<div dir="ltr">Well said Jason!</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 1:03 AM, Jason Cobill <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jason.cobill@gmail.com" target="_blank">jason.cobill@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div> I'm really excited to share that the maker gang I work with inadvertently hit gender parity without ever explicitly setting out to. (5 women, 5 men)</div><div> Certainly gender disparities exist in the Maker Movement here, but I think Ottawa (maybe more than other places), has tremendous women role models and leadership in the tech community and consequently the local maker movement benefits from their efforts. I could spend all day sending shoutouts, but people like Ladies Learning Code, GirlForce, Carleton WiCS, Algonquin WEET, etc, etc are organizations that should be celebrated and supported. Not forgetting the awesome gang of women instructors at the uOttawa Makerspace and the volunteers at RHoK, Pens and Pixels, IGDA, Game Jam, WordCamp, DrupalCamp and other local hackathon events.</div><div><br></div><div> The issue of race in the Maker community is really complex, and I think inseparable from issues of class, income and privilege. "Making" is a hobby that requires a considerable investment of time and money that's out of reach for most. Again, we have some excellent organizations in Ottawa that deserve a shoutout, in particular Brittania Woods Community Center, who packed up a busload of people from Ottawa's poorest neighbourhood to shuttle them to last year's Maker Faire.</div><div> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/erica.bregman/videos/10201113737722576/" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/erica.bregman/videos/10201113737722576/</a></div><div> Brittania Woods is also running a code mentorship program called Kids Can Code, and have invested heavily in maker toys (Lego Mindstorms, arduinos, robot kits, etc) to get into the hands of kids who don't have them at home. They're doing really amazing work - the kind of work more people should be hearing about.</div><div><br></div><div> I think it's really important to reach out and support these organizations, many of which need volunteers and mentors more than they need money (but they need that too). It's easy to drop a 3D Printer on a poor neighbourhood (which seems really trendy right now), but it's an enormous investment of time and effort to actually run workshops and facilitate exploration.<br></div><div><br></div><div> --- </div><div><br></div><div> Playing Devil's Advocate a little: I was disappointed when O'Reilly started producing "Craft" magazines and events separated from the Make brand - I felt like they were being intentionally divisive. The Crafting (as defined by O'Reilly) community is very heavily female-dominated but the distinction is entirely arbitrary. I feel like we could reach gender parity overnight if we just broadened the (already hazy) definition of "Maker" to include textile artists, culinary explorers, horticulturalists, etc, etc. I mean ultimately the thing that defines a "Maker" is a passion for creating things, right?</div><div> Consider that there are <b>4 million</b> Ravelry users. What is knitting if not a kind of manual 3d Printing process? And have you seen some of the machines they're using? There are some crazy innovative quilters out there (seriously).</div><div> There's another <b>47 million</b> users on Pinterest. You'd better believe these people are making things.<b> I think it's petty</b> to try to separate them from the Maker community because of some arbitrary corporate manipulation to isolate a demographic to sell soldering irons.</div><div><br></div><div> PS: I'm always a little scared to wade into these kinds of discussions publicly because I'm a perfect example of a person with multiple levels of privilege and these kinds of discussions so often turn explosive online. I don't mean to trivialize the ongoing diversity problems in STEM, but I feel like we rarely celebrate the great progress that we're making and the enormous efforts people have invested to get us here. *highfive* To all of the awesome ladies, LGBT, and people of colour making super cool stuff in Ottawa.</div><div><br></div><div> -Jason Cobill<br></div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="h5">On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 11:49 PM, Ryan Stec <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ryanstec@artengine.ca" target="_blank">ryanstec@artengine.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div class="h5"><div dir="ltr"><div>Came across this fascinating read about race, gender and class as it relates to the Maker Movement. I wondered about the work we all do together as a community and what kind of strategies we will embrace to make our own community and city more inclusive?</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://tascha.uw.edu/2015/03/power-access-status-the-discourse-of-race-gender-and-class-in-the-maker-movement/" target="_blank">http://tascha.uw.edu/2015/03/power-access-status-the-discourse-of-race-gender-and-class-in-the-maker-movement/</a><br></div><div><br></div><div><div>Thoughts anyone?</div></div><div><br></div><div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">___________________________<span><font color="#888888"><div><br></div><div>Ryan Stec</div><div>Artistic Director<br></div><div><img width="96" height="19" style="font-size:12.8px" alt="Image result for artengine" src="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQXNzfbfzpMLSrHRUAolLHcRfeSwQloUSE8E-NALjLTdKAqdT4M"><br></div><a href="http://www.artengine.ca/" target="_blank"><font size="1">artengine.ca</font></a><div><p><br></p></div></font></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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