Latest / The Difference We Make: Stories of People Changing Lives / Why I Stopped Trying to Save Women in Tech | The Difference We Make
Transcript
- I used to think mentoring was about fixing broken parts. Then I realized the women I was trying to save were actually building their own ladders, and I was just standing there holding a hammer at the wrong angle. Let’s start with a confession, because that’s where the real work begins. For years, I carried this heavy, noble weight around my shoulders. I thought of myself as a guide. A lantern-bearer for the young women stepping into rooms that weren’t built for them. You know the kind of rooms I mean. The ones with glass walls, cold coffee, and conversations that move at the speed of code and ego. I wanted to be the safety net. I wanted to catch them before they fell. And honestly? It felt good. It felt necessary. But here is the thing that kept me up at night last Tuesday, staring at the ceiling while my partner slept soundly beside me: I was exhausting myself. And more importantly, I was exhausting them. I started noticing it in the way their eyes would glaze over when I offered advice. Not out of disrespect, but out of sheer fatigue. They didn’t need another person telling them how to navigate the minefield. They needed someone to hand them a map, or better yet, to walk beside them in silence so they could hear their own instincts again. We talk a lot about mentorship in philanthropy and social impact circles. We treat it like a transaction. I give you knowledge; you give me hope. But life isn’t a transaction. It’s a relationship. And relationships require us to put down our saviors’ capes and pick up our listening ears instead. Stay with me here. Let’s look at the hands behind this idea of the map. When we mentor young women entering male-dominated tech fields, we often assume they are lost. That they are wandering in the dark, needing our light. But have you ever been in those spaces? Have you watched them? They aren’t lost. They are hyper-aware. They see every micro-aggression, every subtle exclusion, every door left slightly ajar not by accident but by design. They are navigating a landscape that has never seen their feet on the ground before. When I tried to hand them my map, drawn from my experience ten or fifteen years ago, I was giving them outdated terrain. The tech world shifts faster than fashion. The biases mutate. The barriers change shape. My map wasn’t just useless; it was misleading. I was telling them to avoid the swamp on the left, when the swamp had moved three miles east and turned into a mirror lake. By insisting on my version of the path, I was inadvertently dismissing their reality. I was saying, 'Your experience doesn't matter as much as my memory.' That’s not support. That’s erasure disguised as kindness. And we cannot build a future on erasure. We have to trust that these young women know their own bodies, their own talents, and their own limits far better than we ever could. So what do we do? If we stop directing, if we stop handing out maps, are we just abandoning them? Absolutely not. We shift from directors to witnesses. There is a profound power in simply seeing someone clearly. In the beginning of my career, I learned that empathy is a muscle. It grows stronger when you use it to hold space rather than to fix problems. Witnessing means sitting with them in the discomfort. It means hearing the tremor in their voice when they describe being interrupted in a board meeting, and not rushing to offer a rebuttal script. Instead, you ask, 'What did that feel like?' You let the ache sit there. You validate it. This is radical attentiveness. It’s listening to the silence between words. When a young engineer tells me she feels like an imposter, the old Ashling would have said, 'You’re qualified. You earned your seat.' The new Ashling asks, 'Who taught you that you didn’t belong? And who can help remind you that you do?' See the difference? One shuts down the emotion with logic. The other honors the emotion and seeks its root. We are not here to polish their confidence. We are here to protect their right to be uncertain, to be angry, to be tired, without judgment. That is the gritty, unglamorous work of repair. It doesn’t look pretty on a grant proposal. But it changes lives. We need to talk about transparency in impact. In our sector, we love a polished success story. The girl who made VP at twenty-five. The founder who raised millions. These stories are inspiring, yes. But they can also be dangerous. They create a narrative that if you struggle, you failed. If you leave, you quit. If you burn out, you weren’t cut out for it. This pressure cooker environment is exactly why so many talented women leave tech. They aren’t leaving because they lack skill. They are leaving because they lack sanctuary. As mentors, we have to be brave enough to celebrate the messy middle. To honor the days when nothing went right. To value honest failure over polished success. I remember working with a brilliant coder named Elena. She didn’t make VP. She didn’t raise millions. She took a step back. She changed industries. She found a team that respected her pace. By traditional metrics, she was a 'failure' of mentorship. By human metrics, she was a triumph. She reclaimed her agency. She chose herself. And that is the highest form of success we can possibly measure. We must stop measuring our worth by their visibility and start measuring it by their well-being. Because a woman who is whole is worth more than a woman who is prominent but hollowed out. There is a concept in physics called ripple effects. Throw a stone in water, and the waves expand outward, touching shores you never intended to reach. This is what happens when we prioritize interconnectedness over individual achievement. When we support one young woman in tech, we aren’t just helping her. We are changing the culture for the next ten. We are shifting the dial. Every time a senior leader listens deeply to a junior colleague, it models behavior for everyone else in the room. It signals that vulnerability is strength. That care is competence. This isn’t charity. Charity implies a hierarchy. Donor and recipient. Superior and inferior. This is partnership. We are all part of the same fabric. If one thread snaps, the whole structure weakens. So when we invest in mentoring, we are not doing a favor. We are reinforcing the foundation. We are acknowledging that the systems are broken, yes, but they are also malleable. And we are the hands doing the mending. It’s slow work. It’s quiet work. But it is the only work that matters. We are building a new architecture, brick by brick, conversation by conversation, moment by moment. So, here is my invitation to you today. Put down the hammer. Stop trying to fix what isn’t broken. Look at the people in your life, especially the young women pushing boundaries in spaces that weren’t made for them. Ask them what they need. Listen to the answer, even if it’s not what you expected. Maybe they don’t need advice. Maybe they just need to be heard. Maybe they need you to stand in solidarity, not in superiority. Let’s look at the hands behind this movement. Our hands are calloused from years of trying to control outcomes. Let’s soften them. Let’s open them. Let’s receive the truth of their experiences without filtering it through our own fears or ambitions. This is how we change lives. Not by saving them, but by seeing them. Fully. Completely. Unconditionally. That’s where the real work begins. And it starts right now, in this moment, with you deciding to listen a little deeper, a little longer, and a little more honestly than you did yesterday. I’m Ashling Scallon. Take a deep breath. You’re doing enough. Talk soon.