[hackerspaces] Women in Makerspaces

[Matt Joyce]

Both ghandi and mlk got a hell of a lot done being nice.

If you are going to run around pissing people off, don't mistake their
dislike of you for any sort of gender or race based hatred of you.

Also, the next time someone gives me shit for being white, male, and
straight I am going to go out of my way to educate you on the heritage
of irish hatred that plagued this nation in years past.

For the record,  I have not oppressed anyone today.  You on the other hand have.

-Matt

On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 3:43 PM, Al Billings <albill at openbuddha.com> wrote:
> Lyra++
>
> --
> Al Billings
> http://www.openbuddha.com
> http://makehacklearn.org
>
> On Thursday, January 17, 2013 at 3:41 PM, rachel lyra hospodar wrote:
>
> It might be an artifact of your social position in Amerika, Mr. Joyce,
> as a white cismale who presents heteronormatively, that you believe
> 'being nice' carries no added cost.
>
> Or it's an artifact of my position that any dissent is automatically
> regarded as socially unacceptable - since women are always supposed to
> 'be nice' and in fact in professional settings are statistically more
> frequently punished, reprimanded, and fired for displaying the same
> 'assertive' behaviors which are rewarded in men.
>
> When I find myself surrounded by people who evidence an informed respect
> and understanding for me, my people, and the enormity of our oppression,
> i find it
>
> so
>
> much
>
> easier
>
> to be nice.
>
> Yes, in general, I think people should be nice. Should women who are
> being spoken to condescendingly be nice? How nice? How about people of
> color who are being spoken to in a racist manner? How about trans
> people being subject to hate speech? Where is the line?
>
> I think *you* should be nice, because Amerika has heard plenty of your
> flavor of truth. I think I should be honest.
>
> R.
>
> On 1/17/2013 2:51 PM, Matt Joyce wrote:
>
> Cost nothing to be nice to each other.
>
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:46 PM, rachel lyra hospodar
> <rachelyra at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "It could be that she host a class about e-textiles or whatever it is
> females like to talk about."
>
> *headdesk*
>
> protip - sometimes women focus on the textile stuff *because* then they can
> be in a group that is at least 15% women. The Feminist Hacker Hive that
> meets up at noisebridge has found that there is a tipping point - if a
> critical mass of women are present in conversation, they don't get
> interrupted by clueless neanderthal types.
>
> I used to make a living as a carpenter, welder, and construction manager. I
> left that work because of gender and age based disrespect.
>
> I sniffed around the edges of Silicon Valley but didn't dive in for the same
> reasons. I do work in soft circuitry now, but it's not because rigid
> circuits are too difficult. It's a brute-force solution designed to avoid
> people as condescending as you, david.
>
> If the tech industry truly wants to innovate on things like interface we
> could do with re-examining how people interact, and what we are really
> seeking. To do that, though, we have to change the culture.
>
> R.
>
>
> On 1/17/2013 8:26 AM, David Powell wrote:
>
>
> At Baltimore Hackerspace we have been 100% male until last month. We had
> the occasional Female come through the door but for whatever reason they
> never come back. We now have exactly 1 female member and about 20 male
> members. The males ALWAYS go out of their way to make the place more
> female friendly. For example we try hard not to use inappropriate
> language around females. Whenever they show a desire to learn something
> we stop what we are doing and teach them whatever it is they want to
> know. At the end of the night when they are leaving we always have
> someone walk them to their car so they feel safe.
>
> I highly encourage all members of our space no matter what their gender
> is to make it their own. For example we have Programmers, Electronic
> Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Accountants, Students, etc. and you can
> pick anyone person from any of those backgrounds and they could tell you
> a subject that they just don't care about. So if a programmer wants more
> programmers to talk to and hang out with I encourage them to send out a
> few e-mails and become more active online in order to help find more
> people interested in programming. I don't however expect the mechanical
> engineers to go find programmers if they have no interest in learning to
> program.
>
> I would say the same should be true with the female/male issue. If a
> hackerspace has one female and she wants more females in the hackerspace
> then she should start a campaign to find more females. It could be that
> she host a class about e-textiles or whatever it is females like to talk
> about.
>
> If a female in the hackerspace wants to be on our board I would gladly
> accept them but I would hold them to the same standards as I hold
> everyone. As a board member you are "Responsible" for the future of the
> hackerspace. This means a lot of work that really sucks. For us it is
> not just making decisions but actually getting the work done. For
> example we need brochures made to hand out to people who are coming
> through our door for the first time and at special events. Ok we voted
> that we need those. Now what? Well, someone has to actually design and
> make the things. But we don't have a budget to just pay a designer. So
> the person in charge of making it happen has to find someone with the
> talent to make it happen or figure out how to do it themselves. "But I
> just want to hack" is usually what most people say. Nobody wants to
> actually do anything the is important. They want to do what is fun at
> the time.
>
> As the president I spend about 40 hours a week making sure the finances
> are straight, making sure our social media is up to date, sending out
> request to try and get us stuff that we can't afford, making sure the
> place is clean for the next wave of new people who come through the
> door, making sure the projector works for the classes we host, making
> sure the refrigerator gets stocked with soda. I could keep going.
>
> My point is it does not matter what gender you are. It matters whether
> or not you actually do work which contributes to the future of the
> space. If you want more women then go find them. If you want more say in
> what is going on then offer to help take care of some of the task that
> need to be accomplished.
>
>
>
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