The Big Phallus Theory: The Big Bang Theory, Nerd Culture, and Women

(While I tried to avoid them, you may find some SPOILERS for The Big Bang Theory in this post.)

 

One of my favorite sitcoms is The Big Bang Theory. While the show is not always strong on plot and rarely portrays life in academia accurately, its likeable characters and nearly unending stream of insider gags for nerds make it an entertaining means of spending half an hour. I love Leonard, the everyman. I enjoy Sheldon’s elevated dialogue. And I can both sympathize with and laugh at Howard and Raj’s awkwardness. I also appreciate that it features a smart, sensible heroine, Penny, who isn’t afraid to assert herself and can talk back to the guys.

What I can’t stand is that, like most of nerd culture and the wider culture, the show often reeks of sexism. Some of it, like Howard’s frequent lewd comments that reduce women to sex objects, I can ignore. Indeed, if I restricted myself only to popular culture that presents women as nothing less than fully realized human beings, I’d probably never be able to watch another movie or television show again. I’ve become so used to explicit sexism, in the form of derogatory comments about women, in my media diet that, I confess, I often recognize it and then choose to ignore it. It’s one of the patriarchal bargains I make as a feminist and a woman living in a culture that recognizes my gender’s worth only in so far as it meets certain standards of sexiness, attractiveness, and compliance. What does bother me about the show that I haven’t been able to ignore so easily is the implicit sexism in the lack of female nerd characters.

Seriously, where are the women nerds? I see them everywhere in real life. They attend conventions, they go to the movies, they cosplay, they talk about Star Wars and Star Trek  and play Skyrim and Dungeons & Dragons. They consist of the majority of people that I know and I’d say nearly all of my female friends are nerds. I know women who can code websites, quote Lord of the Rings, act out scenes from Doctor Who, recite the noble gases and their atomic weights, and kick your ass in Call of Duty. Why are these women not represented, or even acknowledged, in The Big Bang Theory? I’m not even asking why they aren’t main characters–though a show about four female nerdy friends would be awesome and so much more entertaining than Sex and the City–so much as I’m wondering why, in the show’s universe, they don’t even seem to exist.

Well, one might point out, what about Amy and Bernadette? Perhaps, in the strictest sense of the term “nerd,” someone who is brilliantly smart and obsessives over even the tiniest minutiae of something, Amy and Bernadette are nerds. They’re both smart, they’re both biologists, and they both have Ph.D.s. To give credit where credit is due, just a few decades ago it would have been unthinkable to have not one, but two women characters in the S.T.E.M. fields on a television show. However, Amy and Bernadette are still ultimately defined in the show by their relationships with their male significant others. They are judged, and often found wanting, by their ability or inability to meet cultural standards of attractiveness, and they do no participate in what has come to be the domains of nerd culture–things like comic books, science fiction shows and movies, and video games. There are no women regularly featured in the show who enjoy these pursuits, even though such women exist in real life.

In real life, however, nerd culture often has just as much, if not more, of a problem with sexism than The Big Bang Theory does. While The Big Bang Theory ignores nerd women and pretends that they don’t exist, real life nerd culture can be downright hostile toward women attempting to claim the identity of “nerd.”  Whether its people accusing women of only pretending to be nerds in order to hook up with guys or creating the “Idiot Nerd Girl” meme that I’ve attempted to reclaim in this post, a lot of guys seem to want women out of their conventions, their role playing games, and their Internet spaces. But why? The most obvious answer is sexism, but it would be too simple to leave it at that, so I’m going to dig a little deeper.

Though the cultural perception of nerds is changing, it is still largely a negative one, as evidenced by the male main characters on The Big Bang Theory. All of them, in some way, have failed to live up to to our culture’s unrealistic and burdensome ideals of masculinity. None of them are physically strong. Neither are they particularly attractive. They know little of sports. They aren’t charismatic or suave or charming. They aren’t physically or emotionally tough. They prefer the comforts of their apartments to the outdoors. Nerdy men are, as the show and the wider culture seem to suggest, not masculine. The show has frequently paired short, wimpy Leonard with Penny’s tall, dark and handsome beaus to make this point. Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj could often be better described as “feminine” than masculine. There is, however, one group that is lower than nerds on the social hierarchy: women. Whatever male nerds are, they are still more masculine (and thus higher on the hierarchy of patriarchal culture) than women. But when women start entering nerd spaces–and demanding an equal right to be there and be recognized as nerds–they challenge the modicum of masculinity that nerd culture has been able to salvage for itself. They also challenge the perception of women, within both nerd culture and the wider culture, as nothing more than accessories that convey masculinity, and thus worth, on a man. (Think about how, when Howard was first dating Bernadette, he worried that she wasn’t good-looking enough. An attractive girl conveys to society that there is something “manly” or “masculine” about the man she is dating, thus increasing his worth in the eyes of patriarchal culture.)

I think there is a place for women in nerd culture, and I’m sure that women will continue to attend cons, play video games, and go to special screenings of Star Wars. Just as women have fought, and are still fighting, for their right to inhabit the biology labs and physics departments where Bernadette and Amy have managed to reside, I suspect that women will continue to exist in nerd spaces and gradually gain acceptance there. I also suspect that, as nerd culture continues to grow within the mainstream, the stereotype of nerd men as less than masculine will diminish.

However, just because the stereotype of nerds as feminine may disappear does not mean that sexism within nerd culture will necessarily end. Though I would be very glad to see our culture expand its definitions of masculinity beyond its currently narrow confines, I suspect that this will do very little to challenge the standards of beauty to which women, even nerdy women, are held, both inside and outside of nerd culture. Maleness, I still sadly suspect, will still be privileged within nerd culture, in part because nerd culture is inherently exclusionary. To be a nerd, it helps to be male. It also helps to be white, cisgender, and educated. I suspect being able-bodied helps too, though I have seen a broader spectrum of ability represented in nerd culture than I have in mainstream culture. It is required that one be at least middle class, as I doubt the working class has the time and money that are necessary to indulge in nerdy pursuits. Gaming systems can be incredibly expensive, as are books, DVDs, and high-speed Internet connections. One must also have the leisure time to master the games and fantasy worlds present in nerd media. Sadly, in many ways, nerds are often primarily defined by what they consume.

I would like to think that nerd culture is smart enough to look at its own privilege and try to include a wider range of people. After all, many of us nerds define ourselves by our inability to fit in, our difference from mainstream society, and our stories of bullying and rejection. Perhaps we could use those experiences to sympathize with those whom society bullies and rejects. Until more nerds are willing to make this effort and look beyond their own privilege, however, I suspect that nerd culture will largely remain another old boys club.

A Tip About Doctor Visits

Since I sporadically blog about my health, I’m going to write about seeing a new doctor today. It went pretty well. The woman was friendly and personable and listened to my descriptions of my symptoms and the history of what I’ve been diagnosed with so far and what treatments I’ve tried. She never said “Oh, but you’re too young to have this!” And she didn’t give me any unhelpful suggestions like, “Have you just tried to stop writing?” She didn’t have any immediate answers for me, but I did have some tests done and I got some referrals. I left feeling like I’m being proactive about my health, which in and of itself sort of makes me feel better. I hate just lying around and hoping things will suddenly get better on their own, when I’ve been doing that for a year and so far it’s just made me feel useless.

I did, however, try something new with this doctor. Before I went to the appointment, I made an outline of my recent medical problems with my hands and arms. I listed approximate dates of symptoms, previous doctors I’d seen, diagnoses I’d been given, and remedies I’ve tried. I found that it was a lot easier to just hand the doctor the list I’d typed up than attempt to explain to her what I’d been going through, what I’d already tried, and what symptoms I was having. I think it helped because, previously, when I’d tried to explain what was going on to doctors in the moment, I often found myself not knowing what to say. I find doctors sort of intimidating, which I know is ridiculous because doctors are just as fallible as anyone else, but I often feel like I’m taking their valuable time away from other patients. I’m not dying. I’m not suffering from a terminal illness–at least, I doubt that I am. I often feel almost like I don’t deserve to be there when there are so many people with more serious health problems and a more immediate need for care. (This was especially true this summer when I was seeing a doctor whose office was located in a hospital. One day, on my way to an appointment, I was on my way to the doctor’s office and I found myself behind a woman who appeared to have undergone surgery on her legs. She was struggling just to walk down the hall, even with the aid of a walker and a therapist by her side. I knew, logically, that by seeing a hand doctor located in the same hospital, I wasn’t taking anything away from her, but after watching someone just struggling to walk a few feet, my own problems felt sort of insignificant. This is an issue because, when I got to the appointment, I downplayed how much my arms were bothering and making activities like typing or driving difficult. I wasn’t honest with the doctor about just how much discomfort I was in, so he assumed I was improving more than I was.)

Anyway, by sitting down to make a list, I was able to remove myself from the intimidating environment of a physician’s office and focus on my health problems without comparing them to anyone else’s. Making the list also helped me focus on the most important things I wanted the doctor to know. So many times, I’ve left an appointment thinking, “If only I would have remembered to mention this or that!” Well, today, because I had a paper with all of the most relevant, most important things that I wanted the doctor to know, I didn’t have that problem. It also made the conversation that I did have with the doctor more focused. Instead of starting out by describing my problem to her, I was able to quickly bring her up to speed on everything I’d already tried or had done. The timeline gave her a quick overview of the basics like when my symptoms started and how long I’d had them, so she was able to ask me more detailed questions about what treatments I’d tried. Overall, I left feeling like someone had actually listened to me and that I’d adequately expressed myself. And, because the doctor had an accurate idea of what I’m experiencing, she was able to put together some potential plans for treatment.

So, the moral of this story: if you have complicated health issues or have trouble talking to doctors, try writing down your symptoms and history before the appointment. I suspect things will go much more smoothly.