‘Women in bonsai’
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bwaynef
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It can't be denied that one of the regulars on the Little Things podcast is a founding member of https://www.purplepotsociety.org/, the creation of which lies in the following sentence found in the "Our Story" section of the homepage: "Realizing that they both wanted to work towards gender equity in the art of bonsai, the Purple Pot Society was born." The topic of gender doesn't feature often, but its brought up each episode with a quick reference back to the PPS. Her contribution to the show involves much that has little to do with gender, however.
As far as women in bonsai, my study group has significantly more men than women. I haven't gone out of my way to entice women to join ...but that might be creepy if I did. I'm satisfied with their participation when it happens. I do try to make sure new females don't unnecessarily draw attention from anyone. We used to have a particularly chatty guy. Reached out to one woman who stopped attending after hearing one of the podcasts that did feature the gender inequity as a topic (think it was bonsaiwire*, with Carmen ...who's also the regular host mentioned above on little things) just to make sure she didn't stop coming because of undue attention or any unwelcomeness she felt. Her family situation changed during the pandemic which reprioritized things in a way that she couldn't attend meetings with the same regularity.
I'm of the opinion that women are welcome if they're drawn to the art.
ps. Once at a Silhouette show in Kannapolis I commented to a woman who was sketching the trees. Something along the lines of if I could draw like that, I probably wouldn't do anything else. My commentary to her wasn't received well as she made it clear she wasn't interested in even a syllable of conversation with me. I quickly gave her space. Maybe she'd already been made to feel uncomfortable? I would wonder now if I'm a reason she isn't involved in bonsai except that I saw her at subsequent shows.
I see "Gender Disparity in America - Part 1" on bonsaiwire March 8, 2022. We can have this conversation, while acknowledging it is an agenda (as listed on the PPS site's "Our story" section and their about page) of some folks. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
As far as women in bonsai, my study group has significantly more men than women. I haven't gone out of my way to entice women to join ...but that might be creepy if I did. I'm satisfied with their participation when it happens. I do try to make sure new females don't unnecessarily draw attention from anyone. We used to have a particularly chatty guy. Reached out to one woman who stopped attending after hearing one of the podcasts that did feature the gender inequity as a topic (think it was bonsaiwire*, with Carmen ...who's also the regular host mentioned above on little things) just to make sure she didn't stop coming because of undue attention or any unwelcomeness she felt. Her family situation changed during the pandemic which reprioritized things in a way that she couldn't attend meetings with the same regularity.
I'm of the opinion that women are welcome if they're drawn to the art.
ps. Once at a Silhouette show in Kannapolis I commented to a woman who was sketching the trees. Something along the lines of if I could draw like that, I probably wouldn't do anything else. My commentary to her wasn't received well as she made it clear she wasn't interested in even a syllable of conversation with me. I quickly gave her space. Maybe she'd already been made to feel uncomfortable? I would wonder now if I'm a reason she isn't involved in bonsai except that I saw her at subsequent shows.
I see "Gender Disparity in America - Part 1" on bonsaiwire March 8, 2022. We can have this conversation, while acknowledging it is an agenda (as listed on the PPS site's "Our story" section and their about page) of some folks. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
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