One More Thing

Spare me the handwringing over women adopting A.I.

(Listen to audio at your own risk. It’s the most I’ve spoken all week.)

I was waiting in the green room of a t.v. station doing some last-minute prep for an interview. My nose was in my notes. I politely acknowledged another guest, a man in a suit, who arrived a few minutes later and then went back to reviewing my talking points.

I’ve been in green rooms where guests chat with each other and where they just quietly watch the show they’re going to be on. In Cleveland, I was delighted to discover a pair of golden retrievers waiting for their segment when I walked in for mine. There’s typically a nervous energy in the air, unless you’re a golden retriever. Suffice it to say, the vibes vary and you can generally pick up pretty quickly what they are, unless you are like the man in the suit who took my focus on my notes as an invitation to chat.

I stuck to one-word answers at first and then one of the floor directors came in to put on the man’s microphone and let me know it would be a few more minutes before my interview. This interaction opened the door to a conversation that I have not stopped thinking about.

“Who are you here with?” The man asked.

“The National Comedy Center in Jamestown,” I replied. He had no further questions so I asked, “How about you?”

He explained he was there to promote a panel discussion at a local university. The topic was Women and A.I., specifically, the need to get more women up to speed, explaining women are “falling behind men” in adopting A.I. and are more at risk of losing their jobs because of it.

“Is that because women are just more used to using their brains?”

This is what I wanted to say, but I went with “interesting” instead.

He proceeded to go on about how it is all part of a larger effort to encourage more women to enter STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) fields, noting how girls typically lose interest in science and math when they’re in junior high.

When he took a breath, I took the opportunity to ask if part of this effort included exploring root causes like how we socialize girls and boys. Were there any discussions about sexism in STEM?

I can’t say for sure, ladies and germs, if he regretted talking to me immediately or if the regret manifested over the next several minutes. Either way, I don’t think he expected me to dive in for a full preview of the panel discussion right there in the green room. We covered the need for education and literacy. We talked about Reese Witherspoon’s recent southern-drawled “golly, y’all! What do you know about A.I.?” on social media and its subsequent backlash.

“Overall,” I finally said, “I can’t help but notice the people continuing to push the necessity of A.I. are the ones getting an enormous financial benefit from it. Meanwhile, it offers very little of substance while devaluing humanity and wreaking havoc on the environment.”

His answer amounted to, “yes, but it’s here so…”

It reminded me of something a philosopher named Carissa Véliz warned of in a TED Talk. She said language like that, often used by tech leaders, is a red flag. She explained they use words like “inevitable” to silence debate, centering themselves as the last word.

I suspect the man in the suit was relieved when production came to get him for his interview. Watching from the green room, the show’s hosts had many of the same questions I had, and I sensed an underlying mood of something just not being quite right with the whole thing.

That feeling stayed with me, and I kept going over our conversation in my mind, partially scolding myself for badgering a stranger, partly hating myself for feeling the urge to be palatable despite having completely valid concerns. Mostly though, I was frustrated with being completely unable to shake something I couldn’t quite define.

Then it came to me: this is just one more thing.

It’s one more thing women are told they have to be doing, one more way they’re told they’re not measuring up. It’s just the latest example of women being blamed for not thriving in a system that’s never taken them seriously.

I don’t need ChatGPT to lay it out for me. It’s all here: from the pages of history to our personal experiences. It is always something, and it typically boils down to a no-win situation predicated on a misguided notion that men set the gold standard to which we all should aspire.

Women are always doing too much or too little, and I can’t help but notice that anytime it gets even close to just right? Surprise, Goldilocks. The game changes.

This essay originally appeared in my column in the May 7, 2026 edition of the Perry Herald in Perry, NY.

Me. Falling behind.