<p>I think justin's point here is great. Anyone up for continued discussion re: women in makerspaces? How can social misfits, outcasts, and antisocial hacker types work towards creating a welcoming environment?</p>
<p>Maybe we can talk about matt, whether his fly is open, and all that implies we can see, in a different thread. It would be a shame if we got derailed by trolls. I know a lot of folks are concerned about this issue... many of them the type to be easily silenced.</p>
<p>R.</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 17, 2013 3:58 PM, "justin corwin" <<a href="mailto:outlawpoet@gmail.com">outlawpoet@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr"><div><div>I was sorry to see Lyra beat me to the reply, although hers is great. <br><br></div>My possibly unaddressed slice of this is that being nice is seemingly costless, but tolerating some patterns of behavior can end up costing you a lot, in terms of who feels free to step in to discussions, what kind of participation you get, and what resources are available to you. <br>
<br></div>I've seen a number of communities choke themselves out by allowing poisonous internal behavior to scare off *any* new participants and possible sponsors who might have gotten involved, quite aside from unusually focused kinds of aggressive *we're not cool, don't join us* flags, like ageist, sexist, racist presentation tends to uniquely haunt our section of the subculture. <br>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 3:43 PM, Al Billings <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:albill@openbuddha.com" target="_blank">albill@openbuddha.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>Lyra++
</div><span><font color="#888888">
<div><div><br></div><div>-- </div><div>Al Billings</div><div><a href="http://www.openbuddha.com" target="_blank">http://www.openbuddha.com</a></div><div><a href="http://makehacklearn.org" target="_blank">http://makehacklearn.org</a></div>
<div><br></div></div></font></span><div><div>
<p style="color:#a0a0a8">On Thursday, January 17, 2013 at 3:41 PM, rachel lyra hospodar wrote:</p>
<blockquote type="cite" style="border-left-style:solid;border-width:1px;margin-left:0px;padding-left:10px">
<span><div><div><div>It might be an artifact of your social position in Amerika, Mr. Joyce, </div><div>as a white cismale who presents heteronormatively, that you believe </div><div>'being nice' carries no added cost.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Or it's an artifact of my position that any dissent is automatically </div><div>regarded as socially unacceptable - since women are always supposed to </div><div>'be nice' and in fact in professional settings are statistically more </div>
<div>frequently punished, reprimanded, and fired for displaying the same </div><div>'assertive' behaviors which are rewarded in men.</div><div><br></div><div>When I find myself surrounded by people who evidence an informed respect </div>
<div>and understanding for me, my people, and the enormity of our oppression, </div><div>i find it</div><div><br></div><div>so</div><div><br></div><div>much</div><div><br></div><div>easier</div><div><br></div><div>to be nice.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Yes, in general, I think people should be nice. Should women who are </div><div>being spoken to condescendingly be nice? How nice? How about people of </div><div>color who are being spoken to in a racist manner? How about trans </div>
<div>people being subject to hate speech? Where is the line?</div><div><br></div><div>I think *you* should be nice, because Amerika has heard plenty of your </div><div>flavor of truth. I think I should be honest.</div>
<div>
<br></div><div>R.</div><div><br></div><div>On 1/17/2013 2:51 PM, Matt Joyce wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div>Cost nothing to be nice to each other.</div><div><br></div><div>On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:46 PM, rachel lyra hospodar</div>
<div><<a href="mailto:rachelyra@gmail.com" target="_blank">rachelyra@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div>"It could be that she host a class about e-textiles or whatever it is</div><div>
females like to talk about."</div><div><br></div><div>*headdesk*</div><div><br></div><div>protip - sometimes women focus on the textile stuff *because* then they can</div><div>be in a group that is at least 15% women. The Feminist Hacker Hive that</div>
<div>meets up at noisebridge has found that there is a tipping point - if a</div><div>critical mass of women are present in conversation, they don't get</div><div>interrupted by clueless neanderthal types.</div><div>
<br>
</div><div>I used to make a living as a carpenter, welder, and construction manager. I</div><div>left that work because of gender and age based disrespect.</div><div><br></div><div>I sniffed around the edges of Silicon Valley but didn't dive in for the same</div>
<div>reasons. I do work in soft circuitry now, but it's not because rigid</div><div>circuits are too difficult. It's a brute-force solution designed to avoid</div><div>people as condescending as you, david.</div>
<div><br></div><div>If the tech industry truly wants to innovate on things like interface we</div><div>could do with re-examining how people interact, and what we are really</div><div>seeking. To do that, though, we have to change the culture.</div>
<div><br></div><div>R.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>On 1/17/2013 8:26 AM, David Powell wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div><br></div><div>At Baltimore Hackerspace we have been 100% male until last month. We had</div>
<div>the occasional Female come through the door but for whatever reason they</div><div>never come back. We now have exactly 1 female member and about 20 male</div><div>members. The males ALWAYS go out of their way to make the place more</div>
<div>female friendly. For example we try hard not to use inappropriate</div><div>language around females. Whenever they show a desire to learn something</div><div>we stop what we are doing and teach them whatever it is they want to</div>
<div>know. At the end of the night when they are leaving we always have</div><div>someone walk them to their car so they feel safe.</div><div><br></div><div>I highly encourage all members of our space no matter what their gender</div>
<div>is to make it their own. For example we have Programmers, Electronic</div><div>Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Accountants, Students, etc. and you can</div><div>pick anyone person from any of those backgrounds and they could tell you</div>
<div>a subject that they just don't care about. So if a programmer wants more</div><div>programmers to talk to and hang out with I encourage them to send out a</div><div>few e-mails and become more active online in order to help find more</div>
<div>people interested in programming. I don't however expect the mechanical</div><div>engineers to go find programmers if they have no interest in learning to</div><div>program.</div><div><br></div><div>I would say the same should be true with the female/male issue. If a</div>
<div>hackerspace has one female and she wants more females in the hackerspace</div><div>then she should start a campaign to find more females. It could be that</div><div>she host a class about e-textiles or whatever it is females like to talk</div>
<div>about.</div><div><br></div><div>If a female in the hackerspace wants to be on our board I would gladly</div><div>accept them but I would hold them to the same standards as I hold</div><div>everyone. As a board member you are "Responsible" for the future of the</div>
<div>hackerspace. This means a lot of work that really sucks. For us it is</div><div>not just making decisions but actually getting the work done. For</div><div>example we need brochures made to hand out to people who are coming</div>
<div>through our door for the first time and at special events. Ok we voted</div><div>that we need those. Now what? Well, someone has to actually design and</div><div>make the things. But we don't have a budget to just pay a designer. So</div>
<div>the person in charge of making it happen has to find someone with the</div><div>talent to make it happen or figure out how to do it themselves. "But I</div><div>just want to hack" is usually what most people say. Nobody wants to</div>
<div>actually do anything the is important. They want to do what is fun at</div><div>the time.</div><div><br></div><div>As the president I spend about 40 hours a week making sure the finances</div><div>are straight, making sure our social media is up to date, sending out</div>
<div>request to try and get us stuff that we can't afford, making sure the</div><div>place is clean for the next wave of new people who come through the</div><div>door, making sure the projector works for the classes we host, making</div>
<div>sure the refrigerator gets stocked with soda. I could keep going.</div><div><br></div><div>My point is it does not matter what gender you are. It matters whether</div><div>or not you actually do work which contributes to the future of the</div>
<div>space. If you want more women then go find them. If you want more say in</div><div>what is going on then offer to help take care of some of the task that</div><div>need to be accomplished.</div><div><br></div><div><br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr">Justin Corwin<br><a href="mailto:outlawpoet@gmail.com" target="_blank">outlawpoet@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://programmaticconquest.tumblr.com" target="_blank">http://programmaticconquest.tumblr.com</a><br>
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