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The Philanthropy of Living Fully — Aishwarya Khanduja

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If you know me, you know my twitter name used to be Dolly Parton Stan. Dolly is a big part of why I’ve always wanted to be completely myself in the Very Serious worlds of science, technology, and philanthropy. She is proof that you can be glamorous and intellectually formidable, “unserious” in presentation and deadly serious in substance. Women are so often told to pick a lane. I’ve been explicitly told that looking feminine makes me seem less suited to technical work - that women who really belong in those worlds “look like Merkel and talk unemotionally.” At other points, I’ve been advised to uglify myself before certain meetings so I would be taken more seriously. Last year, almost on a whim, I wrote Dolly Parton: The Unexpected Pioneer of Ed-Tech. But Dolly’s influence on me goes much deeper than that. She is one of the reasons I became interested in philanthropy in the first place. So, in honor of her life, and of what she has taught me about generosity, power, femininity, and bein

08/26/2026 dolly parton taught me that you can be hot and smart and live a big life without feeling bad about where you came from If you know me, you know my twitter name used to be Dolly Parton Stan. Dolly is a big part of why I’ve always wanted to be completely myself in the Very Serious worlds of science, technology, and philanthropy. She is proof that you can be glamorous and intellectually formidable, “unserious” in presentation and deadly serious in substance. Women are so often told to pick a lane. I’ve been explicitly told that looking feminine makes me seem less suited to…

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