Gay Girl Geek

I'm so disappointed in people.

If you haven't heard, I fell for another nerdy computer science guy. He's the best thing that's happened to me in a long time, so of course, when I went home this weekend, I was gushing about him.

My mom was happy for me. Her friend Donna? Not so much. Her first question? "Is he black?" No. He's not black. But why the hell does that matter?

It's no secret that my last boyfriend was black. And it's no secret that our relationship wasn't meant to be. But let's leave him being black out of it, shall we?

I expect this sort of thing from my aunt. I've even learned to stomach it from her, as difficult as that may be, for the sake of my relationship with her. I don't have to stomach it from Donna. Who I date, what gender they are, and what color their skin is is even less of Donna's business than it is my aunt's. And trust me, it's none of my aunt's either.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. This is the woman who still can't deal with the fact that her daughter is a lesbian. She refers to Janet's girlfriend by first name only. Never anything to indicate that the two of them are more than just friends. Even though they've been together as long as I've known them.

It just... pisses me off. In a day and age where we've finally elected a black president, why is it not OK for a white girl to date a black guy, or a black girl for that matter? This is America. We're supposed to be the land of the free. But how can we be free if society still tells us who it is and isn't OK to fall in love with and marry based solely on gender or skin color?

I'm so upset about proposition 8 in California. One of my friends said recently that she was hoping that people's common decency would win out. I guess I was hoping the same thing, but I should have known better. Common decency isn't so common when it comes to these sorts of issues, I guess.

I'm constantly amazed at how divisive this issue really is. And how moronic the arguments against it are. Because basically, the argument always comes back to this: How does it hurt you, as a straight couple, when two gay people get married? How does it hurt society? It doesn't, and all the arguments that it does are complete and utter rubbish.

I'm just so disappointed. I wanted to see some respect and decency come out of this election. I wanted to see an affirmation that our nation is wising up, and opening up their hearts and minds. Instead, I saw only that we have a deeply divided country. I saw a religious right that will say anything it has to to convince people that their views and only their views are the correct ones. And it sickens me.

I have hope. This won't be the end, and I think Barack's win will be a big step in pushing this nation in where it needs to go. But I don't think he can work miracles. Real change takes time. We're certainly not gonna see legalized, widely accepted gay marriage in Barack's presidency. But it's going to happen.

And when it does, I'm gonna have a lot of weddings to go to.

So to preface this... I'm sorry I haven't been updating lately. A bruised shoulder and a crap-ton of homework will cause that.

So, I said in one of my early posts that I thought I saw gender differently than most people. I'm gonna have to retract that statement, and edit it: I think I see sexual roles differently than most people, but not gender itself.

The reason for me changing my mind? I read Self-Made Man.

The premise of the book is that the author, a lesbian, decided to disguise herself as a man for about a year. She's not a transvestite or anything - she just wanted to do it as a social experiment. And her findings and the way she wrote about them are incredibly interesting.

When I first started reading the book, I didn't like the author at all. She struck me as an annoying feminist liberal - the type of person who looks down her nose at everyone. The whole premise of the book is based upon her deception of everyone, and at the beginning, it doesn't seem to bother her at all. But through the course of the book, she undergoes a very noticeable transformation. She begins to relate better with men, and she feels a great deal of remorse for the deception the book is based upon.

Regardless of how you feel about the author, the book itself is eye-opening. I wish I had a copy to give to every straight girl who's ever wondered why her boyfriend won't talk to her. The author discusses a man's role from a man's eyes (or nearly a man's eyes). She had to undergo not only a physical transformation, but a personality transformation as well in order to be perceived as a man. She found out firsthand how society restricts men emotionally, and how men's friendships work.

I think I liked the book the most because it made sense within my own experience. The author had a lot of things to say about women, some of them less obvious than you would expect, and some of them downright accusing. For example, when she started dating women as a man, she realized firsthand how much bias and hatred men experience from women - they're guilty until proven innocent most of the time.

The book also made sense when I thought of the majority of the guys I know. I tend to make friends with guys who don't follow the stereotypical gender roles, and I think that has minimized the issue a lot in my eyes. I've always thought that if my friends can do it, everyone else should be able to, too - but it's not that simple. I think if I've gained nothing else from reading this book, it's a newfound appreciation for men in my life who ignore the stereotypes, and perhaps a little more patience with the men who don't.

I think the book also changed my perception of myself as "one of the guys." As much as I may feel that way sometimes, I'm really not. I still relate as a woman does, with all of the pros and cons that come with that. For example, I need to hear the I love you when I'm in a relationship - it's never good enough for me that it's implied - but I also am quite comfortable discussing my feelings in pretty much any situation. There are generalizations here, obviously - I know plenty of men who discuss their feelings openly, and some women who don't. But the point is, I think I'm a lot more stereotypically feminine than I give myself credit for sometimes, especially when it comes to relationships with men.

In any case, I highly recommend the book, especially if you're really interested in gender stuff like I am. And if you do read it, I want to hear what you think of it. :-)

If your mobile phone could do anything in the world, what would you want it to do?

That's the question Google asked developers last year. And they got some really freakin' cool answers. The idea here is the google isn't making a gphone, but an iphone-killing operating system that can be ported to any phone. The best part is that it's open source - opening the door for all the linux nerds out there to go to town on amazing applications.

Among my favorites from the winners: An app that lets you take a picture of a barcode, then gives you prices and reviews of the item. A media player that downloads lyrics and video with your songs. And a picture-based navigation system that lets users review and recommend locations.

Pretty sweet, right? That's not even the best part. There was a contest, and there's going to be another. Grand prize: $275,000 to the top 10 teams.

Needless to say, Kat's seeing stars... and possibly a super awesome honors project. Now all I need is an original idea for an app. And permission from the department to make this thing my life.

For those who are interested in the non-programming side of this awesomeness, rumor has it the first phone will be out in October or November - just in time for Christmas. It's called the Dream, and it should be contracted through T Mobile. Luckily, I have a Sprint contract that's set to expire in late October. Can't wait to own one!

So tonight one of my roommates asked me if, in regard to the name of my new blog, I had given up on men. In case anyone else is wondering that, the answer is emphatically "no". I'm bisexual, and I don't expect that to change. It's a name of convenience, not sexual rediscovery - "Bi Girl Geek" just didn't have the same ring to it, nor can it be converted to a Savage Love reference.

I guess that begs the question of why I'm not just GirlGeek. In the first place, I assumed (rightly) that that name would be taken. But beyond that, my bi-ness is a large part of my personality and what I want to discuss here. I look at gender differently than anyone else I've ever met, and that certainly effects how I look at my role as a girl geek. I think that as a girl who likes girls, I've had an easier time assimilating into the male geek culture. But my perspective is also not that of a lesbian geek - I've dated and had crushes on my fair share of guy geeks. So the bottom line here is that I think I have a pretty unique perspective on this whole thing. And as my loyal readers you'll get to hear all about that. :-)

I'm sure there will be much more on this topic in the future. But for now, I need sleep.

Yesterday, I picked up a new book at the science library. Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. I highly recommend it for anyone who's at all interested in getting girls into CS.

I'm only a few chapters in so far, but I'm really enjoying it. The book is really validating my experience as a girl geek, because it's based on surveys of girls in the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon. For example, they asked girls why they chose computer science, and most of their answers were very similar to my own. They said they want their programming to be useful to society, and have a lasting effect rather than just generating more code and more software. They want technology to help people, and they're in CS because computing has applications everywhere. Guys, on the other hand, are generally interested in the code and the programming for its own sake.

As usual when it comes to gender issues like this, I'm on the fence. I like programming for programming's sake, sometimes. I like solving problems and working with minutia. But I don't want to be just a code monkey. When I finally get out there, I want to do something not only cool and fun, but also useful. I want my work to help society, if not as a whole than at least some subset that's not just geeks.

I think that's why I'm having such a hard time choosing an honors project. I went through a lot of past projects, and they were research, academia-focused projects. I don't want to do research, because there are plenty of people out there who are better at coming up with and testing new algorithms and programming languages than I am. I'm interested in applications. I'd love to do something for One Laptop Per Child, for example. I want to work with ComputersAgain if they ever get off the ground. And the first tech job that I heard about and was actually interested in was installing software for neonatal genetic testing with a small company based in Akron (damned if I can't remember their name, and Google only goes so far when I'm being forgetful).

I guess the fact that other girls want their computing to make a difference shouldn't surprise me. I've been looking into the CRA-W since I heard about it last year, and nearly all the projects focus on interdisciplinary applications. But the department doesn't push that. All of my classes are just about the programming. All of the classes, except for Liszka's, are terribly boring unless you enjoy programming for its own sake. In all honesty, I think if it hadn't been for her, I might've given up and switched majors like many of the girls they interviewed for the book. I hope the department realizes that hiring Liszka was the single best decision they've ever made.

• Gay Girls who Game
• Year Summary: Gay Geek
• Zivity Sparks Girl Geek Porn Panic
• Toronto Girl Geek Dinners
• Girl Geek Auction Event on eBay
• Girly Geekdom Blog
• The Best of Geek Art

Take away the "gay" part and you get:

• girlgeeks.org
• girlgeekwebdesigns.com
• Guide to Geek Girls
• Geek Girl TV
• A Girl's Guide to Geek Guys
• Pathways: The Guide
• Geek Girl Blogs
  

Also, perhaps my favorite part of this new alias: the acronym for it is GGG. If you don't know what that means, go read Savage Love. Now. I command you.

So I suck at introductions. My name is Kat. I'm a gay girl geek. That's really all you need to know right now. :-)

This blog is going to be about girls, geeks, and anything else I happen to think about a lot. The only rule I'm setting for myself is that the chatty "so x, y, and z happened today and here's how I feel about it" posts will remain on my LJ. I want this to be something that I wouldn't be ashamed of if a coworker or boss found it. Not putting everyone to sleep would also be a plus.

So yeah... great first post, right? Now that that's out of the way, let's do some real blogging.

PS I promise I'll make the layout not crappy Blogger default soon.