Every year, my local web performance community hosts a special Christmas meet-up. In 2017, I offered the following lightning talk:

Where are the women?

(because nothing brings the festive cheer like a talk about diversity)

I can remember three times I felt particularly wimpy in 2017. Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration coincided roughly with my birthday. Then, the United Kingdom served divorce papers on the European Union, forcing foreigners like me to reappraise life in our adopted home.

Later, weeks into an exciting new job, a leaked memo criticising Google’s diversity policies sent the technology industry into polemic tailspin. Its…