Tootfinder

For those that don't know, I help run a large women in technology chat group on Slack. It's been going for 11 years now! (ask me for an invite if you want one and that's appropriate!)
It has deeply shaped how I think about technology, especially the social side. There is so much embodied knowledge in that community, it's amazing. And it's also such a window into how much the mainstream of technology writing is dominated by men. We talk about it differently! We're much more likely to be critical, and to be critical of the _structures_ in tech. Sometimes that comes off as kneejerk "Ugh BRIAN!" to some of the bullshit men to do women in the workplace, but also embedded underneath is an understanding of rarely-mapped power structures in the field. So much advice out there is written assuming that there is no dissent, no silent frustration, no quiet abandoning the job when the pressures are unresolved. And so much of the tech world, press and on social media alike, has no insight that this attrition even happens.
Women, collectively, though, understand it. We notice the patterns of promotions. We understand the way that if we're in our 40s, we're rather likely to have a manager who is a decade younger than we are, with no particular experience. We notice when men are lauded for spending time with their family instead of work on occasion, but women are expected to be present at all times and rarely seen positively for doing the exact same things.
And yet, any given instance is always shrouded in deniability. The pattern generally holds, but is this one my fault? Do I not measure up? Or is it sexism?
That's what these structures rob from us: we never have the clarity in feedback that it is accurate, that is us that must change. When we stick to our guns, are we being obstinate, or are we correct? That information is denied to us by sexism. It only becomes clear in aggregate, and even then it is very hard to find action to take on it except to acknowledge it and move on.
I don't think people talk about that ambiguity enough: we're always looking for the clear sexism, the man speaking over the women, the trading sexual favors for advancement, the clear pattern of pet-to-threat that so many women experience as they age or gain skill in the field. But the bulk of sexism that we experience is in the structural poisoning of feedback.

Well, the Makerfield by-election is over. Voting just closed.
I don't live there, but if I did I think you gotta vote Labour in order to destroy this Labour government.
Which is in itself pretty mad. Demonstrating the utterly broken nature of the whole political system.
This is surely the only circumstance in which I switch away from the Greens.
As I said last month, they absolutely should have stood and spoke in front of every camera pointed at the constituency. Dunno that they managed the second part. I didn't see much of her myself, certainly.
Anyway, the point is that there's only one candidate at this election which has any chance at all of changing the direction of this government.
None of the others might be Prime Minister by autumn. Nobody else who wins can do that. There's only one candidate who can probably unseat the failing prime minister.
Would be voting more in hope than expectation of course.
He won't be very different. Certainly he's the same on Israel's genocide, on taxing wealth, on fiscal rules preventing government investment, on private industry being better than government owned industry, on capitalism, on the bond market, on the monarchy, on the pointless drug war, on conflating protest with terrorism, on the house of lords, on AI, on Free Software, on copyright, on age-gating and surveilling the internet.
But maybe that one difference, "public 'control' without ownership of industry" is at least a bit better than just Starmer thinking the state is powerless against American AI? He might try a bit harder to build more houses?
So not voting in expectation of anything really changing here, but voting for the only candidate who will even be in a position to try.
If you dislike Starmer and prefer any of the other candidates, if you prefer Greens, or Conservatives, or Restore, or Reform, or Lib Dem, or anarchy or antifa or woke then you should vote for the Labour Party candidate to cause Starmer's downfall.
You should only be voting against Starmer's Labour Party if you are happy with Starmer's Labour government and want Starmer to stay.
And only like 75,000 people even get to mark a ballot.
"Restore" are the splitters from Reform (who are in turn the Nativist right wing party splitters from the Conservatives).
They left Reform because Reform weren't racist enough for them, mostly. Their vote count is key here. Will their vote be higher than the Labour/Reform margin?
I think probably it will.
So the Restore Party is the spoiler that forces the PM out of office by splitting the nazi vote and allowing in a challenger to the PM.
Insane election. 😵‍💫
Apparently nobody conducted an exit poll, so we'll find out in the morning.
#ukpol #makerfield