Geeks, Girls, and Presidents

Last night, I came across my first (and last) ever episode of Beauty and the Geek. And yes, the show's title certainly doesn't lie: The boys are geeky, which means your stereotypical shy, self-deprecating MIT or Princeton astrophysicists with a minor in robotics or your comic-book-reading, LARPing software engineer who lives with his parents, and the girls ... well, let's say, they seemed like above-average looking special-ed dropouts with a minor in Cosmo.
Even better, the first challenge, for the boys was a Rohrschach test in which, of course, everything looked either like BOOBIEZ, or, uh, nothing that'll fit on a motherboard, followed by "kiss the mannequin as if she were your grandma" and "kiss the mannequin as if she were your girlfriend," oh, and, "draw your ideal woman." The latter ones? Had a head with a face, but no body, in most cases.

And the first challenge for the girls was of the intellectual kind, as in "name all the countries you know that start with an A." Or a B. Like, you know, "Asia" or "Boston," followed by "your favorite shoe store is having a sale where all shoes are 15% off. How much are you saving on a $100 pair?" And "demonstrate your reading skills" on a text filled with words like "obsequious," "accolades," or "congregate." Trust me--good thing they didn't test for reading comprehension.

Need I go on? Thought so.

I've never seen anything as prejudiced, dismissive, and white male (ok, with a token Jewish and Asian dude and a couple of token black girls) as this. Not only were the "geeks" painted as completely socially incompetent, but the women appeared as total ditzes, whose greatest talent/ brain lay in their "girls." As if there were no female geeks (um, LARPing software engineer? Ahem ... yours truly has been known to roll D20 and collect XP in the past) or himbos. Oh wait! Don't we expect female geeks to fall more into the lesbian spectrum because, you know, they're intellectually "manning up," while we expect himbos to do the Chippendale's thing, with the "oh, girl!" wrist flip? Now, because the show bills itself as a "Social Experiment," of course, they introduced, as one of the unavoidable pairs, exactly that: A female geek (a musicology major--not an engineer) and a male beauty (who claims weight training as his favorite subject in junior college--but hey, college???). All in the name of, you know, gender equality and diversity.

And why, please, are we surprised at the sexism that Hillary Clinton's, or the racism that Barack Obama's, campaigns encountered? Shit like that is, simply, not funny.

And you know what isn't funny, either? That whole "make Hillary veep" thing. I mean, fine, I'll admit that I have a thing for candidates with blue-collar appeal. That's why, after backing John Edwards, I waited for a while and then decided to do the Hillary thing--not only because she's a woman, but also because of that. And because of what Kate said, namely (among others) that Hillary has the experience to fight off the GOP hate machine, and that she's got the better health care plan. So, yes, I don't mind Obama, and I think he's one of the strongest orators I've ever seen--especially in comparison to McCain's forcibly crookedly smiling mug--and, since I'm a Yellow Dog Democrat, I will of course vote for him, but man, he's got to pony up some more substance if he wants to fight against the Rove gestapo, especially in terms of the Iraq withdrawal. The old military man isn't going to kid around with his Nam Vet credentials, outdated though they may be, and that's Obama's Swiftboat-prone Achilles heel. Because as much as we'd like to make the upcoming election about the fucked-up economy, it'll still be about the war. The GOP and its lobbyists will make sure of that.

So, what about that "Hillary veep" thing? I tend to side with Jimmy Carter on that one--with a team like that, the broadside for GOP potshots would be enormous. Plus, what message does it send in the 21st century when a woman who campaigned for number one is running as "only" number two? I'd rather see Hillary as one of the executives in charge of domestic policy, with enough authority to implement universal healthcare and education reform, and would have her run for President again in 2016. As sad and sexist and racist as it sounds, but I think, in order to win the next round in a cultural climate that has shown throughout this primary process how much it still chafes on race and gender, Obama needs on his ticket a white male with military leadership experience, like Wes Clark. Someone like that would not only help pick up the votes from those whose sons and daughters had no other economic choice than to join the military and sign up to die somewhere in this world, but it would also help mobilize their families--in short, a large part of the folks Obama's had trouble reaching. Another possbile, but weaker, choice would be Bill Richardson, with his existing name rec, his credits as energy secretary, and his Hispanic background. But again: This general election, just like the ones before it, will focus on the war, not on the economy.

So, anyway. Anything to move this country into a direction where girls can be "real" geeks, geeks can be as girly as they want, Hillary becomes President sometime down the road, and McCain gets sent back to his Arizona desert, where he can go ride a cactus.

Also: Go read what The Rude One has to say to it all. It's worth it. Just put the coffee down beforehand.