Request for views: barriers to women's involvement in makerspaces and hackspaces?

[Jen Lewis]

Hi,

I hope this post will be welcomed - I was directed here by Samantha Thompson to gain some input for a research project I am currently involved in.

I'm a researcher at the University of Sheffield and we're looking into the reasons why women tend not to engage with the facilities offered by organisations like London Hackspace to the same extent that men do.  

This project is a partnership between the University and Access Space Sheffield; an organisation that you may be familiar with. Access Space provides a free, open access digital media lab and hackspace.  This collaborative project aims to boost women’s engagement with Access Space's facilities and, more generally, reveal practical, best practice examples on how to encourage women to participate in programmes that allow them to gain new skills in technology and manufacturing outside of the typical adult education environment.

We are looking to gain the input of the leaders and members of similar organisations.  If you have any thoughts on this issue, I'd be extremely pleased to hear them.  In particular, any insights on any of the following areas would be very helpful:

What is your experience of the gender balance in hackspaces?

How much of any gender imbalance do you think is genuinely women just being less interested than men, if at all?

Do you think this is an issue that spaces should put more explicit thought into??

In your experience, what sort of measures tend to improve the gender balance?

What sort of measures don’t help?

What benefits for the whole organisation and its membership do you think better inclusion might bring?

What is more important, focusing on initial appeal to women, retention of women members, or integration of diverse groups?

We're also interested in looking at the inclusion of other minority and under-represented groups, so if you have any thoughts on this related issue, that would be great to hear about too.

Please feel free to respond on this thread or to contact me privately at jen dot lewis at sheffield dot ac dot uk if you do not wish to post a response publicly.  

Any comments you make will contribute to a report which will be made available to Access Space and other Hackspaces.  Your contribution may be quoted but will be treated anonymously; however, if you do not wish any comments to be included as quotes at all, please specify this with your response.

This research has been given ethical approval by the University of Sheffield.

Many thanks in anticipation,

Jen.

[Sarah Simmonds]

I’m surprised no one has replied yet :\ Would be good to hear a variety of opinions from men and women alike.

Hi Jen,

Thanks for your enquiry. I'm curious what you mean by 'organisations like London Hackspace'? What other kind of organisations are you researching, is it strictly makerspaces and hackspaces or are you casting your net wider?

Anyway, below are my singularly opinionated, one sided answers. Here's hoping you get more one sided, opinionated answers to balance things out :)

What is your experience of the gender balance in hackspaces?

That there is one in western cultures. I’ve seen it in UK, USA and Australian hackspaces. Sadly, a number of people in these spaces seem to think it’s the fault of the members, to the extent that this opinion was even quoted in an Australian newspaper.

How much of any gender imbalance do you think is genuinely women just being less interested than men, if at all?

Purely from personal opinion, I’d say this is 80% of the problem. However ‘less interested’ is a very fuzzy term. Most hackspaces I’ve visited were founded on the technology and science curios - 3D printers, laser cutters, etc. IT and a number of the science fields in western cultures have a gender imbalance also. It’s a cultural issue that’s much bigger than the hackspace niche.

10% I suspect is critical mass. A number of women I know who go out, take up hobbies, join new social groups, etc do it in the company of female friends for emotional support. If they don’t know anyone available or interested, they usually don’t go. If they strike it out on their own (rare, I suspect even a social faux pas for some) and can’t find a new female friend quickly, they don’t come back. I’m abnormal and disastrously faux pas in this regard :P

5% I suspect is simple communication. Men and women bond differently, for example men tend to bond over an activity or a thing (drones) and women often bond over shared emotions or experiences (how does that make you feel?). Male dominated environments can be remarkably lonely places for women for this reason. But then, I’ve had 10yrs experience in IT working with all-male teams, most men (or women) don’t get that kind of gender education. Hur.

Do you think this is an issue that spaces should put more explicit thought into??

Hackspaces are probably too niche to fix an entire culture, but there’s certainly room to cater for the more ‘culturally safe’ hacks such as arts and crafts, in which LHS is particularly accommodating.

I know, accommodating crafts to bring in more women sounds terribly cliche, but I guess if you want to trigger a cultural revolution you need begin somewhere, right?

In your experience, what sort of measures tend to improve the gender balance?

Active promotion in community newsletters and other publications with a more gender balanced audience helps. Relying on word of mouth among IT professionals (the founding members) usually results in a shortfall of women.

What sort of measures don’t help?

One company I use to work for tried to foster a women-only group to encourage solidarity and emotional support, but the few women in the office were from incredibly different backgrounds and had different interests, as a group we really didn’t mesh well. If you’re going to take pro-active action like that it needs to be somewhat organic, or at least be based on a common interest.

What benefits for the whole organisation and its membership do you think better inclusion might bring?

Furthers innovation, obviously. Cross-disciplinary teams come up with the most ingenious mashups.

What is more important, focusing on initial appeal to women, retention of women members, or integration of diverse groups?

Integrating an existing women’s group would probably be easier than attracting individual women, although it would come with its own problems (culture clash? us vs them?). But you’ll never reach any kind of critical mass without retention.

Thing is, any major changes to an existing community group can drastically alter what is collectively considered acceptable behaviour. A hackspace is a private, members only club built by the hard work and dedication of the members. Should general standards of society be imposed on a private club? Only if they want to, and are okay with change.


Cheers,

Sarah

[Jen Lewis]

Hi Sarah,

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond - I agree that a variety of views would be most helpful, and it's great that I've had one or two private replies as well :)

Thanks for your thoughts - what you've written is really comprehensive and I'm really grateful for your input!  Would you be happy to me to include some of what you've written as a quote?  I can do this anonymously if you prefer.   I can also send you a copy of our final report if you like, once it's complete?

Many thanks again,

Jen. 

[Benjamin Blundell]

One thought that did occur is perhaps you could also approach the man-shed people? I suspect that might provide an interesting angle also?

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "London Hackspace" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to london-hack-sp...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Benjamin Blundell]

Speaking for myself personally and for maybe a few others the bonding over a project is definitely a thing. I'm willing to bet I've spent more time in the space when working with others on a project than not.

[Olga Bagaeva]

From my experience women are less interested in general.

Apart from this, hackspace community is widely formed by word of mouth, not through media. Thus if  members are tend to hang out with men outside the space, they more likely to bring more men.

I'm afraid, there is no way to actually make 50-50 ratio in places like hackspace. But, personally, I do not think women have a need for it right now. My feeling is, social revolution should start from schools and younger generations. So may be a set of school support groups based in a hackspace can bring gender balance in a long run.

From my experience, hackspace is a very welcoming environment regardless of a gender. It's probably the least misogynic tech-like environment I've ever seen.

--

[JJ]

Something is definitely needed in schools.  I expect you already know numbers like these but my daughter (14 - she's been in the space a few times) has done GCSE Engineering this year at school.  Out of 240 children in the year (with a 60/40 male/female ratio) 60 children were selected from approaching 100 applicants for this early GCSE based on academic merit and likelihood of success.  Of those there are just six girls, not because they weren't selected but because so few chose it.

The 'Cox effect' has boosted the numbers of women in science - (my older daughter's Physics year at Imperial is 25% female compared with under 10% when I was there in the 80s, and applications have increased threefold in the last ten years) but engineering is lagging way behind.

If you want to look further into science and engineering in schools, Dominic Connor who writes for 'The Register' is involved in that field.  I can put you in touch.

[Jen Lewis]

Hi Oni - 

Thanks for the suggestions, but I confess I'm not familiar with man-shed - is it a London based enterprise?  I'm in Sheffield so not in the Southern 'loop' as such, and I've been focusing largely on organisations recommended to me by Access Space in Sheffield. 

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to london-hack-space+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

[Jen Lewis]

Thanks to everyone who has responded, this is all really helpful and valued :)

Your points about starting in schools (Olga & JJ) are certainly bang on - there seems to be a strong cultural message sent to girls that 'activity X is not for you', which becomes very much internalised and much harder to break at an adult level.  However, there are many and very large initiatives ongoing which are focused on getting young girls to take up STEM subjects and pursue tech and coding.  The point of this research was to focus more on adult women and whether there are ways in which they can be encouraged to take advantage of these amazing facilities for skill learning and sharing in areas that might benefit both themselves and wider society (through entrepreneurship and so on).  Sadly, we don't have the resources to look into the question of encouraging girls into STEM on top of this.  But it is a good point and one with which I totally agree - it does seem to be much harder to reach adult women and societal change is unlikely to happen without focusing on change at the educational level first.

It's really good to hear that your experiences of hackspaces have been so positive, Olga.  London must be a great space!  If other spaces are as welcoming, perhaps it is more of a question of initial appeal, and getting women through the door?

Thanks again for all your input,

Jen

[Benjamin Blundell]

Jen,

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/professional-resources-home/services-and-practice/health-and-wellbeing/men-in-sheds/

It's perhaps more focused on the Age issue as oppose to gender issues so maybe it's not so applicable.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to london-hack-sp...@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "London Hackspace" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to london-hack-sp...@googlegroups.com.

[Sarah Simmonds]

Hi Jen,

You're welcome to quote me with my name. This is a public mailing list so everything I've said is already on the public record.

Best,

Sarah