working women |

In an industry and town which is so heavily male, in an industry where the TV show about it features an all male cast with the exception of a secretary, one has to wonder if she’s making a huge mistake by not Joan Holloway-the-second-ing it up. Sure, it’s 2014, but in many respects, the world I live in is Mad Men 2.0. I try not to think about gender as part of my day-to-day work, because the good lawd knows I’m not exactly BFFs with most women (I tend to get along better with men anyway), but ignoring the fact that I’m often the only woman in the room would be a disservice to my own take on impostor syndrome.

A good friend of mine recently joked that I should use my sex appeal to get ahead, in so many words. Not that he was suggesting I have sex appeal, more that it seems to be working for some women here. He pointed to the perky Amanda Rosenberg, 26, fresh-faced and bushy tailed and literally Googley Eyed (she works in marketing for Google Glass), who has stolen the heart or at least the genitals of one Sergey Brin, much to the delight of the Silicon Valley gossip rags. Continue reading Let’s Get Real: Sex & Power in Silicon Valley →

Penelope Trunk isn’t afraid to say what she thinks, or maybe — a self-proclaimed aspie – she can’t help herself. While a lot of what she writes is quite controversial (often, seemingly, for the sake of being controversial and getting site traffic), sometimes she raises a good point. If there’s honesty in her crazy then at least I can respect that, and her bravery for being public about it and not letting that hold her back as an entrepreneur. So she says.

In a still-relevant post from 2012 she writes “Get Pregnant at 25 if You Still Want a High-Powered Career” — she argues that women still want to work part-time or flexible hours while they have kids (esp young kids) and if they wait until they are 30 to have children (like I have) then this also comes at the time in one’s career when the top-level jobs often require frequent travel, long hours, and anything but the time any good parent would or should want with their children. Continue reading Distressed Babies, Penelope Trunk, and Being a Woman in Business →