CIRCLE WITH A DOT

@JeffGrigg I like that!

@tobychev what are you talking jumping in here with MTG??

@whitequark love

@wordshaper hahahaha I accept this as a rendering

@CCochard yes. People have exploded on me with rage for not being totally right when I was just thinking out loud and trying to imagine. They bestow this kind of horrific responsibility on you that you never agreed to.

Every once in a while I have to write myself back into staying in tech and writing this piece was one of those times.

In this piece I wrote several years ago I had a ton of stories that could've illustrated feeling excluded from creativity in tech, but I used this story about not being given access to a makerspace specifically because it was so evocative to me! So on the nose

On Craft

My grandpa -- my Missouri grandpa, who played slide guitar to me when I got homesick on the rare occasions I stayed with them -- grew up on a farm without electricity. He went past eighth grade, which really mattered to him. He loved that I played harp, which he always called "elegant," in an extremely Missouri accent, an accent that hugged every syllable. Since living in California, I never hear this way of speaking. Recently I heard his accent on TV and cried unexpectedly, ugly crying, startli

drcathicks (www.drcathicks.com)

Women have just as many wild imaginations, hot takes, joyful meandering creations, silly experiments. I am so tired of watching my friends and loved ones have to hide all of that and play these roles of the somber grownups ready to be leaned on at all times, to feel accepted in tech and STEM.

When people are scared as everyone in tech is, people also cling more fiercely to the things that feel safer. More Technical feels safer and that means your demographics contract. I genuinely think people do not realize this is happening in their decision making

I find it kind of interesting because I've seen it across so many spaces and cycles in tech. Women suddenly are invited into spaces when it's "time to do culture" and "time to get stable" not when it's "time for wild predictions"! We can make wild predictions too

People are always gonna read this kind of thing as "shrill" or whatever so please picture me saying this in a super bored, calm, chill voice which is accurate. There's always a contraction around who gets to speak first and loudest when things are about The Future

Just read another big tech post about the future of software engineering. Lots of people quoted: not a single woman quoted.