UnTangled with Anne Murphy: The Gates Are There for a Reason

I thought Anne Murphy and I were going to talk about She Leads AI. How she started it, how many women have been trained, what the programs look like, and what is next.

We did not talk about any of that.

We talked about something bigger. And honestly, I think that is the more important conversation anyway.

We Are Looking at the Wrong Gap

Here is the stat that nobody wants to lead with: women eclipsed men in ChatGPT usage in March of 2025. The story that women are not using AI is just not accurate. Full stop.

But there is a gap. And it matters enormously.

The gap is not in whether women are using AI. It is in how deeply. It is in who is building, who is shaping, and who is deciding what these systems are for and who they serve. That is where the real distance is. And that is the gap we actually need to close.

I made this same argument at NTC in March at the Cool/Scary AI Summit, and I will keep making it because I think it is one of the most important reframes happening right now. We keep measuring the wrong thing, and then we keep trying to solve the wrong problem.

Women Waiting Was Not Weakness. It Was Wisdom.

When ChatGPT exploded in late 2022, a lot of women held back. Men came in fast and loud. Use it, use it, it’s great, it’s great.

Women asked questions. Who does this hurt? Who is being excluded? Where does this start and where does it end?

Anne pointed out that none of us knew about data centers in November of 2022. But the instinct to pause, look for harm, and ask hard questions before charging ahead? That instinct was correct. It is still correct.

That is not a gap. That is a different and frankly better approach to adoption.

The Invisible Labor Question Nobody Is Asking

This is where the conversation got real.

Anne raised the possibility that women could end up as the care infrastructure of AI, just as we have been the care infrastructure of society. Doing the governance work. The ethics advocacy. The education. Protecting people from the harms that got baked in while we were the ones raising our hands and asking whether any of this was a good idea.

Meanwhile, the builders build. The profit flows. And the women who saw the problems coming get handed the mop.

We have watched this pattern before. And it is not a hypothetical.

So the question sitting in front of us right now is whether we end up managing the fallout of an AI world we did not help design, or whether we get into the arena and help build something different.

The Gates Are Not Going to Open Themselves

Anne said something I keep coming back to: “There are a million reasons why the world does not want me to be really freaking good at using AI. The gates are there for a reason, ladies. They are not there by accident.”

The gatekeeping in this space is not accidental. Expertise gets hoarded. Jargon gets weaponized. People get told they are not technical enough, not the right kind of builder, not credentialed enough to have a seat at the table. And that messaging lands hardest on the people who most need to be in the room.

So what do you do? You find your people and you go anyway.

Anne built She Leads AI around exactly that idea. Women learning together, building together, sharing what they figure out instead of hoarding it. The whole point is that someone who got through turns around and says come this way, you do not have to hack your own path through the chaos.

And this is not only for women. Men who want to build something more ethical, more grounded, and more aligned with actual human values need to be in this conversation too. The sector needs people asking the hard questions, not just the ones moving the fastest.

We Are Not the First to Sound the Alarm

Here is what I want to make sure does not get lost. Women and BIPOC researchers, technologists, and advocates have been raising these concerns for years. Long before it was a LinkedIn conversation. Long before Reese Witherspoon told her book club to get on board. The people who have been most harmed by poorly designed systems are also the ones who have been most clearly naming the problems. That is not a coincidence.

If we are serious about building something better, those are the voices that need to be centered. Not as an afterthought. Not in the ethics addendum. From the start, at the table, with real power to shape what gets built.

That means paying attention to who you learn from. Who you build with. What tools you choose and whose values are embedded in them. What you are willing to question and what you just accept because it is fast and cheap and already in front of you.

The women and men who want a different kind of AI future are in the arena right now, getting their asses kicked some days, building something real on others. She Leads AI is one corner of that arena. There are others. Find them.

The gates were not built by accident. They were built to keep us out. Which means we have two choices. Break them down. Or build something new that centers different experiences from the start and works toward different outcomes from the beginning.

Both are necessary. Both are happening right now.

Watch the full episode with Anne and then come find your corner of the arena.

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