#Ladieslunchcon is - an open invite, completely informal, group of ladies, who lunch. All who identify as Ladies are warmly welcomed!
#LadiesLunchCon exists to create a comfortable environment for ladies to share -- free from 'cattiness' and 'cliques', both overlying traits of "horizontal hostility", a control that prevent us from unifying - as a tightly knitted peer group.
Once we address related traits embedded in our own subliminal attitudes, we are able to quickly identify and nix this behavior from existing in ourselves and others around us. As a result, our friendships with others become natural, and more abundant. In this sense, for the ladies of Information Security, #LadiesLunchcon is just the beginning.
#LadiesLunchCon was instigated at a NovaHackers meeting, when a group of NoVA Hackers ladies (Stacey Banks, and Dystonica) decided to get together for lunch
at this past derbycon. We then decided to make it open invite, tweet it out
(look for #ladieslunchcon) and to invite other lady attendees. From
the original group of 4, we ended up with a group of 13 amazing
ladies. Everyone had a good time, and one of the things that came out
of it was that the ladies who attended knew more people, had a better
time at the event, made friendships/business contacts have outlasted the event, and had conversations about everything
from science and tech to our pets, significant others, and personal
interests.
We did a second #ladieslunchcon at BsidesDC - with 10 attendees. Mimosas were consumed, conversations were had, friendships were made - we knew it was something worth keeping going. #ladieslunchcon did similarly well at @SkydogCon - with enough demand, that now we're bringing it as a recurring local NoVA event. :)
The known upcoming #ladieslunchcons are at Shmoocon (January 17-19, @dystonic, @staceybanks, ), BsidesLV (dates tbd), and Defcon (dates tbd).
I look forward to meeting all of you at the next #ladieslunchcon
Sarah Clarke @dystonic | sarah at dystoni.ca && Stacey Banks @staceybanks
