If you search for “Latina in tech” you’ll get to a fabulous non-profit organization with the aim to create a tech industry where Latinas are well-represented. Who is searching for that keyphrase? Not many. SEMrush, the most popular SEO tool on the market ranks it as “easy.”
However, if you search for “Latinas” Google offers under “People also ask: Why are Latinas so desired?” This made me laugh. I had to click it. The answer?
Culturally, Latinx households have a matriarch whom is respected, admired and is the “leader” of the family.
Colibri Collective, Phoenix, AZ
This is true. The matriarch in my mother’s family was “Mamita.” The matriarch in my father’s family was “Maria La Gata.”
In my generation, the title of matriarch is yet to be claimed. Will it be my sister? Will it be me? Will it be The Femmebots?
One of my favorite Femmebot superpowers is the ability to work remotely from multiple cities. I was “ahead” of my time, as they say, but I will not say so myself because that’s obnoxious. Plus, I’ve got plenty of weaknesses, every superhero has his or her Kryptonite, and I’ll list them at the end of this post, underneath all the superpowers.
A Latina in tech has the following superpowers:
- I can mentally transport myself to specific cities without Zoom. I lived IRL in New York, West Palm Beach, London, Chapel Hill, Ann Arbor, Denver, San Francisco, Miami, DC, Prague, Rio, DC, and NY — in that specific order.
- I can navigate by paying attention to the signs in the universe like Mercury and Uranus retrogrades. Once you realize the connection between tech and the universe at large, beyond Earth, you can understand the world from a systems perspective.
- Code Switching. A Latina in tech has multiple voices/modes to manage different tasks:
- There is the customer service voice.
- The editor’s voice.
- The lawyer’s voice.
- The financing/accounting voice.
- The authoritative CEO/Executive voice who knows how to guide a team toward reaching a goal.
In the old days, a Latina in tech could change voices with the flip of a switch. Nowadays, perhaps because the Femmebot’s software/machinery is outdated, the voices are getting mixed. The editor’s bitchiness comes out when it’s time for customer service voice.
In order to keep these voices separate, the Femmebot must take breaks in between the different types of work.
For example, if the Femmebot is editing with a fine-tuned bitchy eyeball on Tuesday, it’s best to reserve all customer service quips until that lens is done doing its work.
And then there’s the authoritative CEO/Executive teamwork voice — this one is great for building comraderie toward reaching a goal but sometimes gets lost underneath the lawyer voice who doesn’t want to end up in a lawsuit for the sake of cheerleading.
Superhero Vulnerabilities
Femmebots are hella backwards in emotional development. We are luddites when it comes to emotional intelligence.
That’s how it goes for Femmebots. Logic and achievement and numbers are at the core of our programming, while managing emotions through that logic can be quite challenging.