From becha@xs8.xs4all.nl Wed Apr 30 16:34:50 2014 Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 16:34:49 +0200 (CEST) From: Vesna Manojlovic To: toaschrock@usc.edu Cc: jhunsinger@wlu.ca Subject: Hiding behind openness: Democratization of Hacking & Making Submission to the Issue on ¨Democratization of Hacking & Making¨ Special Issue of New ¨Media & Society¨ 30. April 2014 , Vesna Manojlovic Hiding behind openness What are the barriers for participation of women in hackerspaces, and what to do about it As an active member of several hacklabs and hackerspaces [max] for 20 years, as well as part of several women-in-technology groups (cyberfeminists, net-grrls, genderchangers...), I have both personally experienced and witnessed the attitudes of the hackerspace community that hinder participation of women. Goal of this article is to raise awareness of the gender gap, and to suggest steps towards the greater diversity. I will explore disparity between alleged ¨openness¨ value of ¨hackers ethics¨ [ethics], and lack of gender diversity among hackerspaces membership. To illustrate this, I will focus on the example of the dynamics in a hackerspaces in Amsterdam, Technologia Incognita, around series of events that I organised, called ¨Ladies Night¨ [ladies]. Finally, I will compare both the problems and the suggested solutions from similar technical communities: standards developments [ietf], free and open source development [floss], alternative currencies [BitCoin] and security community [wolf]. The example of TechInc will cover: - history and controversy of the ¨women only” events: starting from ¨mostly ladies¨ in order to activate and attract more women, through ¨formalization¨ of the right to organise events based on positive discrimination, to the ¨hacking the hackerspace” approach - disparity of numbers - members statements - examples of values and attitudes: egalitarianism and meritocracy, vs arrogance and bullying Conclusions: If the hackerspace community wants to achieve goals of establishing cooperative work/play places for sharing of experiences, learning and teaching, and socializing, with the ultimate goal of supporting and promoting hacking, I think that a gender-balanced membership would contribute to these goals, since groups with greater diversity make better decisions [draft]. Steps for achieving greater female participation include: - *raise awareness* of the existing issue of gender gap - identify barriers to entry and participation - remove those barriers, by modifying behavior - develop strategies and make commitments for increasing diversity - increase access, engagement and facilitation of participation These actions need to be performed by the existing community members, and carried on to the newcomers. By involving more women, the efforts that need to be put in modification of behavior will decrease, since the positive feedback loops will contribute to the more desirable behaviors. References: [ladies] https://wiki.techinc.nl/index.php/Ladies_Night [ethics] https://wiki.techinc.nl/index.php/Hackers_tribes#On_Ethics [max] http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-2/peer-reviewed-papers/hacklabs-and-hackerspaces/ [BitCoin] http://suitpossum.blogspot.nl/2014/01/crypto-patriarchy-problem-of-bitcoins.html [draft] https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-crocker-diversity-conduct-00 [ietf] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/diversity/current/maillist.html [floss] http://libregraphicsmag.com/files/libregraphicsmag_2.2_lowquality.pdf [wolf] https://medium.com/the-magazine/4c423793a831 Biography: Vesna Manojlovic lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands for 15 years, and is originally from Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Vesna is a mother of three, a hacker and a Community Builder. By education Electrical Engineer, by choice lover, lecturer and gypsy, by name Goddess of Spring. Projects: https://wiki.techinc.nl/index.php/User:Becha Home page: http://becha.home.xs4all.nl/ -- "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." http://becha.home.xs4all.nl