Microcosmographia by William Van Hecke

Feminism for Nerds

Updated April 23, 2017

Once you have decided that you might care about feminism, it can still take a lot of reading, empathy, and effort to really get it. It takes some consciousness-raising. This list is an attempt to make that journey a little bit easier.

I think helping good but hyperprivileged folks to really understand others’ experiences is really important, not just fighting villains. So I’m putting my energy into trying to get more empathy and understanding from well-meaning geeks, rather than trying to somehow defeat the vilest of the trolls.

Until (unless?) there is a definitive book on how to recognize your own privilege and truly listen to others’ experiences, the best approach I have found is to piece it together from lots of individual bits like these. Here are the bits that have helped me so far.

Start Here

The state of women’s experiences in the tech world is summarized in this group post; this is my new preferred introduction to the topic:

Why Read

Consciousness-Raising

My own consciousness was initially raised on the topic by these articles about the Dickwolves situation at Penny Arcade. The way this debacle unfolded was the turning point that really changed the way I think about social justice, and eventually led me to a fundamentally different way of looking at humanity.

You Can Understand “Privilege”, I Promise

Essential Concepts

Especially important posts that I keep coming back to in my mind:

Further Reading

And now a heap of miscellaneous awesome:

That’ll do for now. Time to quit obsessing and hit post. I’ll surely add many more resources as this journey continues.