Author and media theorist Douglas Rushkoff in an interview about his new graphic novel from D.C./Vertigo, A.D.D.: Adolescent Demo Division, on why the worlds of video games and geek culture are so male-dominated, emphasis mine:
“I think to some extent it’s harder for the forces that be to hypnotize women the same way they hypnotize men,” Rushkoff said. “Women were just as susceptible to the marketing of objects. In the 1950s, when they started marketing to women in America after World War II and trying to increase consumption, that’s when kleptomania was first diagnosed — and it was a women’s disease, because they were so marketed to that they would go in and steal stuff from the department store. I’m not saying women are not programmable and susceptible, they are. But it tended to be more for ‘the real.’ I’m finding, at least, that boys and men are more susceptible to the attraction and hypnosis of ‘the virtual,’ whether it’s pornography or video games or ideas. They seem to be more susceptible to these abstract forms of manipulation. Maybe men are more visual and less tactile; there’s probably some old evolutionary biology reasoning for it. Men were hunting, so they had to stay at a distance; women were gathering, so they had to feel the berries in their hands. Who knows what it is, but it doesn’t seem, for the most part, that these worlds are quite as compelling in the same way to women as they are for men. They are compelling — now, the numbers are changing, and I think the number of women involved in social media is greater than the number of men. As the applications change, certainly the gender biases change as well. But this ADD video phenomenon thing does seem to be more boy than girl.”
This of course has something to do with the angry emails and comments that are still coming in from Star Wars enthusiasts more militant than I who could not stand the fact that Kathy Shaidle does not share our pop culture faith.
And to put it in terms that PJM’s regular readers may recognize: publishing Five Reasons Star Wars Actually Sucks is done for the same reason why Comedy Central should allow South Park to depict the prophet Mohammed. If we can’t laugh at our idolatry then we’re in trouble.
Nobody should be emailing to complain because Kathy wrote a self-evidently hyperbolic sentence like, “Successful, mature men do not play computer games, attend ‘cons,’ and get excited about overrated science fiction movies from the 1970s.”
We all have silly hobbies. It’s very silly how regularly April and I go to DisneyLand and how much we enjoy goofy rides like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. (Kathy, have any funny mean things to say about DisneyLand obsessives?)
But even sillier than our hobbies is getting emotionally upset when others judge us for them.
*****
David Swindle is the associate editor of PJ Media and writes a post each day on news and politics at PJ Tatler and culture and entertainment at PJ Lifestyle. He can be contacted with feedback and story tips at DaveSwindlePJM[@]gmail.com and on Twitter @DaveSwindle. He enforces commenting guidelines on his posts — rude, off topic and ad hominem comments will be deleted.
Testosterone makes us stupid.
David, you still don’t get it, the anger isn’t about Star Wars, the anger is about the deliberate insult to a great many successful, intelligent people.
None of us particularly care about Kathy’s opinions about Star Wars. It’s the derisive, superior tone that got under people’s skins.
“It’s the derisive, superior tone that got under people’s skins.”
And do you understand Kathy and my point that people’s skins should be tough enough that they can handle a humor column with self-evidently hyperbolic statements intentionally designed to provoke the kind of overly-serious reactions which you and others have supplied?
For God’s sake, just apologize and move on.
This whole “humor column” angle is lame and insulting…and you’re fanning the flames. Or maybe that’s the point. I’m sure the hit count keeps climbing.
Why should he apologize? You all are the ones who fell for a painfully obvious troll. Admit you got tricked, congratulate your opponent on a well-played gambit, and move on. This continued caterwauling is unseemly.
Hes’ the one who felt it necessary to start not one, but TWO blog posts on the same topic because of the uproar over this “obvious troll,” who is not a troll, let alone an obvious one.
I know one thing: no one will ever say Dave missed his calling for a career in PR.
“Successful, mature men do not play computer games, attend ‘cons,’ and get excited about overrated science fiction movies from the 1970s.”
Guess what, that’s not self-evident. And how mature is it for me to write this after spending the day risking my ass photographing morons tossing rocks and tear gas that lays you out on Mohamed Mahmoud Street not knowing when I’ll be shot or arrested and broomsticked?
You’re protesting too much, just surrender to the Force. Ha-ha. Today I asked a Muslim Brother through an interpreter what his favorite Harry Potter movie was; true story. Now that was funny. At least they all laughed.
I suspect to many, that column was the equivalent of using racial slurs as humor. Shouldn’t minorities have a thick enough skin to “handle a humor column with self-evidently hyperbolic statements intentionally designed to provoke the kind of overly-serious reactions which you and others have supplied?”
You may have thought it funny. The audience disagrees so the column was a failure as humor.
If I couldn’t identify it as a humor column on the first read-through, there’s something wrong with brand of humor at play. To me it read as a rant. The tone was scathing and dismissive. The arguments were not teasing; they were hostile and fundamentally unconvincing. The logic never rose above the level of dismissing Star Wars as worthless and immature simply because the author disliked it. The very qualities that made Star Wars popular both among its fans and the general public are the ones she dismisses out of hand.
As a humor piece, the article does a poor job of conveying any comedy beyond simply mocking Star Wars fans for being Star Wars fans. Feel free to correct me if I’m missing the subtle, nuanced humor there. As a hypberbolic argument against Star Wars’ popularity, the article fails to take even a basic look at why Star Wars was so popular to begin with. This is a shame because there is ample opportunity to have an interesting discussion on Star Wars’ successes and failings. As a provocative piece, the article reflects far more about the maturity of the author than the author’s targets. Do successful, mature women spend their time fishing for a reaction from men they view as unsuccessful and immature? If sci-fi fans and gamers are below society’s average, where does that leave someone who’s desperate to get their attention?
Forgive me if I do not find your defense of Kathy Shaidle very convincing. “But wait, she was trolling!” doesn’t quite cut it.
Indeed, Kathy obviously hit the mark spot on.
Grownup men do not whine about such things. They either laugh or don’t and move on. If her column caused you grief, you need to examine whether you are a man, or yet a little boy.
As with most things, it is not the thing itself, like video game playing, it is the degree of obsession. One is truly acting like a child when one becomes so emotionally attached to toys and games that they can brook no disagreement.
I know many real men. I know many people who attend comic-con. These groups have no common members. Kathy is merely pointing this out.
Some people have no sense of humor. And of course women look down on men’s foibles, as we should rightly look down upon theirs. It has ever been thus.
Besides, cutting wit is Kathy’s deal. If you can’t handle it, don’t read her. I will do it for you.
John J, moronic comment of the day. So real men don’t go to comic-cons – ever. Collecting comics and being a man are mutually exclusive. No better example of someone who needs to go outside and actually meet real people than that. Forget real men, just start with meeing real people.
“And do you understand Kathy and my point that people’s skins should be tough enough that they can handle a humor column with self-evidently hyperbolic statements intentionally designed to provoke the kind of overly-serious reactions which you and others have supplied?”
If it was self-evidently hyperbolic it wouldn’t have made people as angry as it did. That being said, deliberately provoking people to anger for your own amusement and so that you may note how superior you are to the people you angered is deeply childish. It’s the sort of thing adolescent jocks do to the geeks who made them feel intellectually inferior so they could prove to their themselves what losers those nerds are.
Wow. It has spilled over into this blog. Talk about poking a hornet’s nest with a stick.
Dave.
Seriously.
Ask someone in the office what our demo is.
It’s not a question of laughing at idolatry but at something that is clever and funny. I just watched the Star Wars Uncut 2 hour film constructed of 15 second segments of amateur footage and it’s hilarious. They have a scene where someone emerges from a double door refrigerator.
Robot Chicken has a completely off-the-wall take on the “innocent” alien who gets his arm cut off in a misunderstanding in the Star Wars bar scene that is fantastic. The guy wakes up and says “Today’s going to be great. I can tell already” and ends up losing his job cuz his boss has no use for a one-armed architect. The Robot Chicken scene where Jar Jar Binks meets Darth Vader is a laugh riot as are almost all the Robot Chicken Star Wars scenes. Do you really thing people are angry at Robot Chicken?
I’ve thought of a better title for this column that will at once explain the specific topic as well as the world in its entirety: “Why Men Are More Likely to Do Everything and Anything Than Women.”
This could cover such diverse topics as fantastic literature, military studies, building dams (or anything for that matter), inventing time-keeping (or anything for that matter), eventually putting anyone not a man on the moon, The Discovery Channel (or all channels for that matter), bugspray (eek! A spider!), conquering the Aztecs (or anyone for that matter), pornography, painting, circumnavigating the globe, the globe, ichthyology (or all ologies for that matter), pants, the Pyramids, force-to-space ratios, fractal geometry to assist in making hair appointments, Star Wars, discovering event horizons (or anything for that matter), the Panama Canal, Islam (or any religion for that matter), hunting, Tarzan, private detectives (and public), farming and brutality.
Very well put.
It’s because we produce the Hormone of Champions. Even in the “female occupations,” excepting childbirth, females are, on average, outperformed by gay men.
Another reason it may have been published is because Star Wars actually does suck.
I’m hoping Kathy Shaidle’s next article is “5 reasons by geeks are A-holes”.
Can’t we just admit that Star Wars had some good stuff and some not so good stuff? The good stuff being the scope of the vision and the groundbreaking special effects. The bad stuff being the dialogue and substandard sequels.
Rushkoff (and even Swindle) had best not go there that way. Another way of looking at this question (which I can neither affirm nor repudiate) is that men are more drawn than women to a preoccupation with ideas and the workings of the imagination (some articulations of which are puerile and some of which are not).
I grow impatient with this kind of explaining of traits to the detriment of either men or women. Men and women evolved together, are complementary but, on the whole, equal, and need one another to make the whole human community. Amity makes a whole lot more sense than continual battle between the sexes.
Richard
But girls have cooties
Not so fast snap-e-tom- At 69 Testosterone has just about cured my use of steroids-
So I like Disneyland, I like StarWars and Star Trek, however I live in Arizona, part of the real wold, I will however occasionally escape to the “Hoth System” to fight for the alliance-and no I don’t play video games, I actually read books-I detest Kindle etc. I have to look at enough computer screens already, so reflected light off a page of well written prose can keep me occupied for several hours. So everyone enjoy your hobbies and let the pundits pundit on-who cars they are only pundits not your wife, oops speaking of which its time to change the “CAT LITTER” cheers & check your collective “6″
“I’m not saying women are not programmable and susceptible, they are. But it tended to be more for ‘the real.’”
Right. No doubt that explains why Barbara Cartland has sold an estimated one BILLION books (making her the third bestselling author of all time, if the upper estimates are correct).
It’s cause the gals love those real romance novels, unlike the boys who are off in their silly Star Wars fantasy land.
“Why Men Are More Likely to Be Geeks Than Women”
I think they call that submitting facts that aren’t in evidence.
Romance novels also tend to give rise to impossible expectations which simply have no place in the actual real world. As Conrad wrote: “It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the very first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over.”
“Maybe men are more visual and less tactile; there’s probably some old evolutionary biology reasoning for it. Men were hunting, so they had to stay at a distance; women were gathering, so they had to feel the berries in their hands.”
The hunting faculty may involve distance at first, but when men hunt they have to catch their prey and then kill it, activities that are extremely and bloodily tactile – more so than women handling berries. In any case, women have to find the berries before handling them, an activity which may also involve long-distance tracking and locating of said berries.
i think the writer is ignoring the control aspects of the virtual world – men (generally) like to manipulate things, whereas (generally) women like to be involved with people. So the theory goes.
However there are women geeks aplenty, and male people manipulators abound.
Nope, you’ll have to find another reason.
“they had to feel the berries in their hands”
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I think this might have evolved away somehow.
I just got back from my state’s FIRST Lego League competition. For those of you who aren’t geeky parents of geeky kids, it’s a robotics competition where the kids program and build robots to function in certain predetermined courses.
For the second year in a row, my son’s division was won by a team of girls- and not the same team both years, either.
One thing I noticed, besides the large numbers of girls present (not 50/50, but way higher than I would have imagined, probably 40% at least) is that the littlest towns had the highest numbers of girls. The bigger the size of the town, it seemed, the fewer the girls on the teams. It was really quite noticeable- and the opposite of what I expected. I’m guessing these rural ranch girls probably have many other talents that aren’t particularly feminine, as well, and it’s mostly because of familial and perhaps local societal expectations. I wonder if it stays with them into high school- probably it won’t.
Looking back on my own experience as a geeky girl/woman in a male occupation, I never gave any thought to whether it’s genetics or socialization, as to me the difference between individuals is far more important than their sex. But after my experience this weekend, I’m starting to think kids do get socialized very quickly into male and female roles. I know I bucked the trend as a girl because of my dad, but I wonder how many girls really have someone in their corner like that.