Let us have a little chat about the person who accused @brysonbort of gaming RSA talk submissions by submitting a talk with me by "playing the diversity card" to get accepted. And all the people thinking it and simmering.
Thank you kindly for completely devaluing my expertise in my field, which I have worked in daily for over a decade and a half, served as a senior NCO in the military doing, teach, and speak on globally. Whether you consciously intended it or not, you implied I am a diversity token and not an expert in cybersecurity incident response.
It's actually good to purposefully share the stage with underrepresented voices in technology, because we still routinely have entire tech conferences that are 100% white and male speakers because of bad CFP boards and management. That was RSA keynotes, within my professional lifetime. It cost me and my colleagues a lot of goodwill calling them out at the time.
When I am "handed" a speaking slot explicitly because I am not a straight white man, it's usually on a droll topic I am totally unqualified to speak on, like "TeLL uS abOUT beINg a WomAN in TEch" that also devalues my expertise. Side note - this has turned out to be a huge red flag. Often done by people who go on to do Bad Stuff to women.
You, yes you are a prime reason women and nonbinary people don't want to submit to conferences.
