From becha@xs8.xs4all.nl Thu May 1 20:51:18 2014 Date: Thu, 1 May 2014 20:51:18 +0200 (CEST) From: Vesna Manojlovic To: revuedpi@gmail.com Subject: Gender gap in hackerspaces Gender gap in hackerspaces My goals are to raise awareness of the barriers to participation of women in hackerspace community, online and in physical space, and to suggest steps towards the greater diversity. I will explore disparity between ¨openness¨ value of ¨hackers ethics¨ [ethics], and lack of gender diversity. Main example are events ¨Ladies Night¨ [ladies]. I list suggested solutions from similar technical communities: IETF, F/LOSS, BitCoin and security community. If the hackerspace community wants to establish cooperative work/play places for sharing of experiences, a gender-balanced membership would contribute to these goals, since groups with greater diversity make better decisions [draft]. References: [ladies] https://wiki.techinc.nl/index.php/Ladies_Night [ethics] http://guymcpherson.com/2013/12/hackers-ethic-for-the-world-after-collapse/ [BitCoin] http://suitpossum.blogspot.nl/2014/01/crypto-patriarchy-problem-of-bitcoins.html [draft] https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-crocker-diversity-conduct-00 Biography: Vesna Manojlovic lives in Amsterdam, The 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. As an active member of several hackerspaces 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. 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