Meet Lori Eberly
How did you learn about PDXWIT and what keeps you coming back?
I can’t remember not knowing about the PDXWIT community. What keeps me coming back for more is the ongoing commitment to create trust and belonging for underrepresented folx in an industry steeped in white dominance.
Can you give us some background on your career in tech? Did you intend this career path?
I came to tech by way of a career in healthcare. I went from hospice social worker to coaching physicists and engineers. I won’t lie — it was a startling transition. I’ve come to love the pace and creativity of research and development and working with bright, curious problem solvers.
What’s the scariest, most overwhelming thing about your new project (this has to be deeply frightening. The thing that keeps you awake at night.)?
When I came forward in 2018 about the sexual harassment and assault I experienced at a company here in the Portland area, my courage was forged by the dozens of employees who shared personal stories with me. While the CEO resigned soon after amid vague misconduct allegations, the company has never acknowledged or apologized for the systemic abuse that has proliferated their leadership suite for decades, gaslighting survivors and dodging accountability. Their cover up and cowardice continues as I bear witness to additional institutional trauma — this injustice must be exposed.
PDXWIT has demonstrated that tech employees are no strangers to sexual harassment and other forms of oppression. However, white cis women have too often co-opted #metoo narratives and centered ourselves in the fight for equity at work. The same racism, sexism and fuckery that threaten belonging in the tech sector also sabotage the trust and unified purpose needed to call out abuse of power.
What keeps me up at night? What compels me to the research and projects of 2021? These questions:
How do I, as a white woman with heaps of privilege, power, and protection, build trust with marginalized folx in tech so that our collective stories rattle the cages of those that seek to silence us?
How might the PDXWIT community transform personal rage into orchestrated fury?
What is the relationship between anti-Blackness and the likelihood of sexual harassment in a company?
How might the actions I took to dethrone a sexual predator help others in tech to do the same — and how much of that success was rooted in my own white privilege?
Who will be my partners and co-conspirators to build Institutional Courage?
Turns out that tying up loose ends, facing what terrifies me, and my call to action are one in the same for 2021.