Geek girl T-shirts

Posted on October 6th, 2005 by Sacha Chua

The two women from HR wore Google Women’s Tees.
From the website: “We originally designed this shirt for our efforts in recruiting women engineers.”
Seeing the shirt on them made me think about my geekwear, and why I
found the Google Women’s Tee a bit strange.

I like wearing tech shirts. They’re a great way to identify myself to
other people. They makes it easier for geeks to talk to me. They
provide instant conversation starters for people in the know.

I’m still not used to the Venus symbol, though, and that’s probably
because I think of the symbol in different contexts. It feels too
serious for me. I guess I’m also more used to the “girl” aspect of my
identity than I am to the “woman” aspect. That’s why I self-identify
as “geek girl”.

Maybe it’s a socialization thing. I’m more used to subtle gender
signs, like the “geekette” in my signature. I like wearing baby tees
with the same logos as the regular shirts. The logo connects me to
other geeks, but the slightly more flattering cut makes a small
difference.

Ah. That’s probably it. I want my geekwear to connect me with other
geeks, which is why I’d go for something generic like “emacs” over
something like “geek. girl. goddess.” I’d wear “emacs girl” if I want
to point out that yes, I can _too_ be a girl _and_ be into Emacs, but
I prefer focusing on what I have in common with other geeks.

This doesn’t mean the T-shirts are bad, though. It just means I’d be
more comfortable in a
plain black Google women’s T-shirt than
in a Google Women’s Tee.

It’s pretty much a moot point, anyway, as they only had white
long-sleeved men’s style shirts earlier, and they ran out before I
could get one. The swag would’ve been nice, but it wasn’t essential. I
learned enough from the conversations and the talk itself to make the
time worthwhile. <laugh> I can understand why they probably
wouldn’t bring women’s tees to a mixed talk. Still, I’m endlessly
appreciative of conferences and tech sessions that actually have baby
tees, like the totally cool open source conference I spoke at in Cebu
and the blogging summit I attended in Manila right before I left. I
left the blogging shirt at home, but I love my open source baby tee to
pieces.

Ah, the trouble with being a geek girl in a guy’s world… Swag rarely
fits.

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Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/3045

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