International Women's Day= Activism

Much to catch-up on, but first, Happy International Women’s Day!

On the road for several events for my book, Very Funny Ladies, I have found it challenging to keep up with Seeing Things, apologies.

Writing this, I am heartbroken about Ukraine. I don’t know what else I can say about it that isn’t being said. My hopes are that Biden and other western leaders are working on doing something beyond sanctions—and not going to war— to stop Putin. If that’s even possible. I will do another drawing soon about what’s going on.

On a positive note, I just spent the day live drawing a wonderful event, a conference at Stanford University on International Women in Data Science. It is an uplifting day of speakers, women who have successfully broken the barriers into the field of data science (which is a vast field, encompassing a lot of different math and science disciplines). These women are so smart! Many of the talks are highly technical (you should have seen some of the math equations they put on the screen!) and I didn’t understand what they’re talking about, but many are not, and in their speeches, some got to the heart of the matter of sexism in our world. It still shocks me that in this day and age women still have to battle obvious bias, sexism and misogyny. And I’ve seen a lot over my years on this planet.

The women in this conference—which is global using virtual video connection with similar gatherings in many other countries— represent the best of the best in change agents, working to use data science to bring about a more humanitarian world for all, not just women. These activists use what they know, they are using their amazing brains to help make the world better. This is my fifth year drawing for WiDS, and it is inspiring.

I drew the attendees, and speakers. I will just show you a few.

We need to all do whatever we can to help bring about positive change. No matter what area we work or where we live, we each can do somthing. As the co-founder of WiDS and chair of the Math Dept at Stanford Margo Gerritson said, “Today is about what we can do!”

Today is every day.