Intersectionality – swordBeatsPaper

Intersectional Gender Equity in Tech: My vGHC 2020 Experience

October 19, 2020October 24, 2020paperbackdragon

This year, the Grace Hopper Celebration was virtual. Apart from interactive workshops, all sessions were pre-recorded and available to watch for many days after airing. There were keynotes with great advocates for women such as the soccer player Megan Rapinoe and great women in tech such as Lisa Su of AMD, networking sessions where they used Zoom to put you in random virtual breakout rooms for 10 minutes at a time–a feature that I think would be cool to have in Teams if it doesn’t exist already–and if you woke up early enough, yoga or a meditation in the morning …

Difficulties of Being a Woman in Tech

September 30, 2020October 19, 2020paperbackdragon

I’ve been lucky enough to have Microsoft pay for me to go to the virtual Grace Hopper Celebration this week. It’s been largely inspiring and rejuvenating, but at times has been tiring and frustrating.

I got into a funk today after an encounter that was sort of like a microcosm of the tech industry. I was in a networking session for the LGBT+ community, hosted on Zoom, where the session organizers put everyone into random virtual breakout rooms for 10 minutes or so at a time to get to know people more personally. It was sponsored by Discover, so they …

Pride Month Sharing

June 18, 2020October 19, 2020paperbackdragon

This month I agreed to share about my own journey in the LGBT community I’m a part of at work, and thought it’d be worth sharing the same post more widely. ❤️

My name is Heather and my pronouns are she/her. I’m bisexual, having come out “fully” only a couple of years ago. When I was about 7 years old, soon after my parents divorced, my father came out as trans, and bi, and transitioned to being a woman: Paige. I’ve always been close with her, so the LGBT community has been close to my heart for nearly my whole …