๐๐ฎ๐ฝ๐ฝ๐ ๐๐ป๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ป๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐ฎ๐น ๐ช๐ผ๐บ๐ฒ๐ป'๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ ๐ช๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ธ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฑ. ๐ฆ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ ๐ผ๐ณ. Let me explain that "sort of."
I've never been entirely comfortable with the way this day gets framed. Not because it doesn't matter - it absolutely ๐ญ๐ฌ๐ฌ% does... but because I've always felt uneasy about the idea that the loudest way I can show up and make a statement is by leading with ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐ ๐ข๐ฎ rather than ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐ ๐ฅ๐ฐ.
So here's something I've never said out loud on LinkedIn. Early in my consulting career I spent a genuinely embarrassing amount of money on the "right" handbag, the "right" car, the "right" suit. Not because I loved any of it. But because I was trying to speak a language I thought the room would understand before I'd opened my mouth. Because I was brown. Because I was a woman. Because I was in Tech (traditionally male dominated) and mostly because I was desperately, constantly trying to compensate for things I shouldn't have had to compensate for. I cringe at that now. Not at myself - I was doing what felt necessary. But at the fact that it ๐ง๐ฆ๐ญ๐ต necessary at all.
Because the bias I faced wasn't always gender. It was colour. It was accent. It was which university, which firm, which postcode. ๐๐ถ๐ฎ๐ ๐ถ๐ ๐ฎ ๐๐ต๐ฎ๐ฝ๐ฒ-๐๐ต๐ถ๐ณ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ. And honestly? None of it is okay. Not for women. Not for men from the "wrong" school or the wrong background. Not for anyone who's ever walked into a room and felt the quiet hum of being assessed before they've said a word.
So today, I don't want to shout about glass ceilings. More than anything, I want to talk about the kids being raised right now. Boys and girls - who simply don't see those things the way our generation was taught to. Who don't clock the handbag or the postcode or the accent or the public/private school. Who just...listen & give people a chance to show value through their work.
I think AI might actually help us get there.
Not perfectly. Not without its own risks & biases baked in. But for the first time in my lifetime, I can see a future where a brilliant kid in a small town with no connections and no Ivy League pedigree has access to the same knowledge, the same tools, the same ๐ช๐ฏ๐ต๐ฆ๐ญ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ค๐ต๐ถ๐ข๐ญ ๐ด๐ค๐ข๐ง๐ง๐ฐ๐ญ๐ฅ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ as anyone sitting in an Oxford seminar room. The class system built around elite education... that quiet, suffocating filter on who gets to be taken seriously... is well and truly starting to crack.
๐ง๐ต๐ฎ๐'๐ what Women's Day means to me this year. Less noise about ceilings, more work on making them irrelevant. That's worth being genuinely excited about. And it's a huge part of why I do what I do at SynaptyX AI.
Happy Weekend/Sunday everyone. Go hug the women in your life & especially those raising the next generation to be better than we were allowed to be. ๐งก๐๐๐ฉท