This week Monday wasn’t just the first day of the work week or the first day of March. It was also the first day of Women’s History Month. Though this year’s theme is not related to cybersecurity, I want to draw attention to this month-long event that honors women’s contributions in American history because our words and actions today have the power to influence history.
Think of where we might be without the contributions of women, in light of this year’s theme “Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to Be Silenced“, but also with respect to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). What would the world be like without the contributions of Edith Clarke, Grace Hopper, or Sally Ride?
Our words have the power to encourage, inspire, and motivate girls and women of all ages to pursue their dreams. What we say and how we say it influences whether our daughters and sisters, mothers and even grandmothers, decide to become inventors, software developers, engineers, chemists, physicists, astronauts, and cybersecurity professionals, like penetration testers, malware analysts, and CISOs (Chief Information Security Officers).
Our actions speak volumes about whether our words are platitudes. Do we invest in our future by creating programs that transform dreams into real-world experiences to encourage girls and young women to choose careers in STEM? Are we addressing gender bias in the classroom and workplace? Do we recognize the women who have made significant contributions in STEM fields? Are we acting as advocates and mentors?
When our words and actions discourage, dishearten, and demotivate girls and women, and cause them to never consider or leave careers in STEM, we may very well be altering history. What if they were meant to…
- Discover a way to lessen the impact of climate change
- Prevent a large-scale data breach
- Create new software that is accessible to those with disabilities
- Develop a vaccine capable of stopping the next pandemic in its tracks
…and they didn’t?
