I’ve been thinking a lot about representation lately.
I was recently in a discussion about women in STEM and the importance of female representation and female voices. I don’t disagree with that. Representation definitely matters.
But after years of watching women struggle with problems that go far beyond representation, the conversation felt a little like we need a powerful river and we’re asking for a little pond.
There are many familiar forms of bias: watching someone else receive instant credibility you had to spend years earning; being second-guessed more often; having to prove expertise repeatedly; or being expected to be a cheerleader for a project instead of the subject-matter expert you are there to be.
And then there are experiences much worse than that—experiences people often don’t feel comfortable discussing publicly at all.
In recent years, I’ve watched multiple talented women leave software engineering entirely, and I understand that impulse far more than I wish I did.
What makes conversations about representation difficult for me now is that women are so often asked not only to advocate for the pond, but to build it.
Tell us how to improve representation. Tell us how to organize the program. Tell us what would make women feel included.
Meanwhile, what we really need is a river.
We need organizations where women can build credibility and keep it. Where expertise is recognized consistently instead of having to be re-proven over and over. Where disagreement does not become a character flaw. Where asking for evidence, clarity, or measurable expectations is treated as professional judgment rather than resistance.
We need performance standards applied consistently and evaluations grounded in observable work. We need people to be able to raise concerns without fearing retaliation. We need accountability to work in every direction, including upward.
And women should not be expected to carry the additional burden of fixing the institutional conditions affecting them simply to function within those institutions.
Yes, representation matters. But we don’t just need more women standing beside the water of the little retaining pond we built ourselves while other folks insist the pond shouldn’t even be there.
What we need is a river of structural change, and we can’t build it alone.