was the Ubiquitous Web, or the UW. These days kids like Max called it the Yoob.
The Ubiquitous Web was everywhere. On your phone. In your car. In your glassy-glass. On the wired, sensor studded shirts the trendy kids in Tokyo were wearing. The UW was the sum total of all of the computers, screens, phones, TVs, appliances, vehicles and more that were all hooked up by hard lines, soft lines, cable feeds, wireless and satellites so that they could talk to each other.
Computers had talked to each other over phone lines since the 1950s. But before Max was born, people communicated on the Internet by typing words into a computer. There were underlined words called links that connected to other places on the Internet when they were clicked on. Following the links from one to another was where the phrase “Surfing the Web” came from.
As time went on, links became doorways, windows, elevators, escalators, telephone booths, floating whirlpools, the mouths of man-eating dragons and thousands of even more fantastic variations. Everywhere was linked to somewhere or it was nowhere.
Download all of Chapter 3 here. You can buy the book from all the normal online retailers, or you can start here. And thank you to Jeff for sharing!
There are so many parts of our education system that separate girls from the pack. Make them feel like they’re not good enough. When it comes to math, specifically, the science backs them up. That’s why we have Leslie Gilbert here today. She is the founder of MathKit, a set of hands-on math games to help families build girls’ confidence and skills. Check out her Kickstarter for MathKit games and help her meet the funding goal by the Friday December 11 deadline, and bring this vision of playful math learning to life!
Want to empower your girl? Teach her math.
Math confidence and skills keep the future open for girls. When they grow up, they will know they can study anything. They can understand statistics and personal finances. They can protect themselves from predatory lenders and question politicians who manipulate data.
Math is still suffering from a gender gap.
A study in Science indicates that girls in elementary school succeed in math at the same level as boys, but have more difficulty later with complex problem-solving.. Though performance is the same, researchers have found important differences in elementary girls’ self-perception. Even when girls are succeeding at the same level as boys, they self-assess as having lower ability. Girls underestimate themselves.
Girls also have higher levels of math anxiety, regardless of performance. A study of 5th-graders also showed that the kids most likely to give up on a difficult math problem are high-achieving girls.
The true goal of math–learning reasoning skills and understanding the number system–can become distorted in elementary school. Kids think that math speed = intelligence. Math becomes a race to the right answer. This is particularly harmful to girls, many of whom are drawn to other learning styles and dislike speed rote memorization.
Put the M back in STEM play at home.
Many popular toys inspire young girls to engage in science, technology, and engineering. A recent article from Forbes calls STEM toys for girls a hot new trend. (STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). By all means, let’s get girls playing with robots, doing science experiments, and learning about future careers. A close look at STEM toy lists, however, reveals very few toys that focus on math learning.
Mathematics is foundational, but it is still a difficult subject for parents to support well at home. Many parents are uncomfortable with math, and they justifiably worry that they are going to give that math anxiety to their kids. Other parents simply need help getting started.
To empower girls, play math with them.
I am a college math teacher and the mother of a second grade girl. I want to help families set girls up for success in math by playing games together. Through games, families can teach girls how to embrace and work through mistakes, relax with math, and try harder problems. Math can stop being an intelligence test, with all the associated stress.
We cuddle up with wonderful books to make reading welcoming. Let’s reimagine family math as thoughtful, playful, and social – a safe space for girls to learn.
Let’s teach our girls that they can learn ANYTHING, especially math.
Who are you supposed to be?
I’m Captain America.
I beg your pardon?
It’s a great line out of a classic movie, but I often find myself wondering the same thing when I’m trying to figure out exactly what is supposed to be represented in superhero cosplay for young girls. I’m always thrilled to see that younger female viewers have taken an interest (and been encouraged to do so!) in something that’s not solely princess-themed, or pink, or some stereotyped combination of the two, but when it comes to portrayal and merchandise availability for girl’s products, the inclusivity sort of ends at blankets and Trapper Keepers.
If you find yourself searching stores for superhero-themed swag for your daughter rather than busting the old sewing machine to make your own, you might be stuck with something a bit more feminized than you bargained for.
Not that there’s anything specifically wrong with that if your daughter is looking to save the world while indulging her pre-established womanly side, but the lack of neutral options certainly encourages taking matters into your own hands to create something more fitting. Offering male character-based products for girls at all is a huge step in the right direction, but I think it’s safe to ask what kind of message is being sent to young girls who are exposed to images with such a strong distinction.
Does it require bulge-inducing tights to kick-ass in the world today? I doubt it, but it certainly doesn’t require a skirt, either. Since when do young boys want strong muscles and pants more than young girls do?
I seem to remember a little me, begging her mom for karate classes so that I could be the next Karate Kid (Miyagi era, not Han), so I’m wondering when it was decided that superheroes needed to be feminized to become more accessible to the young girl audience. No doubt there are consumer tests that prove that certain kids prefer the “girlified” products, but it’s not an all-inclusive metric, and it’s a perpetuation of a deeply historic norm that leaves out a number of girls who prefer it the original way.
Children are impressionable; it seems like at some point we either forgot, or stopped caring that their minds are thirsty little sponges, waiting to soak up any and all images and ideas they are exposed to in a day. And while there are a number of steps a parent can take in theory to protect their kids from the demon formally known as negative body image, it’s hard to keep them from hearing a gendered message when it’s so obviously laid out in front of them in the grossly oversized muscles reserved for boys, and the glitters and frills implied for girls.
There’s untapped value waiting to be found in the grey area that lies between the two polar norms of boy versus girl; a neutral haven that questions the constant push for gender distinction at a young age, keeping us deeply rooted in a divided society that hinders a true personal identity.
So I say, “you go girl!” to the pioneers out there donning the male identities despite the label; be the superhero you want to be! I’m going to go dust off that yellow belt in the back of my closet and remember what I wanted to fight for.
Photo Credit: Costume Express
Post by Lydia Mondy is a feminist killjoy from the Northwest who enjoys writing about the experiences of women in nerd culture. Reddit users beware.You can follow her on Twitter @lydiamondy.
Little girls are great. I don’t need to tell you that. But sometimes I feel they are kind of left out of our cultural conversations. Whether it be about who watches media. Or who plays video games. Or who is smarter in school. None of it really matters. The truth is: little girls are the best.
Stories like these fill my heart, because they capture that very thing:
Lucy and the Limbs by Edlyn Capulong
In the Beginning by Arthur Metcalf
The Girl and the Fox by Base14
If that 11 minutes or so of short storytelling didn’t cheer up your Monday, I’m of no use to you! And if it did, well brilliant. Because we need to see more stories featuring the minds of little girls.
Occasionally I share recent work projects around these parts and today is one of those days. Why? Because I freaking love this story. It’s about a brilliant 10 year old girl who likens robot construction to the human body. Go STEM!
For those that don’t know, Modular Robotics is a rad company out of Boulder, CO that is creating the toys of the future. Or, robot construction kits that require no programming, wiring or really much technical knowledge at all.
Anyway, super jazzed to be working with these folks. And double jazzed when little girls are given credit for being super genius winners.
