*laughs* Yeah, I'm definitely not the one who writes baby/children's books. Spawnlings sort of tend to terrify me. I think I need a bunch of those stick-figure stickers everyone has to display how normal and nuclear and straight their families are - except instead of man-woman-children-pets, I'd have one woman, then enough cats to stretch all the way across.

According to multiple reports from people who were in the panel (we couldn't see it and James Randi, and Randi was more important to us) Crosby was entirely justified in walking out. Frakes was being horrendously insulting from the moment the panel started, on subjects ranging from her acting ability to her career choices, and they were amazed that she stayed as long as she did.

This does not seem to be the case with Claudia Christian, however, where, except for a few fanboys, all of the observers seem utterly baffled at her behavior, considering that she started the quarrel, which never rose above what seemed to be good-natured teasing and was certainly not as insulting as what people had described happening in the Star Trek panel. It seemed the thing that really made her angry was the fact that Jason opened a bottle of water in the hearing of his microphone, which made a slight noise while she was talking. Honestly, I thought it was all a joke that had been planned between the two of them and that she would come back...except she didn't. Her posts to "explain" the situation on Facebook only make her sound more like a diva who was upset that she wasn't allowed "her half-hour" to plug her own stuff (this is not how the panel was advertised or how any other panels at DragonCon have ever worked.) This was extremely disappointing to me, as I'd grown really fond of the character of Ivonova and would've liked to hear her discussed in greater detail.

Two entirely different circumstances, and yeah, I didn't witness the Star Trek panel, but from many accounts I've heard from people at the Con and blogging afterwards, Crosby was entirely justified in her behavior. Frakes was breaking the Wheaton Rule. And we all know you should never break the Wheaton Rule.

It's a good way to make sure you get things done, but like I said, you end up with a much less polished first draft.

However, as someone famous once said: "The first draft doesn't have to be good, it just has to be written." Sometimes getting the thing done is the big obstacle, and like an uncut gemstone, it can be polished into something beautiful later.

*chuckles* I think we can all agree here that Barbie is just a really lame toy, regardless of if you're a boy or a girl. :* I'd much rather play dress up with my WoW characters. Um. Ahem. Er.

And you would be right about the lack of prejudice against women within the scientific community - science related fields are actually a place where women can expect fairly equal treatment and equal pay, whereas in most areas women still average out at making about 70% of the pay that men in equivalent positions make.

By masculine identified, I tend to mean girls who actually visualize themselves (rather than are visualized by other people) as "butch" or "masculine". I happen to personally identify as "feminine". I'm a girly-girl. I just happened to prefer my Ninja Turtles (Especially Donatello! He was hot!) to Barbie as a child, and have continued to love geeky things as an adult, many of which are (often erroneously) identified as hobbies for men, both within and outside the geek community.

I've always argued that a good bit of gender identity is not so much nature as nurture myself, ie: Girls like pink because they are taught that pink is a "Girl Color" and they should like pink. Boys play with trucks because that's the toys that get bought for them, because they're "boy toys."

However, when I talk about embracing my gender and being cisgendered here, I simply mean that I am not transgendered or masculine-identified. (There tends to be an assumption that a lot of geek girls are "butch" or "masculine identified", which is not true.) And the problem is not so much that women are rejecting being female as that they are hiding who they are to avoid unpleasantness - which as you say is a bit cowardly and works against inclusiveness. As long as girls are out there pretending to be guys to avoid harassment, the assumption will remain that girls don't play video games, and since girls don't play video games, they are a free-for-all for all of the misogyny anyone may want to dish out (ditto for homophobia and racism).

However, while the male-geek persona tends to be anti-jock, anti-macho, etc., there remains a tendency to marginalize women. Science, for instance, is still considered to be a very "masculine" field - so while a male geek may not be a macho jock, he can still be a scientist and be masculine. There still seem to be assumptions that if a woman buys a video game, she must be buying it for her spouse/son/brother, that if a woman attends a geek event, she must just be there *with* someone else. (Honestly, the opposite tends to be true of my boyfriend and I at DragonCon. I'm the one that gets really into the geekdom, he only really cares about the art show.) That if a girl likes sci-fi, science, video games, etc. that she must be less of a woman, that she likes "boy things."

Honestly, I think the idea of "boy toys" and "girl toys" should be gotten rid of completely. People like what they like, it has no relation to their gender. That, and the image of gamers in general needs an overhaul. The assumption is that gamers are all straight, white, adolescent boys. However, the first gamer generation came to adulthood a LONG time ago, and they didn't stop playing games, and they weren't all male.

Oh believe me, I'm fully against the Real ID thing for a multitude of reasons, and am glad that they decided not to use it, real names are an invitation to take harassment to the real world, and can prove dangerous for many reasons, and not just for women. (As I mentioned in my last post.)

But until women begin to speak out and fight against the harassment and bad behavior, and as long as we sit back and tolerate it, nothing will change.