[hackerspaces] Women in Makerspaces

Fri Jan 18 02:40:32 CET 2013

I agree to get back on target, I think I had a few good pointers in my post on how Lamba Labs became a friendly environment for women to participate in Hackerspace activities. Especially interesting for a Middle Eastern hackerspace to also be the most gender neutral space I've ever been to! any responses to that are most welcome!

Baghdad's space has a lot of work in terms if gender balancing to so...

Sent using a tiny keyboard

On Jan 17, 2013, at 5:35 PM, rachel lyra hospodar <rachelyra at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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?
> 
> 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.
> 
> R.
> 
> On Jan 17, 2013 3:58 PM, "justin corwin" <outlawpoet at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I was sorry to see Lyra beat me to the reply, although hers is great. 
>> 
>> 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. 
>> 
>> 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. 
>> 
>> 
>> 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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>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Justin Corwin
>> outlawpoet at gmail.com
>> http://programmaticconquest.tumblr.com
>> http://outlawpoet.tumblr.com
>> 
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