There's a particular kind of experience that happens when you walk into a room and realize you're the only one who looks like you. Sometimes it's subtle — a slight pause, a double-take, a comment that was probably meant to be a compliment. Sometimes it's less subtle. I've learned to read rooms fast.
I started collecting conference badges the same way I started collecting those moments — not out of bitterness, but out of a strange, fierce kind of love for the space I was carving out anyway. Each sticker on my laptop is a room I entered, a conversation I had, a version of myself I tested in public. Some of those moments were hard. Some were extraordinary. Most were both.
The thing about being a woman in tech is that the systems weren't built for you, but the problems still need you. And that gap — between the structure that wasn't designed with you in mind, and the work that absolutely needs your perspective — that's where a lot of the most interesting things happen. If you're willing to stand in that gap without shrinking.
What I've learned from years of mentoring other women navigating this space is that the most important thing isn't to find a room that welcomes you. It's to build the capacity to walk into any room and not lose yourself in it. That's different from confidence. It's closer to rootedness.
The unicorn metaphor is complicated. Rare can be a gift. It can also be exhausting. But I've stopped trying to reconcile it and started just being both things at once — the magical creature and the person who's just trying to do good work and get home in time for dinner. Both are true. Both belong here.
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I write about play, leadership, Women in Tech, and building things that matter. More posts below — or reach out if you want to talk.