Who Runs The World?

If you’re a fan of Beyonce, you already know the answer. It’s girls (girls) – but it’s no joke.

“I’m repping for the girls who taking over the world,” she sings.

“Help me raise a glass for the college grads… I work my nine to five, better cut my check!”

Beneath the catchy lyrics is an all-too-true point: women are hardworking, have career aspirations, care about their appearances, and know what they want.

They strive to seize it all while holding down their families, their mental health, and their home life.

(Yes, we see the many men that are doing the same – but I haven’t found a song yet that says it so eloquently).

While researching this issue’s theme, I was pleasantly surprised to see just how true this is. All over the world, women are distinguishing themselves in ways that would have never been possible 50 years ago or, in many places, even 20 years ago.

Women are running countries – consider female presidents and prime ministers such as New Zealand’s Jacinda Arden, Estonia’s Kaja Kallas, Iceland’s Katrin Jakobsdottir, Finland’s Sanna Martin, Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen, Norway’s Erna Solberg, Nepal’s Bidhya Devi Bhandari, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Namibia’s SaaraKuugongelwa, and Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen.

The world recently farewelled Madeleine Albright, an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 64th United States secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, the first female U.S. Secretary of state and the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government.

Then there are the legends of politics and industry– women like Joan Clarke, an English cryptanalyst known for her work as a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War; ‘first lady of naval cryptology’ Agnes Meyer-Driscoll, an American cryptographer who was known as ‘Miss Aggie’ or‘Madame X’; Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage’s proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine.

And don’t forget Rebecca “Becky” Gurley Bace, an American computer security expert and intrusion-detection pioneer who spent 12 years at the US National Security Agency where she created the computer Misuse and Anomaly Detection research program. She was known as the “den mother of computer security”.

And for all the lamentation about the IT gender gap, women are distinguishing themselves in IT areas such as cybersecurity, privacy, innovation, defence, and more. Consider Caroline Millar, deputy secretary for national security; Jen Easterly, recently promoted to lead the US Cybersecurity and InfrastructureSecurity Agency (CISA); Australian Signals Directoratedirector-general Rachel Noble; ‘security princess’ Parisa Tabriz, who serves as director of engineering at Google; Electronic Frontier Foundation director of cybersecurity Eva Galperin; video-game designer and researcher Brenda Laurel; and so many more.

I could go on for days, weeks, and months with lists of the amazing leading women helping us achieve greatness in the world, but I think I have made my point.

Despite their achievements, however, these inspiring women don’t get near enough attention in the media. So why don’t they get the raves they deserve?

I stumbled across a film that seeks to address the gap, called The Empowerment Project: Ordinary Women Doing Extraordinary Things. Directed by Sarah Moshman, the crew interviews extraordinary women to explore its core idea that women can do anything they aspire to – whether it be mathematician, pilot, astronaut, ballerina, chef, architect, or US Navy four-star admiral.

“There are so many amazing female role models out there, and the film is simply a way for us to share these stories with audiences all across America so they can be inspired to see possibility in these women’s realities,” said producer Dana Michelle Cook.

“We want our next generation of women to believe there is no dream too big, no idea too grandiose, and that it’s our own unique journey of following a dream that makes us who we are and gives us purpose in our lives.”

“On our personal journey of this film, we learned today and live our dreams out loud – and there’s nothing more rewarding than that.”

Rewarding, indeed.

We need to make more noise about the achievements of women in our industry – and not just on International Women’s Day, but every day.

We need to make sure we don’t forget the names of the women that are distinguishing themselves every day by living their dreams out loud.

We need to provide more than just one role model for the next generation to look up to, so they too can see that there are some really cool things that you can do in our industry.

I hope Issue 8 of the Women in Security Magazine shines a light on this theme. And if I may be so bold, I encourage you to nominate for our Australia and New Zealand Women in Security Awards, so that we can share the stories of today’s achievers and make some more noise about the women working hard to rule their worlds.

And, with that, I might let Queen B close out this article.

“This goes out to all the women getting it in,you on your grind

To all the men that respect what I do, pleaseaccept my shine…

Endless power / With our love we can devour

My persuasion / Can build a nation”