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Female Comic Book Fans, Trekkies And Gamers To Converge In Seattle For GeekGirlCon

Liz Henry
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Flickr

At first blush, the world of comic books and video games can seem really male-dominated. But thousands of women and girls meeting up in Seattle this weekend for GeekGirlCon say, hold on a second, there’s plenty of room in geekdom for them, too.

Sharon Magliano Feliciano is on the board of GeekGirlCon. She said she fell in love with Star Trek: The Next Generation when she was about nine years old. On the playground, she approached some boys who were playing Star Trek.

“I wanted to play with them and they said, `Well, you can be Counselor Troi’ and I said, `Great, I’ll be Counselor Troi.’ `Well, we’re all going on an away mission and we don’t need Counselor Troi,’” she said. “So it was this very early, eye-opening – oh, in this world, girls are different and girls are other.”

Credit photo courtesy of Sharon Magliano Feliciano
Sharon Magliano Feliciano (left) with her daughter, Kitty Feliciano (front), and sister, Alisha Magliano (right)

She didn’t let that kind of exclusion deter her, and she’s fully embraced her inner geek. She co-owns a store called Arcane Comics and More in Shoreline and writes a blog called Parenting Geekly. Magliano Feliciano says she takes her daughter and her son to GeekGirlCon every year.

“GeekGirlCon welcomes anyone who wants to celebrate female geeks and is an ally to women and girls in geekdom,”

She says one highlight is seeing people’s amazing costumes in the cosplay contest on Saturday afternoon.

The conference also aims to get girls excited about science, technology, engineering and math fields. There are hands-on science experiments, a droid-building workshop and a panel of entomologists who use bugs to talk about social issues such as prejudice, racism and sexism.

And there’s a panel on unconventional sports. JC Lau, a captain of one of the Rat City Roller Girls roller derby teams, is one of the panelists. Her derby name? Chairman Mouse.

Credit R.L. Robertson / photo courtesy of Rat City Roller Girls
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photo courtesy of Rat City Roller Girls
JC Lau (center) has been doing roller derby for about four years.

“Sport is generally a very male-dominated space, but modern roller derby was created by women, the governing body is run by women and it’s this place where, if you think you don’t belong in sport, you actually do,” Lau said.

There will also be people from cheerleading and quidditch teams on the panel. Quidditch is a game that originated in the Harry Potter series.

Geek Girl Con is taking place this Saturday and Sunday at the Conference Center across the street from the Washington State Convention Center.  

Editor's Note: A previous version of this story referred to women as people "with XX chromosomes." This language is exclusionary. We apologize for the error.

In July 2017, Ashley Gross became KNKX's youth and education reporter after years of covering the business and labor beat. She joined the station in May 2012 and previously worked five years at WBEZ in Chicago, where she reported on business and the economy. Her work telling the human side of the mortgage crisis garnered awards from the Illinois Associated Press and the Chicago Headline Club. She's also reported for the Alaska Public Radio Network in Anchorage and for Bloomberg News in San Francisco.