My wife taught me to respect her Geekuality... when she single-handedly defeated me and my best friend in Star Craft when we tried to drone rush her.

She also kicked my friend's *kitten* in Fantasy Football. To this day, she's banned from playing with them again because they swear I'm fixing her team. They just can't admit to being beaten by a girl. Never underestimate her.

Love it.

That was pretty great

"I am a scientist, not a secretary"

ZOMG. just saw this on another thread....HAD TO SHARE.

http://www.upworthy.com/some-geek-boys-called-these-geek-girls-fake-they-certainly-wont-be-making-that-mistake-again-7

Thanks Laura. I shared on facebook. I loved it!

I think it's really sad that some people who essentially base their identity on having been bullied and excluded through school for being intelligent and having non-mainstream interests, that having reclaimed the words "geek" and "nerd" which were originally insults, are now trying to exclude people from being able to call themselves those things. Who the heck has the right to do that? Who defined these terms in the first place? The bullies, "in-crowd" and anti-intellectuals did.... but the words have been reclaimed and intelligence and individuality is more valued now (maybe because most of the bullies grew up and realised they'd missed something amazing in the people they thought they hated for being different or too clever). Which is a good thing.

So anyone who's been called those things and similar, and bullied for being intelligent or for having non-mainstream interests sure as anything can call themselves that now, and anyone else who wasn't actually bullied but has the same kind of interests and is opposed to anti-intellectualism can too. FFS it's not an exclusive club, surely the whole reclaiming these terms and making them something positive thing should mean being against the whole "you don't fit in to our exclusive club so we're going to hate on you" mentality. Fall into that mentality and the bullies and anti-intellectuals and "lets follow the crowd and hate on anyone who's different" people have won. Or the ones doing it have become just like them....

geek/nerd = proud to be intellectual and proud to be interested in stuff that other people find boring and "geeky" (or whatever insult they want to throw at it)

and I don't care for arguments about what the difference between a geek and a nerd is either. When I was at school, the term was "boff" anyway. Just another dialect word meaning the same thing, i.e. we hate you because you're clever and different.

When I watch this one of the things I think about is when my daughter was 4 I bought her a Star Wars book and she brought it to daycare. I was talking to the teacher and I look up and my daughter, book over head, chasing a little boy, yes she was going to hit him with it. When I stopped her she said "he said that couldn't be my book because it is a boy's book". The segregation starts early.

I always hung out with guys as a teen and it is probably because I was just as excited as they were when Star Wars came out (we saw "Return of the Jedi" like 8 times in the theater). I think its more than girls can't be geeks, its more like "boys like this and girls don't". Look at the Big Bang Theory, even the female scientist don't read the comic books or go watch Doctor Who with the boys. I personally would be right there with them (I don't collect comics, but do read them), but girls just don't do those things.

Girls are expected to want to read books that make them cry or love stories and boys want to watch movies where things blow up. Well I think the movies where things blow up are so much better. Sappy love stories are so not for me.

Well said. Got home from work yesterday to see my 4 yo daughter watching Wolverine and the Xmen (animated series) on Netflix on my ipad. She could have chosen any number of "girly" shows, but picked that one on her own. She also like helping me build Lego sets from the Superhero line, and has a Wonder Woman and a Batgirl toy set up to "protect" her Disney princess dolls in their castle, and my old Batman figurine stands guard outside her bedroom door while she sleeps.

Your comment on batgirl protecting the princess brings out a good point too, as a geek there are so many strong women out there. Growing up I watched for batgirl on batman because I wanted to be her. Wonder woman, bionic woman, Isis (Saturday morning cartoon) these were women who took charge, other shows the women were secretaries or assistants or any real life situation with strong women they were real *****es. Seems to me like geek women have better role models

Also, who cares what a girl or guy is into as long as it's not hurting anyone else? Being a geek, girl or guy, is one of the most liberating things you can be. Being able to just stand up and say unashamedly 'I am crazy about Lord of the Rings/Narruto/Doctor Who/Zombies/Orcs/Baking/Graphic Design/Science/Vinyl Toys/etc etc." and have loads of other people say "Hey, me too! You're cool!" is fantastic.

I've said for years that I couldn't marry a girl who wasn't a geek - someone who's comfortable being totally mad about the things in life she's passionate about.