Women's and Trans day/night/time is vital, and I think it is important to keep it exclusive- at the Bike Church, male mechanics are kept away.
It is a time for those (women,trans, etc) to discover the shop space at ease in a welcoming environment. I find that women coming to these hours feel more and more comfortable comoing to regular hours. It took a decade of saying "how do we get more women to work in our shop?" and finally the Bike Church has a fair balance (roughly maybe) and we are still committed to the womens/trans day.
Ignore the bad press. Those who feel disimpowered for the few hours are learning something too by being asked to stay out.
We have patrons and even mechanics who dont like it at times (It took me some time to get used to not just dropping by on a sunday afternooon, cause I'm a man- it can be hard). Its not that big a deal.
Ours is only every other Sunday, 11am to 3pm
josh muir
On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 7:52 AM, freeridemp@riseup.net wrote:
Hey Bike Shops, Does anyone else hold a Women and Trans night or Ladies' night? I know Plan B does. We had a weekly one last summer and will be having another this summer. The women who have held the shift have found it effective to keep the shift exclusive, closed to male-bodied masculine-identifying people. We have had a backlash from one of our members, who accuses us of sexism, discrimination, and injustice. We have gotten some incomplete and bad press.
Please let me know if you hold a shift like this one, exclusive or not, and what you have done about any complaints your membership or community has had.
Thanks, Colin Gunn Freeride Montpelier Montpelier, VT www.freeridemontpelier.org
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