Dopp Juice Archive

Over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself in a series of (mostly unrelated) events that all drilled into this same themes from different angles:  Women. Technology. Sexism. Sexual tension. Sexuality. Sexual privilege. Sexualization. Sexual harassment. Feminism. Power. Reaction. Anger.

The tech industry is a male-dominated field, and it doesn’t have a lot of social infrastructure in place for dealing with its sexual transgressions.  To add insult to injury, we’re stuck with woefully inadequate language to describe what’s happening in general terms.  The phrase “women in the tech industry” doesn’t refer to a unified group of people with common opinions and experiences.  Instead it describes a scattering of individuals who are, far too often, trying to get a job done as the only woman in a room.  They face sex-related challenges in professional situations on their own, and they’ve found their own ways of walking through them.

As a young woman in the tech industry who’s still just trying to figure out the rules to the game, I have to admit I’m a little pissed off about how much in-fighting, criticism, and judgment I see women dishing out to each other on the subject of sexism, sexual harassment, and other concepts that start with sex.  Forgive me for sounding naive and idealistic here, but it seems like our energy would be better spent respecting the differences of our individual paths over such a rocky terrain, and throwing each other a rope when needed.

As a gender-bending queer, I’ve always felt like mainstream representations of “women’s issues” included a lot of things I didn’t identify with, relate to, or experience in my daily life.  On the same token, I fight my own unique list of social battles that many “mainstream women” (which is a bullshit notion in itself) don’t have to deal with.  Our paths are different.

Except when they’re not.

Every single person on this planet can look at any large group of people and say, with plenty of evidence, “I’m one of them.”  That same person, looking at the same group of people, can also say with just as much truth and proof, “They’re not like me.”

And when we’re talking about sex -ism/-uality/-ualization/-ual harassment, what we’re talking about is a big fat knot that has no right answers, and we all have to find our own paths through it.

I’d like to walk through it with the support, thoughts, ideas, respect, and understanding of the women around me.

(p.s. Just dawned on me: stuff about sexual harassment in the tech industry is usually about office politics.  I’d just like to say that I work with the best, most respectful team on earth, and that area in my life is just fine.)

It’s Father’s Day. Again. This happens every year, and my dad’s been dead for the last ten of them. The holiday always sneaks up on me and forces me into a dilemma. Do I want to…

a) Focus on my father, grieve his death, honor the impact he had on my life, cry, throw things, resent him, laugh, smile, pray — whatever my relationship with him is asking of me right now, or

b) Pretend the holiday’s not happening. Work, sleep, hang out with people who could also care less about the holiday, go about business as usual, or

c) Focus on my other fathers. My step-father, my grandfathers, my uncles, and all of the masculine mentors who have carried and guided me, even when I believed I was dadless?

I lie, though — it’s not really a dilemma. I’m going to do all of the above. I always do.

In a moment of introspection or self-pity, I’ll collapse into the fetal position, hug my knees, and remember what it was like to have a living father, and what a privilege it was to be able to argue with him incessantly and blame him for everything. What a gift it was to walk through his five-year illness as an adolescent. How much I value the way those years stripped away so many illusions and forced me to face so many fears. How much I miss him sometimes. How much I wish I could know what would have changed as both of us continued to grow up. (And has it really been ten years?!)

But I won’t stay there long. I’ll have work to do. A big project is launching (I’ll tell you about it on Monday), and I’ll be up all night making sure it survives. I’ve got an acupuncture appointment. A body to revive and a brain to rest. I’ve got blogging to do, for chrissake. Twittering. Phone calls. I don’t have time for Father’s Day, thankyouverymuch.

But I’ll call my step-father — a strong, quiet man who brought stability into my life without placing any demands, expectations, or judgments on me. A man who’s so consistent and sane that I often forget to be grateful for him. A man who healed a huge part of my life just by showing up. I’ll find the words to thank him for that. Somehow. Hopefully. It’s a hard task. If not this year, then next year.

And my dad’s father. The grandfather who put his hand on my shoulder at my dad’s funeral and said, “I want you to know that I’ll be your father now. Anything you need, you just ask. I’m here.” And he’s kept his word. I won’t even start to tell you how present he’s been for me, and how much we’ve both fought through our own prejudices (him being a staunch conservative and me being a wild liberal) to love each other, because I’ll start crying.

Too late.

Then there’s my dad’s younger brother. The uncle who has stepped up to be just as much a father to me as anyone else. The confidence, the pep talks, the advice, the rib-cracking hugs, the jokes, the morning pancakes, the unquestioned aero-bed to crash on. When I say “I’m going home for Christmas,” I usually mean I’m going to his house. That’s just become how it is.

There’s more. I have a lot of uncles, and one of them is reading this blog (Hi Roger!). And grandfathers — for the longest time I had three of them, and I just lost the first one last year. The tall strong deaf carpenter who spoke with his hands and his smile. We didn’t know each other the way I get to know most people, but he gave me piggyback rides long after I grew into my 5’10” body, and he caught dinner for me in his lake.

And all the men I’ve worked under, who held up a mirror to me, told me I was strong, and challenged me to hold my ground. Aaron. Stephen. Dax. Terry. Hugh. Wayne. Daniel. Patrick. David. Alain. Dave. Chris. Mark. Thank you.

There’s more. There’s a lot more. There are some very special ones that I don’t even want to allude to here because I’m still afraid to admit how much I’ve needed them. Maybe I’ll find a way to thank them secretly. Somehow. Hopefully.

Maybe next year.

“Artist” was my first identity on the web. From 1998 – 2003, I scribbled poetry incessantly and read my work at open mics and poetry slams whenever I had the chance. I was honored with a handful of feature performance gigs and a place on the 2003 NH poetry slam team. I’ve been the Editor-in-Chief of two different literary magazines, and heavily involved in local writer communities. I learned to build websites so I could share my poetry, tell my stories, and visually express myself. I’ve built a lot of websites for poetry. Most of them are gone now. One is still fighting to stay alive.

Also in 2003, I made the decision to become self-employed as a website developer. This changed my relationship to the Internet pretty dramatically. My identity became “Consultant” and my work became my art. I set poetry aside, stopped performing, and threw myself into the tech industry. It was exciting and satisfying in a different way. I still love it.

And now the art is back. And it turns out, it never really left — it just went quiet for awhile. My dirty, dirty secret is that I’ve been writing new stuff and performing it at microphones for the last year and a half, and not telling people about it. I was trying to keep my web presence simple.

But the problem with art is that it doesn’t like to stay quiet. It creates community, encourages conversation, and finds ways to grow. It’s challenging and evocative and compelling. It evolves in a direction that forces disclosure.

So this is me coming out of yet another closet (heh…): I’m a poet.

I write about my life. Like this blog and my twitter stream, I spend a lot of time telling my own story. My story is messy and beautiful. It’s full of joy and fear, crisis and heartache, identity and adventure, sex and relationships, family and spirituality, and lots of different kinds of exploration. Most of the stuff I write is so deeply personal that I have a responsibility to keep it away from Google’s prying eyes. But there are other ways to share.

And like my “Queer” post, this isn’t meant to be a surprise. I expect that you already know I float toward written art like a moth under a streetlight. But I need to make a statement of intention: This is who I am, and I’m walking in a direction that honors me.

On that note, I invite you to check out my new page, which I’ve linked to from my blog header. It’s called My Art.

Hope to see you from the microphone soon…

credit: photo by emchy, who also provided the microphone.