Women and Geek Culture - What's the problem, guys?

Panelists: Heather Kelley: gaming Svenja Schröder: academia and net culture N.N.: hacking / hackerspaces / security Leena Simon: net activism / politics

Moderation: Ragni Zlotos

We often get asked what feminism is needed for. Isn't it passè? We try to provide answers.

According to Wikipedia a geek is "a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, etc." Being a geek is therefore not limited to a certain field, but crosses fields like programming, security, gaming, academia or net culture.

Things look entirely different when you're female. Problems with female geeks often start in early childhood when girls are not allowed to use daddy's computer and should learn to cook and look after kids for later reproductive work. Although cooking also can be hackable, for most of the geek girls a pink cake is not a substitute for a good, ol' circuit board.

Despite those barriers women in geek culture are often considered to be someone's girlfriend, beginners or - the worst - only there to attract men. As someone recently posted on a mailing list : "The biggest enemy of hackerspaces and techshops is probably girlfriends and wives".

We ask ourselves: What's the problem? Why is the F-Word (feminism) still a such a red rag? And why is the active integration of women seen as a threat? This panel aims at giving some examples from the participants' background, exploring the degree of sexism in the different fields and finally finding some strategies to better integrate women into geekery.