It was 100 degrees on the day that we arrived at Dykes with Drills HQ in suburban Walnut Creek. Undeterred, workshop participants scrambled all over a two story tiny house frame. Saws whinied. Hammers pounded. Laughter rang out from big kids playing in a sandbox that many people had told them wasn’t theirs.

Dykes with Drills is a national organization with local roots.
These expert womxn craftspeople are empowering everyone with
the tools to build—especially those who society may not exactly
have encouraged to pick up the circular saw or angle grinder. 

We Built This

Dykes with Drills got its start building a small skate ramp for a local park in San Francisco. Now they run everything from single day workshops to week long camps, teaching participants how to design and build anything from a chair to a tiny house.

The name choice was very intentional. Founder Julie Peri and her team are looking to not only reclaim the word “dyke”, but to bring people of all sexualities and genders together by teaching them how to use power tools to build communities of diversity and inclusion.

Anyone Can Build

During World War II, thousands of women took up wrenches and hammers in the bayside shipyards of Alameda and Richmond.
One, a 20-year-old named Naomi Parker, became the inspiration
for a symbol of shattering gender norms: Rosie the Riveter.

Like Naomi/Rosie, Dykes with Drills is debunking the idea that men are the only ones who should pick up tools. Over the course of this week-long workshop, womxn old and young and heard hammered away alongside one another, teaching each other that they can do it.