Geek Misogyny

The last several weeks we’ve seen a lot of attention placed on the treatment of women in the geek community. A few months ago, Brianna Wu, a game developer that happens to be female, published an opinion piece about the treatment of women in her industry. I found it enlightening and, as the father of two daughters and a human being, a bit disturbing. A few days ago, some anonymous person posted Brianna’s home address and then she started receiving death threats.

Peter Cohen at iMore covers this subject today with particular aplomb. One of the best explanations I’ve ever heard of geek misogyny came from John Siracusa a few years ago on the Hypercritical podcast.

I am not going to pretend to have all the answers to this problem but I do think we, as a community, should all shine as much light on this problem as we can and support our female geek friends in any way we can in confronting and eradicating this problem.