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Although we are often taught that failure is a bad thing, I have embraced failure in my life, and try to learn from it. It is especially relevant in my making – "oops, that didn't work", and I will laugh at myself and share my experience on social media.

I am currently learning how to slack-line. This is like tight-rope walking, but the line is wider (about 2 inches / 5 cm) and, er, more slack. So it wobbles. I've tried slack-lining a couple of times – but never managed to balance for more than a second. I am happy to film myself and share my failures (and successes) on this.

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John Thurmond gave a great talk at EMF camp in 2018 about Failure using the slack-line as an example, so I re-watched it ...

He made the very good point that "We like to fail in private".

It's made me think about how I am happy to share my failures in my making, but other times, I want to fail in private.

In the past, when it comes to #BlackLivesMatter, I have stayed silent, for "fear of saying the wrong thing". This is something that if I get it wrong, it can not only hurt my ego but also my reputation – and more importantly, it can cause offence or hurt to others. "Saying the wrong thing" is a failure I don't want to admit to.

However, there is nowhere I can "practice" being an ally in private. And the more silent I am, the more complicit I am. So I have been educating myself as well as I can – by reading and listening. I have put my head above the parapet and made some public comments. At first, I asked one of my black friends to vet my work for me. And then I realised that this is unpaid emotional labour that they did not volunteer for. Although I may want it, although I may like it, it is not the responsibility of the black community, whether they are my friends or not to pat me on the head when I get it right. Nor to educate me when I don't.

As a woman in tech, I know I have been asked to be (unpaid) in photos, on panels, and for my advice, just because I am female. I am often asked "How do we get more girls into STEM" and "Can you be a role model for girls". My job is as an engineer – I did not study to be a role model, nor am I an expert on human psychology. And I *AM* a woman in STEM. And if you are curious:

1) If I had the answer, I'd be making millions off of it – as everyone wants a magic sticky plaster for "diversity".

2) You're better off asking the people who are *NOT* engineers why they didn't become one.

3) ONE OF THE ANSWERS IS FOR YOU PERSONALLY TO HELP MAKE YOUR WORK ENVIRONMENT LESS SEXIST.

I have experienced sexism to my detriment. I also know I have been given a few opportunities, mainly because companies wanted "diversity" (I was qualified for the roles, but I am pretty sure I wouldn't have been head-hunted if I'd been a man.)

So I am aware of what it is like to be a white woman and experience sexism and be asked to do unpaid emotional and other labour. And to have the unasked-for "responsibility" of helping to solve the "lack of women in STEM" problem. So when in my #BlackLivesMatter reading, Safiya Umoja Noble said in her book Algorithms of Oppression – How Search Engines reinforce Racism:

"The onus for change is placed on the back of Black people, to play a more meaningful role in the production of new images and ideas about Black people by learning to code, as if that alone could shift the tide of Silicon Valley's vast exclusionary practices in its production and hiring"

...it really hit a nerve with me. She also stated:

"Social inequality will not be solved by an app"

Diversity will not be fixed by fixing the pipeline.

In my ignorance, I thought other 'ism's" – racism, ageism, etc were not something that really affected me – they were different. However, Reni Eddo-Lodge says in her book Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race:

"Feminism, at its best, is a movement that works to liberate all people who have been economically, socially, and culturally marginalised by an ideological system that has been designed for them to fail. This means that disabled people, black people, trans people, women, and non-binary people, LGB people and working-class people"

...and I realised that, for me, when I said I wanted equality, I had only looked at what that would look like for me. This has hurt my ego. I have had to acknowledge and get over the "youngest sibling when a new baby is announced" irritation of no longer being the "special one" – the only one people seek out to give "diversity" (somewhere my ego thinks any attention is good attention!). I am embarrassed and feel guilty about feeling this way – but I want to raise my hands to it – because if I have felt that, I can't imagine what a white man, who has, unconsciously, benefitted from all the privileges that have come from being white and a man, must feel like. Things that he took for granted, no longer being given just to him as he is "special". It is uncomfortable. But learning anything is at first.

I am still not fluent with when to use "Black", when to use "BAME" and when to use "POC". When highlighting black people I like to follow on my twitter feed with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter – I don't know whether it is correct to include people with an Asian heritage. What about the people where I have no idea of their heritage, but to me, they appear as though they may be of a non-European heritage?

This is a time of having to fail publicly, there is no shortcut to the research I need to do, I can not laugh at myself when I cause offence. All I can do is raise my hand, apologise, and do better next time.

I am an inventor, engineer, writer and presenter. Other stuff: Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor of Engineering: Creativity and Communication at Brunel University London; Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and have a PhD in bubbles; Judge on BBC Robot Wars.
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