Sorry but you seem to be saying it’s unrealistic without qualifying why.
Stefano, that statement isn’t fair, no one said the opinion of white men isn’t important, quite the opposite in fact, however you have to understand that you are in a position of privilege and in the majority and that other people have different perspectives (for want of a better word).
It is fantastic that a lot of the people here feel this place is working for them, however it isn’t working as well as it could be for everyone and those people need the rest of the community to have a think about how we can make it more comfortable for them.
This is where you and any other member who feels its working for them can pause how they feel for a moment and try to think about how others might feel to think about how our behaviours and processes make them feel, to listen to our minority members, to read up about the issues of minorities in maker culture and society in general, and to think about how each of our behaviours can be modified, or how the process could be altered to make more people feel welcome.
The issue here isn’t saying those that are comfortable here are not important, but about asking what about the other people?
You’ve stated English as a second language is a barrier to your engagement in the space, and unfortunately that is very difficult to get around in an English speaking country, but and a lot of the baggage people bring with them is often difficult to fix but we can be accommodating to them, and I hope you’ve found that if you ask what something means that members are kind enough to explain without making you feel stupid, and that people don’t make you feel uncomfortable when you speak your native language to someone else.
However if you take a less obvious difference, and realise how not being able to speak your native language can make you feel, perhaps frustrated or unable to express what you mean, perhaps making it difficult to keep up with conversations, imagine that instead that was your age, or ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, and that you brought issues specific to those perspective, but people didn’t know how to accommodate your differences or simply were unaware.
The point is there are some obvious things wrong in our community which I think we can change if we accept how it makes others feel and mutually police each other in a safe way, however there are many less obvious things because we just take it for granted.
This is what I am trying to explain is that while you’ve overcome your language barrier and made a home in the space, there are other people who come along with issues that affect them in more serious ways that might stop them joining.
It’s very difficult to understand because everyone is different, we’ve got female members who are quite happy in the space, so what’s different between them and the 30% of female members missing? Everyone is an individual and while you can categorise / label people into broad groups you can’t say that because one female member feels okay all female members do, you have to take the perspectives of those members that left or never joined or aren’t active and thats pretty hard to do, so instead you have to rely on research.
I’m gonna stop here because this is already another Tommel Epic, and I am sorry I am not good at explaining things which probably doesn’t help that English is a 2nd language for you.
