[hackerspaces] Women in Makerspaces

Fri Jan 18 01:14:19 CET 2013

Madam please do not attribute anything I do to my "privileged social
position".  It is both insulting to me, and my privileged social
position.

-openfly

On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 4:12 PM, rachel lyra hospodar
<rachelyra at gmail.com> wrote:
> I do not wish to descend into trollish sniping.  This issue has been
> recurrent lately on the Noisebridge mailing list as well, and I think it is
> an important one. I feel strongly that this kind of bickering can be a
> smokescreen to lead us away from important discussion.
>
> While it may be revolutionary for men like bilal, or ghandi, or mlk, to be
> nice, or wooshy, (i think it is... and an important revolution too!!)....BUT
> i assert that it is, in my place and time, equally revolutionary for me to
> be firm.
>
> Further, Matt, my nuanced understanding of kyriarchy tells me of course that
> you are oppressed.  We all are.  When your problems are the subject of
> discussion, I will be happy to listen.  It is an artifact of your social
> position that you expect to make them a focus here when we are actually
> talking about something else.  I do not bring up your privileged social
> position because we are now switching the focus to you.  I bring it up to
> highlight the ways in which your experience, and thus your wisdom, are
> limited.  That is why I don't value your opinion about this.
>
> R.
>
>
> On 1/17/2013 3:55 PM, Matt Joyce wrote:
>>
>> 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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