What is a geek?

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Someone raised an interesting point on Monday night at a GGD dinner and I feel they have missed the entire point of Girl Geek Dinners and have also, with their comments, seriously undermined other women who are looking to come out of their shell and interact with other 'geeks'. If you don't agree with what we're doing then don't come to a Girl GEEK dinner, and certainly don't turn up and throw cold water on people, make belittling comments and then moan that it was too technical and you didn't enjoy it.

So what is a geek? There seemed to be some confusion. These women throwing around the derogatory comments seem especially confused. So let's refresh everyones' minds. You don't need to be in IT to be a geek folks! It's not an exclusive club limited to women who don't baulk at the thought of writing code. We're a diverse crowd and we celebrate each others geekiness, even if it isn't something we're into. We certainly don't make dismissive comments about someone because their passion isn't the same as ours.;

What "Geek" means to me is that the person it relates to is totally passionate about their chosen profession or hobby, generally within science or technology though I wouldn't rule out someone being a ballet geek if they ate, slept and talked nothing but ballet. Within IT there can be a vast array of geek types, QA geeks, coding geeks, game geeks and so on... so celebrate the differences ladies, be open minded - you never know, you may even learn something new and have some fun in the process, and if it's not your cup of tea, don't moan, offer to speak at an event and tell us about your passion.

Check out this post for more women who seem determined to undermine other women: http://coffee.geek.nz/node/20729

Comments

Unknown said…
Freakin' brilliant. I couldn't agree more. I was just chatting with another geek woman yesterday about "geek" being a personality type more than a "hack at techie stuff" classification. I was a geek long before I touched a computer, and know so many types - theatre geeks, beer geeks, comic geeks. The list is endless.

You're right. Let's support and celebrate all the different types when we get together. Aren't geeks supposed to be excited about learning new things?

Maria aka ubergeeke
http://www.dotfiveone.com
5 September 2008 at 05:44
patanjali said…
Who would win in a geek throwdown-
Obama or McCain?
http://www.on365.co.uk/it-geeks.html
26 September 2008 at 00:32
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