Lady Geeks Rise Up

Geek girl extraordinaire

Geek girls rule these days as never before. To wit:

She-nerds have found a place on the TV hit show, Big Bang. Summer blockbusters like The Avengers allow at least a few women into the elite circle of cinematic super heroes/heroines. There’s even a female-empowering Geek Girls Con in Seattle later this summer – a distaff response to the more male-oriented Comic Con.

But it wasn’t always this way. Women like Erika Peterman, now 42, were geek back in the day, before it was cool. The co-founder of Girls-Gone-Geek.com and a writer for a CNN geek blog, Peterman recalls that she started with Betty and Veronica (“my gateway drug,” as she recalls) before moving on to brawnier specimens, including Wonder Woman.

Peterman spoke to I-nerd about her love of comic books and whether comics are still a (super)man’s world.

Q: How did it start for you?

A: I got into comics as a kid in late 70s. My mom knew I liked to read and sometimes we’d pass a convenience store on way home and she’d give me money. Archie was kind of my gateway drug – Betty and Veronica stuff. Somehow I got into Wonder Woman, probably because of the TV show. I started getting Wonder Woman comics on a regular basis. They took me down the rabbit hole. I discovered mainstream characters from DC Comics: Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman…. Those were the three that I gravitated the most toward.

Preach: Female Spiritual Leader in Syria

Before revolution erupted on Syrian streets, a quiet evolution was taking place among a group of devout Muslim women in Damascus. A female Muslim scholar was teaching women and girls lessons from the Koran at a religious school she founded and, while doing so, encouraging them to get a secular education and pursue leadership roles.

 The teacher, Houda al-Habash, is the subject of a new feature documentary, “The Light in Her Eyes,” which focuses on al-Habash’s efforts to let women and girls study the Koran formally and outside their homes, where they might otherwise be confined.

 A former Fulbright scholar who lived in Syria for a year and a half, filmmaker Julia Meltzer found al-Habash an intriguing mix – both progressive and traditional, doctrinaire and warm – but always compelling. Her film will air on PBS’s Point of View on July 19:

Q: Can you describe the work that Houda does?