answers concerning gender issues from northamerica
These are answers to a questionaire that was send out to the mailinglists of around 60 IMC´s
Eine erste Auswertung der Antworten findet ihr hier.
Eine erste Auswertung der Antworten findet ihr hier.
IMC San Francisco
Male individual
At workplaces where i have worked recently in San Francisco, java programmers are about 80% male and 20% female. In some companies it has been 50-50 and in technology design/management positions its seems to average higher than 20%. In indymedia groups, antiwar groups etc.. the gender balance for tech workers seems a lot more male. I havnt seen any open descrimination so it would be good to find out why this is the case. One reason could be that we are drawing people in from sysadmin backgrounds and from what I have seen in workplaces those positions seem to be overwhelmingly male. The imballance in technology is partly due to open descrimination in US schools but I'm pretty surethat part of it also has to due with the engineering/sysadmin subculture (especially on UScollege campuses).
On a side note, causasians only make up only 30% of the average tech workplace where I have worked in SF but Indymedia seems to be overwhelmingly white. Butthats a whole seperate issue.
IMC Portland
White male individual
The membership of our group changes regularly, so it's impossible topinpoint any exact gender ratio. When I started attending about a year ago, the ratio of men to women was almost equal - about 10 to 10 or so. And it's quite interesting, I hadn't noticed... but since you asked, we're down to only one woman that regularly attends right now, and perhaps 2 to 3 others who attend various committees predictably infrequently. Within the last few months, two very active women retired from the group to pursue otherprojects.
There are a great deal of women subscribed to various pdx lists. One group, at last count, had 3 women (the reporting group). Can anyone help me out with the subscriber ratio for the main list?
Gender specific roles... it is true that the last two scribes for ourgeneral collective meetings were women... the sort of secretary role. I don't think there are any women right now on the tech committee, but I May be wrong. Women have definitely led committees, meetings, and discussions. However, that is changing since some active women have left.
Though I am speaking as a mail, and not a member of the tech committee... I don't think anyone in this group would discourage a woman from being involved in technical stuff.. and in fact, one active woman on a particular committee was heavily involved site design and competent to use html... and the issue never seemed to come up about her gender with respect to technology.
the proportion of women in tech in this city is biased with respect to men, but not prohibitively so... maybe 65/35. for our group, I think it's just that we have too few members.. if we were able to double our activeparticipants... probably half of them would be women, and it may be that some of them are directly involved in tech.
It's an interesting question... there are a lot of progressive groups In portland, with decent sized memberships. I'm involved in a community Radio station that is more than half run by women (one of the stated goals is To ensure that marginalized populations have a voice) and the news Department and volunteer and outreach and one music director are women. I guess about half of the paid positions are women. There are more than half women on the board of directors.
I've noticed that one other progressive group has very strong femalerepresentation. It's the forest activism group, and these folks areinvolved in taking action in the forest to prevent logging. It occurs to me (this is just provisional) but the radical women that I know and see around are not that interested in sitting at home and programming computers. That is, by the time a woman is radicalized, she's wanting to get dirty Gathering news, sitting in trees. It feels to me that I come across more men who are likely to say "I read a lot of stuff, our world is going to shit, and I just want to do something. I'm pretty good with computers, and I was Wondering if there was some way I could help the revolution from my living room..after all, that's an important job that needs to be done.
There is a heavy emphasis in progressive circles in Portland about Having been out on the streets and getting dirty, so someone wanting to stay Home and do the computer thing sometimes has to come from a defensive position.
activist women in portland are hardcore, and awareness about sexualdiscrimination by men and women lies at a very conscious level. This is a town ruled by tough women. sexism exists; but within activist communities, especially, we all have a pretty well defined intuition about the right for anyone to bring up these topics and deal with them. Women *typically* do not get shouted down in groups, for example. Although, I can think of a few times a woman was told to shut up within IMC. Probably, at this point, it would be better to ask a woman...
This has not been a topic on our lists. It appears that nobody feels Like it is a problem *institutionalized* in our group.
in the situation where a woman was actually told to shut up once, it was by someone that had a relationship with at the time. Though I don't think anyone actually censured him, he did get a few extended stares from the men and women in the group. He never repeated the behavior in group, as far as I know.
I wouldn't say that sexual discrimination doesn't exist in Portland, orwithin our group (again, a woman's voice is relevant, here). But, I would say that the police are a far bigger concern to us right now. If we had a larger active base of membership, probably the influx of personalities would make this a far more active debate. I bet it would be heated at times. I also bet that, judging from the character of our core group now, that We would talk about it A LOT and then, probably, make some group decision On the gender representation in our groups.
right now, it would just be nice if we had more people...
Probably our most effective tool to minimize gender discrimination is our decision making model, which specifically allows everyone a voice and theability to block a decision with any reasonable concern. Slow, but nobodygets shouted down.
IMC San Francisco
Female individual
the SF-IMC is a very geek intensive collective, and i have sometimes been the only women at meetings - we general have a hard time keeping women volunteers around. this has bothered me.
What is the male/female ratio in your activ IMCgroup?
there are twice as many males as females
If there are few women in your group, did you everthink about the reasons and how to change the ratio?
we've never discussed how to change the ratio. i think we could change it by focusing more on projects that are not web-based. also, i think it would help if we did more trainings, and had more equipment to lend out. and respect the fact that some women *don't* want tech-oriented work, and that non-tech projects are equally as valuable as our web presence. but, also, making it easier for women who *do* want to learn tech stuff, to do so. the diy geek way of learning, often doesn't work well with how women are taught to learn -and i think this is a point of misunderstanding and frustration when male techies try to teach female non-techies.
Do you notice any gender specific work organization?
yes, there is a division of labor. tech stuff is done by males, organizational stuff is done by females (of course there is some cross over, but not much)
If there is gender specific work organization, what do you think are the reasons?
i think it mostly has to do with the u.s. schools - not pushing women to do more tech-type stuff. i also think it has to do with resources, i think a lot of women don't have money to buy tech equipment.
How is the situation in other leftist groups in your country/ city that don’t use computer technology? Do you see a difference to your group?
i don't know, since the only activist group i belong to is the SF-IMC
Besides gender specific work organization are there other forms of sexist discrimination?
men tend to talk a lot more in meetings. sometimes, i feel like the men respect what other men have to say more - but not very often, just occassionally. sometimes, i think, women feel under-appreciated, because the non-tech work that happens seems to be not as recognized or appreciated as tech work is. we have had problems around a debate of pro-life/pro-choice issues, where one man keep calling women's responses "emotional" - therefore, in my eyes, de-valuing the women's responses. also, i think it is more likely for a male to take action on something, a woman is much more likely to check in with the collective and follow a process before taking action. i think this generally has to do with men feeling more empowered to do things.
Has gender discrimination ever been a topic on your IMC meetings/ mailing lists?
only briefly during that pro-choice/pro-life debate, but the topic really didn't get addressed with the entire collective.
How do males (or females) react when gender discrimination is brought up as a topic?
hm, it hasn't really been brought up. but, i get the sense that most people don't want to label things as "gender discrimination" - but, more people want to deal with it as individual dynamics. there is a reluctancy for women to bring this up, i think, for fear of being seen as reactionary. also, i think the women want to be absolutely positive that it is gender discrimination before calling it that.
Are there people taking action, if gender discrimination occures?
no we haven't taken any action about anything
Do you have any “tools” that minimize discrimination?
mmm, not really. except that we really try to speak honestly with each other in our meetings.
What do you think could be done to minimize gender discrimination?
keep communication open. more understanding of the point of view of people without mad tech skills by techies. more appreciation of everyone's participation. more trainings. have men be aware when they are talking too much in meetings. be aware of the possibility of gender discrimination, be aware of how a woman feels when she is the only female in theroom... just more understanding and communicationbetween everyone.
If there is no relevant gender discrimination: How did you manage that?
i wouldn't say we have managed that. but i will say that i feel like i respect and am genuinely fond of everyone in our collective, regardless of gender.
IMC San Francisco
Male individual (reply to female individual)
This is an interesting point. Though I'm not sure there is a general "male" and "female" learning style (I have never studied that), I know that people do learn in different ways. When there is sex or race prejudice already a different learning style can be perceived as "stupidity" rather than "difference."
For example, at my work, which is in an activist organization (www.cnu.org)I am the de facto tech person. But I've been trying to hand off all the web responsibilities to a female coworker, who is very smart and competent And reasonably knowledgable about computer stuff. One thing I've found is amajor difference between our learning styles is that I like to play arounduntil I get something right, and will often learn a bunch of other irrelevant stuff in the process. She likes to actually know how to do things before doing them, so she can visualize the outcome and the most efficient means of achieving that outcome, step by step. She gets frustrated by my tendency to play around and go off on tangents, which has worked very well with boys in the past. I get frustrated with her refusal to play around and experiment with new tools and commands.
At first, I thought she was being dense, and I admit that sexist thoughts crossed my mind -- that as a woman, she had somehow been trained to beincompetent on computers. I quickly saw the sexism and told myself to shut up. Over time, we've managed to make our relationship work, mostly byworking together over time and bothering to learn about and accept ourdifferent learning and teaching styles. At this point, she is the webmasteron a very complex SQL-driven, Cold Fusion-derived, modular site, and islearning more every day.
IMC somewhere in Canada
Female individual
What is the male/female ratio in your activ IMC group?
As far as active co-ordinators of the site and such, there are NO women involved in XXX Indymedia as far as i can tell. I helped to organize an Indymedia conference, and everyone from XXX Indymedia that i worked with to co-ordinate both events was male. Fortunately, a lot of women from other independent media outlets participated in both events. from an organizing and co-ordination perspective, XXXX Indymedia is male, white and young.
If there are few women in your group, did you ever think about the reasons and how to change the ratio?
I've worked a bit to encourage more women to get involved in XXX indymedia through the conference and stuff, but as far as the people who are runnning the site and facilities go, i don't believe there has been any concerted effort to establish a gender balance behind the scenes.
Do you notice any gender specific work organization?
yes, of course. Men do the programming and the networking and the video encoding and the tech support. Women write, shoot footage, or work with audio, along with lots of men doing those things too.
If there is gender specific work organization, what do you think are the reasons?
Well, it would be naive to say that women are afraid of computers or don't possess that kind of knowledge. i think that having an all-male team doing the technical support might intimidate some women who would otherwise be interested in those activities. but generally, i think that women with that kind of training aren't terribly interested in Indymedia - they're busy working at real jobs and doing housework. it's a specific kind of young, white male - privileged but with a conscience, maybe not terribly social, and possessing a lot of spare time - that has tended to dominate the tech side of XXX Indymedia.
What is the societal background? How is the participation of women in new technologies in your country in general?
Well, here in Canada I think it's probably pretty good in relative terms but there's still a long way to go. there's not that many women who go into math or hard science in college and university. But new media and graphic communications in particular have opened up a lot of opportunities for women in recent years.
How is the situation in other leftist groups in your country/ city that don’t use computer technology? Do you see a difference to your group?
Definitely. in groups that work to organize political action at the grassroots level, there is much more involvement from women at all levels of organizational structure. there is not the stratified male/female role taking that has happened at XXX Indymedia.
Besides gender specific work organization are there other forms of sexist discrimination?
No, in my personal experience i found the men to be quite respectful of my contributions. but then again, i wasn't directly contributing to what they were working on. if i was trying to get involved on a more technical level, i guess it's possible that some of the men might feel i was encroaching on their turf, but that's just speculation.
Has gender discrimination ever been a topic on your IMC meetings/ mailing lists?
not to my knowledge.
How do males (or females) react when gender discrimination is brought up as a topic?
since it hasn't really been brought up, it's hard to say. it was a male who forwarded your questions to the list. i think that the men are all aware of gender discrimination and trying to work in an anti-oppression framework, but not really taking the time to make a concerted effort to make women more comfortable with and interested in the tech side of indymedia.
Are there people taking action, if gender discrimination occures?
i don't think there is any real action or plan of action on this, no.
Do you have any “tools” that minimize discrimination?
mmm...not to my knowledge.
What do you think could be done to minimize gender discrimination?
well, more women need to be encouraged to participate, and the guys have to stop thinking of Indymedia as their personal pet project.
IMC St. Louis (Missouri)
White female upper-middle class individual
What is the male/female ratio in your active IMC group?
For a long time I was the only woman in the IMC group. There is one other woman now who isn’t as actively involved because she travels often. We may also have one more woman joining our group who is a tech person. At the beginning, there were four other men in the group, now there are at least eight men actively involved in our IMC.The newspaper has some different people working on it. Again, I am the most actively involved woman, though there are two other women involved in the decision making process and at least three or four other who are contributing writers. There are at least six men actively involved in decision making, and about ten others who are contributing writers.
If there are few women in your group, did you ever think about the reasons and how to change the ratio?
For a long time it didn’t really occur to me that the gender imbalance was a problem, mostly because everyone involved in the IMC and Confluence are friends of mine and we all work together well. I noticed more in the IMC because I was the only woman, and less in the Confluence. We also have very few minorities.
Do you notice any gender specific work organization? (e.g. women write articles, men do the programming?)
One thing that bothered me the most is that women often end up in the role of ‘secretaries to the revolution,’ : we often take the roles of note-taker or scribe. Women also tend to take less of a managing or organizing role – they will contribute writing, or artwork, but won’t necessarily become fully immersed in the process.
If there is gender specific work organization, what do you think are the reasons? (e.g. women don’t know, how to do programming, women don’t own computers, women don’t like computers, men are not creative, but more rational, men don’t let women do computer stuff)
Well, we only have one tech person in our IMC, who is a man, but it’s more of a result of the fact that he’s the only one who has enough knowledge of programming to do this. There is one other guy who can do some work on the site, and we’re trying to teach everyone involved in the editorial process how to do things like post a feature (our programs are kind of screwy and don’t work as well as they should, which makes some of this even more difficult).I personally do a lot of work on the computer – I run the web site for the Confluence newspaper and I do most of the design and layout for both the web and printed version, along with another guy who’s a designer.I don’t think this is a gender imbalance, though men often dominate the field of computer programming in general.
What is the societal background?
Most of the people involved in our IMC or Confluence are probably from middle to middle-upper class backgrounds. At least half, maybe more of us, have college degrees. Two people are of Indian descent and one is American but has spent much of his time in Israel and is very active with Muslim issues. We have had a few contributing writers who are African-American, but no one actively involved. There are also two gay men and one lesbian woman involved.
How is the participation of women in new technologies in your country in general?
As I mentioned earlier, I definitely agree that the tech field is dominated by men. Many of my female activist friends are involved in other projects that are geared more towards teaching, healing, and artistic endeavors.
How is the situation in other leftist groups in your country/ city that don’t use computer technology?
I’ve noticed that older activists are also a little computer shy. I’ve worked with people in the Green party who can’t figure out how to use the IMC web site at all, though I find it to be pretty easy to publish articles and pictures on the newswire, post events to the calendar, etc. So it’s a matter of age as well as gender, which makes sense, since a lot of the computer technologies we use are relatively new. Also, many people in low-income communities have little or no access to the internet, so I’ve noticed that some other groups don’t use the IMC as much because it’s not really a viable, accessible outlet for information. I’ve tried to put a lot of emphasis on the newspaper for that reason, because it’s a lot easier for people to receive, distribute, and understand. These groups tend to work on a more personal, face-to-face basis because that is often the most effective way to reach the people on the street or in poor neighborhoods, through human communication.For that reason, I sometimes see the IMC as an elitist activist communications system, which works best as communication between activists across the globe rather than as a tool to disseminate information to the larger population. I try to work on that problem by encouraging people to reach out into communities they may not have much contact with, such as the African-American community, religious organizations, gay and lesbian issues, women’s issues. I think the first way we can bridge this gap is by taking an interest and covering issues that are important to people unlike ourselves, and to make our efforts known to them while encouraging them to become involved in the process. And to provide that information in the most accessible and comfortable way for them, which is more often that not the low-technology route.
Besides gender specific work organization are there other forms of sexist discrimination?
Because we’re such a small group, and we all know each other pretty well, sexist discrimination hasn’t been a huge issue. At times I’ve felt that my efforts were being dismissed by certain men in the group, but I don’t necessarily see that anymore. The biggest difficulty I’ve had recently is in getting people to cover issues of sexuality, gender, homosexuality. I had proposed that our upcoming newspaper have the theme of gender and sexuality issues, because we tend to cover gender neutral topics, or issues such as biotechnology, labor, and political issues that attack the patriarchal system without discussing alternatives or positive solutions to these problems. I found that people were rather reluctant to focus their attentions on women’s issues. And so far, we’ve had several submissions of articles about women’s issues, but they’re all written by white men. So that’s a small step forward. I’m not going to push people to write about things they’re not interested in, but I think that the more attention that is focused on this problem, and the more people come to recognize it as a problem, the more progress we can make. Hopefully, too, people to whom these issues are important will recognize our efforts and will want to contribute. I think what happens is that people to whom the issues of race and gender are centrally important tend to form groups around these issues and focus only on these, rather than working in larger groups and bringing these issues to the table. So women form women’s groups, isolated from the larger political movement, and the same with black people forming groups that are central to minority issues. And I think it’s important for people to do this, and to have this focus. But groups like the IMC are (in my experience) comprised of people with the most privelege, i.e. they are comprised of white people, mostly male, from financially secure backgrounds who’ve had access to good education. Which instantly puts us, the IMC, into the category of the dominant or oppressive social majority, no matter how radical we say we are.
So I think the responsibility of being more sensitive and responsive to issues outside our common experiences is essential, without being patronizing or approaching these issues with charitable notions. That also means being constantly aware of ourselves and how we support the underlying framework of sexism and racism that permeates our social structure, and working to change that.
Does this differ from groups that don’t work with computer technologies? If you see a difference, what could be the reasons for it?
Focus is very important to politically active groups if they’re going to survive and succeed. But often times, that focus tends to ignore the larger picture of how everything is interconnected. I’ve been working a lot to write about a group called the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression, which works within the city of St. Louis to enact legislative and social changes to end racial discrimination and police brutality, primarily in African-American communities. I noticed that the cases they worked on involved young black men being shot and killed by male officers. And at a rally I attended, in all cases the survivors of the murder victims were mothers, girlfriends, sisters, etc., often with many children, left with a family to take care of once their husband/ son/ brother was killed. I saw greatly divisive gender roles within these situations, but most of the people I talked to saw it as an issue of race, not gender or even class.
Again, I don’t think it’s an issue of just technology, although that plays into it. It’s an issue of economic status, and education, as well as race and gender. People tend to get most of their information from television, which is mostly crap in my opinion, and that greatly narrows your view of the world, of gender roles, of racial issues, etc. The information and resources out there, made available by the internet and other technologies, just aren’t as immediately important to you if your everyday experience is one of survival and violence. You have to actively search out this information on the internet or in alternative news sources, it doesn’t just come to you on sitcoms on the nightly news. So while racism is a high priority for people in this group, feminism is not, so the connections aren’t that obvious.
If your daily experience is one of terror, then I think it would be much more difficult to look beyond these immediate issues to the role of the media, sexism, economic and technological divide. Most of the people I spoke with who were involved in these issues or had been directly involved with them had never heard of the IMC, and I don’t think the IMC was even at the top of their list when it came to a way to solve these problems. People in the black community have criticized white activist for paying so much attention to global issues without linking them to local issues and the problems most central to their own communities or neighbors. This doesn’t mean that people aren’t interested in the IMC, or aren’t working on issues of gender or class, it just means that they have a lot more to deal with before they can see the IMC or even technology in general having an impact in their lives.
Has gender discrimination ever been a topic on your IMC meetings/ mailing lists?
I recently attended a midwest IMC regional gathering, in which people from different IMC’s all over the American midwest, like Champaign-Urbana Illinois, Springfield Illinois, Minneapolis Twin Cities, and St. Louis, participated in. And gender discrimination was a topic we discussed, which I personally hadn’t devoted too much attention to within our group. I felt very uncomfortable at first, since there were only four women out of a group of at least 25 present, like people were pointing a finger at me and saying, ‘well, you’re a woman, what do you want to say? we’re all listening to the women now because we’re talking about gender.’
While I don’t feel like my voice isn’t heard, or isn’t important, in IMC related activities, I do see people saying things like, ‘well, you’re a woman, you should cover this event because it’s a woman’s group,’ or things along those lines. I think it’s important that people are noticing the gender differences and trying to promote awareness of them, but I don’t want to be the token ‘women’s voice’ in the crowd, or the (only) person who’s representing feminist issues on our IMC.
I was glad we discussed it at the midwest gathering, and I tried to bring some of that sentiment back to our local group, because looking around at who comprises the St. Louis IMC, I think it’s kind of sad that we’re so far from gender and race diversity. It’s not overt discrimination, it’s not like I believe our group is so narrow because we’re exclusive, I just don’t think we’ve really made the effort to be as inclusive as possible. And it’s difficult, I don’t like to recruit people. Just as it made me uncomfortable to be pointed out as ‘the woman in the group,’ I know it makes other people uncomfortable when I approach a black person and ask them to add a racial perspective to the paper, or approach a woman and ask her to cover a feminist issue. So I’m trying to raise that awareness within our group without excluding everyone, and adding to our already huge list of priorities reaching out to make that extra effort for people who aren’t white men.
How do males (or females) react when gender discrimination is brought up as a topic?
I think, as I did, most men don’t tend to see this as a problem. I think they’re aware of it on a certain level, and it is discussed that we are lacking in women and people of color, but again, it’s not the top priority. People are working so hard just to keep the IMC going and cover events and issues, we don’t always stop and say, ‘hey, what have I done today to promote gender and race equality for the IMC? For my community?’ I think men are aware of it, and they probably feel like they’re doing what they can, but they’re not actively working on the issue all the time. I think a lot of people in our IMC see us as in the midst of the growth process, and the more the awareness and credibility of the IMC grows in the community, the more people will be attracted to it and will want to join. So we probably take a more passive, rather than active role in the issue of race and gender bias.
Are there people taking action, if gender discrimination occurs?
We haven’t had much gender discrimination within the group, so I can’t answer that directly. I’ll do little things, like at meetings when we ask who’s taking the notes, I’ll suggest that a guy takes on this role so it’s not always women acting as secretaries. We try to follow the Organization for Black Struggle’s rules for a more democratic meeting, which state that someone must facilitate the meeting, preferable a rotating position. It is the role of the facilitator to call on people first who are women or people of color to speak, and to bypass someone who has spoken a lot for someone who hasn’t had a chance to speak as much. Or to point out that only the men have been addressing a certain issue.
Also, I try to make a lot of effort to encourage people who are new to the group who are women, people of color, or who want to focus on gender or minority issues. I recently spent a lot of time talking to, working with, and encouraging a woman who came forward to write for the Confluence because I saw her perspective as a woman as crucial to the diversity of our paper, and someone like her is a more important element to the group than some white guy who’s going to college and works on activist issues. The one thing that’s difficult for people to understand is that IMC and Confluence change with each person who’s involved. They may see, from the outside, that these groups don’t work on issues of race and gender, but that’s because no one’s come in to influence that particular dynamic. It takes active involvement to change that, and I think people are intimidated to enter a group where people already know one another and already have a way of doing things. But I don’t think we make it obvious to people that every individual changes us, and the IMC and Confluence, and that the change is up to them working with us and providing that perspective to the group.
What do you think could be done to minimize gender discrimination?
Again, I think raising the awareness level among the group, and really trying to reach out to groups or individuals that have the perspective we lack and pay primary attention to their problems, is the first step in bridging the gap.
If there is no relevant gender discrimination: How did you manage that?
As I also said earlier, I think it’s not so much overt discrimination as it is a lack of diversity, because our main goal has been to run an independent newspaper and web site, not always to bring in other people. Not that this isn’t of importance, but we don’t always have the time to be covering everything and reaching out to everyone. I think outreach is something we’re rather poor at, be it covering other issues or reaching other people. And I’ve tried to raise this awareness and bring it to other member of the group without pushing them into it. I’d like to see more people as actively aware of our lack of race and gender diversity, and working to change that, as much as I’ve been trying to. Some of this just takes time, and working with people over the long term, and some of this really is a problem that I think we have to address before we can call ourselves a radical, inclusive and progressive group.
so, I hope this helps you. I know I didn’t address the topic of technology as directly as you might have liked. But I’m really glad that you’re writing about this, I think we get so caught up in activist issues that we forget to look at ourselves sometimes, or the people closest to us.
IMC Maine
Female individual
What is the male/female ratio in your activ IMC group?
Active core members or total? Really active core.... male 10 female 1 (but one more getting more involved) Total male 22 female 8.
If there are few women in your group, did you ever>think about the reasons and how to change the ratio?
Yes, have thought about it, but not really been discussed. Will bring up at upcoming statewide monthly meeting. Main reason - IMC attracts tech people who tend to be majority male - then they bring in friends - so cycles.
Do you notice any gender specific work organization?
Yeah, that's about right....but then again, there are very few women actively involved. None of the women to programming, but we do photography, writing, outreach, etc.
If there is gender specific work organization, what do you think are the reasons?
Men have more of a background in general in tech-related stuff, women may be intimidated. Not sure why else - is new group (6 months old) though, so just in newness has not been a focus on gender balance.
What is the societal background? How is the participation of women in new technologies in your country in general?
Generally poor to working class rural Maine, with tech-jobs interspersed in Portland, ME (where most of our male techies are based) or people working from home. Participation of women in tech fields in Maine seems to be quite low outside of Portland.
How is the situation in other leftist groups in your country/ city that don't use computer technology? Do you see a difference to your group?
Situation is good - many extremely active productive groups in this area that don't use computers. And probably an equal amount that do. Our group tries to offer the technologies to those who want use of them, while not having them as our main sole focus.
Besides gender specific work organization are there other forms of sexist discrimination?
Not really, but there just aren't many women involved at all to bring this about. If there were more though, I wouldn't expect at least any outright discrimination, and i'd be surprised even for there to be much subtle discrimination.
Does this differ from groups that don't work with computer technologies? If you see a difference, what could be the reasons for it?
Discrimination or gender balance? I've found this group (as the sole really active female) to be one of the least sexually discriminatory groups I've been involved with in terms of people's attitudes. But in terms of gender balance, we're very unbalanced, while most other groups are more balanced, but from discussing the issue with them I've gotten the feedback that the balance has not always been there, has come over time.
Has gender discrimination ever been a topic on your IMC meetings/ mailing lists?
Not to any great extent...will bring it up tho.
How do males (or females) react when gender discrimination is brought up as a topic?
Mixed - males do get on the defensive definitely. I am nervous to bring it up because I think it would offend some people and get them on the defensive...so need to figure out that issue.
Are there people taking action, if gender discrimination occures?
Not as of yet.
Do you have any "tools" that minimize discrimination?
Not that i know of....
What do you think could be done to minimize gender discrimination?
Open discussion set up so people can speak without fear of being verbally attacked....
If there is no relevant gender discrimination: How did you manage that?
hehehe
IMC Victoria (British Columbia, Canada)
Female individual
What is the male/female ratio in your active IMC group?
There are about six active men and about five active women.
Do you notice any gender specific work organisation?
We have more men on the technical working group, but other than that, every group (editorial, finance, process) seems evenly split. Everyone is welcome to work on anything they wish, but there tend to be more men who are trained to do higher level technical work. We provide as much training as possible to as many people as possible, and there are as many women as men who have expressed interest in the technical aspect of our work. But those who do the most difficult technical work are men because we currently only have men who are trained to do programming.
If there is gender specific work organisation, what do you think are the reasons?
There have been no women involved in Indymedia Victoria who have higher level computer programming training. The ones who have expressed interest in learning technical work are learning it as much as possible (it's not possible to 'train' someone in an entire university degree on a volunteer basis). As many women as men own computers. The men in the group are just as creative as the women, and the women are just as rational as the men. There is no question of anyone 'allowing' anyone else to do work. Every work effort is welcomed.
What is the societal background? How is the participation of women in new technologies in your country in general?
Men are still more likely to have computer degrees, but I would say that just as many women as men use computers in their workplace. There is still an imbalance in the number of women who take computer science and engineering degrees (fewer women). This is probably due to a number of factors - social gender teaching, false perceptions about the utility of computer science degrees, etc. I work in a computer lab at the university, however, and there are as many female employees as male.
How is the situation in other leftist groups in your>country/ city that don’t use computer technology? Do you see a difference to your group?
No - I think there's still some progress to be made in understanding oppression along the lines of gender, but it is generally in more subtle areas, such as acknowledging priviledge, meeting dynamics, etc.
Besides gender specific work organization are there other forms of sexist discrimination?
I notice in general that men are more comfortable speaking out in classes and public situations that are mixed groups. I don't find this so much in activist meetings, where many of the women are more assertive, but I'm sure it's still somewhat true. To me it seems that men do not always understand the priviledge they have and often use aggressive tactics (speaking over someone's voice or speaking too long and not being conscious that others haven't had a chance to speak) in meetings.
Does this differ from groups that don’t work with computer technologies? If you see a difference, what could be the reasons for it?
I don't see a difference.
Has gender discrimination ever been a topic on your IMC meetings/ mailing lists?
No. Oppression in general has, and racism has.
How do males (or females) react when gender discrimination is brought up as a topic?
I don't know if I can answer this. I haven't brought it up in a large group. I know I regard welcoming any discussion of oppression, and I have no problem discussing that in terms of gender roles, but many times I find the analyses offered too simplistic (male=x, female=y). I think that oppression is much more insidious than we realise, and both the oppressor and the oppressed have internalised their roles.
Are there people taking action, if gender discrimination occures?
we haven't seen this happen yet. We have a good group of very strong women, and I doubt that gender discrimination would go unnoticed.
Do you have any “tools” that minimise discrimination?
Discussion. I'm hoping to plan a workshop discussing issues of power and oppression for the group.
What do you think could be done to minimise gender discrimination?
I'm not sure. I think when people see it in terms of oppression (class, race, sexual orientation etc) then they feel less threatened than if it's framed in terms of gender alone.
If there is no relevant gender discrimination: How did you manage that?
I don't know. I think we must be fabulous.
Male individual
At workplaces where i have worked recently in San Francisco, java programmers are about 80% male and 20% female. In some companies it has been 50-50 and in technology design/management positions its seems to average higher than 20%. In indymedia groups, antiwar groups etc.. the gender balance for tech workers seems a lot more male. I havnt seen any open descrimination so it would be good to find out why this is the case. One reason could be that we are drawing people in from sysadmin backgrounds and from what I have seen in workplaces those positions seem to be overwhelmingly male. The imballance in technology is partly due to open descrimination in US schools but I'm pretty surethat part of it also has to due with the engineering/sysadmin subculture (especially on UScollege campuses).
On a side note, causasians only make up only 30% of the average tech workplace where I have worked in SF but Indymedia seems to be overwhelmingly white. Butthats a whole seperate issue.
IMC Portland
White male individual
The membership of our group changes regularly, so it's impossible topinpoint any exact gender ratio. When I started attending about a year ago, the ratio of men to women was almost equal - about 10 to 10 or so. And it's quite interesting, I hadn't noticed... but since you asked, we're down to only one woman that regularly attends right now, and perhaps 2 to 3 others who attend various committees predictably infrequently. Within the last few months, two very active women retired from the group to pursue otherprojects.
There are a great deal of women subscribed to various pdx lists. One group, at last count, had 3 women (the reporting group). Can anyone help me out with the subscriber ratio for the main list?
Gender specific roles... it is true that the last two scribes for ourgeneral collective meetings were women... the sort of secretary role. I don't think there are any women right now on the tech committee, but I May be wrong. Women have definitely led committees, meetings, and discussions. However, that is changing since some active women have left.
Though I am speaking as a mail, and not a member of the tech committee... I don't think anyone in this group would discourage a woman from being involved in technical stuff.. and in fact, one active woman on a particular committee was heavily involved site design and competent to use html... and the issue never seemed to come up about her gender with respect to technology.
the proportion of women in tech in this city is biased with respect to men, but not prohibitively so... maybe 65/35. for our group, I think it's just that we have too few members.. if we were able to double our activeparticipants... probably half of them would be women, and it may be that some of them are directly involved in tech.
It's an interesting question... there are a lot of progressive groups In portland, with decent sized memberships. I'm involved in a community Radio station that is more than half run by women (one of the stated goals is To ensure that marginalized populations have a voice) and the news Department and volunteer and outreach and one music director are women. I guess about half of the paid positions are women. There are more than half women on the board of directors.
I've noticed that one other progressive group has very strong femalerepresentation. It's the forest activism group, and these folks areinvolved in taking action in the forest to prevent logging. It occurs to me (this is just provisional) but the radical women that I know and see around are not that interested in sitting at home and programming computers. That is, by the time a woman is radicalized, she's wanting to get dirty Gathering news, sitting in trees. It feels to me that I come across more men who are likely to say "I read a lot of stuff, our world is going to shit, and I just want to do something. I'm pretty good with computers, and I was Wondering if there was some way I could help the revolution from my living room..after all, that's an important job that needs to be done.
There is a heavy emphasis in progressive circles in Portland about Having been out on the streets and getting dirty, so someone wanting to stay Home and do the computer thing sometimes has to come from a defensive position.
activist women in portland are hardcore, and awareness about sexualdiscrimination by men and women lies at a very conscious level. This is a town ruled by tough women. sexism exists; but within activist communities, especially, we all have a pretty well defined intuition about the right for anyone to bring up these topics and deal with them. Women *typically* do not get shouted down in groups, for example. Although, I can think of a few times a woman was told to shut up within IMC. Probably, at this point, it would be better to ask a woman...
This has not been a topic on our lists. It appears that nobody feels Like it is a problem *institutionalized* in our group.
in the situation where a woman was actually told to shut up once, it was by someone that had a relationship with at the time. Though I don't think anyone actually censured him, he did get a few extended stares from the men and women in the group. He never repeated the behavior in group, as far as I know.
I wouldn't say that sexual discrimination doesn't exist in Portland, orwithin our group (again, a woman's voice is relevant, here). But, I would say that the police are a far bigger concern to us right now. If we had a larger active base of membership, probably the influx of personalities would make this a far more active debate. I bet it would be heated at times. I also bet that, judging from the character of our core group now, that We would talk about it A LOT and then, probably, make some group decision On the gender representation in our groups.
right now, it would just be nice if we had more people...
Probably our most effective tool to minimize gender discrimination is our decision making model, which specifically allows everyone a voice and theability to block a decision with any reasonable concern. Slow, but nobodygets shouted down.
IMC San Francisco
Female individual
the SF-IMC is a very geek intensive collective, and i have sometimes been the only women at meetings - we general have a hard time keeping women volunteers around. this has bothered me.
What is the male/female ratio in your activ IMCgroup?
there are twice as many males as females
If there are few women in your group, did you everthink about the reasons and how to change the ratio?
we've never discussed how to change the ratio. i think we could change it by focusing more on projects that are not web-based. also, i think it would help if we did more trainings, and had more equipment to lend out. and respect the fact that some women *don't* want tech-oriented work, and that non-tech projects are equally as valuable as our web presence. but, also, making it easier for women who *do* want to learn tech stuff, to do so. the diy geek way of learning, often doesn't work well with how women are taught to learn -and i think this is a point of misunderstanding and frustration when male techies try to teach female non-techies.
Do you notice any gender specific work organization?
yes, there is a division of labor. tech stuff is done by males, organizational stuff is done by females (of course there is some cross over, but not much)
If there is gender specific work organization, what do you think are the reasons?
i think it mostly has to do with the u.s. schools - not pushing women to do more tech-type stuff. i also think it has to do with resources, i think a lot of women don't have money to buy tech equipment.
How is the situation in other leftist groups in your country/ city that don’t use computer technology? Do you see a difference to your group?
i don't know, since the only activist group i belong to is the SF-IMC
Besides gender specific work organization are there other forms of sexist discrimination?
men tend to talk a lot more in meetings. sometimes, i feel like the men respect what other men have to say more - but not very often, just occassionally. sometimes, i think, women feel under-appreciated, because the non-tech work that happens seems to be not as recognized or appreciated as tech work is. we have had problems around a debate of pro-life/pro-choice issues, where one man keep calling women's responses "emotional" - therefore, in my eyes, de-valuing the women's responses. also, i think it is more likely for a male to take action on something, a woman is much more likely to check in with the collective and follow a process before taking action. i think this generally has to do with men feeling more empowered to do things.
Has gender discrimination ever been a topic on your IMC meetings/ mailing lists?
only briefly during that pro-choice/pro-life debate, but the topic really didn't get addressed with the entire collective.
How do males (or females) react when gender discrimination is brought up as a topic?
hm, it hasn't really been brought up. but, i get the sense that most people don't want to label things as "gender discrimination" - but, more people want to deal with it as individual dynamics. there is a reluctancy for women to bring this up, i think, for fear of being seen as reactionary. also, i think the women want to be absolutely positive that it is gender discrimination before calling it that.
Are there people taking action, if gender discrimination occures?
no we haven't taken any action about anything
Do you have any “tools” that minimize discrimination?
mmm, not really. except that we really try to speak honestly with each other in our meetings.
What do you think could be done to minimize gender discrimination?
keep communication open. more understanding of the point of view of people without mad tech skills by techies. more appreciation of everyone's participation. more trainings. have men be aware when they are talking too much in meetings. be aware of the possibility of gender discrimination, be aware of how a woman feels when she is the only female in theroom... just more understanding and communicationbetween everyone.
If there is no relevant gender discrimination: How did you manage that?
i wouldn't say we have managed that. but i will say that i feel like i respect and am genuinely fond of everyone in our collective, regardless of gender.
IMC San Francisco
Male individual (reply to female individual)
This is an interesting point. Though I'm not sure there is a general "male" and "female" learning style (I have never studied that), I know that people do learn in different ways. When there is sex or race prejudice already a different learning style can be perceived as "stupidity" rather than "difference."
For example, at my work, which is in an activist organization (www.cnu.org)I am the de facto tech person. But I've been trying to hand off all the web responsibilities to a female coworker, who is very smart and competent And reasonably knowledgable about computer stuff. One thing I've found is amajor difference between our learning styles is that I like to play arounduntil I get something right, and will often learn a bunch of other irrelevant stuff in the process. She likes to actually know how to do things before doing them, so she can visualize the outcome and the most efficient means of achieving that outcome, step by step. She gets frustrated by my tendency to play around and go off on tangents, which has worked very well with boys in the past. I get frustrated with her refusal to play around and experiment with new tools and commands.
At first, I thought she was being dense, and I admit that sexist thoughts crossed my mind -- that as a woman, she had somehow been trained to beincompetent on computers. I quickly saw the sexism and told myself to shut up. Over time, we've managed to make our relationship work, mostly byworking together over time and bothering to learn about and accept ourdifferent learning and teaching styles. At this point, she is the webmasteron a very complex SQL-driven, Cold Fusion-derived, modular site, and islearning more every day.
IMC somewhere in Canada
Female individual
What is the male/female ratio in your activ IMC group?
As far as active co-ordinators of the site and such, there are NO women involved in XXX Indymedia as far as i can tell. I helped to organize an Indymedia conference, and everyone from XXX Indymedia that i worked with to co-ordinate both events was male. Fortunately, a lot of women from other independent media outlets participated in both events. from an organizing and co-ordination perspective, XXXX Indymedia is male, white and young.
If there are few women in your group, did you ever think about the reasons and how to change the ratio?
I've worked a bit to encourage more women to get involved in XXX indymedia through the conference and stuff, but as far as the people who are runnning the site and facilities go, i don't believe there has been any concerted effort to establish a gender balance behind the scenes.
Do you notice any gender specific work organization?
yes, of course. Men do the programming and the networking and the video encoding and the tech support. Women write, shoot footage, or work with audio, along with lots of men doing those things too.
If there is gender specific work organization, what do you think are the reasons?
Well, it would be naive to say that women are afraid of computers or don't possess that kind of knowledge. i think that having an all-male team doing the technical support might intimidate some women who would otherwise be interested in those activities. but generally, i think that women with that kind of training aren't terribly interested in Indymedia - they're busy working at real jobs and doing housework. it's a specific kind of young, white male - privileged but with a conscience, maybe not terribly social, and possessing a lot of spare time - that has tended to dominate the tech side of XXX Indymedia.
What is the societal background? How is the participation of women in new technologies in your country in general?
Well, here in Canada I think it's probably pretty good in relative terms but there's still a long way to go. there's not that many women who go into math or hard science in college and university. But new media and graphic communications in particular have opened up a lot of opportunities for women in recent years.
How is the situation in other leftist groups in your country/ city that don’t use computer technology? Do you see a difference to your group?
Definitely. in groups that work to organize political action at the grassroots level, there is much more involvement from women at all levels of organizational structure. there is not the stratified male/female role taking that has happened at XXX Indymedia.
Besides gender specific work organization are there other forms of sexist discrimination?
No, in my personal experience i found the men to be quite respectful of my contributions. but then again, i wasn't directly contributing to what they were working on. if i was trying to get involved on a more technical level, i guess it's possible that some of the men might feel i was encroaching on their turf, but that's just speculation.
Has gender discrimination ever been a topic on your IMC meetings/ mailing lists?
not to my knowledge.
How do males (or females) react when gender discrimination is brought up as a topic?
since it hasn't really been brought up, it's hard to say. it was a male who forwarded your questions to the list. i think that the men are all aware of gender discrimination and trying to work in an anti-oppression framework, but not really taking the time to make a concerted effort to make women more comfortable with and interested in the tech side of indymedia.
Are there people taking action, if gender discrimination occures?
i don't think there is any real action or plan of action on this, no.
Do you have any “tools” that minimize discrimination?
mmm...not to my knowledge.
What do you think could be done to minimize gender discrimination?
well, more women need to be encouraged to participate, and the guys have to stop thinking of Indymedia as their personal pet project.
IMC St. Louis (Missouri)
White female upper-middle class individual
What is the male/female ratio in your active IMC group?
For a long time I was the only woman in the IMC group. There is one other woman now who isn’t as actively involved because she travels often. We may also have one more woman joining our group who is a tech person. At the beginning, there were four other men in the group, now there are at least eight men actively involved in our IMC.The newspaper has some different people working on it. Again, I am the most actively involved woman, though there are two other women involved in the decision making process and at least three or four other who are contributing writers. There are at least six men actively involved in decision making, and about ten others who are contributing writers.
If there are few women in your group, did you ever think about the reasons and how to change the ratio?
For a long time it didn’t really occur to me that the gender imbalance was a problem, mostly because everyone involved in the IMC and Confluence are friends of mine and we all work together well. I noticed more in the IMC because I was the only woman, and less in the Confluence. We also have very few minorities.
Do you notice any gender specific work organization? (e.g. women write articles, men do the programming?)
One thing that bothered me the most is that women often end up in the role of ‘secretaries to the revolution,’ : we often take the roles of note-taker or scribe. Women also tend to take less of a managing or organizing role – they will contribute writing, or artwork, but won’t necessarily become fully immersed in the process.
If there is gender specific work organization, what do you think are the reasons? (e.g. women don’t know, how to do programming, women don’t own computers, women don’t like computers, men are not creative, but more rational, men don’t let women do computer stuff)
Well, we only have one tech person in our IMC, who is a man, but it’s more of a result of the fact that he’s the only one who has enough knowledge of programming to do this. There is one other guy who can do some work on the site, and we’re trying to teach everyone involved in the editorial process how to do things like post a feature (our programs are kind of screwy and don’t work as well as they should, which makes some of this even more difficult).I personally do a lot of work on the computer – I run the web site for the Confluence newspaper and I do most of the design and layout for both the web and printed version, along with another guy who’s a designer.I don’t think this is a gender imbalance, though men often dominate the field of computer programming in general.
What is the societal background?
Most of the people involved in our IMC or Confluence are probably from middle to middle-upper class backgrounds. At least half, maybe more of us, have college degrees. Two people are of Indian descent and one is American but has spent much of his time in Israel and is very active with Muslim issues. We have had a few contributing writers who are African-American, but no one actively involved. There are also two gay men and one lesbian woman involved.
How is the participation of women in new technologies in your country in general?
As I mentioned earlier, I definitely agree that the tech field is dominated by men. Many of my female activist friends are involved in other projects that are geared more towards teaching, healing, and artistic endeavors.
How is the situation in other leftist groups in your country/ city that don’t use computer technology?
I’ve noticed that older activists are also a little computer shy. I’ve worked with people in the Green party who can’t figure out how to use the IMC web site at all, though I find it to be pretty easy to publish articles and pictures on the newswire, post events to the calendar, etc. So it’s a matter of age as well as gender, which makes sense, since a lot of the computer technologies we use are relatively new. Also, many people in low-income communities have little or no access to the internet, so I’ve noticed that some other groups don’t use the IMC as much because it’s not really a viable, accessible outlet for information. I’ve tried to put a lot of emphasis on the newspaper for that reason, because it’s a lot easier for people to receive, distribute, and understand. These groups tend to work on a more personal, face-to-face basis because that is often the most effective way to reach the people on the street or in poor neighborhoods, through human communication.For that reason, I sometimes see the IMC as an elitist activist communications system, which works best as communication between activists across the globe rather than as a tool to disseminate information to the larger population. I try to work on that problem by encouraging people to reach out into communities they may not have much contact with, such as the African-American community, religious organizations, gay and lesbian issues, women’s issues. I think the first way we can bridge this gap is by taking an interest and covering issues that are important to people unlike ourselves, and to make our efforts known to them while encouraging them to become involved in the process. And to provide that information in the most accessible and comfortable way for them, which is more often that not the low-technology route.
Besides gender specific work organization are there other forms of sexist discrimination?
Because we’re such a small group, and we all know each other pretty well, sexist discrimination hasn’t been a huge issue. At times I’ve felt that my efforts were being dismissed by certain men in the group, but I don’t necessarily see that anymore. The biggest difficulty I’ve had recently is in getting people to cover issues of sexuality, gender, homosexuality. I had proposed that our upcoming newspaper have the theme of gender and sexuality issues, because we tend to cover gender neutral topics, or issues such as biotechnology, labor, and political issues that attack the patriarchal system without discussing alternatives or positive solutions to these problems. I found that people were rather reluctant to focus their attentions on women’s issues. And so far, we’ve had several submissions of articles about women’s issues, but they’re all written by white men. So that’s a small step forward. I’m not going to push people to write about things they’re not interested in, but I think that the more attention that is focused on this problem, and the more people come to recognize it as a problem, the more progress we can make. Hopefully, too, people to whom these issues are important will recognize our efforts and will want to contribute. I think what happens is that people to whom the issues of race and gender are centrally important tend to form groups around these issues and focus only on these, rather than working in larger groups and bringing these issues to the table. So women form women’s groups, isolated from the larger political movement, and the same with black people forming groups that are central to minority issues. And I think it’s important for people to do this, and to have this focus. But groups like the IMC are (in my experience) comprised of people with the most privelege, i.e. they are comprised of white people, mostly male, from financially secure backgrounds who’ve had access to good education. Which instantly puts us, the IMC, into the category of the dominant or oppressive social majority, no matter how radical we say we are.
So I think the responsibility of being more sensitive and responsive to issues outside our common experiences is essential, without being patronizing or approaching these issues with charitable notions. That also means being constantly aware of ourselves and how we support the underlying framework of sexism and racism that permeates our social structure, and working to change that.
Does this differ from groups that don’t work with computer technologies? If you see a difference, what could be the reasons for it?
Focus is very important to politically active groups if they’re going to survive and succeed. But often times, that focus tends to ignore the larger picture of how everything is interconnected. I’ve been working a lot to write about a group called the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression, which works within the city of St. Louis to enact legislative and social changes to end racial discrimination and police brutality, primarily in African-American communities. I noticed that the cases they worked on involved young black men being shot and killed by male officers. And at a rally I attended, in all cases the survivors of the murder victims were mothers, girlfriends, sisters, etc., often with many children, left with a family to take care of once their husband/ son/ brother was killed. I saw greatly divisive gender roles within these situations, but most of the people I talked to saw it as an issue of race, not gender or even class.
Again, I don’t think it’s an issue of just technology, although that plays into it. It’s an issue of economic status, and education, as well as race and gender. People tend to get most of their information from television, which is mostly crap in my opinion, and that greatly narrows your view of the world, of gender roles, of racial issues, etc. The information and resources out there, made available by the internet and other technologies, just aren’t as immediately important to you if your everyday experience is one of survival and violence. You have to actively search out this information on the internet or in alternative news sources, it doesn’t just come to you on sitcoms on the nightly news. So while racism is a high priority for people in this group, feminism is not, so the connections aren’t that obvious.
If your daily experience is one of terror, then I think it would be much more difficult to look beyond these immediate issues to the role of the media, sexism, economic and technological divide. Most of the people I spoke with who were involved in these issues or had been directly involved with them had never heard of the IMC, and I don’t think the IMC was even at the top of their list when it came to a way to solve these problems. People in the black community have criticized white activist for paying so much attention to global issues without linking them to local issues and the problems most central to their own communities or neighbors. This doesn’t mean that people aren’t interested in the IMC, or aren’t working on issues of gender or class, it just means that they have a lot more to deal with before they can see the IMC or even technology in general having an impact in their lives.
Has gender discrimination ever been a topic on your IMC meetings/ mailing lists?
I recently attended a midwest IMC regional gathering, in which people from different IMC’s all over the American midwest, like Champaign-Urbana Illinois, Springfield Illinois, Minneapolis Twin Cities, and St. Louis, participated in. And gender discrimination was a topic we discussed, which I personally hadn’t devoted too much attention to within our group. I felt very uncomfortable at first, since there were only four women out of a group of at least 25 present, like people were pointing a finger at me and saying, ‘well, you’re a woman, what do you want to say? we’re all listening to the women now because we’re talking about gender.’
While I don’t feel like my voice isn’t heard, or isn’t important, in IMC related activities, I do see people saying things like, ‘well, you’re a woman, you should cover this event because it’s a woman’s group,’ or things along those lines. I think it’s important that people are noticing the gender differences and trying to promote awareness of them, but I don’t want to be the token ‘women’s voice’ in the crowd, or the (only) person who’s representing feminist issues on our IMC.
I was glad we discussed it at the midwest gathering, and I tried to bring some of that sentiment back to our local group, because looking around at who comprises the St. Louis IMC, I think it’s kind of sad that we’re so far from gender and race diversity. It’s not overt discrimination, it’s not like I believe our group is so narrow because we’re exclusive, I just don’t think we’ve really made the effort to be as inclusive as possible. And it’s difficult, I don’t like to recruit people. Just as it made me uncomfortable to be pointed out as ‘the woman in the group,’ I know it makes other people uncomfortable when I approach a black person and ask them to add a racial perspective to the paper, or approach a woman and ask her to cover a feminist issue. So I’m trying to raise that awareness within our group without excluding everyone, and adding to our already huge list of priorities reaching out to make that extra effort for people who aren’t white men.
How do males (or females) react when gender discrimination is brought up as a topic?
I think, as I did, most men don’t tend to see this as a problem. I think they’re aware of it on a certain level, and it is discussed that we are lacking in women and people of color, but again, it’s not the top priority. People are working so hard just to keep the IMC going and cover events and issues, we don’t always stop and say, ‘hey, what have I done today to promote gender and race equality for the IMC? For my community?’ I think men are aware of it, and they probably feel like they’re doing what they can, but they’re not actively working on the issue all the time. I think a lot of people in our IMC see us as in the midst of the growth process, and the more the awareness and credibility of the IMC grows in the community, the more people will be attracted to it and will want to join. So we probably take a more passive, rather than active role in the issue of race and gender bias.
Are there people taking action, if gender discrimination occurs?
We haven’t had much gender discrimination within the group, so I can’t answer that directly. I’ll do little things, like at meetings when we ask who’s taking the notes, I’ll suggest that a guy takes on this role so it’s not always women acting as secretaries. We try to follow the Organization for Black Struggle’s rules for a more democratic meeting, which state that someone must facilitate the meeting, preferable a rotating position. It is the role of the facilitator to call on people first who are women or people of color to speak, and to bypass someone who has spoken a lot for someone who hasn’t had a chance to speak as much. Or to point out that only the men have been addressing a certain issue.
Also, I try to make a lot of effort to encourage people who are new to the group who are women, people of color, or who want to focus on gender or minority issues. I recently spent a lot of time talking to, working with, and encouraging a woman who came forward to write for the Confluence because I saw her perspective as a woman as crucial to the diversity of our paper, and someone like her is a more important element to the group than some white guy who’s going to college and works on activist issues. The one thing that’s difficult for people to understand is that IMC and Confluence change with each person who’s involved. They may see, from the outside, that these groups don’t work on issues of race and gender, but that’s because no one’s come in to influence that particular dynamic. It takes active involvement to change that, and I think people are intimidated to enter a group where people already know one another and already have a way of doing things. But I don’t think we make it obvious to people that every individual changes us, and the IMC and Confluence, and that the change is up to them working with us and providing that perspective to the group.
What do you think could be done to minimize gender discrimination?
Again, I think raising the awareness level among the group, and really trying to reach out to groups or individuals that have the perspective we lack and pay primary attention to their problems, is the first step in bridging the gap.
If there is no relevant gender discrimination: How did you manage that?
As I also said earlier, I think it’s not so much overt discrimination as it is a lack of diversity, because our main goal has been to run an independent newspaper and web site, not always to bring in other people. Not that this isn’t of importance, but we don’t always have the time to be covering everything and reaching out to everyone. I think outreach is something we’re rather poor at, be it covering other issues or reaching other people. And I’ve tried to raise this awareness and bring it to other member of the group without pushing them into it. I’d like to see more people as actively aware of our lack of race and gender diversity, and working to change that, as much as I’ve been trying to. Some of this just takes time, and working with people over the long term, and some of this really is a problem that I think we have to address before we can call ourselves a radical, inclusive and progressive group.
so, I hope this helps you. I know I didn’t address the topic of technology as directly as you might have liked. But I’m really glad that you’re writing about this, I think we get so caught up in activist issues that we forget to look at ourselves sometimes, or the people closest to us.
IMC Maine
Female individual
What is the male/female ratio in your activ IMC group?
Active core members or total? Really active core.... male 10 female 1 (but one more getting more involved) Total male 22 female 8.
If there are few women in your group, did you ever>think about the reasons and how to change the ratio?
Yes, have thought about it, but not really been discussed. Will bring up at upcoming statewide monthly meeting. Main reason - IMC attracts tech people who tend to be majority male - then they bring in friends - so cycles.
Do you notice any gender specific work organization?
Yeah, that's about right....but then again, there are very few women actively involved. None of the women to programming, but we do photography, writing, outreach, etc.
If there is gender specific work organization, what do you think are the reasons?
Men have more of a background in general in tech-related stuff, women may be intimidated. Not sure why else - is new group (6 months old) though, so just in newness has not been a focus on gender balance.
What is the societal background? How is the participation of women in new technologies in your country in general?
Generally poor to working class rural Maine, with tech-jobs interspersed in Portland, ME (where most of our male techies are based) or people working from home. Participation of women in tech fields in Maine seems to be quite low outside of Portland.
How is the situation in other leftist groups in your country/ city that don't use computer technology? Do you see a difference to your group?
Situation is good - many extremely active productive groups in this area that don't use computers. And probably an equal amount that do. Our group tries to offer the technologies to those who want use of them, while not having them as our main sole focus.
Besides gender specific work organization are there other forms of sexist discrimination?
Not really, but there just aren't many women involved at all to bring this about. If there were more though, I wouldn't expect at least any outright discrimination, and i'd be surprised even for there to be much subtle discrimination.
Does this differ from groups that don't work with computer technologies? If you see a difference, what could be the reasons for it?
Discrimination or gender balance? I've found this group (as the sole really active female) to be one of the least sexually discriminatory groups I've been involved with in terms of people's attitudes. But in terms of gender balance, we're very unbalanced, while most other groups are more balanced, but from discussing the issue with them I've gotten the feedback that the balance has not always been there, has come over time.
Has gender discrimination ever been a topic on your IMC meetings/ mailing lists?
Not to any great extent...will bring it up tho.
How do males (or females) react when gender discrimination is brought up as a topic?
Mixed - males do get on the defensive definitely. I am nervous to bring it up because I think it would offend some people and get them on the defensive...so need to figure out that issue.
Are there people taking action, if gender discrimination occures?
Not as of yet.
Do you have any "tools" that minimize discrimination?
Not that i know of....
What do you think could be done to minimize gender discrimination?
Open discussion set up so people can speak without fear of being verbally attacked....
If there is no relevant gender discrimination: How did you manage that?
hehehe
IMC Victoria (British Columbia, Canada)
Female individual
What is the male/female ratio in your active IMC group?
There are about six active men and about five active women.
Do you notice any gender specific work organisation?
We have more men on the technical working group, but other than that, every group (editorial, finance, process) seems evenly split. Everyone is welcome to work on anything they wish, but there tend to be more men who are trained to do higher level technical work. We provide as much training as possible to as many people as possible, and there are as many women as men who have expressed interest in the technical aspect of our work. But those who do the most difficult technical work are men because we currently only have men who are trained to do programming.
If there is gender specific work organisation, what do you think are the reasons?
There have been no women involved in Indymedia Victoria who have higher level computer programming training. The ones who have expressed interest in learning technical work are learning it as much as possible (it's not possible to 'train' someone in an entire university degree on a volunteer basis). As many women as men own computers. The men in the group are just as creative as the women, and the women are just as rational as the men. There is no question of anyone 'allowing' anyone else to do work. Every work effort is welcomed.
What is the societal background? How is the participation of women in new technologies in your country in general?
Men are still more likely to have computer degrees, but I would say that just as many women as men use computers in their workplace. There is still an imbalance in the number of women who take computer science and engineering degrees (fewer women). This is probably due to a number of factors - social gender teaching, false perceptions about the utility of computer science degrees, etc. I work in a computer lab at the university, however, and there are as many female employees as male.
How is the situation in other leftist groups in your>country/ city that don’t use computer technology? Do you see a difference to your group?
No - I think there's still some progress to be made in understanding oppression along the lines of gender, but it is generally in more subtle areas, such as acknowledging priviledge, meeting dynamics, etc.
Besides gender specific work organization are there other forms of sexist discrimination?
I notice in general that men are more comfortable speaking out in classes and public situations that are mixed groups. I don't find this so much in activist meetings, where many of the women are more assertive, but I'm sure it's still somewhat true. To me it seems that men do not always understand the priviledge they have and often use aggressive tactics (speaking over someone's voice or speaking too long and not being conscious that others haven't had a chance to speak) in meetings.
Does this differ from groups that don’t work with computer technologies? If you see a difference, what could be the reasons for it?
I don't see a difference.
Has gender discrimination ever been a topic on your IMC meetings/ mailing lists?
No. Oppression in general has, and racism has.
How do males (or females) react when gender discrimination is brought up as a topic?
I don't know if I can answer this. I haven't brought it up in a large group. I know I regard welcoming any discussion of oppression, and I have no problem discussing that in terms of gender roles, but many times I find the analyses offered too simplistic (male=x, female=y). I think that oppression is much more insidious than we realise, and both the oppressor and the oppressed have internalised their roles.
Are there people taking action, if gender discrimination occures?
we haven't seen this happen yet. We have a good group of very strong women, and I doubt that gender discrimination would go unnoticed.
Do you have any “tools” that minimise discrimination?
Discussion. I'm hoping to plan a workshop discussing issues of power and oppression for the group.
What do you think could be done to minimise gender discrimination?
I'm not sure. I think when people see it in terms of oppression (class, race, sexual orientation etc) then they feel less threatened than if it's framed in terms of gender alone.
If there is no relevant gender discrimination: How did you manage that?
I don't know. I think we must be fabulous.
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