Everyone who watches me knows that I'm an expositionist - I don't tend to put much personal information on dA or anywhere on the internet mostly because I figure that people don't actually care (in all honesty, sometimes I don't myself ) and that anything someone needs to know about me or that I feel resembles myself can be deduced from my art. There's safety in all that as well, but anyhow. Well, one bit of information you do need to know about me in order to understand the following story is: I'm a female.

Just the other day I visited a local toy/collectable shop on my weekly "rounds". As the name implies, I am not new to this store nor it's owner as I am there every week (sometimes more often) scouting for items I want. This time I found something I wanted, and asked the store owner if he could pull it out so I could see it. His response was "... really?". Now, I let that slide as I understood that the item was very expensive ($150) so perhaps this comment was in response to someone being serious at purchasing such an expensive item, but when I responded "yes" he said "what are YOU going to do with it?".

Now, I'll admit that this isn't the first time I've been met with skepticism, shock or even passive-aggression when making a purchase from a comic/collectable store - however there seems to be a trend that I only elicit this kind of behavior when purchasing "toys" (using the categorical term here). When I go to Toys R Us and ask about certain figures, I'm always met with "How old is your son?" or if I shop at collectable stores when I'm out of the country I hear a lot of "trying to surprise your boyfriend?". Despite the variable assumptions, when I tell people "this is for me" i am ubiquitously met with first horror, then snide remarks. I can understand where main-stream individuals think my behaviour is uncalled for - I'm not engaging in the proscribed behaviors of my gender and am thus a threat to their lifestyles and the predictability therein. What really upsets me is that this behavior is being adopted by the sub-culture that is itself being marginalized, and what's more frustrating is a culture that usually dwells on themes of heroism, identity and social commentary!!!!!

I'm writing this journal because I want to hear from my watchers what they think about the issue; what do YOU think is the gender divide in the nerdom, and why?

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