[snipeyhead]

I am not an expert on diversity. If I was an expert on women in tech, or diversity in general (although I care deeply about it and would have been willing to put together something great for that), it wouldn't have been weird for them to ask me to speak about it at their conference.

That's sort of the point of the article. I am an expert on many things - women in tech isn't one of them (other than the fact that I have been one for a long time). But there mere fact that I'm female seemed to dictate to them that I would want to and would be qualified to speak about it.

[trhway]

>I am an expert on many things - women in tech isn't one of them (other than the fact that I have been one for a long time).

multi-year experience with something frequently makes an expert or at least gives others a good reason to suspect so. Have you never stated how many years you do PHP/MySql/whatever in order to communicate your experience level?

[dragonwriter]

Assuming the experience being a woman in tech gives you particular expertise relating to the situation of women in tech is, pretty much, the same thing as assuming that because you knew one black person for many years, you are an expert on black people -- it relies on a "what's true for one member of the class is true for all members of the class" stereotyping.