It’s the 21st century and the struggle is still real
Badge In Here is a multi-voice workplace drama, a lightly comic tale that follows a group of ambitious women who bet on female solidarity to win the fight against sexism in the tech industry.
It begins with Mirabelle. She identifies as an optimistic young tech professional—with all the promise that the label entails. There’s only one issue: she’s a woman in the massive boys’ club known as Silicon Valley. Things start to look up when she befriends a small group of tech women at the FastStart conference: Brynn, an engineering star. Rikki, a seasoned product exec. Jenna, her anti-tech best friend. They form an alliance around their admiration for badass feminist CEO Gretchen Forte.
Inspired, they develop new strategies for women to get promoted. They counter the indignities that the tech bros throw their way when a woman dares to push an idea forward, or have a child, or age. But every victory leads to another obstacle, and when Gretchen herself abandons her followers at their most vulnerable moment, Mirabelle is forced to question her future in an industry that she still wants to love.
“Think LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY, set fifty years later in the tech industry. Has anything really changed? BADGE IN HERE is the hopeful, heartbreaking answer.”
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![an ID badge showing a woman product designer]()
Mirabelle is a 26-year-old product designer, vying for a seat at the FastStart keynote. The speaker is CEO of the Silicon Valley company where Mirabelle aspires to build the product of her dreams. When she learns that her application has been rejected she rallies to find another Valley job, determined to transform her woman-centered concept into something real.
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![an ID badge showing a woman engineer]()
Brynn is a mid-30s Latina engineer, at FastStart to talk about the technology that was announced at the keynote. But that tech contains just a fraction of the functionality that she’s invented with her team. She decides to risk an unauthorized demo to get the attention she deserves and breach the inner circle that surrounds the CEO.
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![an ID badge showing a woman product manager]()
Rikki is a middle-aged product management executive, sent to FastStart by her brash new boss to recruit employees for their startup. She almost has a young woman signed up - when Rikki remembers that her boss is also a sexist tech bro and backs off the recruit. It’s vital that her legacy reflect the feminist values that she and her wife hold dear.
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![an ID badge showing a woman visual designer]()
Jenna is an artist. She only works in tech to pay her rent. And she’s only at FastStart because her bestie, Mirabelle, said it would be fun. It’s pretty cringe, though. Even worse, Jenna is blocked on how to depict the monster at the heart of her graphic novel, and it feels like her future is on hold until her creation is complete.
IT BEGINS AT A TECH CONFERENCE
“Mirabelle feels the sharp dig of an elbow in her back, one second before she slams into the person in front of her. Bodies ricochet off each other as they struggle to move forward. Mirabelle raises her arm, like a shield, and leans to the left. She’s up against a snarl of dogged fanboys, desperate to get into the auditorium before the keynote begins. Everyone knows that the keynote is where the excitement happens at a tech conference. Especially if the speaker is CEO of Volte, the Silicon Valley company that makes the most interesting products in the world.”