Where Are The Ladies Of Ham Radio?!

These are waters I do not swim in on this blog. But there was an international news story today that got under my skin. A despicable example of gender apartheid where women (girls) are being systemically denied access to any formal education whatsoever.

Coincidentally, amateur radio’s national association sends out this month’s issue of its flagship magazine with a nod to its volunteer leadership. Twenty-two men and one prominently displayed woman adorn the cover.

Juxtaposing these two pieces of media, while entirely unrelated, causes my mind to shout: Where the hell are all the women ham radio operators?

I warn you not to conflate your experiences with my experiences in life. If you sympathize and/or empathize with me, great. If this is simply not congruent with your lived experience, fine, but don’t disregard or belittle mine just because your experiences have been different. Here goes. The amount of obstacles I have faced along my life path due simply to the fact that I am a woman have been negligible. Pretty much nonexistent. Oh sure maybe there has been this thing, or that comment, or the time when… Or maybe you will go ahead and list all of my perceived privileges to explain why I have been so lucky to not have been oppressed. Perhaps even you’ll create a story of my reputed internalized misogyny to explain why I am not complaining about enduring gender bias. But my truth is, I have navigated life to my own satisfaction and standards without any binding social anchors such as sexism holding me down. And I have had many supportive people — both women and men — walk with me at times on this journey. In kind, I have turned around and been that support to even more fellow humans of all identities.

But I am not so stupid as to believe that if I had been born in different circumstances (and most importantly to this discussion, in a different country) that my life path would have been the same. Gender apartheid. Let that swirl around your lips for a bit as it sinks in.

I want the women out there to remember one other thing. You have fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, nephews, and a myriad of other men in your life that are on your team. They want you to, and believe that you can, succeed. Of course you will run in to the naysayer, the jerk, the ignorant, maybe even the pure, straight up, women-hater. Or you will stumble across quips and barbs that have the net summation of their “micro” aggression messaging that says “You can’t do [insert thing here] because you are a girl.” Perhaps you will get the sensation someone is betting against you behind your back for the same reason. But let me be clear with you. None of it — none of it — matters. If something is humanly possible to do, then you, woman or man, can do it. And in life the more successful you are, the more supporters and haters you will have regardless of what gender you are. There will be people you encounter that want you to fail — they are nothing more than the normal background milieu in the game of life. Don’t take a big blanket and throw it over men as if they are all the same, or that they are against you simply because you are a woman. The large vast majority of people in this world do not care enough about you to be anything but neutral regarding your choices in life. Most of the people that do care about you will be supportive. And then a few won’t be. Don’t focus on the small number of detractors just because their voices get amplified in your head. We tend to hear our critics the loudest. Extract value from their criticism if it exists, otherwise dismiss them.

And what does any of this have to do with ham radio? Really two things: 1) radio is the ultimate tool for freedom of communication, and 2) I have never been part of anything (hobby or otherwise) that had so few women participants. In my mind, this means that women are missing out on a huge chance to secure their personal freedom to communicate. Don’t blame the guys for this…it’s on you ladies!

Lets talk about radio and freedom for a moment. There is a reason that the founders of United States put freedom of speech first. We are at a strange time in history where big businesses now decide what words are appropriate on the public square. These companies are granted the latitude to suppress our voices in a way our government cannot. And they use questionably ethical technology to accomplish this. But take away the internet, and its virtual assembly room, and where are our modern day soap boxes? Can anyone hear the thoughts of the women who were newly denied any and all education today? Do they get a chance to publicly assemble and share their perspective? Or will their tribulations be neatly buried under a veneer of “outta sight, outta mind”? That, my dear YLs (“young ladies” in old-timey radio parlance), is the reason for the constitutional protection of free speech. So that the dropping tears of oppression can be heard far and wide.

Radio, unlike the internet, is not so easy to control. I am sure there are military grade ways to target and suppress RF and that I have no idea the extent of that power. But that’s me in the picture above, talking by Morse code with 6 watts, to Canada from the top of Mt. Norwottuck last weekend. I could reduce that power even further and send out digital messages on WSJT-X type protocols such as JS8Call or FT8 itself. Tiny puffs of RF distributing my message around the world. Internalize this next part because I do not think people really understand this: I am an 100% complete radio station. There is no infrastructure — no cell phone tower, no internet, no repeater, NOTHING — between me and the person receiving my signal. Me, a radio, a battery, a coax cable, and a wire a few dozen feet long. My CW (morse code) keyer is strapped around my right thigh. Absolutely nothing else stands between me and getting my message out. Or receiving the response. Well, except a few things: my own personal knowledge of and ability to utilize a radio. Ignorance — one’s own ignorance of radio technology — certainly could be silencing.

Let’s get back to the ladies. If you believe the hype, we are in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution. One where technology is expected to disrupt life as we know it. Now, I am a believer of basic homeostasis, otherwise the tendency toward stability, so think some of the human-machine hybridization fantasies are a load of drug-fueled horse manure. But I am keeping a watchful eye on technology’s progression. And here is what I see loud and clear: women are not a well-represented part of this movement. As someone who was coding in Basic on a TI-99 as a grade-schooler back in the 80s, I fail to see how we have ended up here. How has tech become so male-dominated? And no ladies, I do not want to hear that you were kept out of it because of the boys. We are ready consumers of technology products, but we are not creating it. At least not my circle of women, mostly middle-aged, and confident in their decry “I am just not technical.” I think it is time for us to “get technical.” And, ham radio is actually a brilliant way to start.

Let’s turn in a different direction for a moment. Here are some members of the Boston Amateur Radio Club at the beginning of our new venture with the Artisan’s Asylum makerspace in Boston (Allston), Massachusetts. In the foreground, you can see a painter pole holding up the balun of a 40M OCF antenna. We were doing a quick test to see what kind of reception we had inside the warehouse building.

And this is our new space. A small little 50 square foot cubicle that will be our club’s landing pad in this sea of fabrication possibilities. The headlining picture of this post is the entryway into this building. The purpose of the Artisan’s Asylum is to make creation with modern tools accessible to everyone. It is a new urban way forward based on the ethos of diy. And it is a path forward for amateur radio into the next quarter of the 21st century. It is a place for the masses to learn amateur radio.

Ladies, don’t be strangers. There is a spot in ham radio–and in technology–for you. We really cannot afford to be left out of the conversation. And the sole keepers of technology cannot only be inexperienced teenagers and twenty-somethings who have a lot of living they need to do to before they catch up with us. Our voices, experiences, knowledge, and wisdom need to be encoded into tomorrow’s solutions as well. All of our collective voices–young, old, male, female–need to be heard. So, women (both future and present) of ham radio, come join us on this magical journey. You are much welcomed and encouraged to be a part of it. Take the bull by the horns in ensuring your freedom to communicate is never quashed.

Always,

KM1NDY