Barriers to women’s involvement in hackspaces and makerspaces

[Sarah Simmonds]

Hi all,

For those who remember this topic started by Dr Jen Lewis: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/london-hack-space/4HHKcBlQ-xw/wzxKkUReC6EJ

A few months ago her research paper was released and made available on Access Space:

http://access-space.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Barriers-to-womens-involvement-in-hackspaces-and-makerspaces.pdf

Thought a few people here might find it interesting. Dr Jen Lewis has also run a few events in other spaces to discuss the findings in an open forum. Perhaps she might consider doing the same at London Hackspace?

Best,

Sarah

[Marc Barto]

Hi Sarah

Great read, thanks for posting this, I would be really interested in hearing Dr Lewis share her research at the space to inspire debate and suggestions on this issue.

We have lots to do to improve gender balance in making and also tackle the misconceptions (e.g "girls and women aren't interested in making or getting involved in makerspaces").

The list of barriers are well known but it's rare to hear about practical solutions, so it's really worth reading her suggestions (from page 12).
Let me know if I can help organising this open forum.

Marc

[unknowndomain]

Thanks for sharing Sarah, really interested to read this.

[James P]

Interesting read.  Thanks Sarah.  Thanks Marco for pointing out page 12 and on.  And well done Dr Lewis.  I skim read it but it seems like a well researched, considered, balanced and objective account of the reality of maker spaces... which is of course really useful to have.

AJP2

[Sarah Simmonds]

I should probably clarify that I'm not in a position to host a public forum at LHS right now, but if someone is interested to take the lead I'd be happy to reach out to Dr Jen Lewis and help out with the comms.

[Clare Greenhalgh]

thanks Sarah! I'm not sure if I agree (haven't read yet so can't really say) but I also don't really view gender as a critical thing to consider in Hack Spaces or anywhere else. I have never felt uneasy there due to gender, just sometimes uncomfortable due to a very disagreeable person! Oh and I was there for close to the start when I was really the only woman there!

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[Sarah Simmonds]

Haha, great point and mad props for being the first LHS woman ;) 

I agree in that I've never felt uncomfortable at LHS because I'm a woman either, but I'm also aware I'm very atypical in a lot of ways. 

An open forum is just a chance for healthy discussion. However if members don't think they'll get anything out of it then no biggie.

[Sue Spence]

On Monday, 14 December 2015 00:57:01 UTC, Sarah Simmonds wrote:

Thanks, it's an interesting read so far. I have always felt that the hackspace / maker movement is quite welcoming to women and a lot of hobbies and crafts which were perhaps seen as women-specific are now embraced and seen as having value in their own right. Also, I think LHS has been very good at not discouraging women from being involved in every aspect of the space.

On the other hand, in my line of work women are very scarce and I have recently become fed up and started a women's programming group for a specific language because the gender balance was abysmal. At every meeting I attended of the main meetup group, I was usually the only woman out of 50+ there.  Men were complaineding about it as well. I don't know what the ultimate solution is, but the new group quickly got 30+ members and we held a workshop for 15 last weekend.  This is not solely an issue for women, there are no doubt a number of roles in which men find it difficult to feel comfortable and accepted due to being overshadowed by a large percentage of women.

Even so, if someone had told future me 25 years ago that I would be starting a women-only tech meetup in 2015 I don't think I'd have been very happy about it.

[Clare Greenhalgh]

It is Charles you need to thank for that....

[Ten Yen]

Heya,

On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 12:25:41PM -0800, Sue Spence wrote:
> Even so, if someone had told future me 25 years ago that I would be
> starting a women-only tech meetup in 2015 I don't think I'd have been very
> happy about it.

on a related note there is a screening of CODE:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4335520/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
at the BCS tonight (Thursday 21st)
http://www.bcs.org/content/conEvent/10049
http://www.londoncentral.bcs.org/aboutus/home.php

so how do people feel about this recent thread?
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/london-hack-space/XbwS-oIzS0s/ggmrgYzZDgAJ

its obviously been eclipsed by the other dramas but I thought the
responses to C's request were at best misplaced energy (afaic we still
live in a patriarchy and if women only workshops will help break that
then great. I have some sympathy for e.g. fathers for justice and the
Mens Shed Movement, but would rather be a crypto-guest-feminist then
stand in solidarity with them ;), and at worst possibly just trolling?

I might have posted in defense of C and the restart project but it
turns out that men are invited to that particular workshop anyway . .
(and I haven't done my tax return yet and all the drama . . . )

werd,

--
http://tenyen.net/

[Mark Steward]

I would have replied (with more detail), but the two Nicks beat me to it.

Unfortunately, "what about the menz" is an trivially easy response to make, and there's usually a few people on a list who haven't thought it through and end up derailing the conversation. It's also quite hard to moderate for currently, as we lack per-thread moderation.

It'd be good to hear from Chanelle whether the request worked out.

Mark

--
http://tenyen.net/

[David Murphy]

I can see exactly why people respond as such.

They're following the simple meta-principle that people shouldn't explicitly exclude people based on gender where the people they're talking to are working on the principle that explicitly excluding people based on gender is perfectly ok when meeting [set of criteria] for purposes of balancing things which probabalisticly or implicitly exclude people.

Both can be perfectly sensible.

It's a common response because it's an utterly consistent and reasonable one.

Mocking it by making a face while chanting "what about the menz" is just trolling and bringing the most toxic elements of twitter culture onto the list. I expected better of you mark.

[Mark Steward]

On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 9:54 AM, David Murphy <murphy...@gmail.com> wrote:

I can see exactly why people respond as such.

They're following the simple meta-principle that people shouldn't explicitly exclude people based on gender where the people they're talking to are working on the principle that explicitly excluding people based on gender is perfectly ok when meeting [set of criteria] for purposes of balancing things which probabalisticly or implicitly exclude people.

Both can be perfectly sensible.

I entirely agree.

 

It's a common response because it's an utterly consistent and reasonable one.

On this part, I disagree. It doesn't come with any of the nuance you laid out above, and in my experience, it's a common response because it's so easy to make. It destroys meaningful conversations, and puts people off getting involved. It's doom for a moderator.

 

Mocking it by making a face while chanting "what about the menz" is just trolling and bringing the most toxic elements of twitter culture onto the list. I expected better of you mark.

Chanting? I don't believe any of the people in the original thread meant badly, but I needed to identify the argument, and this was the best I could think of. It was dismissive (that was deliberate), but that wasn't meant to be dismissive of the people involved.

Mark

[Sue Spence]

After the responses she received, I would be surprised if she wanted to follow up.

I had to think for quite a while before I went down the gender-segregation path myself. However I couldn't see any other way to find out if there were women who would be interested, and there is currently a climate which is welcoming to diversity efforts in tech. Also, and this is by no means a trivial point, there are two women's coding meetups in London that both have ~2000 members (with substantial overlap). I've attended crowded meetings organised by one of them (Ladies Who Code), so it was demonstrably not the case that women are not interested in the overall subject. I don't blame men collectively for the issue, by the way (although individually a few of them are rather badly behaved* - but women are no different). I suspect it is mainly that if the gender balance is too skewed in one direction, this alone may be enough to drive the minority side to near extinction. In my experience, women do behave differently when on their own - they are collaborative, they feel free to ask a lot of questions, they learn more.

 
On Thursday, 21 January 2016 01:26:06 UTC, Mark Steward wrote:

I would have replied (with more detail), but the two Nicks beat me to it.

Unfortunately, "what about the menz" is an trivially easy response to make, and there's usually a few people on a list who haven't thought it through and end up derailing the conversation. It's also quite hard to moderate for currently, as we lack per-thread moderation.

It'd be good to hear from Chanelle whether the request worked out.

* Just for instance, to the utter dirtbag who bluntly tried to harass and intimidate me after the first open source related talk I ever made some years ago: SCREW YOU.

[David Murphy]

>but I needed to identify the argument, and this was the best I could think of.

It lacked the nuance but so did what they were responding to.

Unfortunately that particular one is a bingo-card version of the argument, short enough to fit in a 140 characters, it summarizes it in the same way that  "Durned guv'mint needs to stay off my land!" summarizes libertarianism.

This is going overly meta but I think this quote from a blog I used to read summarizes why I detest the bingo-card arguments of any kind so much:

"Sometimes people complain that it's scary how oblivious the other side is to their arguments. But I know something scarier.

On r/atheism, a Christian-turned-atheist once described an "apologetics" group at his old church. The pastor would bring in a simplified straw-man version of a common atheist argument, they'd take turns mocking it ("Oh my god, he said that monkeys can give birth to humans! That's hilarious!") and then they'd all have a good laugh together. Later, when they met an actual atheist who was trying to explain evolution to them, they wouldn't sit and evaluate it dispassionately. They'd pattern-match back to the ridiculous argument they heard at church, and instead of listening they'd be thinking "Hahaha, atheists really are that hilariously stupid!"

Of course, it's not only Christians who do that. I hear atheists repeat the old "I believe the Bible because God said it was true. We know He said it was true because it's in the Bible. And I believe the Bible because God said it is true" line constantly and grin as if they've said something knee-slappingly funny. I've never in my entire life heard a Christian use this reasoning. I have heard Christians use the "truth-telling thing" argument sometimes (we should believe the Bible because the Bible is correct about many things that can be proven independently, this vouches for the veracity of the whole book, and therefore we should believe it even when it can't be independently proven) many times. If you're familiar enough with the atheist version, and uncharitable enough to Christians, you will pattern-match, miss the subtle difference, and be thinking "Hahaha, Christians really are as hilariously stupid as all my atheist friends say!"

Sometimes even the straw-man argument is unnecessary. All you need to do is get in a group and make the other side's argument a figure of fun.

There are lots of good arguments against libertarianism. I have collected some of them into a very long document which remains the most popular thing I've ever written. But when I hear liberals discuss libertarianism, they very often head in the same direction. They make a silly face and say "Durned guv'mint needs to stay off my land!" And then all the other liberals who are with them laugh uproariously. And then when a real libertarian shows up and makes a real libertarian argument, a liberal will adopt his posture, try to mimic his tone of voice, and say "Durned guv'ment needs to stay off my land! Hahaha!" And all the other liberals will think "Hahaha, libertarians really are that stupid!""