There you have it, the single most unshakable truth of our times. Because let’s be honest: women have no business steering teams, organizations, cities, countries, regiments, armies, or multi-billion-dollar companies. The best they can do is keep a kitchen tidy (provided they don’t dare to aim for Michelin stardom, obviously a bridge too far), and perhaps maintain a home in relative order (though, I hear male balding butlers are a more efficient choice). All common knowledge, verified by religion, science, and our beloved tradition of ignoring any actual proof to the contrary.
Women, after all, are physically inferior, mentally programmed to compromise, and too hormone-driven to make those big, bold decisions required for a position of power. They suffer from periodic… fluctuations, let’s call them, that disrupt their ability to remain logical. A swirl of estrogen and empathy that stands in the way of unflinching leadership. And so the inevitable conclusion: women shouldn’t lead, but be led, guided, kept quietly in line. No wonder no war in history was ever won by a woman, right?
If that isn’t shocking enough, there’s more. Careers? Terrible for them—and, let’s not forget, for society. Instead of forging forward with their illusions of professional success, they should be home, providing us with a steady supply of adorable, healthy babies to replace our aging population. Let the next generation grow up blissfully unaware of “weak feminine principles,” free from the so-called need to accept “trans” or “gay” or any other “annoying influences.” Add a dash of uniform pantone hue while we’re at it. Because difference is so dreadfully complicated to manage. The plan is flawless. No holes at all.
If your stomach is churning right now, that’s a good thing. Yes, these are words dripping with misogyny, saturated in bigotry, and laced with the venom of toxic patriarchy. Yet look around, some are still -what, more and more- saying these things, doing these things, normalizing them. Legislations are proposed that erode women’s rights, people of color are quietly (and not so quietly) pushed out of positions of power, and all the while this brand of narrow-minded, regressive thinking creeps back into mainstream acceptance. With surgical precision, technology and media get weaponized to weaken women and minority groups. If networks can be manipulated to “prove” the Earth is flat, lizard people rule the globe, or that climate change is a hoax… well, persuading the public that women belong in a subservient role is child’s play.
It’s maddening. A swirl of Animal Farm, 1984, and maybe a dash of Mad Max if we’re feeling extra dramatic: society is setting the stage for this dystopia. And it hits extra hard today, on International Women’s Day, when the spotlight should be on celebrating how far we’ve come and shining it on the trailblazers who are still forging paths.
Yet, here we are. This clamor at SXSW is real: panel after panel, presentation after presentation, data set after data set screaming that women’s basic freedoms are under threat. Again. Ironically, we face a “what else is new?” scenario, except the tide seems more menacing. We can’t drift into complacency. We can’t allow the wolves to pick us off because we’re too busy being polite sheep.
So here’s to my mother, my wife, my sister, my daughter, Sylvie Irzi, Beverly Jackson, Nathalie Lhoir, Axelle Petit, Clio Bellon, Sandra Jansen, Ivana Vilusic, and every woman who embodies leadership, ingenuity, compassion, and unstoppable drive—despite the noise, the doubts, and the daily attempts to push them back into the neatly wrapped box of docile domesticity. To every woman I worked with… and for.
They resist. They prevail. They show that “woman can’t lead” is not only false—it’s downright ridiculous. And if we care at all about a halfway sane future, we stand up, speak out, and shatter the illusions. We are the wall that stops the wave.
Thank you, women everywhere, for guiding us. For leading us. For being the guardians of a better world—even when society pretends you can’t.
