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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6205542" data-attributes="member: 4937">Not only is it the workable solution, it's the only workable solution.  You think you are going to come into a social group and dictate terms to them?  Really?  That's your idea of how to gain acceptability?No it isn't.Sure it is.  All social and cultural groups have limited memberships and while you can't be denied entry into geekdom, you can be denied acceptance into it.  This is true of any cultural group, but its also true of any group of strangers.  Your acceptance is always predicated on your ability to impress the group that you belong.  To a certain extent, this is precisely how geekdom got started - the geeks were unable to impress any other group that they belonged.   Your membership to a certain extent depended on having that experience as a shared experience.But every social and cultural group has a high percentage of members that desire exclusivity because it fosters high commonality and trust between members of the group.  You are threatening the groups cohesion when you try to force change on them, and frankly you are telling the groups 'it's me or you'.   That's not a very workable solution.Every group has the right to screen its membership and decide whether you have a right to participate socially, and even if you deny that they have that right it doesn't change the reality of the fact that they do behave this way - right or not.  This is true of cheerleaders, Hassidic Jews, feminists, communists, conservatives, jocks, construction workers, goths, etc.   You might get more harassment joining a construction crew as a woman, but harassment wouldn't be exclusive to you being a woman.  Believe me, it was a major obstacle for me to convince them an 'egghead' belonged in such a group.   You want a challenge, you try fitting into social groups where you are the only member of your racial group.  Or try fitting into a group of inner city northerners whose only experience of the south is The Dukes of Hazard as a rural southerner.  You try convincing some Appalachian good old boy in his hunting cabin, that he can talk to you while you are wearing a federal agent badge because you are a member of his social group and sympathetic to his concerns.  You think you get him to accept you, call off his dogs, by expressing your outrage over his stereotyping?  It doesn't work that way.The nature of all harassment and testing isn't to include, but to exclude.  All social groups are inherently exclusive and not inclusive.  This includes the geeks, who have long since left the domain of when it was solely the group for people who didn't belong anywhere else.   Geekdom is increasingly 'cool', and the geeks with that old common culture experience are like, "What are you doing here?"   Ultimately, this isn't solely being motivated by fear of women, and I think it's wrong to view it that way.  It's fear of change.  Fear of social dissolution.  Your dealing with people many of whom are on the edge of being autistic wondering where there comfortable predictable social environment went, and you are telling me that the 'workable solution' is what?  Because I see a lot of criticism and outrage in your post, but not a lot that looks like a solution.And you really think that someone uncomfortable with your entry into a social setting is going to be more likely to admit defeat and cease being hostile if you .... what?  Hold a rally?  Call for diversity training?  Angrily denounce his sexism?  Challenge him for membership in the group?  Threaten to exclude him?   Appeal to the other members of the group for sensitivity?   What do you think this is Survivor: GenCon?   You really think even the sympathetic people of a group, the non-sexist people of the group, are going to be really sympathetic if you try to rally them against their friend on account of his sexism?  You think this is a more workable solution than showing what you have in common?  You think that's a better solution than showing you can't be put at unease and that your are good natured regardless of whether you are treated poorly?   You think that's a better solution than showing you are emotionally tough and that you can give as good as you get?   Because I promise you it's not, whether we are talking entry into a gaming group or a business situation or a position of leadership.It doesn't matter what the problem is.   Problems abound.   They won't stop.   What matters are the solutions, which you are very much not offering.The world is filled with evils.  You will be excluded for all sorts of reasons, being a woman just one among many.   The geeks aren't so different from the rest of humanity as all of that. No.  That would be ridiculous.   It may be true, I don't really know, that the guys that pull this BS simply because you are a woman are in a minority.   I suspect that is true because at some level most men, sexist or not, are going to be more accepting of you and more desirous to include you because you are a woman - which has it's own set of problems, not the least of which is feelings of jealousy and lost social status by some other members of the group.   But then again, it may not be.  It may be that most geeks are sexist.  I've never known 'most geeks'.   No, what I would tell you is that the percentage of people who 'pull this BS' is nearly 100%.  That you can pick up journal articles that discuss why membership in exclusive groups are favored and why all people like to feel that their groups are more exclusive than inclusive.  This is the reality of human interaction.   Some people are naturally good at it.   Most geeks are not.  I'm certainly not.  I can succeed by approaching the problem intellectually, and well, role-playing.It doesn't really matter in that since whether it's ignored or tolerated or not, one just has to deal with it.   That's one of the commonalities of the geek experience, I would think.  We've all had to deal with rejection.   You want to insist and believe that the hurdles are too high and you'll never get across them because every one is just so sexist?   That's not a solution.   Are you saying that the in crowd needs to champion you in order for you to gain admission?   That's not a solution either.</blockquote>

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