http://www.geekgirlcon.com/
Free your inner Geek Girl! Come to GeekGirlCon in Seattle this October 8 & 9, 2011 at the Seattle Center Northwest Rooms and EMP Museum to laugh, learn, and connect. All geeks welcome.
These are the Panels I attended on Sunday:
Girls Make Games Too
This panel had a full set of six panelists who all worked in the game industry. They gave a view of what it would be like to work on a game, what their backgrounds were and how they got into the game industry and how to work on a team that is predominantly male.
Media Literacy, Criticism & Production
In this discussion the moderator asked the audience what topics or questions they would like the panelists to address. The panelists responded to questions about women in the media. What I took away from this panel in response to the question, (Q) yes there is inequality in how women are portrayed--what do I do about it? is that (A) if you don't like it, make your own, if you can't or won't, shout out your discontent on any outlet you can get your hands on and vote with your dollars.
Enticing a New Generation of Women in STEM Careers
The final panel I attended on Sunday was on how to get more girls into the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) careers. For myself, I had a hard time with math and gravitated to a liberal arts degree of creative writing, and I am not disappointed, however, I have many friends in the STEM careers, both male and female and I love hearing about organizations that encourage girls to aspire to STEM careers. My take is that for young girls they should expand their horizons, do what they want to do, and don't be discouraged by the challenges.
On Sunday, there were less attendees than Saturday. Besides these three panels, I also ducked into the dealers/artists room and checked out the venders who were there. The amount of venders was small, but a decent turn out that represented a variety of goods from visual art, to postcards and comics, to Steampunk accessories and clothes. There were plushies and key chains and even some video games.
Conclusions:
In conclusion Geek Girl con was a resounding success. As a creative writer, I felt like many of the panels I attended focused more on games or computer science aspects. I did not attend any of the writing panels that I would more traditonally be interested in because I'm wasn't sure, by their desciptions that they would tell me anything new that I already didn't know about writing.
I hope for the future that there will be more panels about writing that would appeal to me. I did find myself educated and highly entertained by the panels I did t attend, so I commend Geek Girl Con for a job well done.
Here are my take-away thoughts:
As long as we live in a patriarchal society, women can feel and act however they want towards feminism be that subjective, objective, thoughtful or angry. And if we, as women, want a more equal society, then we need to grow our feminist discussion among ourselves and then take out into the world. If roughly 50% of the population is male, a feminist movement will need to enlist the voices of men as well as women to get results.
Your "take-away" message is extremely insightful! Especially because you recognize that women themselves have many different views about feminism, and the inclusion of men as well (men's rights, like time off for parental care, etc.).
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