AI’s Woman Problem

February 25, 2025

Plus, a free speech crackdown in Idaho ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

February 26, 2025

Greetings, Meteor readers,

This morning I read the devastating news that an asteroid scheduled to hit Earth will not be arriving as planned. So I still have to figure out how to potty-train my kid instead of hoping the asteroid will make potties irrelevant. Bummer!

In today’s newsletter, we take a look at a new and troubling gender gap. Plus, for New Yorkers, a few reasons not to take your ex (governor) back.

Life of the potty,

Shannon Melero

WHAT’S GOING ON

The newest gender gap: New research shows that women in the workplace are using AI tools 25% less than men are, creating what researchers call an “AI gender gap.” The main reasons we’re using it less? Women seem to be more worried about being unethical or accused of cheating, especially because they “face greater penalties in being judged as not having expertise in different fields,” one researcher noted in the paper Global Evidence on Gender Gaps and Generative AI. “They might be worried that someone would think even though they got the answer right, they ‘cheated’ by using ChatGPT.”

The paper explains that a hesitation to engage with AI more could harm women’s career development in the long run (given that AI is expected to be part of almost every workplace). Studies have also shown that most AI already exhibits gender and racial bias, and the only way to combat that is to expose AI to more diverse input, including user prompts. Avoiding use “could result in AI systems that reinforce gender stereotypes and ignore the inequities women face in everything from pay to childcare,” Harvard Business School’s Michael Blanding writes. However, given the ethical and environmental concerns around AI and the fact that these programs threaten to take the jobs of 79% of working women (but only 58% of working men), it’s not wholly irrational to not want to be involved.

REMEMBER WHEN WE ALL THOUGHT THIS IS WHAT AI WOULD BE LIKE IN THE FUTURE? BICENTENNIAL MAN 1999 (VIA IMDB)

But there’s no need to abandon the concept altogether. If talking to ChatGPT—or having Google’s Gemini harass you about rewriting perfectly fine sentences, as it’s doing to me right now—feels like surrendering to The Man’s Internet, then consider bots like Diem or Claude, both of which are ChatGPT adjacent but reportedly designed with women and data privacy in mind. Or learn how to bend AI to your will with an educational platform like Folio. If you’re in South America, try Tainá, an AI assistant built with Indigenous tribes to keep traditional knowledge and Indigenous languages accessible. And not that it matters to the tech bros of the world, but were it not for women, we wouldn’t have the advanced computer systems and algorithms we do now. So just back off, Gemini, I got this.

A “terrifying escalation”: A disturbing incident in Idaho this weekend has gone viral. As in other towns across the country, angry constituents at a town hall in Coeur d’Alene, a deep-red district, turned up to protest issues like Elon Musk’s takeover of the federal government and proposed cuts to Medicaid. But at this particular town hall, Teresa Borrenpohl, a former Democratic candidate for the state legislature, was forcibly removed from the event by private security after loudly criticizing the speakers. Borrenpohl was first threatened with pepper spray, then dragged by her feet and hands by unidentified men as witnesses told them to stop and demanded to know who they were. Borrenpohl was later charged with a misdemeanor battery citation.

The incident was “pretty violent and traumatic,” one witness told the AP. “It was evident that dissent was not being tolerated,” another observed. The emcee of the event, Ed Bejarana, even taunted Borrenpohl from the stage: “That little girl is afraid to leave!” he shouted. “She spoke up, and now she doesn’t want to suffer the consequences.” The charges against Borrenpohl were eventually dismissed when the incident made national headlines, but the incident felt like a “terrifying escalation” of suppressing public dissent, as The New Republic’s Melissa Gira Grant put it. It remains to be seen whether escalations like this will be replicated across the country if and when protest becomes more widespread. But Borrenpohl hasn’t been cowed: “I think that my civil rights were stripped from me in that moment in a really embarrassing way,” she said. “[Do] we live in a country where you speak out of turn and the result is three men assaulting a woman?”

AND:

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) took place over the weekend and it was totally and extremely normal.

A NORMAL GUY NORMALLY SWINGING A CHAINSAW AROUND A POLITICAL EVENT. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Montana Republicans have introduced a new bill that would criminalize anyone who leaves the state to have an abortion after the state’s legal limit. Montana voters recently voted to enshrine the right to abortion until fetal viability, but this law affects people traveling for an abortion after that stage, charging them with (and this is real) trafficking their own fetus. Abortion trafficking laws have been around, but this is the first one targeting adults who travel for their own care, and Montana might seem, on its face, like an odd place to test it out. But Jessica Valenti of Abortion, Every Day has a theory: “By starting in a state where abortion is legal until ‘viability,’ it gives Republicans a certain amount of PR cover,” she writes. “They can pretend this isn’t about restricting women’s right to travel—just about stopping ‘late’ abortion.”
Journalist and beloved host of MSNBC’s The ReidOut Joy Reid aired her final show yesterday, ending a five-year run. Reid’s show was canceled over the weekend, as the broadcaster is consolidating its programming. “Joy Ann Reid (@joyannreid) spoke truth as a Black woman and empowered other Black women to find a mainstream audience for our truths,” Kimberlé Crenshaw wrote on Instagram, then urged people to boycott MSNBC. Other notable changes at the network include the cancellation of José Diaz-Balart Reports, The Katie Phang Show, and Ayman Mohyeldin Reports. MSNBC has said that these changes have to do with ratings and restructuring, but it’s impossible not to notice that all shows being canceled were helmed by Black, Latino, Asian, and Arab journalists. Who is it that DEI initiatives benefit again?
Workers at the National Park Service staged a demonstration at El Capitan in Yosemite on Saturday, hanging a massive inverted American flag off the edge of the summit. Widely known as a symbol of distress, the upside-down flag was meant as pushback against the Trump administration’s mass firing of NPS employees.
Today in an unexpected move, Diana Taurasi, one of the most dominant women in the WNBA announced her retirement. “You can’t tell the story of the WNBA without Diana,” the NBA’s Adam Silver said of the six-time Olympic gold medalist. It’s hard to encompass the impact her 20-year career had on women’s basketball but there is one word on everyone’s lips as Taurasi walks off into the sunset: GOAT.

THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Andrew Cuomo is seriously considering a run for mayor of New York. This may seem like good news to anyone following what’s happening with current mayor Eric Adams, but let’s get a refresher on Mr. Cuomo from a person who spent the entire pandemic writing about the Cuomo family (it’s me). As governor, Cuomo was a friend to unions and had some legislative wins, but his star really rose during the pandemic with his daily news conferences, which, delivered in his brusque Newtalian accent, made him America’s governor. That reputation was undone in 2021 when New York AG Letitia James’ investigation into Cuomo found that he had sexually harassed at least 11 women during his time in office (a later DOJ investigation upped the count to 13). Cuomo also wrote a book about guiding New York through the pandemic but was ordered to return his earnings from it after an ethics review concluded he had secured the book deal under false pretenses. So all this to say, there’s a reason our exes are our exes. Don’t take him back, babes.
A report released by several groups tracking the practice of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) around the world has found that the practice exists in more countries than previously thought. According to the report, in 2020 UNICEF estimated around 200 million women and girls had undergone FGM/C. That number has now increased to 230 million. You can learn more and support groups working to end FGM/C here.