Since I joined the tech industry, I have been heartened to see an evolution which has left a lot of old type of thinking behind.

We are far from able to celebrate a victory lap, and often the backlash to progress can be as painful as the old place, but I am happy when old conventional wisdom is challenged, and is no longer seen as wisdom at all.

The broken pipeline

Not too long ago, it was easy to dismiss progress on diversity and inclusion as something we can achieve in the future, because the only problem is a "pipeline problem" — that is to say, if we teach the children differently, we might eventually change some things. It didn't work, because it wasn't children being harassed in the workplace, passed over for promotion, or stereotyped into giving up on technical roles.

I think this notion received eye-rolls for a long time, but eventually it received mainstream critical challenges. It is still an idea thrown around, primarily by old heads clinging to old ideas, but it is no longer acceptable to think of these challenges as things we can't achieve right now.

Moving the goalposts

The goal posts have moved, and have to keep moving. Our industry still has too many invisible barriers, but industry leaders can no longer entirely hide behind bland euphemisms. The next phase is not accept small wins, but demand big wins.

A tech financial slowdown seems to have led to a slowdown in investment in diversity and inclusion — and this can't be acceptable. We know this is today's problem, not tomorrow's especially in tough tiimes.

The future must include everything, we must accept that a faster pace of social progress is necessary. We must be able to let go of yesterday's ideas (like the notion that it's still cool to do #shecoded in face of the reality that given enough scrutiny, it was an exclusionary idea).

Happy coding, everyone!