Emily Pilloton grew up in California, building treehouses in the woods with her sisters. At 16, on a service trip to Belize in Central America, she cut through weeds with a machete and poured concrete to construct a house. "I realized I could do something creative and technical while contributing to the world," she says.
After earning an MFA in architecture and design, she spent three years at various firms before giving up office life to become a high school shop teacher. An upsetting pattern appeared: "More often than not, the boys would talk louder and take up more space," says Pilloton. "I'd see the girls roll their eyes or look at each other, especially when something was being done incorrectly. Some tried to force their way in, but it's exhausting to always fight for airtime. Even in my classroom, gendered ideas about the labor girls could or couldn't do still existed and I got sick of it."
In 2010, Pilloton started guiding girls, only groups. "I pulled them aside during the class so we could focus on one thing: creating awesome architecture," she says. Three years later, she started Girls Garage. The nonprofit's mission: to teach 9-to-17-year-olds how to use carpentry tools, weld steel, draft blueprints and reenter the outside world with more confidence. After-school and weekend programs followed, and in 2016, Girls Garage moved into a 3,600-square-foot work space in Berkeley. The organization's motto "FEAR LESS. BUILD MORE." is printed on a blue wall. There, young girls build community-improving projects like a picnic table for a women's shelter and sandboxes for preschools.
But for these girls, shoptalk isn't all carpentry and welding tips. Within the garage walls and among an all-female instructional staff, students share whatever's on their mind. Pilloton's students aren't shy about their issues and ambitions, because the space is theirs alone. "It was designed by and for girls," she says. "Here, they're never talked down to and they always get to be their biggest selves."
