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

RE: https://mastodon.me.uk/@tobyjaffey/116199535184220153

I wonder how strong the correlation is between gendering chatbots and misgendering humans. I think it's pretty strong.

Is it Ursula K Le Guin, I think? "Evil begins when you treat objects as people, and people as objects".

(Edit: Pratchett, not Le Guin)