Why do some men gatekeep nerdier hobbies or interests against women?

NockerJoe · 2019-11-22T02:36:37+00:00

When women are involved men change how they act. Sometimes men just want a space they can be themselves without judgement. For jocks this is the locker room. For nerds this is chess club. Once you add women, even if they're inclinded to act a certain way it will change and won't change back so long as they're there because even the most uncaring of men know you treat women differently.

Women talk all kinds of shit about being guarded around men but men are de facto guarded around women.

nevomintoarce · 2019-11-22T07:50:05+00:00

Because some nerdy men are cunts.

Edit: it's not really a male-female thing. I remember when I was a youngster into metal that there were all these unwashed cunts who would gatekeep certain genres and bands. Same mentality.

ThorLives · 2019-11-22T03:33:14+00:00

I haven't tried to "gatekeep" my hobbies from women, but I could understand why it might happen.

First, guys might start to act differently around women. They might be more guarded, and less free about what they talk about. I have definitely adjusted what I say and how I say it depending on who I'm around. When I'm with a bunch of guys at work, it's much easier to talk about women - whether we're talking about specific women, female psychology, or other societal issues around women. I'm much more careful about what I say and how I say it when I'm talking to women. And I know that women do the same thing - they can be much freer talking about men if they're hanging out with all their girlfriends (and gay friends).

The other issue - which would most definitely happen if the new woman in the group is attractive - is that most guys will try to jockey to get the girl. This can lead to a whole bunch of problems. Not only does it change the vibe of the group from "just a bunch of guys hanging out, talking shit, and having fun" to "I'm going to try to present myself as attractive, get attention, or say the right things to please her". If two or more guys like the same girl, then that's a huge problem. Those guys start jockeying for attention. If one of them actually dates her or has some sort of relationship with her, it can lead to jealousy and sour the whole group. Basically, it can easily lead to a situation where the group becomes a lot less fun. In some ways, it's just easier to keep her excluded from the group than deal with all the headaches that come with multiple guys competing for one girl.

I had some friends in high school where something similar happened. Admittedly, it wasn't because there was a girl who joined our group. Rather, one guy started dating a girl. They broke up. She started dating another guy in our group. What happened next? We stopped hanging out with those two guys at the same time, because the first guy didn't like the second guy. Because we kind of preferred hanging out with the first guy, the second guy effectively got exiled from our friend-group.

Atlas_B_Shruggin · 2019-11-22T03:36:50+00:00

This is easy. Women destroy any aggressive, rough and tumble atmosphere with their sensitivities and disgusting offended feelings. They immediately rearrange any male spaces to suit themselves, tone police, get offended at violent, aggressive language and sexual taunts/innuendos. When theyre not doing that they attention whore and queen bee, create cliques of orbiters out of the men and destroy any social cohesion the men might of had

QueenCousland86 · 2019-11-22T03:35:13+00:00

I've been a gamer and a TTRPG nerd my whole life, and gatekeeping definitely happens. What's WORSE is the guys who go full rage mode when a mutual interest in geek shit doesn't make you want to touch their penis.

QueenCousland86 · 2019-11-22T03:48:57+00:00

Because they want to get laid

Because they're afraid that true nerd girls will also reject them

Because they're afraid of rejection in general - they can avoid this by not be attracted to the girl to begin with, so they 'shit-test' them

Because they literally don't believe that anyone who has a modicum of social awareness- as most girls are forced to have, nerd or not - can actually be a nerd

Because they're afraid of offending - which usually ties into wanting to get laid, but can also just be a sincere fear of social reprisal if they say/do the wrong thing

Because they're unsure of how to not do this, or how to act in a coed nerd situation - mostly ASDs, but neuro-typical super nerds as well

Because they're the top of the food chain in their own group, and literally can't handle a girl knowing as much as (if not more than) they do about their chosen fandom

Because they're afraid that these women aren't actually nerdy, but only pretending to be because they couldn't hack it in normie world

Because of too many movie tropes about double-agent types infiltrating nerd world for whatever reason - usually to embarrass them or make them look bad

Because they actually think that real girls couldn't possibly be nerdy

Short list, but mostly complete. It's not just nerd shit, though - and honestly, out of all the 'male' areas, nerd shit is lowest on the list of genres that I've seen this in. Personally, anyway, though I have a low bullshit tolerance and a nerdy-ass friend group. Despite all of the above, most nerd guys are happy to interact with women that like the things that they like - it's like finding an actual unicorn, they really wanna pet it. I occasionally find that more irritating, in those circles, but usually they're just excited that somebody recognized their Trigun reference.

Having any knowledge of higher level IT shit, or any sport, or any of the shit that they really want to gatekeep? That's where it hits. The nerdy gatekeeping is mostly insecurity. The jock-ish types that'll ask you the blood type of the head coach of the team whose shirt you're wearing...there's some irritating frat-bro crap.

Tomatoccino · 2019-11-22T08:54:48+00:00

Because they’re scared that the women will be better at it.

skystar86 · 2019-11-22T03:21:50+00:00

I've never been cosplaying but from what I see it's basically a costume party where you dress up as characters. Is the reason guys are against women doing it because they dress up too sexy?

poppy_blu · 2019-11-22T02:59:19+00:00

Funny, I've been into sports my whole life but I've never been gatekeeped (?) by men. If anything, they love a woman who can talk intelligently about sports and will shutup while the game is on because she's watching it too. Most jocks date other jocks.

So, as usual, there's something else going on here.

2019-11-22T02:42:52+00:00

Women change the dynamic of groups. Plus they tend to make everything all about them, instead of about the material/hobby, and ruin everything.

Pontifex_Lucious-II · 2019-11-22T03:40:22+00:00

There is no way anyone can “gatekeep” anyone from learning chess, RTS games, or reading fiction. It is impossible. Competency is gained in solitude.

Now women wanting to make a YouTube channel about being a “gamer girl” is obviously going to draw a lot of eye rolls (and subscriptions) because she’s leveraging her sexuality for views, not her skill at the “nerdy skill”.

wekacuck · 2019-11-22T02:45:21+00:00

Probably because you get enough shit from other guys for having nerdy hobbies without needing to compound the problem by having a hobby that "even a girl" can do.

bonerdude420 · 2019-11-22T03:15:12+00:00

Women change the dynamic of male spaces. Often for the worse. Women also often try to enter male spaces for disingenuous reasons. Men who have experienced this gatekeep as a defence mechanism to maintain the status quo.

diffdedbed · 2019-11-22T02:40:40+00:00

[deleted]

RandomAttackHelpMe · 2019-11-22T07:10:31+00:00

Gatekeeping is a social habit many people do. It's not just these angry nerdy lonely dudes everyone likes to shit on as a convenient scapegoat. I have seen and dealt with plenty of women who display similar if not the same tendencies and habits. It starts in adolescence if not earlier and some people never grow out of it.

It doesn't nec. need to be any of said related nerdy things. It can be the social sense of who is and who is out, who is more "real" and who isn't. Also, dudes gatekeep each other. Pick a profession. For this discussion let's use accounting, legal work, and tech work.

Obv. these people worked hard for what they do, they acquired a certain focus, skill level, and talent, after all, like they say, only go for the best and never settle!!!!! Am I right guys?!?!?! Ok, so with that comes this sense of focus, this sense of confidence, this sense of accomplishment. Obviously with said things, and those careers in particular esp. one must REALLY know what they are doing, the details, the accuracy, etc. So hence, when one achieves that and knows their shit, they kind of have little tolerance for people who don't know what the hell they are talking about.

Also, sports fandom is VERY gatekeepy. I like sports, I like to watch a game, I admire and appreciate the focus, the talent, the teamwork, all that, but sports culture? Can't stand it. Aside from comparison and contrasting talents and skills and what ideas and strategies what work and what doesn't, you really think I want to sit there and here some old ass windbag of a fuck going on and on and on about thah guhd ohl dayz and if yah don't knowayah yah stats!!!!, GEDDAFAHKOUTTAHEAH!!!!! Like they can't think beyond their own two feet for more than two seconds.

Look, as irritating as gatekeeping can be, so isn't people who endlessy bitch about it. Guys do it to each other as well. I see it as, as long as you are happy enjoying whatever you are being gatekeeped on, fuck do you care what some nerd ass dude says?

diffdedbed · 2019-11-22T03:37:30+00:00

They dumbed down DND to try to accommodate women.

Women are more than welcome, the problem is fewv are really into nerd stuff so to accommodate the nerd stuff is changed.

AutoModerator · 2019-11-22T02:30:30+00:00

Attention!

You can post off topic/jokes/puns as a comment to this Automoderator message.
For "CMV" and "Question for X" Threads: Parent comments that aren't from the target group will be removed, along with their child replies.
If you want to agree with OP instead of challenging their view or if the question is not targeted at you, post it as an answer to this comment.
OP you can choose your own flair according to these guidelines., just press Flair under your post!

Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

MikepGrey · 2019-11-22T04:08:29+00:00

Some are idiots, the rest of us may have pockets full of fuck, but just cant give one anymore : )

Reisiluu · 2019-11-22T05:45:38+00:00

I guess they just don't like meeting women through social circles which is the easiest way to find a girlfriend.

G77R23D · 2019-11-22T05:49:10+00:00

Can you give us an example?

bonusfruit · 2019-11-22T12:15:43+00:00

Women ruin male hobbies and interests.

Sports, gaming, male focused fiction and entertainment. When women populate these things, they inevitably complain about sexism, the way women are depicted, the competitive nature of the hobby, the shit talk. Basically everything that makes men like a thing has to change to make the women there more comfortable. Women who play at highschool boys level in professional sports and bring in a 10th of the audience and money demand the same pay and prestige as vastly superior male athletes. Women want busty sexy fictional women banned from anime, comics and videogames. Women want less violence and more female speaking roles in everything that mostly men enjoy watching. Women want to dismantle the concept of a masculine hero and replace him with male idiots, villains and effeminate allies while only women strut around like badasses. Women are why Ghostbusters 2016, oceans 8, batwoman, the star wars sequels, charlies angels 2019, terminator dark fate and other man-hating trash movies are killing legendary franchises that male audiences built up. Men don't want to gatekeep initially. They like the idea of women being interested in the same things as them, instead of calling them man baby peter pans for having hobbies. But the reality is pretty grim. Women are different. Their brains are different. They don't like male hobbies, they like what they can morph male hobbies into.

goatismycopilot · 2019-11-22T14:10:55+00:00

I have no idea if fantasy hockey is really even a hobby but I routinely get offered ridiculous trades in my yahoo leagues if they find out I am a woman, I don't bothered mentioning I have won my leagues in the past because I don't do the super competitive ones because they can get time consuming. Right now I am leading and my real name is in my team title so I an fielding dumbness for trade deals which is stupid, it is early in the season. Last year I started out third to last and won. It is not even that strategic, you end up with a few injuries to key players you burn or you end up with the goalie who has a great unexpected season you can win.

DontTouchTheCancer · 2019-11-22T15:30:26+00:00

Ever heard the bit by Iliza Schlessinger (sp?) - the woman who makes sheep and goat noises all the time - where she talks about how women pretend to like shit to get male attention, and settle on "hiking" as a hobby because it's easy to fake?

Yeah. that.

Women complain men take up space at events. Guess what, a woman walks into a sausage party and suddenly it's "let's impress the chick" rather than "let's have fun". Especially when it's patently obvious she read the Wikipedia Entry about it on the bus there but she's going to the event because "there's guys there".

Pastelitomaracucho · 2019-11-23T04:56:47+00:00

Performance, passion and involvement.

Guys heavily involved in a nerdy hobby will see that girls just don't get as involved, don't dedicate enough time to it, don't perform as well. So they see girl's interest as fake.

They would do the same with any male half assing it, too.

lonelinessmademecave · 2019-11-24T23:00:46+00:00

As many stated it can ruin the dynamic of a group. Girls can ruin guys friendship. Suddenly everybody is just competing for the girl’s attention.

Also, there is a phenomenon that happened when I was younger, where girls would join a group just to socialize/or because they liked some dude, and their interest in the actual hobby was shallow. I don’t see this as an adult. I didn’t see this in college either, really. But some girls really did like the easy attention from unsocialized nerds more than they liked, say, super smash bros melee, or fencing, or death metal, or LARPing, or chess, or rocketry, or robotics, or any of those stupid clubs I was associated with in HS.

It’s kind of unfair to the many legitimately nerdy women, but I find those girls weren’t treated with the suspicion as the other girls were, mostly because the truly nerdy girls tended to be unattractive.

bakedfob77 · 2019-11-25T01:47:35+00:00

Most the time cause it's the only thing they "have" and like your secret fort that you had as a kid you really don't want anyone intruding in your space. Not even a gender issue more of a personal space thing maybe? Idk just spitballing

AdolfGandi · 2019-11-25T23:27:42+00:00

Nerds spend their lives being ignored by women. When a woman gets involved in their hobby, said nerds feel like the girls getting involved in their hobbies are fake because any decent looking girl wouldn't have experienced isolation, bullying , and rejection, so they haven't "earned" it because they didn't have to suffer for who they were. Logically this isn't always true but us guys tend to think that hot girls can't be bullied. Most of the time ugly girls are accepted at face value in nerdy circles. Guys really only gate keep hot girls for this reason.

doom2345 · 2019-11-26T21:33:22+00:00

There's a stereotype where women engage in whatever is "cool" on social media in a very superficial way. e.g. Cosplaying and caring more about looking sexy than about the product/story or "playing" video games and caring more about looking sexy and being a "gamer chick" /gamer culture.

Take this for example:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/ebaumsworld.prod/uploads1571349432100-72370354_2972864329394900_1517034667159584768_n.jpg

PS - This isn't my beef though. I'm just giving an explanation. Personally I don't consider things like games, comicbooks, movies, etc. to be hobbies in the first place.

Plopolok · 2019-11-22T03:06:38+00:00

they may be [...] met with doubt, ridicule, or open hostility.

They're also met with unearned trust, admiration, and friendship. There's a lot of overcompensation. Nerds just aren't used to the presence of women, everything is more tense.

abaxeron · 2019-11-22T12:47:25+00:00

Why did women gatekeep synchronized swimming for 90 years? Is it because of their fragile ego? Or is it something more deeper than that?

1) Men need male environments for 100 various reasons that are too obvious and too numerous to list here;

2) Men can't just circlejerk and cry like little bitches in their male environments; you leave 10 men in a room - within two hours you'll discover that they're playing Atari Go on a sheet of paper, arm-wrestling, playing "20 questions", or making a mural on the wall with ball-point pens they found in their pockets.

darudeboysandstorm · 2019-11-22T05:50:39+00:00

Most women that complain about being gatekept aren't really into whatever it is that they're into. If you're really into a hobby, know what you're talking about, and aren't just doing it for superficial reasons, you're not gonna care what some asshole has to say about it. I recently sparked up an old semi-obsession with sonic and various retro games, pretty much every "nerd" at my school was more than happy to bullshit and talk to me about stupid sonic trivia and were pleasantly surprised with how much shit I know. Sonic's real name is Ogilvie Maurice the Hedgehog. But I imagine their reaction would have been a lot different if I were like "Hiiii guyyysss I love Video Game, my favorite pokemon is detective pikachu, look at my funko pop collection and my breasts!!!"

Also everything other people have already said about male spaces. Decently socialized women don't need to go beg for attention in "nerd" spaces.

Title	Why do some men gatekeep nerdier hobbies or interests against women?
Author	Mystery_Tragic
Upvotes	8
Comments	164
Date	November 22, 2019 2:30 AM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/dzufp4/why_do_some_men_gatekeep_nerdier_hobbies_or/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/why-do-some-men-gatekeep-nerdier-hobbies-or.296190 https://theredarchive.com/post/296190

Comments