I really hope that some day there is an all female or at least half female hacker house. I really like the idea of a hacker house and love being around smart tech people but some guys don't know how to act around women (I'm sorry but there are guys like that out there and many of them are hackers). It is even worse if you are one of the only single woman in a close community. I've heard from male friends that live in hacker houses that I would feel uncomfortable even though I am a relatively reasonable person and am used to living in messy spaces with other people. Also its nice to be around other women in case you need an emergency tampon or advice on whether you should wear your pumps or your wedges or want to bitch about what its like to be a female hacker.
I find the assumption that girls are less messy than boys kind of naive and stereotypical. I suppose messy is ambiguous, does it mean clean or organized?
I remember living in the dorms my first year of college, and I was amused to note that the average boys dorm room was more organized and the average girls dorm room was cleaner. Of course, that is just my experience.
I find women are messier but also clean more. So more stuff left lying around but less grime. Where as guys will put stuff away but won't even know if there is a mop in the house.
Completely generalising here based on my own experiences.
If you are living in a house with 10+ people then it is going to be messy (messy being unclean at times) and if you can't handle that then you shouldn't live in a hacker house whether you are a girl or a guy. I was trying to make the point that I am a pretty chill person and wouldn't mind a mess yet people still tell me not to live in a hacker house.
I've been living in a hacker house in Palo Alto for ~5 months now. There has been at least one female resident the entire time I've been there. None have ever complained about the messiness or behavior of the male inhabitants. On the contrary, we all get along well and if anything the woman have been more tolerant than average of others' messes and disorganization (probably just a coincidence).
In talking with my roommates about other hacker houses they've lived in, nobody has ever mentioned problems with men treating women improperly. I visited one of the houses in SF that was ~30% women and it seemed like everybody got along well and cleaned up after themselves.
The only material gender difference that has come up for us is that men are generally heavier so they make more noise when they walk around barefoot.
Your anecdote is helpful, but it's worth keeping in mind that just because "None has ever complained" doesn't mean that they didn't experience problems. Hopefully, they didn't; but they may have, and simply felt uncomfortable bringing them up.
As a guy, I'd love to live in a 50:50 gender ratio house with smart, creative folks. Had that experience in college living in the student cooperatives; was a great time, with lots of creative energy and many lifelong friendships formed. Would be great to do it again as an adult. Living together in a cozy house with 10-40 other people sure beats lounging around in a dank apartment by your lonesome self.
I agree that the gender split is very important, as it fundamentally changes the feel of the environment. I wouldn't want to live in a house with mostly guys, I don't think.
It makes me happy that the other replies point to these kinds of houses existing, but I kind of feel like I'm not "hacker" enough to look for a place like this yet. (Only one tiny project finished & for sale, no startups or anything to my name. Also, I'm hella lazy with my projects! Not sure how much this matters to these hackerhouses, but, well, they have "hacker" in the name, so...)
It'll never happen if everyone just hopes as we do. Take your idea, use it to inspire yourself, and if you have the chance... Make it happen. I'm sure there are many individuals that will appreciate and welcome your idea.
My experience has actually been the opposite! Most hacker houses I've lived in have been run by women and seem especially friendly and welcoming to women residents.
I spent four months in a hacker house that was run by two women; for about half of that stay the house was at least half female. Eventually people rotated out and in and the ratio skewed towards being more male, though.
I tend to agree that a lot of guys don't know how to act around women. And I would suggest that some improvements to how we train men to behave could be made. Generally speaking it takes years to properly train a man to behave appropriately so this may seem like a daunting task. However, if it isn't done we have situations like you've mentioned where men don't act appropriately and fine women like yourself are forced to not participate.
There are all female houses on airbnb, but I'm not sure if they'd qualify as hacker houses. Given that it's SF, I'd guess that that a large amount work in tech though.
Can you elaborate on this? IMHO women should be treated equally when it makes moral sense. I.e. women's bathrooms need to be larger because of the various things they need to do in there, not just societal norm things but things like changing tampons, pads.
The menstrual cycle also affects productivity and is essentially a reoccurring medical issue that needs regular treatment.
As for the greater issue being discussed about the male centric nature of hackerspaces and hacker houses, alot of this has to do with proven social psychology facts about how the average man reacts to women that don't fit societal stereotypes. Lots of papers on that.
I believe that we could also write papers about how average the woman reacts to men that don't fit societal stereotypes. This is not a women's issue at all and I don't see the relevance of it in this discussion.
The whole point is the original claim that men don't know how to act around women, as if there was some special way of dealing with women that makes them inherently different from men in a way that could go against the expectations of modern gender equality politics.
The relevance is that men currently dominate the hackerspace "scene". How men react to women that don't fit societal norms would tend to dictate how women in tech are going to be treated.
>The whole point is the original claim that men don't know how to act around women, as if there was some special way of dealing with women that makes them inherently different from men in a way that could go against the expectations of modern gender equality politics.
This is a general statement, there are deviations of course: Men tend to (often aggressively) challenge each others ideas, building off of the criticism. Women prefer a more nurturing approach. Hell, I would prefer a more nurturing approach :)
I don't think cleanliness is the biggest issue when it comes to shared bathrooms since both men and women can be clean or messy. As a woman I would be most concerned about periods. Some women try to hide when they are on their period for various reasons. If you are sharing a bathroom either everybody will know you are on your period (and the guys would have to be okay with tampons and such) or you would have to hide all of your feminine products which would be annoying.
I think all of these reasons are pretty weak. What I do know is that it creates a uniquely horrible situation for people who are transgender/transitioning. I admit that periods are the closest thing to a biological reason to have differences in bathroom facilities, but mostly I think that it's a holdover of 19th century sexism.
Women's public restrooms are almost always much worse than men's- this is something that has been echoed by every janitor I've ever talked to and accurately reflects my own experiences as well.
That's not to say any public restrooms are generally good, but the idea that women are somehow cleaner than men really needs to die.
That's weird, all the janitors I know have said its true that women's bathrooms are better kept than men's, and my own experience and friends anecdotes also reflects that. Perhaps there's a demographic aspect to it.
That's an interesting thought- I've primarily talked to people living in the US midwest who dealt with bathrooms used primarily by lower to middle class individuals. Perhaps more upscale locations force a higher standard?
The assumption I've always been given is that women are more prone to hovering (germs!) along with the obvious biological differences that allow for more..erm...variety in terms of mess making. Seemed a sensible enough explanation to me, but it's very possible that there's more to it.
My daughter is a student at a top-20 college in the country and shares the bathroom with 3 other girls. They are all as messy (if not more) than my son's male roommates (also in college).
Another note, I remember reading somewhere that the amount of bacteria found in bathrooms is much higher in ladies-rooms than mensrooms. May or may not be the result of overall messiness, though :-)
Interesting - I was thinking of public bathrooms, I'm not really familiar with any single-sex private bathrooms, where generally I'd assume women would have a lot more 'stuff' in general so would tend to be messier. You are probably referring to this paper[http://wc.arizona.edu/papers/90/156/07_1_m.html], which seems to be the only study ever done (and I can't find the actual paper, just people citing it). Says that women's bathrooms are tidier and smell nicer but have more germs, possibly because they touch more surfaces, they bring in children who are obviously little germ bombs, and they just use them more often (and the children angle would probably affect traffic numbers too).
I don't think you read danr's logic correctly, but I could be wrong.
I interpreted it as "The reason women want to be treated differently [from how they are NOW] is that the world is a sexist place." Not, "The reason women want to be treated differently [from MEN] is that the world is a sexist place."
Either you are wrong or danr shifted goalposts, then. lohengramm's point pretty clearly is talking about women being treated differently from men, not women being treated differently from how they are now.
If finding that we live in a sexist world is a good reason to be even more sexist, then you can throw away every movement that tries to do the opposite.
"some guys don't know how to act around women", it was said. Well, people should know how to act around people, no matter gender or race. This statement does not collaborate to end with any kind of discrimination: it is already discriminating.
You need to realize that what you perceive to be sexism for the benefit of women is actually affirmative action because of the discrimination they suffer from.
