Reflecting on all the times in my career as a software engineer I have been told that, yes, things were a bit unfair to me as a woman, but that I was being a trailblazer, I was the one discovering and establishing the path that would enable others to follow.

But you go back to the 70s and you see the same number of women programmers, being fed that exact same line
And in the 80s
and the 90s
and so on to today. The "trailblazer" narrative is a lie told by managers to make themselves feel better

sorry about how everything is kinda fucked up, it's just that you are so unique there is no precedent for people like you existing here

Fascinating how this same line of bullshit is given to me as a female programmer in the tech industry and as a contralto in classical singing when actually there have been people like me for over a hundred years in both

The most sickening variation of this to me is how women have been in competitive video gaming scenes since inception, but their history has been completely omitted from cultural memory and women are still being treated as newcomers to the scene. The fact that women existing in that space for decades didn't "pave the way" but were instead erased entirely
@Xibanya burger Becky is no longer with us may she rest in peace