I love technology, and I don't think it's something that should

Hear, O children of tomorrow, the words of Marissa Mayer, who declared: “I love technology, and I don’t think it’s something that should divide along gender lines.” This utterance is more than a statement—it is a banner raised against the false walls that society has built. It is a call to see that the light of innovation belongs not to men alone, nor to women alone, but to all humanity. For technology is the shared fire of our age, and to deny half of humankind its place in that fire is to diminish its glow.

The origin of this truth lies in the long history of exclusion. In times past, women were often pushed away from the realms of invention, told their place was elsewhere, that the instruments of progress were not theirs to hold. Yet the record of history belies such folly. Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, looked upon Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine and became the first to glimpse that machines could do more than calculate—they could think in patterns, laying the foundation of computer programming itself. Was her gift less because she was a woman? Nay, it was precisely her insight that revealed the true destiny of the machine.

Consider also the tale of Hedy Lamarr, famed in her day as an actress, but whose genius gave rise to frequency-hopping technology, the ancestor of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Though dismissed in her time, her work became the very fabric of the connected world. These women stand as shining examples, proving Mayer’s words true: that technology knows no gender, only imagination, patience, and brilliance. To divide it along gender lines is to blind ourselves to half the light of creation.

Yet even now, the old barriers linger. The halls of Silicon Valley, the laboratories of research, the leadership of great firms, too often tilt heavily toward men. This imbalance is not the reflection of talent, but of tradition, of bias, of doors closed too soon. Mayer herself, rising to prominence at Google and later as CEO of Yahoo, became a living defiance of those barriers. Her voice carries the authority of one who stood in the heart of technology’s empire and declared: it must belong to all.

The deeper meaning is this: whenever society divides knowledge, art, or power along false lines—be they of gender, race, or class—it weakens itself. Just as a body cannot walk strongly when half its limbs are bound, so too civilization cannot stride forward when half its people are told to remain behind. Technology is not the craft of a chosen few, but the inheritance of humankind, the torch that we must all carry together into the future.

The lesson, then, is clear: do not accept the lie of division. If you love technology, pursue it, whether you are man or woman, old or young, rich or poor. Let your love be the measure of your worth, not the labels placed upon you by others. And if you are in a position of influence, break the barriers that remain—mentor those excluded, open doors that have long been shut, and remind the world that genius belongs to no single group.

Practical actions flow from this truth. Parents, encourage daughters as well as sons to tinker, to program, to dream of invention. Leaders, seek diversity not as a token, but as the lifeblood of true progress. Students, support one another across divisions, for your shared learning will shape the world you inherit. And all who labor in technology, remember that its true beauty is not in the wires and code, but in the unity it can bring when all are welcome at its table.

Thus do we honor the words of Marissa Mayer: that technology should never be divided by gender, but should shine as the shared fire of humanity. Carry this teaching, O children of tomorrow, and let your hands, whether man’s or woman’s, shape the tools of the age. For only when all voices are heard, and all gifts are honored, will the fire of innovation blaze to its fullest, lighting the path for generations yet to come.