The Women Who Made Themselves Impossible to Ignore

There is probably no better date to launch the first article of my newsletter than March 8th — the day thanks to which I and other women have the right to vote, to receive an education, and to manage our own finances. It is especially important today to highlight the freedom brought to us by previous generations of women, and the freedom we have yet to defend.

So, let's go back to the roots.

Who were the suffragists and suffragettes, and how did they change the course of history?

Initially, in the UK (and later in the US), there were the suffragists — a moderate movement. For decades, they pursued the so-called "peaceful policy of respectability": they wrote petitions, collected signatures, and politely lobbied for laws.

And it... didn't work. Politicians just patted them on the back and ignored them.

Then, in 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women's Social and Political Union. The press dismissively dubbed its members "suffragettes".

Their motto became: "Deeds, not words."

The suffragettes realised that to be heard, they needed to create conditions where ignoring women would be more costly and painful for the system than granting them rights. They began to create systemic discomfort:

• Economic sabotage: They smashed the windows of expensive shops on Oxford Street, set fire to the empty homes of politicians, and cut telegraph wires. They hit the system right in the wallet.
• Disruption of public order: They chained themselves to the railings outside Parliament, interrupted ministers' speeches, and held unauthorised rallies.
• Hunger strikes and martyrdom: When thrown into prison, they went on hunger strikes. The government responded with brutal force-feeding through tubes. When news of these respectable women being tortured reached the press, it sparked shock and sympathy across a huge portion of society.

And this is where the magic of social engineering and the "Radical Flank Effect" begins.

The radical suffragettes terrified the establishment so much with their letterbox bombs and shattered windows that politicians were finally forced to the negotiating table. And who did they sit down to negotiate with? Exactly — the moderate suffragists. The very same ones they had ignored for 50 years. Against the backdrop of Pankhurst's "crazy radicals", the moderate activists suddenly appeared very reasonable, adequate, and pleasant to talk to.

The radical flank had shifted the Overton window.

The final push came during World War I — out of economic necessity. In 1914, the suffragettes put their protests on hold. Men went off to the front, and women stepped up en masse: working in factories, transport, the police force, and munitions plants. They proved that the entire country's economy rested on their shoulders.

By 1918, it became crystal clear to the government: once the war ended, forcing millions of economically independent women back into the kitchens and denying them the right to vote would be physically impossible — otherwise, a full-blown revolution would erupt.

As a result, in 1918, British women (over 30 and meeting property qualifications) were granted the right to vote. And in the US, the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920.

But what happened next?

It turned out that the right to drop a ballot into a box was just the tip of the iceberg.

As soon as the war ended and men returned from the front, the system tried to roll things back. Women were fired from factories en masse and urged to return to their "true calling" — the domestic hearth.

The illusion that the right to vote automatically granted full freedom quickly crashed into reality. Did you know that in the US, up until 1974 — just 52 years ago — a bank could legally refuse to issue a credit card to a woman without her husband's or father's signature? And in some European countries, women couldn't get a job without their husband's official permission well into the 1970s.

Rights are not given once and for all. Every new generation of women faced its own version of the "glass ceiling":

• Second Wave (1960s–70s): The fight for bodily autonomy, access to contraception, and the right to equal pay.
• Third and Fourth Waves: The fight against harassment, the dismantling of stereotypes, and the effort to break into fields where women historically weren't expected — IT, top management, STEM.

Why is this history so important to us today?

Because while the methods change, the essence of the system remains the same. Today, we don't need to chain ourselves to fences. Our "systemic discomfort" in 2026 looks different.

We can talk about meritocracy all we want, but there is ironclad evidence that the vast majority of people — including women themselves — still harbour unconscious gender bias and internalised misogyny. Here are the three main scientific and statistical pillars that prove this:

1. Biases live at the reflex level (Neurobiology)

• The famous résumé study (Yale University): Researchers sent science professors completely identical résumés for a lab manager position — half with the name "John", the other half with "Jennifer". The result: the professors (both men and women) rated "John" as significantly more competent and offered him a much higher starting salary than the identical "Jennifer".
• Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT): Decades of research on millions of people have proven that our brains are much faster at associating "Career", "Business" and "Science" with male names, and "Family" and "Arts" with female names — regardless of your conscious feminist views.

2. The scale of the problem is global (UN and WEF Data)

• Gender Social Norms Index (UNDP): Almost 90% of people worldwide hold at least one fundamental bias against women. About half the world's population believes men make better political leaders. Two out of five believe men make better business executives.
• 123 years to equality: According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2025 (WEF), at the current rate of progress it will take another 123 years to reach gender parity. Neither we nor our daughters will see a world free of systemic inequality.

3. Corporate reality in 2025 (McKinsey and Microaggressions)

• The Broken Rung: Women are 14% less likely to receive their first promotion to manager than men with equally high performance reviews. At the C-suite level, women make up only 29%.
• The epidemic of microaggressions: 78% of women in the workplace face covert sexism. Women's ideas are 1.5 times more likely to be appropriated by male colleagues. 42% of women report gender-biased questions during interviews.
• The Second Shift: Women still spend 2.5 times more time on unpaid domestic work. The "male breadwinner" stereotype continues to undermine women's confidence and resources.

Why does this happen?

Neuroscientists explain that our brains work using heuristics — cognitive shortcuts. Where do these shortcuts come from? From culture, fairy tales, and the structure of patriarchal society. If for centuries a person has only seen men in the roles of directors and brilliant scientists, their neural pathways physically link the concepts of "man" and "competence". Breaking this link requires a conscious, active effort. It won't resolve itself on its own.

Science fully confirms: you can't just say "let's ignore gender, we're all equal." Our own brains sabotage this equality in the background. That is exactly why we need things like quotas, initiatives for the visibility of women, and safe spaces like HERITECH — to help bypass these blind spots.

Right now, the tech industry is living through a modern micro-version of the suffragettes' journey. Women are no longer just "asking" for a seat at the table. They are leaving toxic teams, exposing cases of harassment, and building their own communities. This creates friction for the system — for HR departments and founders. But it is precisely this friction that forces companies to finally rethink and rebuild their cultures.

Today, systemic discomfort looks like women speaking openly about office microaggressions. It looks like men stepping up as true allies. It looks like communities dragging the real gender pay gap into the light. It looks like female founders creating their own companies and changing the rules of the game from the inside.

Comfort has never led to systemic change.

And March 8th is a great occasion to remember: our autonomy and our careers are not gifts from the system. They are the result of someone before us not being afraid to be "inconvenient".

So, let's continue this journey.

Happy March 8th!