Sasha- Why don't you look into third party mediation for you situation. In Baltimore we have afew wonderful medations centers that perform the service for cheap or free. I'm not sure if detroit has anything like this, but if not you could work on finding an impartial person from outside the collective(and with out a personal stake in the results) that both parties can agree on to mediate...Of course this means that the parties involved would first have to acknowledge the problem exists. If B and C are threatening to leave because of this person, then it seems out in the open enough to suggest bringing in an impartial third party...Sometimes having a safe forum to air these kinds of concerns in a respectful manner can help with these sticky personal problems...and a trained mediator can help the different sides to communicate their concerns and come up with tangible solutions with out allowing emotions and tempers to take over.
As for Trans/lady's night--I decided it was time to start one in baltimore when I looked around one night and realized that I was the only woman in the shop. I also would observe women being talked down to and "helped" alittle too eagerly by some of our male volunteers. Since we started "lady's night" I've noticed the genders balancing off a good deal on regular nights. I think the best way to deal with backlash is to get testimonials from women who have been intimidated by or in regular shop, and to talk about who is coming to your shop now. Do you have an even amount of men/women volunteers? how many of the women identified people are mechanics? Have you seen situations personally where a woman was made to feel uncomfortable?
When we started lady's night we had acouple negative responses, but overall we had support. I suggest dealing with the dissenters without judgment or anger and giving strong reasons why it is important to have a exclusive night for women and genderqueer people.
here is one response i gave to a particularly nasty email reaction...maybe some of these arguments will be helpful... sorry this is so long-hope it is helpful -beth velocipede bike project.
-------------- Original message -------------- From: "Velocipede Bike Project" info@velocipedebikeproject.org
A- I'm sorry we have offended you, I hope I can explain why we at Velocipede, think this night is necessary.
Have you been to open shop, or one of our events lately? I don't remember your name, but we have been pretty busy lately, and I've gotten pretty bad with names. Anyway, the reason I ask, is because if you had been to a shop lately I was wondering if you noticed the demographics of the people at the shop.
I personally notice this regularly because I am often the only woman, or only one of two women during an open shop night. This is not incedental. Many women have expressed to me that they have felt overwhelmed or intimidated during open shop and left. Also, many women have expressed that they often find it hard to ask questions of men, or when they do ask feel patronized.
Of the few women that have begun to come regularly, a vast majority of them came in at first with a male friend or spouse and have told me that they were scared to come alone. This was what led us at Velocipede to decide that a woman's only night was important.
I undertand how it may seem counter intuitive that by occasionally excluding people we are actually being inclusive. However, there are subtle ways to make people feel excluded that happen every day and we seldom realize it is happening until we look around and see that only a specific group of poeple seem to be there. This is a way to change that trend, by making people feel safe in a realm that all too often has been male dominated. Women are often discouraged to be mechanical, and it is hard to understand how much courage it can take to get over that barrier.
As a woman who has spent alot of time in trades that are traditionally, and still very much male dominated, I could go on and on about this, but will leave you with this. The community groups that I am in contact with are very excited about this night, and so far, your response has been the only negative response I've heard. Gender, and gender roles, span many communties and reach into issues that are hard to talk about but are important to deal with.
I hope that I have helped you to understand our reasons why we feel it is so important to have these nights, and I hope that you will continue to help us in what ever way you choose, to make bicycles assessable to everyone.
Sincerely- Beth
Hello there back,
I don't know why you need a special night for anyone. Working and
riding a
bicycle is a pretty transcendent experience. Your announcement is
chockful
of the most expressively typical politically corrent sentiments. When
will
you have the special night for the gender un-queer individuals? Or the special night for the Albino Hermaphrodites? You may think this is an extreme example but I think it points out the idiocy in your statement. It's so fitting that your purpose is to make gender queer individuals "comfortable". Let's not let them be forced to mingle with anyone other than themselves. Let's coccoon them away for a night so they can feel comfortable. Afterall, riding a bike is such a straight, male, untransgenered sport. How they must suffer. You have reduced the care and nurturing of bicycles to fit a political, sexual agenda. At first, I thought the Velocipede Bike Project was a great community thing. You had my support. Now, I see that you're just more lame thought police f or the "disenfranchised." So when will you have a night for all the other minorities so they too can feel comfortable riding and caring for their bikes? You may envision that you're "embracing" and "supporting," but in fact you're being limited and trendy. I've said my say, and now I'll
leave
you alone to your ridiculously polite and ever-so-inclusive language. "Bike Night for Trans Women. ONLY". Gee, the only thing you didn't add
was
calling it a "Celebration".
Your small-minded thinking, in the guise of openness is sad.
A L Ex-Velocipede Supporter
-------------- Original message -------------- From: Velocipede Bike Project
Hello Veloci-lovers-
In order to empower women and gender queer individuals to feel comfortable learning about, working on and riding bicycles, and to generally raise the estrogen levels in the veloci-community, we will begin hosting a women and trans only shop night every other tuesday.
Our first woman/trans night will begin this tuesday, May 15th from 6-10pm and continue every other tuesday. check out our website calendar for the next shop nights, and for other special events!!!!!
Also, this monday night, may 14th form 7-9pm we will be holding the next in our series of clinics- Headsets-the steering system of the bicycle. We will go over the different kinds of headsets, talk some about choosing a headset when building a bike, learn to diagnose common problems you may encounter with your headset, and then we will disassemble and rebuild a headset.
Come steer your way to Velocipede where the fun never stops!!! (for directions hours and more info check out www.velocipedebikeproject.org)
Velocipede Bike Project 4 W Lanvale St, Baltimore http://velocipedebikeproject.org info@velocipedebikeproject.org
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Hi, Colin. Back Alley bikes in Detroit has had wonderful Women andTrans nights for over a year. The amazing B got the idea from the people at Plan B. She and C ran it.
It was great. The shop was so quiet. Everyone askedpolitely for tools and shared and helped, we usually had homemade food we'd made to feed each other, so it became a potluck. There were often babies (and no one shouted at the little ones), and usually a fantastic dog called Ruby. We played music and you could actually hear it. The whole energy of the shop was more gentle and mellow. For most women, it was our favorite night. Lots of women came out, so it was often just as busy as a usual night, but the shop seemed larger and cleaner and better organized on Women and Trans night. It was peaceful and fun.
A whole other crowd came out-- Detroit is a homophobicplace, and transgendered people have a tough time in this town. There are not many spaces respectful of them. It was such a fantastic thing to have happy, relaxed transgendered people just fixing their bikes.
Women who don't usually come to the shop came; other womenwho are usually nervous and quiet all of a sudden emerged as strong and raunchy and funny and really good at things. More older women came; one said that the regular shop nights had too much background noise for her to hear anything, as she is partly deaf.
Many women seemed to learn twice as fast as they usuallydo. B and C were the only two people who were really great mechanics. The rest of us know our own bikes pretty well, or else we know how to make some repairs and not others. We were pretty good at helping each other, and many of us felt confident to try to teach or assist for the first time on these nights, but B and C really, really worked hard.
It is too bad that one of your members is upset by Womenand Trans night.
There is a lot of terrible violence and injustice in thesociety as a whole, and a lot of women and particularly transgendered people have some real safety concerns and scars. Despite everyone's best efforts, our ordinary shop nights are NOT always safe or cool.
We have a collective member and a couple of regulars thathave to be spoken to with alarming regularity. Many of us can speak for ourselves, but there is only so much BS you really want to deal with on your off hours, and some people are a little fragile.
I nearly lost it one night when some f**kwad startedlecturing me about how to pump up my tires on a day when I was taking things slow because I'd had chemo that morning. He made some comment about not having to pump up my breasts but wanting to squeeze them, and I was just freaking done. Lucky for me other men in the shop are stellar human beings who hustled him out of there so fast his feet left the ground.
The exclusivity of Women and Trans night is a decent band-aid solution for now.
Maybe you could tell your upset person that if he wouldtake on the task of totally policing your regular shop hours and making the place feel really secure, and if he'd do the outreach in the local women's and transgendered communities to recruit female and transgendered mechanics, and if he could address the concerns of the conservative Muslim women who won't be given permission by their fathers and husbands to come to the shop if it is a mixed gender space-- good luck changing THAT one over night, buddy-- the special nights could be phased out.
In Detroit, no one has complained about the exculsivityof Women and Trans night. Every one who comes to the shop is cool with it.
We've had a different problem, though. We have onecollective member who has been really disrespectful of the authority that B and C demonstrate. He treats them really badly, some times even pretending that he does not hear their voices, or telling someone to stop working on something that either B or C asked them to do. On ordinary shop nights, there are little blow- ups that get hustled off into corners and smoothed down by other (male) collective members. B and C are the main women of Back Alley, and this guy does not do this to male collective members, but he does get pissy with them if they stick up for B and C.
All the shop regulars and volunteers have noticed this. Band C are sick of it, and may be leaving the shop for a while or permanently, until the people who are squeamish about directly addressing this man's behavior (he is one of the original collective members) are willing to do so. No one wants B and C to go, but the situation is pretty unbearable. What should everyone do about THAT situation?
The women and transgendered people who have created asafe and happy space for each other at our Women's only nights might lose that space because a disfunctional silverback has been allowed to run amuck. This man has lots of good points, and he is a founding member, but everyone is troubled by his conduct.
I love Women's night, but agree with your guy who isupset about it that there is something disappointing about it, too.
It would be great if the shop as a whole was so totallyfree of ugliness at all times that special arrangements did not have to be made.
It's hard to fix a bike wearing a chador, though, andso totally cool to have chador-wearing women becoming bike mechanics along side transgendered people that pretty much whatever you have to do to keep that happening should be done.
Incidentally, we do run kid's only programs, and no onegets upset.
We have mechanics classes that are closed to peoplewho just want to fix their own bikes and not take the class.
We are trying to figure out how to set up a sessionsfor the homeless men so they don't have to choose between fixing their bikes and a bed for the night.
Treating everyone in exactly the same way all thetime does not always lead to a just society. Seeing people's real lives and responding to their real needs gets you closer to a beloved community than a one-size-fits-all approach.
What do you all make of this one? -- There are somepeople who have floated the idea of having shop hours that would only be attended by black men. Some black male shop users have indicated that they would like to have a black male space once a month. Totally needed conversations and forms of community building might happen on those nights that would make our neighbourhood as a whole a better place to live, in the same way that those special women's conversations happen when we have the shop to ourselves. One man wanted it to be about fathers and sons.
A lot of the dads in this community are non-custodialparents who look for good things to do when they have their visitation rights, and if fewer numbers of people were in line to use the shop, the dads and their kids might have more quality bike repair time with each other, as opposed to sitting-outside-in-the- sun-waiting time, which isn't much fun. (There are ants.)
If those kids had a better time with their fathers,wouldn't that serve all of us, even if we had to wait a couple days to true our front wheels?
There isn't enough demand for this yet to make it real,and no one who has said they want it has come forward to agree to organize and lead it, but given where our shop is and who it serves, if people want such a night, if they see that it would serve a good community building, family strengthening, purpose, why shouldn't it go forward?
I'd be really, really uncomfortable with a whites-onlynight, but things like a Spanish language or Manderin and Cantonese shop night, or this black father-and-son thing, all seem fine to me.
What do other people think? Good luck to you with your Woman and Trans nights,Colin.
SashaOn Sat, 22 Mar 2008 10:52:48 -0400 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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