Here with my boyfriend is a common assumption found in geek communities. Women are assumed to be present because they are tagging along with their boyfriend, husband, or similar, rather than being independently interested in the subject at hand. (Women are assumed to be geeks' partners, rather than geeks themselves.)
This occurs at many geeky events including
- Technical conferences
- User groups
- Hacker spaces
- Science Fiction conventions
- Comic conventions
- Historical re-enactment events
Note that if a woman does have a boyfriend in a field or a geek community, that shouldn't undermine her own interest and knowledge and right to be there.
Even if she is just tagging along, that is not a problem at all. The problem is the assumption that a woman is present because of her boyfriend's interest and not her own.
Examples
At YAPC::Europe in 2001, at the Speaker's Dinner, while wearing a speaker's nametag, I was asked if I was there with my boyfriend. --Skud 11:24, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
The one time I've been asked this was at linux.conf.au 2009, the same year I was solo chair of the programme committee. Thayvian 22:57, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
There was a report of a female delegate being assumed by the registration desk for LCA2009 to be there for the Partners Programme. 202.129.81.102 04:37, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
- This was also reported in 2011. Thayvian 01:39, September 7, 2011 (UTC)
In a double whammy, the 2009 LISA conference was held in the same building as a conference for physically disabled people. I kept having to fight off being steered into the wrong conference. (The disabled men reported no problems.) Mizmoose 23:58, September 3, 2011 (UTC)
At PHP London with some developers from my work last year, a recruiter came up to us, gave us a spiel about all the wonderful opportunities he had available, and handed all of us his card. All of us, that is, except the one female developer in our group. Nottrobin (talk) 10:42, January 14, 2013 (UTC)
See also
- Boyfriend-transmitted geekdom, in which women who were or are being introduced to a geek scene by a male partner are viewed as lesser
