<div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 7:34 PM, Yves Quemener <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:quemener.yves@free.fr">quemener.yves@free.fr</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">On 10/02/2010 02:35 PM, Maria Droujkova wrote:<br>
<br>
> Lack of welcome takes different forms. For example, some books are read<br>
> by different genders disproportionally, because of words in them.<br>
<br>
</div>Could you point at a practical example of lack of welcome that applies to<br>
some hackerspaces that were biased against women specifically ? I am not<br>
arguing that there are statistically significant differences between men<br>
and women behaviors, I am arguing that the gender imbalance in hackerspaces<br>
come from stereotypes that exist outside of them.<br></blockquote><div><br>I agree that imbalances come from outside. I can make some guesses about what features attract or repel people by gender. For example, information about opening hackerspaces may be distributed in predominantly male networks. This suspicion is easy to investigate. You can just ask people in hackerspaces how they decided to come, and then see the populations targeted by these "types of welcome." <br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
The thing is (in my humble opinion) that hackerspaces do not have the same<br>
mission as schools in that regard. HS are supposed to offer mature people<br>
tools to hack in an atmosphere of tolerance and sharing. Come solder, come<br>
program, come sew, come sculpt. You won't be mocked (actually, from what I<br>
read on the ML, when someone mentioned sewing in the tmplab, a workshop was<br>
asked because many people perceived this skill as very useful). But please<br>
bring your skills, don't wait for others to propose them. That's what that<br>
it is about.<br></blockquote><div><br>I thought information about unschooler and some homeschooler networks (as opposed to schools) is relevant precisely because of the atmosphere of DIY, initiative, and tolerance within unschooler circles. There are, obviously, many differences. <br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im"><br>
</div>WoW is a commercial game. They need to have the biggest marketshare<br>
possible. I don't see why hackerspaces should aim at a balance ratio of<br>
genders. They are places to hack, learn, share. Opened to any gender, and<br>
usually full of really open-minded people. What more to ask for ?<br>
<div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
Iv<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br>The majority of commercial games aim at 15-25 males, however. Only a few even try to target mixed audiences, by age or by gender. I brought up WoW because they do try, and succeed for some demographics but not others. <br>
<br>I don't know why the balance of genders in hackerspaces came up, either. Is it even a problem?! Maybe hackerspaces can be happily segregated or imbalanced.<br><br>MariaD<br></div></div><br>