Ally and Warrior: The Loneliness of Women in Tech with Kellyn Gorman (3/3)

Why do you think women leave careers in technology? Sometimes they are bullied, but sometimes it’s the loneliness.

This week in episode 322, Kellyn Gorman shares the story of what moved her to start Women in Tech programs in the technical community, the lessons she learned from the Microsoft community, and what it was like returning to the Oracle community after an absence. You’ll hear about diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and some of the benefits and drawbacks they can create based on the experience of Kellyn and her husband.

Even advocates and community warriors need support from others and time to recharge. Kellyn shares how she is able to achieve both to continue supporting the community she loves.

Listen closely to learn how can you foster a more inclusive community for women in tech.

Original Recording Date: 02-21-2025

Kellyn Gorman is a database professional who has worked in the technology space for 25 years better known as DBAKevlar. If you missed parts 1 and 2 of our discussion with Kellyn, check out Episode 320 and Episode 321.

Topics – A Lonely Place in Tech, Returning to the Oracle Community, Encouraging the Contributions of Women in Tech, The Backlash of DEI, Being the Messenger and Getting Support

3:31 – A Lonely Place in Tech

• Did Kellyn’s initial struggles with public speaking and the challenges recalling her presentation topics have something to do with a lack of women attendees at the events, or was it just due to the large social setting in general?
  • “Being a woman in tech, especially a data infra specialist like I am…I’m not on the analytics side. I’m very large database. It’s a very lonely place.” – Kellyn Gorman
  • In 2011, someone Kellyn hired a woman she had previously worked with to come work with her again.
    • “I didn’t realize. We communicated differently between each other, and we had a great interaction. It was so nice to have someone else there that I could go to lunch with, that I didn’t have to worry about…. It sounds sad. I don’t want that. I want to feel the same way about guys that I work with. I love the guys. But it was different…. She was pretty much bullied out of the job, and I was angry…. This is the last woman that leaves. I had looked into the history and of the 8 women I worked with in my career, at that point 5 of them had left tech. I scheduled lunches with them, sat down and talked with them, and found out they had all left for all the same reasons when you got down to it. They had all left because of the sheer loneliness, the isolation, the lack of collaboration…and sometimes bullying. And it was just really sad. And I didn’t realize that I was often bullied, that I was often isolated and everything else. And I said, ‘we’ve got to fix this.’ So, I started doing Women in Tech programs within the Oracle community.” – Kellyn Gorman
    • Kellyn started the Women in Tech organizations for Kscope (an Oracle Developer and Technology conference) in Europe many years ago.
  • By the time Kellyn left, the women attending RMOUG went up to 22% from the former 7% because of these programs, and there were more women getting into the Oracle ACE program.
    • Kellyn would bring in different sponsors to promote women in tech. She would also get allies and other Oracle ACEs to personally promote specific women in the community and people of color.
    • “I took this stuff on head on. They’d come back and go, ‘she’s not technical.’ The women I’m talking about