Women in Technology

Girls Have Always Had ADHD. We Just Weren’t Looking.

PUBLISHED 8/24/2026 by

A teenage girl watches a 30-second TikTok video by @Clairebear describing “a day in hell” in her life, “ADD edition”:

“I get up and go to work and realize I don’t have gas in my car. I get to the gas station and reach for my credit card and remember that I don’t in fact have my card because I keep thinking it will turn up at some point.”

She continues explaining her day and reveals that these are all symptoms and signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The teenage girl in question sees much of herself in that scenario, goes to the doctor and is evaluated and diagnosed.

Welcome to modern medicine.

Don’t Let AI Become the New Sex Educator for Adolescents

PUBLISHED 8/20/2026 by

“Why would I Google it when I can just ask ChatGPT for exactly what I am looking for?” 

A 16-year-old asked me this during a recent conversation with Black adolescents about where they turn for health information. Her answer was striking, but hardly surprising.

As traditional sex education faces cuts in schools and reproductive health services become harder to access—particularly for young people of color in underserved communities—adolescents are increasingly looking elsewhere for answers. AI chatbots offer something schools, clinics and even trusted adults often do not: information that feels immediate, private and judgment-free.

Musk Isn’t Stopping Grok From Creating Explicit Photos of Minors Using AI. Here’s What Can Be Done.

PUBLISHED 1/12/2026 by

Since the end of December, X’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, has responded to many users’ requests to undress real people by turning photos of the people into sexually explicit material. After people began using the feature, the social platform company faced global scrutiny for enabling users to generate nonconsensual sexually explicit depictions of real people.

The Grok account has posted thousands of “nudified” and sexually suggestive images per hour. Even more disturbing, Grok has generated sexualized images and sexually explicit material of minors.

X’s response: Blame the platform’s users, not us.

What 200 Gen Z Women Told Me About Birth Control Should Alarm Every Woman in America

PUBLISHED 12/17/2025 by

Birth control is the single most powerful tool for women’s economic mobility and autonomy in modern history. It changed everything: When women could plan if, when and with whom they wanted to have children, college enrollment soared, dropout rates fell and poverty rates declined. The ability to access contraception has been directly tied to women’s ability to stay in school, build careers and make decisions about their own futures.

So why, in 2025, are we finding ourselves in a messaging war on birth control?

Octavia Butler Saw This Coming

PUBLISHED 12/9/2025 by

The Huntington Library, located in San Marino, Calif., launches a new exhibit, Stories from the Library: From Brontë to Butler, on Dec. 13, 2025. This collection is especially renowned for its extensive archive on the personal writings and stories pertaining to science fiction author Octavia Butler, who died too soon at age 58 in 2006 due to a fall outside her home. The prolific writer and MacArthur Grant recipient leaves behind several series of novels and other works of fiction.

Janell Hobson spoke with Black feminist scholar and Butler biographer Susana M. Morris, who relied on the vast archive available at Huntington for her latest book, Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler, which came out earlier this year.

“With Octavia Butler, we get cautionary tales. We could have just listened to her.”

International Telehealth Provider ‘Women on Web’ Vows to Keep Abortion Pills Flowing to the U.S., No Matter What

PUBLISHED 11/17/2025 by

As Republicans push the FDA to restrict mifepristone, the international online abortion service Women on Web is reassuring Americans that they will continue to support access to abortion pills in all 50 states, no matter what. Women on Web has served over 130,000 people worldwide since 2005 and began serving the U.S. in July 2024.

Venny Ala-Siurua, executive director of Women on Web, was recently named to the Top 100 Canada’s Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network Academe. Ms. spoke with Ala-Siurua about how their service connects people with pills, how they’re removing medical gatekeeping, and how they’re defending abortion access against digital censorship.

“We’ve always focused on countries where there are high restrictions on abortion. Unfortunately, the situation in some of the states in the U.S. qualifies now. … Many pharmacies and providers have stepped up internationally to support the U.S. and found ways of dispensing and shipping medicines really, really fast. …

“We are receiving around 30 requests per day from people in the U.S., though that number can rise during major political moments—for example, when Trump was elected or took office. Our U.S. care seekers live primarily in states with abortion bans. Globally, we currently handle approximately 4,000 requests each month.”

How Reshma Saujani Makes the Invisible Work of Motherhood Impossible to Ignore

PUBLISHED 7/1/2025 by | UPDATED 7/7/2025 at 12:25 P.M. PT

Most women are taught to make motherhood look effortless. Reshma Saujani wants you to see that we were never supposed to do it alone.

In a country that still treats caregiving as a personal responsibility rather than a public good, Saujani is changing the script. Not by asking for sympathy, but by exposing the architecture of the lie—and building something better in its place.

“I come from a long line of rule-breakers,” she told me. “My parents fled a dictator. They landed in Chicago with nothing. I grew up surrounded by refugees who were just trying to make it work. That kind of survival teaches you two things: one, that struggle is constant—and two, that silence is dangerous.”

She was a rule-breaker long before she was a movement-builder—always challenging authority, always in detention. “I’ve never been good at following the script,” she said. And that’s exactly what makes her effective.

I Asked Top Election Experts About 2024 Tampering Claims. Here’s What They Said.

PUBLISHED 6/27/2025 by | UPDATED 7/2/2025 at 9:16 A.M. PT

In recent weeks, a wave of rumors has surfaced online suggesting the 2024 election may have been “stolen” or, more specifically, tampered with due to faulty machines. While many of these claims remain vague or speculative, some are beginning to gain traction across social media platforms and alternative news sites. 

In the interest of democracy, transparency and election security, I reached out to a group of leading experts—many of whom work at the intersection of voting rights, cybersecurity and public trust—to share two examples of the kinds of articles I’ve seen on this topic, and ask for their take.

What follows are responses from some of the country’s most experienced voices on election integrity. Their insights are a valuable reminder that while election systems are not perfect, there is currently no credible evidence supporting claims of widespread vote manipulation in 2024. Instead, these experts highlight what’s real, what’s theoretical and where our attention should actually be focused as we work to protect democracy.