Let me tell you a story: The FIRST Robotics Competition high school team (Mechanicats, from Chicago) and I were testing our robot late one night this February. While we were munching pizza, exhausted, a girl from the team came to me and asked if I enjoyed what I do (I'm the software mentor for the team). The reason for the question, she said, was that she was torn about what to study in college. She told me that her…
I'm still not sure how I feel to be getting these advantages though. I feel like, the more advantages like this are offered, the more it dilutes my actual accomplishments. I feel like there's a subtext of resentment and doubt saying "Well, she only accomplished that because she received certain privileges." I recently won a competition, which is great and all, but I always wonder in the back of my mind if I won it be…
I think the key is to stop focusing on individuals, and start focusing on the systems. It isn't about the one woman who wins, it is about the other however-many who get to have a glorious disaster and learn valuable lessons about time management. It is about the men who see those women as peers instead of oddities.
We don't need heroes: we need a better normal.