You can say something like, "thank you XX name, for helping out, you've done an excellent job of explaining. I think she can take it from here. XX woman's name--do you have the idea now?" Politeness is a particular constraint for people, and women especially are constrained by it. And age differentials are tricky too. Being a "newbie" confronted by a veteran, as well, provides social dynamics that make things tricky. It's the space manager's obligation to provide a dynamic shifter in these situations. You're going to be ham-handed sometimes. I have made mistakes on this front and insulted the heck out of people who have been overly dominant in a situation, but at a certain point, you have to try and fail and learn how to manage these types of interactions by figuring out what worked and what didn't.
You can have a rule in your space that if someone is shown how to do something, then they need to be actually also DOING the thing, because there's a huge difference between seeing it in action and doing it with your hands, so any help that is given must be followed up with an opportunity to do the thing.
You can have a rule in your space that if someone is shown how to do something, then they need to be actually also DOING the thing, because there's a huge difference between seeing it in action and doing it with your hands, so any help that is given must be followed up with an opportunity to do the thing.
You can also redirect the volunteer to some other task if you want to go the subtle route. "Hey XX volunteer, I need your help with this XX thing". You could even redirect them to another person who needs help, but tell them, in the intro to the issue, that the person who needs help should be doing the actual work, so their job is to walk the help-requester through the repair verbally and let them do the actual work, and thereby set a new norm just through direction setting.
Best,
Mary Catherine Graziano
Education and Volunteer Manager
Pronouns: she / her / hers
Local Motion
1 Steele St., Burlington, VT 05401
phone: 802-861-2700 ext. 106
fax: 802-861-3096
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