Tag Archives: Women in tech

On raising a girl strong enough to be called a dumb woman

It was a bit of a difficult weekend for me. I had fun and it wasn’t something on my mind the whole time, but there was some drama at work. The joy of my work being on the internet is that the whole world can see it. Over on lazygamer.net, I wrote a review of NBA 2K16. It’s a really great game when you get to experience the cool basketball action, but it’s also primarily locked behind online servers, so if the severs are down, the gameplay experience is seriously less than optimal. I wrote about the good and the bad in my review, the way I have for countless games, but the response I got was filled with quite a lot of vitriol. I’m used to this, and have come to expect it, but it affected me in a new way this time.

I often joke with the guys at work about being the only woman, about how my opinions are automatically seen as less valid because I have a vagina. The reality is that when people agree with me, they generally don’t even notice my gender. When they disagree, the easiest thing to do is blame the fact that I’m just an idiot woman who shouldn’t be writing game reviews. We laugh at the comments like that, and often joke about feeding off the hate. But now I’m bringing a little girl into the world, and even if she is the smartest person alive, she will be criticized for what she thinks because she’s a woman. Continue Reading

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A first kick and thinking forward

It still sort of boggles my mind that I’m growing a human. Considering that there long stretches when I don’t feel her move, or when I think that could just be my stomach rumbling, my mind often goes to dark places. I try not to let it, but I can’t help but worry if everything is still okay, if Harley is still doing her thing in there. In moments like that, I remind myself that there would be more obvious signs if something were wrong, and that thus far everything has been healthy and happy. Still, it’s sometimes terrifying to think that there is all this activity going on inside me and I can’t even tell what’s happening.

Yesterday, I decided to listen to music while I worked. I don’t normally listen to stuff because it distracts me from writing words and just gets in the way. When I do listen, I generally listen with my headset on because the sound quality is so good. However, yesterday I thought I’d share the music with Harley which meant that I felt her moving around a bit at least. It was reassuring and rather fun – thus far she seems to like rock and dance music. But this morning, even without music, something truly incredible happened. I felt Harley give me a first proper kick. Continue Reading

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