jennstrater

Let’s get started at the very beginning with some basic definitions and education to ensure we are all on the same page. Definition of Terms ‘Gender refers to the attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that a given culture associates with a person’s biological sex. Behavior that is compatible with cultural expectations is referred to as gender-normative; behaviors that are viewed as incompatible with these expectations constitute gender non-conformity.’ 1 ‘Gender identity refers to “one’s sense of oneself as male, female, or transgender”. When one’s gender identity and biological sex are not congruent, the individual may identify as transsexual or as another transgender category.’ 1 Diversity  “The concept of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect. It means understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences.  These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physi...

Over a year ago, I wrote an initial blog post in response to the criticisms of Gr8Ladies and other women in tech(WIT) organizations.  The issue continues to evolve and many individuals are still confused as to the intent and implementation of organizations like Gr8Ladies.  My hope is to clear up many of these misconceptions with this series of blog posts. Introduction When I entered this conversation on twitter , I got several replies that I shouldn’t waste my time responding.  However, this is an issue I’m very passionate about and something I hope I can help with.  Even if I don’t change the mind of this individual, perhaps, I can clarify something for one of the many other people who have asked me similar questions over the years.  It concerns me when people who have influence over hiring, conference organizing, and funding continue to hold these views when research continues to show the impact of increasing diversity (including gender diversity). ...

Friday, on   twitter , it became evident that some people may not understand the mission of   Gr8Ladies .   I don't mean to call out this particular individual,  but as he was not the first person to raise this question and I'm sure he won't be the last, I felt it was a good time to start talking about it.  To begin,   Gr8Ladies   is an open organization.  Anyone who supports women in the Gr8 ( Groovy ,   Grails ,   Gradle ,   Griffon , etc) community is welcome to attend events.  In fact, I will argue, we can't achieve our goals without men being part of the discussion. I started Gr8Ladies last year after a series of events.  When I met Gr8Ladies co-founder Allison at our local Groovy users group,   GroovyMN , last summer I’m pretty sure my first words were something to do with my relief that I found another woman at a user group who wasn’t a recruiter!  Before I moved to Minnesota (and switched to Groovy)...

I had an amazing opportunity to try out Google Glass at the   GirlsInTechMinneapolis  event at the Local in Downtown Minneapolis on August 1 st , 2013.  Unfortunately, I did not get to spend more than a few minutes with it as there were many individuals that attended (a great win for women in Tech though!)  me wearing Google glass If you haven’t heard of Google Glass before, it’s basically a computing device projected onto a clear glass lens that is positioned in front your eyes much like a regular pair of glasses.  The view appears as a semi-transparent picture in picture over your regular line of sight. The main applications seem to be oriented towards information retrieval such as accessing weather, social media feeds, and Google searches.  Physically, the device is fairly conspicuous.  It looks about the size of a regular pair of glasses.  Google Glass comes in an array of colors; this one was bright orange.  The major vis...