Author Archives: Terri

About Terri

Terri is a web security researcher, open source developer, teacher, amateur photographer, naturalist, geek, gamer, musician, and woman in technology. She blogs/tweets under the name terriko, and maintains a web security blog at WebInsecurity.net.

Re-post: OMG, Ponies! (Or… my love affair with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

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During the December/January slowdown, Geek Feminism is re-publishing some of our highlights from last year. This post originally appeared on September 16, 2011.

I always thought my friend Sarah summed up the appeal of My Little Pony the best:

Once you believe in rainbow-coloured ponies who can talk, there isn’t much limit to your imagination.

My Little Pony group shot, artist unknown

My Little Pony group shot, artist unknown

I was the sort of little girl who had over a hundred My Little Ponies, largely due to my mother’s uncanny ability to find them incredibly cheap at garage sales. With so many, we could put on pony musicals where we wrote or adapted all the music and made costumes out of whatever scraps our parents were willing to lend us. My childhood best friend and I built an entire “computer game” for my little sister to play using ponies as the characters (Gameplay was inspired by our favourite adventure game for PC, Monkey Island. Nowadays, I’d call it a roleplaying game but I didn’t know the terminology then.) We had ponies on the bridge of the Enterprise, and ponies going camping on the very conveniently green-carpeted stairs in my house, and ponies ponies ponies.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic promo image showing the main characters

So when I heard that the new series was being spearheaded by the woman who brought us Powerpuff Girls, I was intrigued. And then I started hearing stuff about how it was really good. In fact, it was so good that it was garnering adult fans, including men who were really not in the target demographic at all. “Bronies.”

But I was busy, so I held off ’till after my first big academic job talk when finally the juxtaposition between this latest transition to adulthood and my inner child was too funny to pass up. I loaded up a couple of episodes on youtube from my room at the bed and breakfast where I was staying. They were fun! So then, through the gruelling months of finishing my thesis, I’d use ponies as a treat for finishing a round of revisions. By now, I’ve almost learned all the words to the song in my favourite episode. I learned that Brony could mean any adult fan, not just the boys. I learned that the brown pony with the hourglass “cutie mark” on his butt had been fan-named “Dr. Whooves” for his resemblance to a certain timelord. I found myself hitting up Equestria Daily for a daily dose of cute fanart. I started making a pony crochet pattern while my internet was slow. I am most definitely hooked. (*groan* … crochet pun.)

Young Dash by Arcum89

Young Dash by Arcum89

Creator Lauren Faust says, “I used to say that my own inner eight-year-old was my personal focus group.” and she’s certainly channelled the sorts of adventures that my little ponies were having too. Most importantly, it doesn’t rely on the offensive “girly” stereotypes that irk me so much as an adult woman. Consider the “mane” six: Geeky Twilight Sparkle loves books and learning and isn’t afraid to show it. Honest Applejack is self-reliant even to a fault! Rainbow Dash is competitive (the way people keep telling us women aren’t supposed to be). Fluttershy is the timid animal lover, but with a core of strength especially when it comes to protecting her friends. Even Rarity, the most stereotypically girly debutante pony and fashion designer, is also a dedicated small-business owner. And Pinkie Pie is just soooo random. These gals aren’t always breaking into tears when life gets hard: they’re trying novel solutions and finding a lot of inner strength.

There’s an excellent interview with Lauren Faust up at Equestria Daily which I think will appeal to many geek feminists, even if you’re not fans of the show. Here’s a quote (edited slightly for ableist language):

My specific dreams are still to make great entertainment for girls. I just don’t think there’s enough truly good stuff out there for them, but I also have kind of selfish reasons. When I think of something I want to say or an experience I want to share, my ideas are usually innately feminine because I’m female – and I refuse to believe that something being feminine by nature automatically means it isn’t worthwhile. If I can put the tiniest dent in the perception that “girly” equals “[bad]” or “for girls” equals “crappy,” I’ll be very satisfied.

I think Friendship is Magic has really got something special going here. Not only does it show the kind of role models I wish I’d had on TV as a little girl, but it’s also show that flies in the face of the common wisdom that boys (and even full-grown men) won’t watch anything where women or girls are the primary characters. You know, maybe the problem was just that we needed more good stuff for girls? So here we are with the bronies, eagerly anticipating the second season (which starts tomorrow!), planning meetups, and buying toys. Maybe, just maybe, this breakaway success will cause publishers to realize that if you make great TV for girls, it’s going to attract more than a narrow audience. This could be the beginning of evolution in girls’ programming. Heck, it could be the beginning of a change in the entire entertainment industry! But I know you’re going to tell me all I’m dreaming.

It’s okay, I’m willing to believe in rainbow-coloured ponies who can talk; I can imagine anything.

Re-post: “How could they not have known?!”

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During the December/January slowdown, Geek Feminism is re-publishing some of our highlights from last year. This post originally appeared on February 16, 2011.

[Trigger Warning: this post discusses trolling behaviour. Many links contain screenshots of threats, insults, sexual harassment and general profanity.]

From the Frag Dolls blog:

Less than a month ago, FatUglyorSlutty.com was just a twinkle in our #fragdolls IRC. [...] The concept seemed simple enough. They wanted to make an easy image+caption blog dedicated to publicizing (and laughing at) the hilarious/disturbing messages that many female gamers receive while playing online games. The attention their site has gotten in the past week (including a front page on reddit.com, a feature on Kotaku, numerous blogs mentions, and hefty comment threads) proves that they created something more. Gaming culture at large is taking note, expressing appropriate shock and dismay. But I, in turn, am shocked by their reactions. I am fundamentally surprised that this is news. I keep asking myself “How could they not have known?!”

I first hit that question many years ago as a teenager on IRC. One of my male friends logged in on his mother’s account, and was horrified to discover the messages that “Sheila” was getting from complete strangers and mentioned so on our channel. The women of the channel shrugged: it was always like that for us. The men were horrified to know that under the surface, we’d been quietly ignoring pick up lines and harassment and just not mentioning it all this time. It’s not like we were intentionally hiding it, it’s more that it happened so often that it wasn’t worth mentioning.

I’ve been asking people “how could you not know?” a lot lately, too. I was sharing some of the choice comments I’d gotten on a recent geek feminism post at work, and my coworkers were totally appalled even though we were laughing over how appalling it was. They were horrified to hear that I still get this stuff fairly frequently while gaming, when writing online, while maintaining mailing lists or writing code. I’ve long since learned that it’s much more fun to treat them as hilarious and share them around for mockery, so that’s what we did, but I didn’t expect it to be such an educational moment for them.

Courtney Stanton took this to a new level when she gave an ignite talk about visualizing her troll data. Some of her insights are quite interesting. For example, 67% of comments were replies to other comments, but only 17% of troll comments were replies to others. And many people here who bemoan our commenting policies might be interested in one of her conclusions:

And so I have found that simultaneously allowing dissent while denying trolls an audience has led to more engagement. I’ve had multiple commenters say that they are not commenting anymore and in 24 hours they are back and generating more comments for people to respond to.

So stopping trolls (but not dissent) leads to some great discussion, but removing the troll commentary means that people don’t realise what’s going on under the surface, be it in games or in online discourse or wikipedia.

Geek Feminism isn’t a stranger to the “How could they not have known?!” problem: consider the Timeline of Incidents on the wiki. Mary blogged about why we document and one non-trivial reason is that people just aren’t aware, and don’t want to recognize this as a common occurrence without evidence. (Note that I can think of one recent debacle that isn’t yet on that timeline, if anyone’s got an itch to do some wiki editing…)

I expect it’s hard for someone not in the thick of things to know what’s going on. My coworkers don’t get the same comments I do, my male gamer buddies don’t have people freaking out or getting, er, excited when they speak on voice chat, my pure white friends don’t get told to go back to their home country (it’s this one, thanks) and we tend edit all the intentionally hurtful stuff we can out of our public environments so as not to give the hurtful folk the satisfaction of public attention but at the same time we render the problem invisible to outsiders. And then when we do talk about it, we’re met at first with incredulity because, well, how could they have known?

Despite the fact that women are much more visible in many geeky communities, there still seems to be an undercurrent of hatred from a small but loud segment of population. I wish I could suggest a solution that doesn’t winding up with just a set of variations on the unicorn law where it’s always up to women in the communities to bring this stuff up (and face the backlash from people who didn’t know and don’t want to believe). Perhaps the better question here is what advice can we suggest for potential allies who’ve just gotten broadsided by this and really could not have known? How can allies be better prepared for problems when they occur, and more aware of the undercurrents before something happens?

I’ll leave these as “ask a geek feminist” style questions for our commenters.

Re-post: The advantage of being me

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During the December/January slowdown, Geek Feminism is re-publishing some of our highlights from earlier in the year. This post originally appeared on February 28, 2011.

From The Advantage Of Dual-Identities (A Case Study of Nabokov), I bring you this quote:

It’s also important to note that the advantage of having a “dual-identity” – being both a novelist and a scientist, for instance – isn’t limited to Nabokov. According to a study led by Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, people who describe themselves as both Asian and American, or see themselves as a female engineer (and not just an engineer), consistently display higher levels of creativity.

So as a female, half-asian all-canadian researcher, I’m clearly better at creativity than all those boring white dude researchers?

Angela Montenegro from Bones… I don’t even know exactly where to begin on this. So I’m going talk about Bones for a minute. I’ve been watching it with my sister lately while we do other things (crochet, do mending, wander around looking for things in an mmo, eat dinner, etc.) and the other day she pointed out that she loves how the show deals with Angela, or really, how it doesn’t. See, Angela Montenegro is the team’s artist: she does sketches of the victims. But she doesn’t stop there: she also coaxes data off broken camcorders and swallowed flash drives doing digital forensic work. She’s an adept computer programmer who writes software that helps visualize and model what happened during a crime. What’s cool about Bones is that it’s totally taken for granted that she can be an artist and a coder. (And really, pretty much whatever else she wants to be.)

So I guess while I fundamentally agree that having multiple “identities” is a huge asset to my work and creative abilities, I sort of feel like… why are they making such a big deal about this, as if it’s some hugely abnormal thing. Why can’t they just accept that Angela can draw and code? Why do people insist on compartmentalizing people into single skill sets? I can drive a car and code and no one thinks that’s weird, but plenty of people have commented with surprise that I can edit a magazine (yes, I used to do this) and write code. Hello, world?

The article just makes me a little uncomfortable. This worst part is the paragraph about how the US will be overrun by mixed-race folk like me with superior creative skills — awkward racial superiority with a different spin — but even the study methodology doesn’t quite sit right with me at a first reading. But maybe the article is simply a journalistic reflection of research into of a real logical fallacy that people often employ: the assumption that one must specialize in only one skill to be the best person one can be. That’s one of those things that might be true for programs, but I really haven’t seen much evidence of it being true for people.

Despite my issues with the article, I think it’s got a nice take-away message: it’s a-ok, normal, and maybe even superior to have and use your multiple identities. And don’t let incredulous folk tell you otherwise.

This was originally posted on my personal blog.

Quick hit: Siri Is Sexist

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Amanda Marcotte has noticed a discomfiting pattern in how Siri can and can’t help you…

Initially, it may seem like a happy coincidence that programmers chose a female voice for Siri, but once you actually begin to use the software, a discomforting possibility arises. After all, Siri is basically an electronic version of a secretary, who schedules appointments and looks things up for you. In fact, Siri behaves much like a retrograde male fantasy of the ever-compliant secretary: discreet, understanding, willing to roll with any demand a man might come up with, teasingly accepting of dirty jokes. Oh yeah, and mainly indifferent to the needs of women.

I’d been hearing some tales on twitter about the strange things that Siri can and can’t help you with, and some of those tongue-in-cheek responses are good for a laugh, but when a pattern starts to emerge where the phone can find you pharmacies to sell you viagra but not birth control, you have to start asking some more serious questions.

The problem isn’t that anyone involved with this hates women. The problem is that they just don’t think about women very much. Siri’s programmers clearly imagined a straight male user as their ideal and neglected to remember the nearly half of iPhone users who are female. That the tech company that’s the standard-bearer for progressive, innovative, user-friendly technology can’t bother to care about the concerns of half the human race speaks to a sexism that’s so interwoven into the fabric of our society that it’s nearly invisible. It’s a sexism that often only reveals itself in the absurd, such as when you’re asking a phone what it would take for you to get a little love around here.

[Full article here]

But there’s a much more damning report on how Siri fails with respect to reproductive health and related queries here. (trigger warning: Siri is outright offensive when you try to get help in an abusive or rape situation)

iPhone vs. iPhone 3G by Ricky Romero (used under creative commons)

iPhone vs. iPhone 3G by Ricky Romero (used under creative commons)

Quick Hit: Sexism In Games Bingo

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Tired of hearing the same arguments regarding sexism in games? Here’s a sexism in games bingo card by @fireholly99.

Trigger Warning: Includes mention of violence against women.

Additional Warning: This card has been copied verbatim and includes slurs and other derogatory language that we wouldn’t normally allow here because I felt it was more effective when allowed to parrot inappropriate comments than it would be if I reworded. This is not going to be extended to the comments, however, so please adhere to our comment policy there.

.

 But men are all super-buff, they’re sexually objectified too! But it’s not FOR women. If they can’t deal with it, they shouldn’t be here. She might play games, but she’s not a REAL gamer, she’s just attention whoring. Chainmail bikinis are unrealistic, but’s not realistic for a woman to be fighting anyway. YOU’RE the one who hates women – you’re saying they can’t be both sexy AND tough.

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 But they call her a ‘bitch’ because they’re the bad guys. No-one gives a shit about this sexism stuff, I’m just here for the review scores. I am a feminist and love women because they are inherently too nurturing and responsible to play video games. The only reason a guy could have to care about sexism is so women will think he’s sensitive and want to fuck him. But we have equality, there are nonsexualised female characters, like… Samus except when she takes off her Suit…

.

 But there are sexualised male characters, like… uh, Marcus Fenix is sexy, right? I don’t know, I’m not a fag. Men want to WATCH desirable women and women want to BE desirable women, so no-one wants sexy male characters except gay guys. GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN AND MAKE ME A SANDWICH There are women who get their genitals ritually mutilated and you’re complaining about video game boobies? So you think all female characters should be ugly and dress in burqas.

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 Girl who likes video games? You only have interests because you’re not thin enough to have a real boyfriend. Yeah, the story, dialogue and character design is all sexist, but everyone can enjoy the amazing gameplay. As a woman, it doesn’t bother me, so no-one else is allowed to be bothered. Why should I care about this so-called ‘unfair’ depiction of women when women have more rights than men nowadays and feminists are trying to destroy capitalism? But trash talk is normal on XBL. Women are just too sensitive to rape threats and feigned masturbation.

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 How can it be sexist when women in REAL history were their husband’s property? How can it be sexist when women in REAL life are weaker and wear less clothing than men? If you didn’t want attention for being a girl you wouldn’t be using a female name in your tag or speak with a female voice. Everyone knows ‘sex sells’, and the developers are just making things they think will sell. But I’ve suffered oppression too, as a black/ poor/ gay/ nerdy/ girlfriendless MAN! What about my feelings? It’s just a game. No-one cares.

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Cookie of the week*: the IEEE knows how to apologize

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Cookie of the Week* is an occasional series highlighting action in the geek community to fight sexism, in order to show that fighting sexism is possible and happening.

This week’s winner is the IEEE, for their excellent apology after an editorial gaffe. Within hours of getting the notice that a dubiously-named article had gone up on the IEEE Spectrum site, subscribers received the following email from editor in chief Susan Hassler:

Please accept our sincere apologies for the headline in today’s Tech Alert: “With the Arduino, Now Even Your Mom Can Program.” The actual title of the article is “The Making of Arduino.”

I’m an IEEE member, and a mom, and the headline was inexcusable, a lazy, sexist cliché that should have never seen the light of day. Today we are instituting an additional headline review process that will apply to all future Tech Alerts so that such insipid and offensive headlines never find their way into your in-box.

Spectrum’s insistence on editorial excellence applies to all its products, including e-mail alerts. Thank you for bringing this error to our attention. If you have any additional comments or recommendations, do not hesitate to contact me or other members of the editorial staff.

Apologies are surprisingly difficult for people to get right. We suggest three properties for a good apology:

  • Recognise that someone was hurt, and in what particular way they were hurt
  • Accept responsibility for it, whether intended or not
  • Promise to avoid doing it again, or at least to work on it

And the IEEE not only did all of these perfectly, they also responded quickly, clearly, and with a defined plan to avoid mistakes in the future. We all make mistakes, but we can aspire to handle them as gracefully as the IEEE has this week.

So, here’s that cookie:


Does anyone else have any cookies to spare this week?

* Disclaimer: cookies may not be baked weekly! This offer does not commit Geek Feminism, its bloggers, affiliates, sponsors, commenters or fans to a posting schedule.

Geeky halloween costume ideas

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A friend linked http://takebackhalloween.org/, which I think might appeal to folk here. They include costume ideas for Lise Meitner and Ada Lovelace among many other notable women.

Lise Meitner costume from http://takebackhalloween.org/

Lise Meitner costume from http://takebackhalloween.org/

So it’s gotten me wondering… what are you, dear GF readers, planning for halloween costumes? Are you aiming for Sexy chewbacca (I’m not a fan, but that darned thing is unforgettable) or more feminine daleks are you just boiling over with a rant about “sexy” everything for halloween?

Three women in Dalek costumes attacking an inflatable Tardis

Three women in Dalek costumes attacking an inflatable Tardis

All excited by the licensed Codex costume (From “The Guild”) or do you prefer to make your own?

Codex Costume from "The Guild"

Codex Costume from "The Guild"

Are you willing to choose slightly more obscure costumes, or do you stick to the most popular and recognizable, or split the difference and try an alternate outfit for a favourite character?


Do you get the whole family into it?


Are you into TV …


Or games…


or, uh, internet celebrities…


or books…


… or something else? Share your favourite sources of geeky costume inspiration, pictures of your previous years’ geeky togs, or tease us with hints of what you plan to wear this year!

Open Thread: Dancing for Cancer

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Doesn’t this dance video for the Goodman Cancer Research Centre at McGill University kinda make you feel like it’d be an awesome place to work?

Has your organization done anything fun and unusual that you’d like to share?

Two cancer researchers holding signs "Our battle" "starts on the bench"
Screenshot from McGill Dances for Cancer Research Lipdub video: shows 6 researchers sitting in a biology lab

This is also an open thread, where you can talk about anything related to geek feminism that might be on your mind. (Just keep in mind our comment policy.)