Geek Girl Con Recap

As many of you know, I went to Geek Girl Con last weekend. I had a lot of fun and I thought it went pretty well for a first year con.

Why go?

• To hear a diversity of viewpoints In many of my more geeky pursuits, of which gaming is just one, there tends to be a lack of women. That leads to the unfortunate tendency of labeling the person by her gender; she becomes the "woman" of the group and the views she expresses tend to represent her group. While this can be problematic in pretty narrow groups, like the "sports guy" or the "optimizer," I find it even harder to deal with when one person comes to represent about half of the population. The great part about having so many women in the room is that it becomes impossible to label women by their gender. We have to look beyond their gender to find their unique trait. As a result, the diversity of opinions and viewpoints among women really comes to the forefront. To me, as someone who works and plays in male-dominated spheres, that was freaking awesome. The con had about 1500 attendees and with approximately 70% of the attendees being women.
• To see women presented as experts and leaders In technology and gaming, it feels that women tend not to be out there in leadership roles. At something like Geek Girl Con, they need to be. In addition, at least in US society we often undervalue the contributions of women or think they are incapable of doing things. For instance, in Bossy Pants, Tina Fey discusses a number of stereotypes about women that she had to actively work against including a belief that women could not be funny or that you couldn't put two women comedians out on the stage at the same time. Sometimes similar tendencies crop up in the geeky hobbies. Often, many of the women work behind the scenes, not getting the spotlight for their contributions. Having them step out into the spotlight and show that they know their stuff and are comfortable in their own skin helps change this perception among elements of geekdom that women aren't in geeky pursuits or that they can't hold their own against their male counterparts.
• To learn about some pretty awesome books, movies, and projects I have to admit, I hadn't heard of Ink-Stained Amazon before the con. I went to the panel by Jennifer Kate Stuller and it was really good and I can't wait to buy her book, Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors: Superwomen in Modern Mythology. Womanthology also presented at the con.
• Building networks One thing that often gets overlooked in the discussions of how to get more women into designing is how people get encouragement to put themselves out there. Among my friends who work for gaming companies, I hear a lot of informal encouragement such as "Well, my buddy from high school or college or the guy I hang out with happens to work for the company and encouraged me to apply." In my experience, those groups tend to be more single sex and since many of the designers and developers currently are men, sometimes it's harder for women to break in. Of course, there is a lot of human nature to this, why would you want to work with complete strangers when you can work with friends, but encouraging expanded friendship circles through a con like this seems awesome to me.

Sure, there were some downsides to the con. As a first year con, they had some issues with logistics. Since most people had to pick up their badge the morning of the con, the lines were long. Also, walking between the two main areas made it hard to get to panels on time. Some of the panels were hit and miss. I went to the women of Star Wars panel not realizing they would focus mainly on costuming and parts of the Expanded Universe, which while cool, isn't really my thing. The gaming and exhibitor rooms were pretty small.

I also noticed a lack of gaming companies represented there, which, I have to be honest, made me a little sad. I would have loved to see a panel with women who work in the tabletop industry talk about their experiences and answer questions. Although I missed out on attending it, I loved that there was a Bioware panel and its existence felt like a warm, welcoming hug.

Finally, I wish there were more areas to break out and form ad hoc groups and panels. Among the tech conferences I go to, a favorite thing is "Birds of a Feather" groups. Basically a few rooms are left open for groups to sign out as they desire. If a group wants to get together to talk about say, tabletop gaming or finding and encouraging female artists, they can totally do that. The informal setting sometimes works better for certain topics and gives groups that form during a panel to go to continue the discussion.

Personally, it was awesome seeing a bunch of people, including Logan Bonner ( @loganbonner ), Susan J Morris ( @susanjmorris ) , Liz Smith ( @dammit_liz ), Mike Robles ( @michaelrobles ) and Erin Evans ( @erinmevans ). I also met up with Cathé ( @gamermom1_0 ) and Tim ( @timsmartini ) Post and their adorable daughter who is now my BFF. Meeting Meris ( @merismullaley ) (also my host for the weekend), Michelle, Genevieve ( @thestormycellar ), Tanis, and Jennifer was really awesome. Overall, the best part of the con was just meeting and seeing people while we discussed what happened in the panels. I really enjoyed my time there and hope to go next year.