Geek feminist, pop culture historian and co-founder of GeekGirlCon inspires discussion at EvCC about change in the modern geek world. Jennifer Stuller is a speaker for Humanities Washington and brought her talk “Using Their Powers For Good; How Geektivists, Geek Grrls, and Gaymers are creating a More Inclusive Geek Culture,” to EvCC where she discussed how these different groups were making revelations through social media, female icons, celebrities and more.

Stuller identifies herself as a geek feminist because she is passionate about equality and gets excited about the things she enjoys. Things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mad Max: Fury Road, and even Pippi Longstocking. Through her identification with both these groups, she has seen first-hand how much the world is changing for them and has even been a part of the change she is seeing.

She decided that change was necessary in 2006, after attending a convention where she felt ignored. Stuller told a story of looking through comics and asking questions, but the salesman would walk away to help male customers.

“As a collector, as a consumer, I was ignored,” said Stuller.

At the same convention, she witnessed a panel of judges that included only one female. Which suddenly made her question “where are the women?” To top matters off she couldn’t even fully express her geekiness through some of the merchandise being sold because they didn’t sell anything for women.

“I’m a grown-ass woman I can’t wear a youth large,” said Stuller.

Then Stuller found her calling. A Seattle woman put out a call online to anyone who wanted to be a part of creating a convention for women. Stuller met the woman and 2 others, and they slowly started to build a community of people who were found themselves passionate about the same things. Thus GeekGirlCon was born and their 1st convention was in 2011 and sold out.

In her talk at EvCC, Stuller recognized the fact that Geeks are now mainstream. It’s normal to be excited about things like superheroes, whereas before you could be made fun of or punished for holding such passions but that is just one of the many evolutions she has seen. Now she is recognizing geek minorities start to show pride in these things to.

Stuller covered a lot of interesting topics in her presentation from “its okay to be Takei” and race-swapping super heroes to the role social media plays in the world of geek and feminism. Her presentation sparked a discussion that addressed topics such as social media involvement, enthusiasm and even Mad Max: Fury Road.

Ricky Hester, an EvCC student, who couldn’t relate to any of the groups she discussed felt like Stuller’s intentions were good but that she needed more factual information. However, Nashika Hadley, an EvCC student who considers herself a feminist and activist, said “I liked the talk a lot, I felt like it was very inspiring,” and like she could relate to her because they held a lot of the same interests.