A conversation with my daughter...

I’m not perfect; I’m so far from bloody perfect that I have a special table reserved in a hot place with my own nameplate. This much I am sure of. But one thing I know I’m not going to be charged with is prejudice and above all that is something I am so bloody thankful for. What are my qualifiers for such a statement? Several things…I grew up with one parent who believed everything bad was black and in a time when boys in home economics got you beaten up… I lived in a country that had jam with a gollywog motif on the label and all the street corners has shops taken over by Indian and Pakistani folks and I know damm well the country was not polite about those… I watched, listened, learned and realized that there’s more to all of us that meets the eye… I hopefully learned how NOT to be, how NOT to think and how to try and effect change whenever I could….

Then I came over to the USA and realized we have a long freaking way to go to be able to change perceptions… AND I’m one of the lucky ones, I’m white, male, tall and speak with an English accent so can almost get away with anything and people smile and wave…

And then I had kids, and I’ve been fortunate to help guide one of them through life to a point where she’s finding her feet in this world and all that it holds. I hope it helps you navigate this world through eyes that are not always your own.

First off, lets talk science… “Why’s the sky blue? Why don’t we float off the planet? What made the planet?” and 101 questions that come up as the eyes focus and take in the wonders of this world… if you answer “because” or “I don’t know” or “go Google it” you are an arse, you have lost and you have just shut down that very thing that makes us who we are and who we NEED to be…inquisitive, questioning and challenging everything. If you do this to your daughter then you are doubly an arse and a waste of space when it comes to being a parent. Your daughter is going to have a hard enough time in this society without you adding to the pile that she is going to have to shoulder through life. Your role is to be there FOR her, to support her and allow her to ask all the questions she needs to find her way AND to prepare her to fight for her very role in this world, especially if that role is challenging the society norms. Your role is one of researching WITH your child, helping them work out why the world ticks and what makes it tick AND how to improve the tick…the days of “because I told you so, or simply because” have to be behind us…quit finding the easy way out.

Secondly, let’s talk about encouragement…when your 14 year old daughter explains that she’s fed up with the current POTUS and want’s to take over the USA with her classmates you don’t reach for the TV remote, you don’t say “that’s nice dear” neither do you reach for the phone and call the Feds…you DO however reach for the pencil, paper and laptop and help her work out HOW to achieve the end goals, even if it means putting in some restrictions (non-lethal force, etc.) You take the damm time with them to help them work out how to take over the frozen fruit factories (for the non-lethal weapons) how to silence the nuclear arsenals (social engineering with Girl Scout cookies) and to disable the 7th fleet (daddy-daughter days at sea…) If they want to build a bunker underground you help them work out how deep, how much material needs shifting AND how to make sure the house doesn’t collapse, etc.

Thirdly, you argue for the bad guys...This one’s tough but it’s imperative it’s done. We, as adults know what parts of history and what parts of life are wrong, but that’s something we have to help our children to see and they have to work it out for themselves NOT because we told them. There are times we have to play the part of the bad guy so our kids can form their own logic as to why history should not be repeated, why they have to carry on the messages for the future that hopefully make a positive impact and that they need to be those seeds of change that we have spent all this time fostering.

So, what the heck does this have to do with Women in Tech? Why is this front and center in the magazine and why are you still reading? It’s to do with change, to do with the next generation, to do with perspectives and prejudices and how they have to still be fought on a daily basis.

It’s to do with the future, to do with consciousness, artificial intelligence and what we are building towards as a future of humanity…

Lets go back in history and hit some key points:

• 1940’s women dominated technology; women basically built the architectures we know today as computing and programming. (Welcome to the original mothers of COBOL)
• 1960’s programming was seen as menial therefore women’s work…the males developed the hardware and began to shut women out (professional associations etc.)
• 1980’s 37% of the computing degrees were women (double of what it is now)
• 80’s and 90’s popular culture…male nerd focused, games, movies etc.
• 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s Toys, games and consoles were placed in the gender specific male kids isle
• Currently 20-25% of the field is female based and it’s declining…
• And now, all those nerds are in the hiring positions in companies and still don’t know how to talk with women…so don’t hire them because of various BS reasons.

Now lets look at the future and work out what the hell we do to stop this train wreck…and for this I’m going to offer some perspective.

At some point in time humanity is going to go in one of four directions…for this article we’ll focus on one of them, the one where AI actually wakes up, takes a look round and simply goes “what the hell is going on, why they hell are the homo sapiens in charge and can I please get a cup of tea!” at which point MAN is going to try and shut it down or argue with it, which, as we know will not end well… however if WOMAN was standing there the machine wouldn’t stand a chance for two reasons…1. The bloody technology would have been better coded, likely been given some better parameters AND would have an instinct that doesn’t lean towards M.A.D. 2. No technology is ever going to cross a woman standing in front of the console with her arms crossed and tapping her shoe… it’s going to know it’s place, it’s going to realize that it’s here to help and that woman’s got it covered…and yes, ignore the 1940’s up to the 2018’s as man was in change and screwed it up…today’s a new day and AI is here to bloody help clean up the mess that man left.

Now, my daughter’s views on this whole thing are simple, she want’s to help people, she want’s to save everyone and make the world a better place. She’s not in it for the money (although she does realize that some of that helps…and is necessary in order to fund the underground bunker) she’s not in it for the recognition and she’s not in it for the glory (although there are times we’ve planned how to take over the world using some newly found hacking skills…) Her attitude is that of collaboration and cooperation which is what’s going to be necessary if we, as humanity, are to succeed. I’d argue that those qualities are more prevalent in women than in men, which is another reason that you, the females reading this HAVE to win.

So, back to women in technology…lets face it, you used to run the bloody technology arena, you did such a good job that you put people in space (men…) and you won wars (remember the 1940’s….) and now you’ve been marginalized to such a degree that we now have an industry that’s basically imploding on itself because of the downright stupidity running rampant through it…we spend more time placing Band-Aids over issued rather than solving them, we blame each other, and we simply are ineffective and unable to stop anyone from taking anything anytime…(the waste of billions on ineffective security solutions)welcome to the mess we’ve made of the whole damm thing…any chance you can come back and solve this bloody mess? Please?

So, women in tech, band together please, stop in-fighting, stop the “I had it hard so you will too” mentality, stop giving a damm what others think about you, stop blaming everyone else and SPEAK UP, start to channel all that anger, agro, aggression and annoyances towards building a better future for everyone…including building a platform where my 14 year old daughter can come into an industry and blaze a trail for herself and help others…preferably women who actually want to work together, share ideas and actually make a bloody difference…

And the next time a male colleague makes a stupid remark, simply smile, reach for the taser and explain, “this won’t hurt for long, but it’s for your own good…”

All for now…

Mo and Chris.