There are a couple of questions that instantly tire me to the bones.

“But… wHy ArE tHeRe So fEw WoMeN iN InFoSeC?”

Games, tech-journalism, any STEM field, martial arts, politics — pick any male-dominated field, really — and the question has the same effect: I instantly want to leave the table and fall asleep from the sheer weariness. Usually it’s white male dudes who ask the question, dudes who may have heard of Jean-Paul Sartre but never of Simone de Beauvoir.

My weariness degree decides if I should provide a womensplainer on Feminism 101 and white male privilege. Mostly, I feel too old, tired and battle-tested to dive into the discussion for the umpteenth time; mostly, the audience seeks easy answers, whereas the root cause likely lies in ignorance of their own social standing.

Instead, my preferred answer would have been “here, read this book first”, then change the subject. Finally, I found that book to have better conversations:

Criado Perez, Caroline: “Invisible Women. Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed by Men”, Vintage Books/Penguin, 2019.

And while we’re at it, read this one too:

O’Neil, Cathy: “Weapons of Math Destruction. How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy”, Penguin/Random House, 2016.

“Invisible Woman” was published just before the pandemic. Consequently, Criado Perez mentions pandemics like Ebola and Tika outbreaks, but not Covid. I hope for a second edition that covers The Pandemic, but assume that this would not influence the book’s main points at all.

Side note to the illustration by Nightcafé: The AI was not able to produce an unmarried woman’s hand. The woman was either very young or your grandma. Middle-aged women never showed up, even if explicitly mentioned in the prompt.

Last modified on 2024-08-18